Over the weekend I managed to finally finish
my research paper, it was really interesting to look into the two artists, one
I was relatively familiar with, whilst the other I was fairly new to. I'm still
yet to add images of the artwork that I talk about, but I will do that later. It's important to do this as sometimes the tutors don't know the artist that you have chosen to write about. This is the full first draft.
Aesthetic
Choices and Meaningful Dialogue
This
essay is going to look at artists that make aesthetic choices to entice the
viewer to look into the deeper meaning within their work. I will also explore
how I seek to accomplish this in my own work. The two artists that I have
chosen to write this essay about are Kazimir Malevich and Daniel Buren. Both
have made minimalistic work in the past that appears to have no meaning beyond
the fact that it is interesting to look at.
However this is not the case.
It
is impossible to talk about the work of Malevich without first talking about
Suprematism, an art movement that he founded in 1913[i],
which sought to give over artworks to the highest point of expression, whilst
simultaneously ignoring the familiar appearance of objects[ii].
When he created his Black Square[iii]
there was no figurative basis there, at the time it was considered to be a
desert[iv],
with no meaning or aesthetics to speak of. What critics didn't realise is that
it's simplistic beauty was the start of a movement that utilised basic
geometric shapes[v]
and conformed to a rigid set of rules[vi].
So
one could argue that Malevich himself made no real conscious aesthetic choices
whilst creating his work, he simply allowed his feelings and emotions to take
over, whilst using a small selection of shapes and colours to represent his
thoughts. The aesthetic decisions that happened before creating the work is
another story however, when he and his fellow artists devised the rules of
Suprematism they made the use of simple shapes a key factor, so that the work
could be solely about the expression of feelings. But it could also be said
that they chose those shapes in the beginning because of aesthetics, so
that whatever they went on to create it
was guaranteed to be beautiful and interesting to look at.
In
my own work I have gone through a process similar to this, devising a set of
rules which intertwines aesthetics with meaning. An example of this would be
how every sculpture that I make in this unit has to be the same size. This
simple rule enables me to affect each piece of wood in a different way, whilst keeping
the aesthetics for each piece largely the same. It also represents how each day
starts off the same, but the outcome is affected by your own actions. Unlike
Malevich, this is only for one specific piece of work, rather than ten plus
years of work.
The
second artist that I looked at was Daniel Buren, whose majority of work is
centred around the way space can be used, appropriated,
and revealed in its social and physical nature[vii].
Interestingly a lot of Buren's work is constrained to a set of rules, not
unlike Malevich's, where he uses stripes which are always 8.7cm wide[viii]
to completely take over a space. He accomplished this in an exhibition that I
went to see[ix]
where he transformed one room by adding a huge mirror spanning the entire
length of the back wall, effectively doubling the gallery space and the amount
of work that he had created, making it impossible to look anywhere in the room
and not see an 8.7cm wide stripe.
So in terms of aesthetics, a lot of Buren's work is similar, and
what really changes is where the work is being exhibited, thus completely
changing the meaning behind it. For example, one of his first large scale
pieces was for an exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum[x].
The piece of work was a canvas 20 meters high by 10 meters wide, with
alternating white and blue stripes. The only real aesthetic difference this had
to his previous work was the scale of the piece. In actuality though, this
pieces purpose was to reverse the hierarchic relationship inferred by the
Guggenheim's architecture[xi].
Due to its position (dividing the central space into two parts) within the
space, visitors would begin revolving around it as soon as they went up the
ramp. The piece itself became a sculpture within the space, as the work changed
as you walked around it. In this respect, both the Guggenheim and the painting
worked together as two parts to become one whole. Without the architecture of
the space, the painting would have stayed a painting.
A
constant feature of Buren's is to make the viewer move around the work, rather
than adopting a fixed point. He also tries to get you to visually perceive and
therefore understand the work with as little outside information as possible[xii].
This is something that I try to attempt in my own work, getting the viewer to
understand what I'm trying to communicate to them by simply walking around a
piece. This is especially true for this current project, where I'm trying to
convey and evoke emotions by affecting wood in different ways. I want the
viewer to understand which emotions I'm trying to communicate by observing and
touching the sculptures, rather than just giving them a piece of paper with the
information all laid out for them to see. This philosophy reminds me of Trisha
Donnelly and how none of her work is accompanied by any labels[xiii].
Through
researching this essay I have learnt that artists don't always make decisions
on how their work looks in conjuncture with what their work is about, and vice
versa. I have also found that some artists, like the two I have looked into,
set rules within their work so that the fundamental aesthetics will always be
the same, whilst the meaning will change indefinitely from piece to piece. I
hope to continue to strive to make art work that combines aesthetics with
meaning, allowing the viewer to understand what it's all about without having
to consult a piece of paper.
[i]
http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/s/suprematism
Kasimir Malevich, The Non - Objective World,
1959
[ii]
http://www.theartstory.org/movement-suprematism.htm
[iii]
http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/five-ways-look-Malevich-Black-Square
[iv] Kasimir
Malewitsch, Malewitsch, 1981
[v]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suprematism
[vi]
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/574754/Suprematism
[vii]
http://www.lissongallery.com/artists/daniel-buren
[viii]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Buren
[ix]
http://danielburen.kamelmennour.com/
[x]
http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/education/school-educator-programs/teacher-resources/arts-curriculum-online?view=item&catid=721&id=38
[xi] Guy Lelong,
Daniel Buren, 2002
[xiii]
http://www.serpentinegalleries.org/exhibitions-events/trisha-donnelly
Today I began to design and create the books that I'm making to
accompany my piece in the end of year exhibition. These will help to inform the
viewer of what the work is about, as well as becoming a piece of art within
themselves. I managed to design two of the four books today, one called Emotions, and the other named Feelings. After creating a pair of books for the end of the last unit, I feel
that I have learnt from many of the mistakes I made, which will be useful when
I come to printing the books.
I also took part in an installation workshop, looking at how we (the
students) are going to put up our show. This was useful, as I mocked up a to
scale replica of my final piece, something which I hadn't done before. It
enabled me to see what I needed to change about the layout as well as what
worked well. Through this process I decided to only make 30 sculptures, instead
of 31. This helps me by leaving more room between the top of the board and the
bottom, stopping the work from being squeezed into a small space.
I hope to finish the designs of the two other books, as well as the
leaflet, by the end of the week, which will then give me ample time to create
the final piece.
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