Week 3

Guggenheim Museum

One Hand Clapping

Wong Ping’s work left me uncomfortable and disturbed in both from its subject matter and aesthetic, which I believe was definitely deliberate. He uses the sleek and minimal style common in today’s aesthetic design for modern UI and makes it ugly and visually displeasing, which works to enhance the disgusting narrative in the animated film. Overall the work is executed well, but I couldn’t stomach watching it for long.

Samson Young’s work, on the other hand, was very attractive and easy to take in. Walking through and around these sculptural instruments was a very relaxing. Although, that was in my initial walk through the room; interestingly, when I returned to the room much later, the sounds in the room were much more dissonant and random compared to the lounge style jazz that played initially. This might have been caused by viewers only walking on the outside area of the sculptures because I noticed when I stepped into the inner area of the sculptures the soundscape reverted back to the lounge music of previously. If intentional and not a coincidence on my part, I say it was great way of using space to play with the viewer experience.

Duane Jianyu, Cao Fei, and Lin Yilin’s work I have very little to say on as their meanings were mostly lost me. Though Cao Fei’s video with the choreographed dancers and the (inflated?) large octopus was humorous to say the least.

Giacometti

Giacometti’s exhibit was interesting to say the least. I enjoyed his paintings and miniature sculptures more than his main sculptures. The detail within the miniature sculptures was appealing to myself and many other who I saw stopped to look; it’s evident that much of his work attracts the view to move closer and inspect the details. I also enjoyed how well he transferred the grimy sort of aesthetic from his standing sculptures into his his paintings, and like I mentioned previously, this sort of aesthetic pushes the viewer to get closer to the work and find the details within the tonal muck of sorts. Much of this grimy aesthetic also reflects the depressive and anxious tone that is conveyed in some of his work, like the Nose. It was also interesting to see how much more grand and elongated his sculptures become from the start of his career compared to the end.

Readings

The artist works from this reading set that interested me were John Cage’s and Tony Oursler’s. Jonh Cage’s sheet music for the radio intrigued me because of it’s unique viewer experience that is entirely dependent on time, location, and probably device as well. Creating a truly unique user experience is something I’ve experiment previously in my own artwork with sound and processing, though very simple. I hope to experiment more into this once I get a better understanding of processing this semester.

I’m also impressed by Tony Oursler’s work with the mapped projections on the trees, how natural and seamless the projections are conveyed on the foliage. I have never gotten the chance to learn about mapped projections in undergrad, so I hope to learn more about this style during my time here at Pratt.