What did you do today?

Today I had my 7 hour art class, though I actually enjoyed it this week. Rather then meeting at the Elkorn campus and sitting in a room for the better part of the day, we met at Jocelyn Art Museum and screened the premiere of Art:21. Art:21 is a documentary of sorts on contemporary artists all over the place. The 4 artists featured were Cai Guo-Qiang, Laylah Ali, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Ida Applebroog. Never heard of them? Yeah, neither had I!!

I'm partial to contemporary art...I like it when the art actually has content on the artists behalf, not when it's a dot and a squiggly line and the artist says it's the viewers opinion what to depict from it...In fact I hate that!

The theme of the episode was Power. How different artists depict power in their artistic views. Cai Guo-Qiang did a number of different things. He produced art with gun powder. It was strange, but still very interesting, almost like performing art in the sense that you want to be there for the making of it. He sprinkles gun powder on canvas then blows it up, the end product is very interesting. He also liked the idea of things in slow motion. The beauty of a car flipping in the air 3 times in slow motion. He actually had an exhibit of this! It was amazing!

This is the car flipping in the air! Cool, huh?

Laylah Ali is a 2-D artist that I didn't really find all that interesting. The only thing I got out of her part in the documentary was that she is an anal-retentive crazy lady!

Krzysztof Wodiczko does large scale slide and video projections. Mostly focusing on political or controversial topics in society. Included are terrorism, rape, murder... His art often serves as monuments for different causes.

Ida Applebroog is just awesome! I don't even know how to explain her art. She doesn't even consider it art, and some of it I wouldn't either. She is definately a feminist in her art and in life. She does drawings that literally look like a 6 year old drew, and then sculptures that are sloppily formed bodies with giant vaginas! Vagina's seem to play a big part in her art. I kept seeing them everywhere. Hopefully I wasn't just imagining them, b/c you know you're in trouble when you're hallucinating vagina's!

Overall I thought they were all very interesting.

All images from www.pbs.org