week 3
This week in class modernist artist Jack Ryan come to present his non-traditional rather experimental artwork. His first “piece” was all about sound waves and the human ear. On the projector, Jack showed the sound waves frequencies and playing buzzing noises by lowering the frequencies he saw who had the best ears. I found this experiment very intriguing because my mother is an audiologist who specializes in hearing. She basically does the exact same text on patients to see if they have a hearing lose or not. Personally I did not see the artist value behind the sound Jack showed off. I do believe sound can be art but this piece was more of a science experiment than an art to me. Personally I enjoyed his paintings and drawing more, which showed off his artistic depth and demonstrated a more traditional style I could relate to a little more than his first piece. What I enjoyed most about Jack’s work was his passion for art and the way you can tell he really has fun with his art. Jack then showed off some videos that he and some fellow artists had made and I found them hilariously entertaining. When watching the videos and listening to Jack you can tell he has a good sense of humor but the randomness of the videos do make you as the viewer ask questions. Like when watching a short film titled, “Salt” a mostly naked guy awkwardly lifts himself up and then falls back down on to his stomach. The message is the not clear but visually the video is interesting and keeps your mind wondering what exactly is going on here? Is this art? Whether it is a masterpiece or not I would say so. Even though I did not personally connect to all his works I did enjoy listening and learning from a passionate artist who really has a good time doing what he does while experimenting and taking a different approach with every piece.
After seeing Jack Ryan present his artwork I did the reading and thought there would be more similarities but what I found was the opposite. The first chapter of this weeks reading contains an interview of conservative traditional art critic Hilton Kramer. Kramer is obviously has many years of art history and knowledge but he seems so lost to me in his ways and thinking. Kramer does not believe in the experimental artwork of the future and probably would not even consider some of Jack Ryan’s works art at all. At first I could agree with Kramer and his feeling toward “traditional” media like drawing and painting because I love drawing and have been doing it my whole life. On page 110 he says, “Because of the politicization of the art scene, meaning the museums, the universities, the art journals, and so on, …they feel endangered, facing a prosect of marginalization in the art world. They’re being told that it’s not the route to success in the art world to be doing these traditional things.” I feel exactly where he is coming from because sometimes I feel discouraged with my talents. Even though I can draw well drawing is not going to make me rich by any means. It is sad but this is the way the art world works. What Kramer fails to understand and that the art world is changing. You can’t just paint a picture anymore and sell it more millions. You need fresh ideas and I think Kramer comes of a little ignorant when he says on page 116, “I do think that popular culture-movies, television, rock and rap music, et cetera—-plays a tremendously destructive role.” Kramer is just old fashion and cannot accept the fact the way things are done changing with time. By saying movies, television and music is destroying art in our society is mind blowing to me but I guess some people old people just do not like change or technology.
