Week 5
This week I felt seriously blessed to have a painter like Ron Graff come in to class and share his stories and artwork. The Ron talked about his pieces also as discussed his life you could tell he is very honest and real. I could really feel what he had to say. To start his presentation Ron showed us some of his early slides of his realistic still lives and landscapes. Personally I love realism in painting because it is very challenging to make a painting look realistic. Ron said he never tried to have a realistic style if just kind of happened. The pieces made me say to myself, “wow this guy is talented.” But it was not until he talked about the pain he felt that made me really connect to him as an artist. He said that someone once told him that he must have had a great time painting this one piece of his. Ron explained how it was not fun and really kind of depressing painting realistically at times. Even though Ron loves painting he admits realistic painting drove him a little crazy. I found it extremely interesting how something you love and can be so good at can drive you crazy. But then I thought to myself about some of my own pieces that were a pain in the ass to finish. Ron has now quit painting realistic pieces and now practices more abstract styles. I found this very interesting because personally I have found myself trying to escape from the realistic artwork I once tried so hard to create. Some of Ron pieces had a graffiti influence and I thought were nice but were definitely different. Personally I think Ron’s best works were his realistic paintings but he said he would never paint those again because they made him depressed. I found it interesting when he said he lost all judgment on what is art. He said as an art teacher he sees so many different styles and some might not consider them good art but they are creative and unique. Ron believes traditional painting is not as relevant in our digital world of today but he knows there will always be a place for painting in this society. It seemed like he was almost unsure if his own works were even art. I feel like Ron under estimates himself and does not realize how good he really is.
I did the reading and found some interesting points this week. First I read the interview with Coco Fusco, who of Hispanic decent and works on performance artwork. I really liked how she explained what is going on with art hierarchies. Coco talked about how in our culture Museums and galleries can control art and the culture and this adds a large effect on what happens to art. She believes there is a cultural war going on right now in the art world and I believe this is true. Coco talked about this art class system that is really hard of certain types of artists to get the respect they deserve. Later in the chapter she explains one of her performance pieces she did all over the world. She caged herself and another person in a cage and acted like they were caged animals. They then had staged secretary guard the cage. I found this piece interesting but almost similar to the freeze video we watched in class. It asks questions but is also very stunning. This book was written in the early 90s so I found it cool they people were doing this type of performance artwork over twenty years ago.
After reading the interview with Coco I read the Arthur C. Danto interview that brought up question on artwork and social change. I really do not have much to about this interview but I did really disagree with this statement on page 278 made by Danto, “Oh, I think art’s quite powerless to solve any of the serious problems of the world.” Personally I think this was a pretty uneducated statement because there are many ways artwork and change the world for the better. 
