One of my most favorite things about this class is my recently developed knowledge of history’s art and my new ability to make connections between pieces across time periods. When I recently visited the Met, I found myself experiencing this very feature. On display in the European Sculpture and Decorative Arts exhibit is an exquisite oil-gilded statue of David titled David with the Head of Goliath. Sculpted out of bronze by Italian artist Bartolomeo Bellano in the 15th century, the sculpture immediately made me think of Donatello’s famously bronze David (1425-1429). I was pleased to learn that Bellano was indeed one of Donatello’s disciples. Looking at the two together it is evident that Donatello set the path for Bellano’s later sculpture.

Bellano's David, David with the Head of Goliath, (1470–80)

Donatello's David, David1425 -1429

But Donatello and Bellano are certainly not the only artists who have attempted to depict David. Michelangelo and Bernini, amongst others, created magnificent portrayals of the biblical figure. What is interesting to learn, though, is the effect of each artists’ respective time periods on their depictions. Looking into these artists’ history explains some very important aspects of their work.

Italy was flourishing in the 15th century. As the Italian Renaissance continued to shape the culture of Florence, much of the art produced was commissioned by the civil government, courts, and wealthy individuals, most notably the Medici family. Around 1430, Cosimo de’ Medici commissioned Donatello’s David. The first freestanding nude sculpture since classical antiquity, David is evidence of Donatello’s revival of ancient Greece and Rome’s love and respect for the body. The Middle Ages was a period when the focus was on G-d and the soul, so artists rarely represented the nude. David’s contrapposto position, originated by the ancient Greeks, gives the sculpture a sense of movement, unlike the stance of the traditional male figure. David’s right leg is pushed up, causing the wing of Goliath’s helmet to ride up his left thigh. The beginnings of Humanism are apparent, as Donatello forms David’s body with his pioneered shallow relief technique. Donatello’s choice of bronze, the nudity, and contrapposto pose emulate the Humanist antique.

Donatello’s novel young figure of David embodies the ideals and concerns of 15th century Italy. At about five feet tall, David symbolized the Republic of Florence. Donatello stressed David’s victory as a sole result of G-d’s influence; David’s youth, slender physique, boyish expression, and rock in his left hand portray the slaying of Goliath as a direct result of Divine Intervention. The Florentine people saw their success in defeating their enemy, the Duke of Milan, in the early 15th century as the hand of G-d. Florence was a mercantile republic, as opposed to Milan, which was a military power and autocracy. David became the symbol of the Florentine Republic and peace, while Goliath took on the role as the Duke of Milan.

Michelangelo's David, David, 1504

At the height of Humanism in the High Renaissance, Michelangelo created his David. Michelangelo’s David  differed from Donatello’s in its adolescent physique and absence of Goliath’s head. David’s marble face, tense and ready for combat, bulging veins in his right hand, yet contrapposto pose suggest that David is portrayed after he has made the decision to fight Goliath, yet before the battle has actually begun. David’s  serenity of conscious choice prior to dangerous action is consistent with Renaissance ideals.

Michelangelo’s David embodies the fully developed Renaissance idea that man is G-d like because he is created in G-d’s image. David’s perfectly chiseled tendons and uninterrupted contour depict strength and wrath, Florence’s two most important virtues, as it had just cast the ruling of the Medici family. The Florentine people immediately identified with the colossal David as a shrewd hero over superior enemies.

Bernini's David, David, 1623-1624

There is no time for contemplation in Bernini’s David. Actively fighting Goliath, this David challenges the conventions of time and space. Michelangelo and Donatello’s Davids are serene and pensive; Bernini captures David in his moment of action. The path to G-d during the Renaissance was through the mind; Michelangelo and Donatello’s Davids ask the viewer the contemplate the beauty of man, G-d’s greatest creation, which will lead the viewer to an understanding of G-d. However, in the Baroque era, the path to G-d was more direct, emotional, and bodily. Baroque art dares its viewers to relate to the image in our bodies, not just our minds. Bernini’s David is actively involved in its surrounding space.  The viewer must walk around it on all sides to experience its full effect. David’s toes literally step of the plinth. The contour of his body is crossed by his twisting cloth, the line of his neck, his bending arm, and the sling across his chest, heightening the spiraling of his body. Bernini forms David like a wound spring, while paying attention to the realism of the body. The visual tension creates deep shadows and intense illumination, typical of Baroque style.

Nowadays, we tend to think that art is only good if it is new and innovative. But these artists attest to the timeless artistic practice of learning from others and perfecting their work.

Throughout our wonderful seminar we have explored so many influential artists from all different centuries. From Rembrandt to Matisse, Richard Serra to de Kooning, we have certainly broadened our artistic horizons and tweaked our sensitivities to becoming “art snobs.” But a question has always lingered in the back of my head. As we viewed art from a myriad of generations, it is apparent that female artists are a relatively new phenomenon. So why have there been no great women artists in Frans Hals’ century or Vermeer’s lifetime? And then I found the art of Artemisia Gentileschi.

Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting

Born on July 8, 1593 to the Tuscan painter Orazio Gentileschi, Artemisia Gentileschi entered into one of the most enthralling periods of Western art. As a female Italian Early Baroque painter, her recognition as a talented artist in a historically male oriented art world is an indisputable attestation to her remarkable expertise.

Influenced by Italian artist Caravaggio, Artemisia painted brilliant works with bold brushstrokes and unique subjects. In her painting Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting (1630), Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro is evident. Artemisia’s face is strikingly illuminated against the subdued background and shadows of her body. The shift from light to dark is not gradual; Artemisia appears in a dramatic spotlight. Combined with the rich texture of her clothing, her rustling hair, and her working arm stretched across the canvas in an asymmetrical diagonal, Artemisia appears alive and almost tangible in Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting.

The title of this painting is comprehensible upon further research. Italian aesthetician Cesare Ripa compiled his emblem book Iconologia in 1593, which identified central qualities of various concepts in art, science, vices, and virtues. Ripa attached an allegorical description to each figure. Artemisia follows all but one of Ripa’s allegorical references of painting. Ripa’s personification of painting is a beautiful woman with unruly curls, a vibrant dress of shifting colors, a gold pendant hanging from her neck, and a piece of cloth binding her mouth. The bound mouth is symbolic of the artist’s reliance on non-verbal means of expression. In Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting, Artemisia encompasses all of these traits, but her mouth remains unconstrained.

Women during Artemisia’s time were expected to be submissive and dependent on men. They were forced to accept domestic roles and were not considered proper sources of creativity. Artemisia’s unbound mouth represents her refusal to “keep quite” in the male dominated world as she asserts her independence as an astounding female artist.

Sunday certainly was a day spent sampling the arts as I traveled from the Snapshot Day exhibit to the de Kooning exhibition 14 blocks down. While the tiny, personal photographs at the Macaulay Building held little resemblance to the massive canvases at the MOMA, I found both exhibits enjoyable for various reasons.

The assignment we were given at Snapshot Day was to edit our own movies using clips shot as we walked through the various displays of the photographs we had taken. To be an active audience in the arts was a remarkable and absorbing experience. The challenge in the final assignment was its vagueness- our directions were to simply find a theme and go with it. However, I believe there is an important underlying message in this task. Often, when we view art we try to dissect it and pin the artwork’s purpose down. If we fail to find a logical explanation to it, we believe we have failed as an audience. But art is a unique medium in its ability to posses several meanings and themes simultaneously. We all found a different message running throughout the photos on display, which resulted in our distinctive reactions and original movies.

Abstract art can be experienced the same way. Looking through the previous blog posts it is clear that each of us faced de Kooning’s canvases and took away our various personal favorites. You cannot point to de Kooning’s work and say, “This one is his best,” only, “This one is my best.” Willem de Kooning says it best himself- “I never was interested in how to make a good painting… But to see how far one can go.” The beauty in abstract art is just that- its abstractness. Its ambiguity allows for individual interpretation and a multitude of responses.

While de Kooning and Snapshot Day bear a myriad of implications, a singular theme is evident throughout both. We were all told to take pictures of New York on October 11, 2011. New York was obviously the concurrent theme at the Snapshot Day exhibit; it was easily distinguishable and apparent.  De Kooning’s canvases are connected in their movement. From his biomorphic abstractions to black-and-whites to figures, each painting is alive with a sense of swiftness; de Kooning’s works are anything but still.  But the beauty in Snapshot Day and de Kooning at the MOMA is that while both hold an obvious thread, beyond that thread they are open to interpretation. Snapshot Day was transformed into an individualized experience because it left room for personalized reactions. De Kooning’s art yields a captivated and responsive audience in its allowance for freethinking.  It certainly was a day well spent!

Reading through Jerry Saltz’s “Has Money Ruined Art?” article, I felt I could not fully grasp the entirety of his critique without looking up the numerous artistic references he included. When I Googled artist Ryan Trecartin, I was fascinated by his work. Born in 1981, Trecartin is a young, innovative artist and filmmaker, just hitting the scene. He received his BFA at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2004. Trecartin was first publicized in the Wall Street Journal  in 2006, in which he was included in a selection of ten top emerging artists in the United States, barely out of their teens. Trecartin collected several awards in 2009, including the Jack Wolgin International Competition in the Fine Arts award, the New Artist of the Year Award at the Guggenheim Museum, and a 2009 Pew Fellowship in the Arts.

So what makes this budding new artist so famous?

New York Times journalist Roberta Smith examined his work firsthand at Trecartin’s exhibition at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, Queens. The exhibition titled “Any Ever” is a “tumult of video, furniture, music, extreme makeup and insistent jabberwocky.” The insanely overstimulating rooms are pack with theatrical elements and household objects, backdropped by dizzying short films directed and produced by Trecartin himself. The plot lines of these brief movies are nonlinear and “nothing is as it should be” is common theme. Smith describes Trecartin’s art as the combination of “the retinal extravagance of much 1980s art with the political awareness of the ’90s and the inclusiveness and technological savvy of the postmillennium.”

Available Sync, 2011. Unique sculptural theater Installation view Any Ever, MoMA PS1, New York, 2011

P.opular S.ky (section ish), 2009 Still from HD video. Duration 43 minutes 51 seconds

Trecartin’s artistic talent began developing when he was in sixth grade when he started photographing himself dressing up and staging plays with friends. When Apple introduced iMovie in 2000, Trecartin immediately began editing his own videos on his computer. His senior thesis titled “A Family Finds Entertainment,” was a 40-minute color-saturated video, screened at the New York Underground Film Festival, marking his rise in the art world and on the Internet. It was also the way he came out to his family.

Technology has certainly been the vehicle for Trecartin’s fame. Smith notes, “New technology has allowed Mr. Trecartin to articulate and dimensionalize his version of overload more fully.” With technology advancing at an increasingly rapid rate, art is being pushed to new boundaries. And it is up to the viewer to answer the question so often asked in our class- “What is art and what is nonsense?”

Ryan Trecartin's Mango Lady (Back). The sculpture is covered with dried fruit. 2006. Mixed Media. 99 x 69 x 58 cm

For the New York Times article, click here.

Ahmed Mater, Evolution of Man, 2010. The work was lent by a private collector

In a previous blogpost, I explored a less-known museum called Exit Art. The museum struck me as unconventional because of its strong emphasis on art as a medium for social change. Tonight, I came across an article in the Art Newspaper titled “Saudi Artist Targeted Over Jerusalem Show.” The article reveals a different ramification that art has the power to produce.

The article explains how Saudi Arabian artist Ahmed Mater is now the subject of an intense online campaign against him, petitioning the Saudi government to censure his artwork from the public. After a private collector displayed Mater’s unusual piece Evolution of Man, 2010 at Jerusalem’s Museum on the Seam, Mater’s Facebook page was bombarded with comments from fellow Saudis. Although some were supportive, majority were not, including one woman who posted, “This is treason at the highest level. He [Mater] should be made an example of.”

In late August, a petition was formed, and is to be presented to “the Saudi minister of the interior, the minister of foreign affairs, the Association of Fine Arts and ultimately King Abdullah.” The article explains that the petition “describes Mater’s participation… as tantamount to the ‘normalisation’ of relations with Israel. This is in spite of the fact that the Museum on the Seam receives no funding from the Israeli government.”

The museum is of the same nature as Exit Art in that its purpose is to display socio-political contemporary art “dedicated to improving intercultural understanding.” The museums’s artistic director, Raphie Etgar, supports Mater, saying, “I’m standing right behind Ahmed Mater and other artists like him. They are doing all they can to create a better world for tomorrow, and it’s amazing that people are trying to stop him from doing this.”

Art has the capacity to impact society in an extremely powerful way. It has the ability to educate the public, draw attention to often overlooked issues, and propel humanity to better the world around them. However, when artists’ voices are stifled as a result of their art, a question arises: Can art do more harm than good?

What do you think?

One of my favorite things about New York City is its surprises. Every street corner you turn holds potential for a new discovery. On the corner of West 36th and 10th Avenue, the unfamiliar Exit Art cultural center strives to present “innovative exhibitions, films and performances that reflect a commitment to contemporary issues and ideas.” Since 1982, Exit Art has housed exhibits that are anything but the usual.

Currently open for the public is Rico Gatson’s Three Trips Around the Block. The exhibition includes Brooklyn-based Gatson’s sculptures, paintings, videos, drawings, and installations that generate “collective memory through the exploration of symbols and images culled from popular culture and the mass media, questioning issues of identity, racial intolerance, and the status quo.” Gatson merges history with mass culture  to create politically and racially charged artwork.

Also on display is NEW MONEY: Business Models for a Sustainable Future. This exhibition includes products from 20 innovative companies whose commitment to environmental and social consciousness is evident. The included companies and organizations “approach markets in new and innovative ways that foster cooperation, awareness, social and environmental justice, sustainability, philanthropy, stewardship, and humanitarianism.”

The center’s program is filled with upcoming events that emphasize environmental and social activism. Check out the website here.

“Most of us go through the world, never seeing anything. Then you meet somebody like Herb and Dorothy, who have eyes that see.” —Richard Tuttle, artist

My father is an indie film connoisseur. If you have ever looked at the cover of an offbeat, home videoed movie and thought, “What the…?” you can be sure he has watched it. His flick taste is how I came across the incredible story of Herb and Dorothy Vogel. Possessing a seven million dollar art collection, Mr. and Mrs. Vogel live in a modest one-bedroom apartment in New York City. Herbert, 89-years-old and the son of a Russian garment worker from Harlem, never completed high school and worked as a clerk for the United States Postal Service until he retired in 1980. 76-year-old Dorothy, daughter of a New York stationary merchant, obtained a masters degree and worked as a librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library. So how did these two seemingly unassuming individuals amass a multimillion-dollar art collection?

When they married in 1962, their passion for art was quickly ignited. Herb began taking classes at the Institute of Fine Arts during the day, while working the midnight shift at the post office. Shortly after, Dorothy began taking painting and drawing classes, as well, until the two realized they were only “wannabe artists” and gave up their classes to pursue collecting art. Living solely off Dorothy’s meager salary, the couple decided to dedicated Herb’s limited income to acquiring art pieces. The work they collected was “undiscovered or unappreciated in the early 1960s, primarily Minimalist and Conceptual art by such visionaries as Robert and Sylvia Mangold, Donald Judd, Richard Tuttle, Sol LeWitt, Christo, Lynda Benglis and many other artists… The work was mostly non-decorative, evoking descriptors like ‘daring’ and ‘rigorous.’” Herb and Dorothy only bought pieces that were inexpensive and practical. If they could not fit it on the subway or in a taxi home, they simply did not buy it!

By the early 1990s, the Vogel’s apartment was bursting with American art. Art hung on every inch of wall space and was piled in stacks reaching the ceilings of the bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. With over 4,782 pieces, Dorothy recalls, “Not even a toothpick could be squeezed into the apartment.” The couple could barely move around in their home. Something had to be done.

When the couple revealed their enormous collection to the art world, every major museum sought to buy their multimillion-dollar American art collection. The Vogels declined all offers and, in 1992, donated their collection to the National Gallery of Art. Five full-sized moving trucks were required to transfer the entire collection.

In 2008, filmmaker Megumi Sasaki produced the documentary Herb and Dorothy, recording and revealing their story to public. Today Herb and Dorothy live in the same one-bedroom apartment, still in love with each other and art.