CHANGE ME

This weeks readings and guest lecture were very conflicting for me. Our guest lecture Tannaz (no last name provided) was a very strong and opinionated Iranian women. Which makes perfect sense to pair her with Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, another strong and opinionated women who discusses culture a lot while Tannaz bases all of her work off of culture. I have made this connection on how they are similar and I know that we are expected to talk about these two women and related them in a cultural form but this not the most evident similarity for me.
At this point I have not finished the reading but by the end of this blog I will have. I had to stop reading and start writing about what these women seem to be screaming at me. This whole class has been one huge theme that for some reason just slapped me in the face ridiculously hard. All artists experience change in their work, desire change, and rely on change for their work to become successful to them. Throughout Tannaz’s presentation I was intrigued by how much her work progressed in only five years. She showed us specific pictures, read us an exert from a short story, and gave us very descriptive objects of all the things that had inspired her work. I personally know nothing about the Iranian culture and I felt really lost in her work, it was all visually appealing to me, and it is apparent that she is a very intelligent women, but I just did not get it with my severe lack of background knowledge. At the end of her presentation I was kind of hoping that I could get more insight into her opinion of her culture but instead she opened my eyes to something else. I asked, “Which one of your pieces did you personally find most successful?” I assumed she would reciprocate with which ever piece she most successfully got her political message out but instead she said, “[M]y most recent is always the most successful to me.” This punched me. Her work changes as the world does and her inspiration comes from all these things she has come across that have changed her.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett wont stop talking about contemporary and contemporaneous and in the introduction Suzi Gablik was quick to point it out as well. Contemporaneous means existing right now, contemporary means existing at the same time period. She really stresses these words as she talks about how culture is related to art. She is a strong believer in art changing with the cultural world. She thinks that all art is political mean it has to change and form as contemporary art does, She and Gablik discuss this matter and she becomes rather heated.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett: All these distinctions are meaningless to me. They’re meaningless because all art is political. Some art makes political issues an overt subject, but don’t  tell me that formalism’s not political. To suggest that some art is political and some art isn’t-
Gablik: What about the notion that some art is aesthetic and some art is not?
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett: Also bullshit, if you’ll pardon me for saying so (420-421).
People express how they feel according to the conditions they are living in. As the world changes so does art.

Change Can Be An Amazing Thing

It is interesting as the term goes on how much I realize that most people do not know what artist. A lot of people have a general idea of what they consider art but nobody has a definition. This week’s reading and lecture were mostly females, which I find amazing. Female artists are so inspirational to my young mind. There was one thing that particularly stood out to me though.

At the beginning of the guest lecture, Terri Warpinski start off with a story about how she currently reconnected with a student that she had twenty years ago. Her student, a male named Jason, wanted her to start telling all her art students how hard it is to make it in the wart wold. If he was having so much trouble it is unimaginable the struggle for women to be successful. I feel like both readings and Warpinski touched base on challenges in the art world, unintentionally at times. Warpinski, a female photographer, had the most amazing photographs I had ever seen. She takes black and white photos and enhances them digitally or by hand. The different things she did with her photos were timing intensive, creative, and beautiful. She instantly laid out the problems with calling herself a photographer though. When you tell someone that you are a photographer it goes along with stereotypical thoughts. She made it into a joke but at the same time I am sure she did it out of frustration. It would be hard to explain everything she does, and the magnificent feeling you get while looking at it.

The second reading we were assigned was about a dean of an art institute named Carol Becker. She also talks about the stereotypes of artists. “It used to be, when you came to Chicago, that you could recognize an Art Institute student from a mile away, because they were the ones dressed in black; they were the only ones with green hair” (363). She continues talking about how the area has become more urban now and it is harder to spot an art student. Her whole interview was about changes in the art world being made.

Rickard Shusterman, the first assigned reading, believes that there should be more change. He is one of many who are encouraging the feminist act. He believes that we should more or less abolish art galleries because people are only classifying art as what is in a gallery, when are is everywhere and anywhere. Not only is our natural habitat beautiful but the buildings and the streets we live in and walk on are also incredible. I feel that Shusterman thinks that beauty and art should not just be in a segregated place because that separates art and life.

Every artist is searching for change and equality whether they realize it or not. There are so many artists in the world and no two things that have created are identical.

I Have a Dream!

It is hard for women to get a job or to even be recognized as an artist. Both of the readings for the week are inspirational. Both have different ways of working in the art world, but are both very successful in their own ways. We live in a world that is not always the most friendly to women, and when it comes to jobs other than desk work or being a nurse, our world is less than hospitable.

The Guerrilla Girls have been leading the feminist march to equal rights in the art world for centuries now. Not only are they trying to empower females but also people of color. They have strong statistical facts about how most art in museums and galleries is by white men. They have been inspirational to so many people with some of their wild and crazy tactics. These girls are so amazing because they are not doing this to further their careers in the art world; they stay completely anonymous and just fight for what they feel is right. They make posters and post them all over town; they are true activists with a cause. I wish that I was able to be as active for the things that I believed in. They are truly the Martin Luther King Jr. of the art world.

The second reading is also very inspiring in a spate way. It is another woman who stood up for her beliefs in a separate way. Her name is Mart Jane Jacob. She used to work at a museum but quit because she also felt like it was sexist and racist. Instead she became a curator, another important role in the art world. It is inspiring to see woman succeed in the art world when so little do. It is obviously a white man’s world.

Although the guest lecture was sick this week it would have been nice to compare her to these artists because she is succeeding in the art world in a different way. She, as well as Ty Warren, is teaching art. There are many different things you can do in the art world and these women have shown three of many ways. The guest lecturer for the week did ceramics, we have had lecturers that were painters, animal rights activists, and so much more. There are so many women out there and they all have a dream, but are not all willing to be an extremist to make a point. It is stimulating to me as a young women see other women still making a stand for what is right. We have been suffering hundreds of years of oppression but we are not willing to give up the fight for what we believe in. It is beyond incredible.

This is an obvious one by the infamous Guerrilla Girls

 

This is compelling to me because most of the guest lecturers that were male and most of the male art teachers I have encountered always show a naked women. Way to stand out girls!