Theory in the studio

Listening to Whitney Chadwick’s lecture underscored a question that has been forming in my mind all semester. How does an artist connect with theory WHILE they are making art? Does theory play a role in the creative process of some (or many) artists? I can appreciate that intellectual analysis separate from the artist can make a broader contextual sense of an artist’s work.

I don’t know Ghada Amer’s work, or what she’s said about it. Ms. Chadwick’s elaborate discussion of all of the symbols, metaphors, and meanings of her work may have come straight from the artist, but I kept wondering, does the artist ever cry “Sounds good, but I never even thought of that!”?

too much binary

The Tuesday night lecturer (sorry I can't find the name!) I thought was emphasizing binaries too much. Similar to the criticism of Kara Walker that Joselit sites - I felt like the reiteration of old oppositional categories is not really helping anymore. She used the term "destabilizing" a lot in reference to, for example, art that addresses gender roles through "hybrid" pieces. Some of the work she discussed was a couple of decades old - and I think gender roles are still pretty stable. I think we need to get over our fascination with the hybrid and consider that what we call "hybrid" is just the actual state of things (not some crazy grafting of two naturally opposed categories).

I liked the Carson article a lot - I need to read Derrida. The issue of inscription is one that hits home for me because I practice code as art. The complication of inscription in her article centered around *representation* ... which is not what code based art is necessarily about. Still - questions of abstraction and forms (as in Plato's theory of) are present.

The difficult task of history painting

There are many artists who have painted in historical reference since the birth of photography, as the dominant historical recorder, and since the blossoming of the notion of aesthetic autonomy. Gerhard Richter is famous. I don't think that the subject matter is grounds for great accolades.

Pic for Carson

Carson mostly talks about Richard Serra's "Tilted Arc", but he also mentions Robert Morris's "Corner Piece"

Pics for Hung

Most of the artist Hung mentions are in the book with the exception of Zeng Hao

Pics for Joselit

Joselit discusses the use of surface (flatness/depth) by exploring the work of Pollock, Johns, Hammons and Walker. Here are some of the particular pieces he comments on (Watchman, Spade, From the Bowels to the Bosom).

Pics for Buchloh

In the reading by Buchloh, he compares the work of Gerhard Richter with Andy Warhol. They both use death as a subject matter but Richter's paintings document a specific event and Warhol's images explore the idea of anonymous death verses famous death.