Justin Masterson /Advanced Sculpture, 2014 |
Project 2: Place |
Justin Masterson Dr. Scheer Gordon Matta-Clark Gordon Matta-Clark was an American artist who made site specific works most famously in metropolitan areas in the 1970’s. He was the child of two artists Anne Clark and Roberto Matta so he was probably encouraged to make art throughout his life. He died tragically of cancer at the young age of 35. Although his artwork did not often have an immediate viewing audience he documented his alterations to abandoned buildings and created an allegory for urban decay and moreover other social issues of the time. Place was a very important part of Matta-Clark’s artworks. For instance his conical intersect 6. presented a gaping hole in the side of an abandoned building in a pretty public place in Paris. The presentation of this piece in a place where he knows the building is about be torn down can lend it’s meaning to a few things. It recognizes motifs of American capitalism, abandonment, isolation, and privacy or property. Bringing these ideas to the forefront, the fact that the building could be artfully cut into pieces presents an alternative view to make the viewer question why. It is the context of the artwork’s habitat that determines its conceptual value. There is also a feeling of hyperrealism from seeing his work reproduced in photographs, the viewer senses the out of place but depicted in a real space as shown in the photograph. Since his work was usually done on buildings that were due to be torn down he had to be well documented providing video as well as photographs. Matta-Clark was described as a good photographer in the sense that his photos were striking and made the viewer want to get the original experience. Additionally he worked on structures that he did not necessarily have permission to. This is the case for Days end Pier 52, where he cut a massive half circle from the structure and was pursued for arrest afterward so he had to flee the country. Matta-Clark in some way asked the question if it is going to be torn down then who cares which was answered by the people who persecuted him for his work, which in all cleverly adds meaning to the meaninglessness of “destroying” a building that is going to be destroyed. It makes his art’s statement altogether more powerful because it brings ideas to the people of the metropolitan area’s minds. In some way the impermanence of his work could also add to the artist’s intention or the piece’s meaning to a particular viewer. Although he states that he would just as soon work with a new building across the street. Matta-Clark flips the word architecture around through taking a finished solid building and cutting it into shapes that are never observed. It is important to asses the architecture Matta-Clark works with as well as appreciate his chosen medium. He began experimenting with things like repositioning doors prior to the Englewood House. However it was there he took out direct spaces of houses, even cutting the house in half. This rejects the complete beauty of a cohesive house, and welcomes the abstract view of taking whole parts out of the architecture while still remaining upright as the house would have. The acceptance and rejection of architecture create an interesting juxtaposition. Matta-Clark freed up the artistic world through in some way destroying things to reach a better aesthetic or conceptual end. He accomplished this in partnership with the sites he chose. Arising from the idea of what an artist needs as a means to live and create in he transformed his ideas into something aesthetically compelling. As society denied entry and creation he used his art to work both with and against this notion. Ultimately, while his work never really lasted more than two years his exhibitions have brought up an artistic value that is unique among other artists. bib http://dprbcn.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/gordon-matta-clark/ http://www.davidzwirner.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/GMC-Art-in-America-Brunelle-74-09.pdf http://www.davidzwirner.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/GMC-Gordon-Matta-Clark-77.pdfJustin Masterson Dr. Scheer Louise Bourgeois Louise Bourgeois was a French-American artist who focused on confessional and autobiographical art. Her art as it applies to this project creates it’s own imagined place. Using abstract representations Bourgeois alludes to her home life growing up. Her father had affairs throughout her childhood and her mother turned a blind eye. Her father also had a mean temper and she still wanted to please him regardless. She kept all of these memories in her diary. She went off to study geometry and subjects of that matter and enjoyed them for their stability and unchanging nature of the questions asked. When her mother died she decided to pursue art, her father did not support modern art so he did not support her. All of these events had a very influential role on pretty much all of Louise Bourgeois work. Her work can be narrowed down to a few pervasive themes for the purpose of this paper. Feeling protected by her mother, her struggle with her father’s affair, her endless disapproval and abuse by her father. I will group these in a study of pieces that mainly deal with each although there is some overlap. Throughout her work Louise Bourgeois has featured spiders to symbolize protection by her mother. Whether it is in creating a place such as in her cell pieces, the spider towers above the viewer's line of sight and is usually much larger than the viewer. The tortured style of the body emits notions of the way that her mother was treated in her marriage to her father. However, the spider still stands above a seat or a space that someone could stand. Red room was a piece that clearly related to her father’s affair. As the viewer walks into the sculpture you pass a childs room. The theme of the piece is saturated in red symbolizing violence, or something sexual that has occurred. On the parents bed the sheets are red and there is a mirror reflecting towards the bed. This can be read as a direct relation to her mother knowing about her father’s affair. The proximity of the child’s room to the parent’s room also lends itself to the idea that the affair was known about but not talked about. The sculpture is meant to be walked through but it creates an air of uncomfortableness as the viewer experiences these motifs of adultery violence and breaching into an area that seems very private. Many of her cells show different kinds of pain, the pain of rejection from her father is something she always struggled with. Sometimes Bourgeois depicts houses as heads or houses inside cells. This relates to the structure of her life. In an interview Bourgeois said all her father wanted her to do was marry a rich man and be a good wife, so that he in a way could be done with her. You can see the negativity of her feelings toward her father in her piece The Destruction of the Father. Alternatively, it can be seen that Bourgeois is not always being autobiographical. One scholar presents how Bourgeois is merely touching on worldly human feelings and relationships. This is because the viewer can relate to the piece in most of her works because of the intense narrative it provides, such as in The Arc of Hysteria. The exaggerated pose suspended in air dramatically portraying a figure of intense feeling putting the viewer in personal context with the piece. Bourgeois brings the viewer to a very intimate and personal feeling through her “autobiographical” art. The execution of her intentions is contributed to by how well she knows the subject matter. Place brings the viewer into the intimacy of her past and provides eerily explicit direct context to the feelings of inferiority, insecurity, and other notions derived from her past. bib http://dprbcn.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/gordon-matta-clark/ http://www.davidzwirner.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/GMC-Art-in-America-Brunelle-74-09.pdf http://www.davidzwirner.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/GMC-Gordon-Matta-Clark-77.pdf |
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