Images by Matthew Stone. Courtesy of Gentle Monste
Lee Krasner
Lee Krasner (1908–1984) was born in Brooklyn as Lena Krassner and grew up in an Orthodox Jewish, Russian émigré family. She decided to become an artist at the age of 14, and was one of the first artists in New York to adopt an entirely abstract approach. She went on to be one of the pioneers of Abstract Expressionism. In 1942, her work was included in a group exhibition entitled French and American Painting, and the only fellow exhibitor that she had not met was Jackson Pollock, so she decided to visit his studio. From then on, they were together and in 1945 they married and moved to Springs, Long Island.
Unlike many of her contemporaries, Krasner refused to develop a “signature image,” which she considered to be “rigid rather than being alive.” Working in cycles, she continually sought out new means for authentic expression, even during the most tumultuous of times, which included Pollock's emotional volatility and his sudden death in a car crash in 1956. Krasner's formidable spirit is felt throughout the body of work that she created over more than fifty years in the studio—celebrated in this exhibition.
Combat, 1965
Is that face on the right Pollock’s? … a detail from Icarus, in Lee Krasner: Living Colour. Photograph: The Jewish Museum
Dynamic paintings that fizz and fascinate rescue the endlessly surprising artist from her husband Jackson Pollock’s shadow in this thrilling major retrospective.
Krasner began conventionally enough, with self-portraits whose masses of hair and clotted paint already had in them the kind of organised turmoil and tonalities that would reappear in her mature work. Her naked life drawings (much better, it must be said, than Pollock’s Michelangelo-inspired early drawings), had a kind of smoothed beefiness. One female nude floats rather than sits on her diminutive chair. Later, Krasner began classes at Hofmann’s 9th Street school, where she encountered his very physical teaching style – correcting students’ work by drawing over it, or tearing up drawings and reassembling them in new configurations.
Murakami Takashi
He is one of the most influential Japanese artists born after the 1960s. He is not only a widely loved artist in Japan, but also an idol of the new generation of young people in Japan. He strongly realized that contemporary Western art is completely different from Japanese art creation. The important thing is how our generation does not rely on any inherent cultural system to create the most essential things. Therefore, his works not only integrate the elements of opposition between Eastern tradition and Western civilization, elegant art and popular culture, but also retain the entertainment and appreciation of his works. It is a product that combines the characteristics of Japanese contemporary popular cartoon art and traditional Japanese painting style. The interestingness of his works is worth mentioning. Takashi Murakami implanted a variant image of Mickey Mouse in his own work and regarded it as his own incarnation and a unique visual symbol.
Pablo Picasso
Picasso's artistic career almost throughout his life, his work styles are rich and varied, and later generations used the phrase "Picasso is always young" to describe Picasso's changing art forms. Historiography had to divide his vast works into different periods-the "blue period", "pink period" in the early years, the "black period" in the heyday, "analysis and synthesis of cubism", and later " Surrealism period" and so on. His "Girl of Yavignon" created in 1907 was the first work considered to be cubist and a famous masterpiece with landmark significance. It not only marked a major turning point in Picasso’s personal artistic journey, but also a revolutionary breakthrough in the history of modern Western art, which triggered the birth of the Cubism movement.
Task 1: Research
Baking, folk rituals and a grand procession: Tereza Buskova’s participatory project in Birmingham
I found this interesting collaborative project by Czech artist Tereza Buskova from Birmingham, who combined unique customs and community workshops to create a public procession featuring baked goods, live music, elaborate costumes and a local church.
Tereza Buskova reinterprets local customs and folk rituals through performance, film and photography. Although she admits to inventing her own custom too. But many of the special customs that fascinated her are still preserved in parts of the Czech Republic
I also saw a video about Buskova's video, Doubice's Roasted Woman (2012) is very intersting. The video combines a lot of elements, I really like the performance art part. I also found the idea of a collage of St. Barnabas church decorated with salt dough pastry to be great. I think the art form that combines these two completely unrelated elements is very worthy of appreciation. I feel like I should try something like this in my future work.
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Buskova's work has been criticized for its sampling and fusion of tradition and symbolism, Many believe that these traditions should remain sacred. But much of what is considered "tradition" is of course hybrid and evolving, and Buskova firmly believes that tradition should be something alive. "Locking traditions in museum cabinets won't preserve them or help them pass on" Sharing and heritage are the focus.
I very much agree with her point of view. I think the most important point of inheriting tradition is to keep innovating and combining, so that traditional things can be given new vitality, which will be beneficial and harmless. Those who do not innovate are destined to become part of history.
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VIDEO LINK https://vimeo.com/54113272
2. Skill Share – Part 1
Ink painting has always been one of the traditional Chinese culture
This is an integral part of Chinese art
I have always wanted to share this part of the culture with others
This time is a good opportunity
But I have to say that ink painting is difficult
The principles and methods are difficult to comprehend and master
But I still hope that everyone can have some basic understanding of ink painting and can paint some simple things like me
2. Skill Share – Part 2
One of my team members also chose this exercise
The first time I saw this exercise I wanted to do it, it was really fun
Because it's been a long time since I enjoyed doodling so casually like this
4. Our Homes Are A Museum
We spent a lot of time deciding what we were going to do on the subject, and I chose these things because I felt like our group of four had completely different backgrounds, and we chose these things that represented cultural differences between us. I think it will be very interesting, the cultural diversity is very representative. It can be seen that the things the four of us have chosen can be said to be very different.
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5. Issue 0
6. Publication
Publish booklet DES200 - Grow Bigger
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Booklet Ideas/Proposal:
Our booklet idea is a four-book series based on positive affirmations/quotes. Each book will start as a small booklet at A6; as you open each page, the bigger it will grow to extend into A3 as its full size. The concept is to make a booklet that easily fits into a pocket that can be read on the go. We will be making one booklet each within the group to create a variation of quotes. When the person finishes the booklet series, they can choose to place the A3 quotes as four posters. Our booklets have a dual purpose.
Created by Ana Coelho, Anna-Marie Gallares, Stephanie Cooper, and Chenyang Zhou.
-We use brown and pink, blue and neon orange, blue and green, and light blue and orange.
-Each page is a different colour text and alternates from the two colours chosen for the booklet.
-We are using white A3 paper for booklets.
-4 Pages each booklet along with the front and back.
-A5 grid created on a word doc or InDesign, then print and fold booklet.
-Text font, size and style are still to be decided.
-Quotes to be decided for final pages that also are turned into posters
The final outcomes
Group/individual work
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- Agree on a theme for the publication brief: Positive pocket booklet affirmations. (Ana, Anna-Marie and Stephanie)
- Creating a physical mockup in paper of the booklets folding four times from A3 to A6 with a book band. (Anna-Marie)
- Submitting and writing group proposal. (Stephanie)
- To keep in contact, we used Facebook messenger - group chat made in Task 4
- Changed the idea to having four booklets with four positive affirmations, and when the booklet is open can be turned into four poster sets. Everyone made one booklet each instead of the original idea of 1 booklet with 16 positive affirmations. (Chenyang and Anna-Marie)
- Write down quotes that we will use for each booklet. and four quotes each, making sure they vary from each other. (Everyone) - We used google docs to do this (Anna-Marie set up google docs).
- Mockup designs for the front cover (Ana)
- Writing booklet blurb - printed on the back of each booklet. (Anna-Marie)
- Indesign A3 layout for quotes. The layout was used and copied to create consistency in placement, font and size of quotes. (Chenyang and Anna-Marie)
- Printed experimental copies of booklets on Risograph. 2 colours were used for each booklet. The decision to keep the booklet flower design free for a neater look. (Ana and Chenyang)
- Creating two final copies to submit and individual copies to keep. (Everyone)
This our prototype
