Ephemeral Art Practices and Documentation

Olivia’s Video “Scorching”

artatiana — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 22:19:31 +0000

melodybevier — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:51:05 +0000

melodybevier — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:44:19 +0000

melodybevier — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:12:08 +0000

Nick Cave

smeghan — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:33:48 +0000

Nick Cave creates wearable works called “Soundsuits” which are made of materials including twigs, hair, fabric, sequins, bottle caps and many types of found objects. These peices are meant to be worn in performance as well as displayed as sculpture. The Soundsuits alter the shape of the body, for example several of them have elongated heads, and when worn the layers of objects and materials produce sound in response to the movements of the body. Cave deals with race, particularly the experiences of African American men, and the Soundsuits act as an obstacle, a barrier between the wearer and society, as well as being protective. They are very beautiful but at the same time a burden. I have an interest in costuming and the way it affects the appearance and movement of the body that I have explored in the past year, in the form of a shed “skin” raincoat, a unicorn suit with tree stumps for hooves, and a wig made of book pages folded into fanciful shapes. “Nick Cave- Art in Motion” is a youtube video that shows some of the suits in motion with sounds.

http://www.saic.edu/gallery/saic_profile_faculty.php?type=Faculty&alpha=C&album=461

http://www.unitedstatesartists.org/Public/USAFellows2006/USAFellows2006/NickCave/index.cfm

http://www.jackshainman.com/dynamic/artwork_display.asp?ArtworkID=866

cris bruch sculpture

mike2537 — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:07:25 +0000

Last semester the sculpture department at WSU brought in a visiting artist Cris Bruch from Seattle. He had been one of Paul’s teachers when he was in school in Seattle. He showed us slides of his stuff, and I was impressed he is very good. Some of his pieces deal with visual rhythm like I am trying to do. When he did the artist talk thing he spent some time discussing how he comes up with his ideas. He said he goes about it two ways, number one is the more conventional he does some drawing’s he builds a little model he figures out what material he wants to use, then starts building. The second way was much more interesting to me, he said that he will often find a pile of material like packing strap, or broken glass, or wire, or whatever then he just starts playing with the stuff. Sometimes the junk just stays junk, but sometimes it turns into something very cool. He found a huge pile of steel banding that is normaly used to tie things down to pallets, and turned into a wonderful piece (i can’t find a picture). That is my favorite way to work, I find some weird material and just keep diddling with it until something clicks. That little box is supposed to be a picture of one of his sculptures but the computer is doing what computers usually do to me, and it seems to get upset when I diddle with it, so I will stop now. great class, thanks everybody.

Elle Muliarchyk

smeghan — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 05:28:12 +0000

I was googling Cindy Sherman when I came across the work of Muliarchyk, a fashion model and artist who uses the world of high-priced fashion and photography in her performances. This link will take you to an article that compares her to Sherman, who also performs through staged photography and assumes different characters. I am not sure if Muliarchyk’s work is critical of the systems it uses, which are the worlds of fashion and beauty. Even if dressing up in expensive clothes is used as critique, it still glorifies that superficial act and the things it is criticizing. IN my last permformance I dressed as this mysterious overcoated pink character. Obviously very far from fashion modeling, I still felt a little like the performance put an emphasis on looking cute, and a good deal of the preparation involved putting together a little outfit and being concerned with physical appearance. I guess this may be an unavoidable aspect of performance art- when does playing a role become synonamous with being the thing itself, if only for the duration of the performance? http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/27/style/tmagazine/t_w_1546_1547_talk_muliarchyk_.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Ann Hamilton

smeghan — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 04:28:57 +0000

Ann Hamilton’s work is often a combination of performance, installation, and sculpture. I am drawn to her materials, particularly textiles, dyes and pigments, paper, and books. One of my favorite works is called “between taxonomy and communion” which deals with the relationship between animals and humans. In it the floor of a gallery is padded with wool then covered with glass tiles in the shape of but larger than microscope slides, which are connected with clear calking. Visitors walked over this shifting, delicate flooring while in the space, which contained a table covered in red oxide powder and laid out with hundreds (thousands?) of teeth from different creatures. Water dripped through the table, causing red dye to seep into the wool under the glass. The walls were imprinted with text from fables about animals. I read that Hamilton deals with interiors and exteriors, and the mouth plays a role in many of her peices, hence the teeth. I have used paper, books, and fibers in my work, for instance making a lion’s mane from book pages. In a work called “Malediction” books were cut into a continuous string of text and rolled into balls as a way to make text into a physical thing, which relates to the rolling of book pages into three dimensional shapes for the lion’s mane. There is an awsome book on Hamilton at the library with tons of images that I could not find online, so check that out. www.annhamiltonstudio.com/

-Meghan

tim hawkingson

mike2537 — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 03:15:29 +0000

I am just nuty about tim hawkingson’s work. I relate to him because he is a builder, he loves to take a scrap of junk laying on the studio floor and make it work in some way that it was never intended for. I also enjoy how sometimes he leaves a piece looking unfinished almost sloppy. But it is never sloppy he uses those details to show what the piece is about. And I think he will often start building something and not know where he’s going, or what the piece is going to be until he is well into the project. That seems to be almost my trade mark; that i don’t know what the heck I’m doing until I’m half done (also one of my big problems). I like that he avoids technology; he wants the viewer to be able to see how his machines work. On one piece he needed an electric motor, so he built one out of clear plastic, wire, and whatever he had laying around. It makes the viewer try to understand how an electric motor works instead of just taking it for granted. Many of his pieces have been about his own body, which alot of the performance pieces we have been looking at have been dealing with too. But Hawkingson comes from a different viewpoint I think he is looking at his body more like a biological machine. He’s not all hung up on sexuality, or spirtuality, or whatever the latest fad ”uality” is. He just uses his body as a platform to build stuff on, and if the viewer wants to get some “uality” out of the piece cool. That’s fine with him he’s just happy that he has an endless supply of stuff to build things out of, it keeps his Turbo hyper attention deficit disorder syndrome ”THADD” happy. I also have THADD I think alot of artists do, and I love it, it makes my life full.

http://www.acegallery.net/artistmenu.php?pageNum_ACE=1&totalRows_ACE=99&Artist=1#

VALIE EXPORT

melodybevier — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 02:33:01 +0000

‘The screening takes place in the dark as usual: except that the movie room has shrunk a little. It only has room for two hands. In order to see the film, which in this case means to sense and feel it, the “spectator” (consumer) has to put both hands through the entrance to the movie house. The curtain, hitherto raised only for the eyes, is now, at long last, raised for the hands as well.’ –VALIE EXPORT

VALIE EXPORT’s work explores mediums ranging from video environments, digital photography, installation, body performances, feature films, experimental films, documentaries, Expanded Cinema, conceptual photography, body-material interactions, Persona performances, laser installations, objects, sculptures, texts on contemporary art history and feminism. The image above is from her pieceTap and Touch Cinema. below the image is her description of the piece. I like the way she implicates the viewer, making them a crucial element the work. i also like the way she incorporates senses other that sight to experience her work. Her body performances deal with the differences between a natural body and a cultural body; between material and body and culture and body. Working from a simple script, she executes each piece. There are some good images and descriptions of her work at the site below.

http://www.thegalleriesatmoore.org/publications/valie/valietour.html