Lecture: Jim Campbell @ UCD

              Last night I had the opportunity of attending an artist lecture at UC Davis, a very new and different experience considering I've only ever attended artist lectures at Sac State. The lecture was given by a contemporary San Francisco based artist named Jim Campbell. Unfortunately I didn't get too many pictures of his lecture because he lectured in the dark, showing video clips of his art. He primarily works with LED light installations, but began his artistic career with film making after receiving his BS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978.
            His video Hallucination was produced from1988-90 and was his first piece. He was interested in the theme of personal illness relating to family reasons. His goal was to make people feel like they had a mental illness. When people stepped in front of the rear projection video monitor, their image was transferred onto the screen. Based on a heads or tails coin flip, the person's image would either stay the same or be engulfed in flames. He wanted to make people upset by this, but he was unsuccessful in doing so and began to make the people from the image fade away and disappear instead.

Jim Campbell, Hallucination, 1988-90

              His first public work, Ruins of Light, was on display for ten years at the America West Sports Arena in Phoenix, Arizona. It consisted of Four columns, 6 video cameras, and 20 video monitors. The work incorporated images from six live cameras, 600 still images, and thirty minutes of motion video. By layering these various images on top of each other in real time the work never repeated itself. It functioned as a clock and calendar as well as different imagery came up at different times of  the day or year.

Jim Campbell, Ruins of Light, 1992

               Campbell stated that he worked with tools of randomness to give his work more complexity. He produced many works that were related to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in which nothing exists purely, as you observe something it is affected and there is no way to not affect it. Many of his works including Shadow (for Heisenberg) were interactive in which as people got closer to his works or interacted with them, the image displayed be came unclear.

Jim Campbell, Shadow (For Heisenberg), 1993-94

               He continued to experiment with his work and in 1999 he began thinking about the pixel; he has been obsessed with it ever since. His Running Falling series from 2000-2004 consisted of video loops of figures that run and fall, from the ambiguous individual moving repeatedly through an unknown landscape to breaking apart into noisy abstraction. The legibility of the figure is pushed, in matrices ranging in resolution from 48 to 768 LEDs.

 



 Jim Campbell, Running Falling, 2000-2004

          His work continued with experimenting with different pixel installations and in my opinion has only improved, especially as technology has improved. My favorite piece that he showed and that I think is by far his best and most interesting is Scattered Light, a video installation featuring nearly 2,000 LEDs encased in standard light bulbs. It is suspended within a support structure spanning 80 feet in length and standing 20 feet high and 16 feet wide creating a vibrant light grid across the center of Madison Square Park’s Oval Lawn. It brought his two-dimensional work into a three-dimensional module in which when viewed from the front, produced a clear image of figures interacting, but when viewed from the side became more abstract.

Jim Campbell, Scattered Light, 2010

         After the lecture, discussion was opened up for questions. When asked if he is ever invited to display or revisit old pieces, and if so how does technology influence displaying these pieces, he brought up an exhibit that he is working on right now. He said that he is currently exhibiting work in New York that draws upon his work from the past 30 years. Many times he will pull out his old equipment to see if it still works because he generally shows his original works, unless the piece is no longer working or is on view somewhere else. In this case he will try to recreate the piece using new technology, but  keeping it as similar to the original as possible. Technology and how it is advancing is something that he definitely thinks about when creating and displaying his old and new pieces.

Jim Campbell and audience



            I find the huge improvements and changes in his work throughout the years to be the most interesting part of his lecture. Even by just viewing the images in this blog post, you can see how much technology has improved and how it has changed and improved his work, leading him to where he is today. 

 



Art History Symposium @ Sac State

           On Saturday, I had the opportunity to visit my first Art History Symposium at Sac State; so many first art experiences this semester!! It began with a introduction by Ed Inch, the dean of the College of Arts and Letters and he made the announcement that 12,050 people had attended U-Nite at the Crocker Art Museum; that's huge! Soon after Elaine O'Brien had the pleasure of introducing the 10th annual Art History Symposium's key note speaker, Kathan Brown. She began with some insightful information about the Symposium though, mentioning the theme of cross cultural connections in print making and some of the artists who were visiting from Alaska, New York, Oklahoma, and San Francisco. I had no idea so many art historians were visiting from all over. I stayed and listened to the first three lectures, but found Kathan Brown's and Pamela Ivinski's to be the most of interest to me.

Keynote speaker, Kathan Brown

 

           Kathan Brown, the key note speaker, visited from San Francisco and is the Director at Crown Point Press which she founded in 1962 in order to use traditional printmaking techniques for new art ideas. Crown Point works with artists by invitation who travel from Europe, Japan and various parts of the United States to work with etching in the San Francisco studios. Her lecture intended to give us an Insider's Perspective and had information given to the audience by both her and the video clips she showed. Brown informed us of the 2013 Exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Yes, No, Maybe. The exhibit examined the artistic process as a sequence of decisions. Working proofs recorded occurrences which were both deliberate and serendipitous and were used to monitor and steer a print’s evolution, prompting evaluation and approval, revision, or rejection. Each proof compelled a decision: yes, no, maybe. The exhibit included many well-known artists with long ties to Crown Point Press, including John Cage (Yes), Chuck Close (No) and Richard Diebenkorn (Maybe).
           Richard Diebenkorn joined Crown Point Press in 1964 and was the first artist Brown published, working with dry point images on plates. In 1977 he was invited back to publish more work. He was considered the Maybe in Brown's exhibit at the National Gallery of Art.
           John Cage, an American Composer, writer and artist also worked at Crown Point Press and Brown considered him to be the Yes in the equation.
           Chuck Close was considered the No. He worked on prints that looked like realistic portraits and although they almost all turned out as Yes' they were considered No's because he chose to make multi-colored collages with his prints instead.
            At the end of the lecture, Kathan Brown posed the question, "Can print making really survive in this digital age?" It makes me wonder if it can, considering how many semesters I have thought about taking a print-making class at Sac State and one has not been available. I think in this day and age, it may not be nearly as accessible or as well-known, but I still think it will survive. It is very much so like film photography; many people rarely use it or know about it anymore, but it is still a very important part of art history and I think classes will still be offered to give people that insight and that education. It's still an enjoyable part of art making and I think if people, like Kathan Brown continue to educate people on it's existence and it's importance that it can survive in this digital age and I think her lecture proves that and I enjoyed it very much.
             Two more very interesting lectures followed before the intermission break, but I was quite interested in the third one by Pamela Ivinski, an independent scholar from New York, about "The Unexpected Creation of Arabesques" in Mary Cassatt's 1890-91 color prints. Her lecture was all about connecting the relationship between Cassatt's work and the decorative devices of Japanese and Islamic Art. She compared many of Cassatt's prints to those of Japanese Print making as well as to the arabesque in Islamic art which is the primordial form in which all other decorative forms evolved. At the end of the lecture she even displayed a painting of Cassatt's which combined all of the elements that she had discussed. I really enjoyed her lecture and during the intermission, I decided to go up and speak to her and let her know how much I had enjoyed it. I even informed her of how I was not aware that Mary Cassatt had experimented with print making. She went on to inform me of  how Mary Cassatt had gradually begun to abandon Impressionist work for paintings that emphasized shapes and forms like that of Japanese woodblock prints. As a fan of Mary Cassatt's paintings, if found this very interesting.

Pamela Ivinski and Elaine O'Brien after Ivinski's lecture



         Overall, I think the Art History Symposium and the week of the Festival of the Arts was a huge success and I very much so enjoyed participating in some of the events. I feel like I learned a lot from these lectures and I look forward to next years Festival of the Arts.

U-Nite @ the Crocker Art Museum

              Last night I attended U-Nite for the first time. I guess that's not so bad considering it was only the 3rd annual U-Nite, but it still felt like an accomplishment to me. U-Nite combines two of Sacramento's leading arts and educational institutions, Sacramento State and the Crocker Art museum, in a celebration to showcase Sacramento talent which includes music, theater, dance, art, and more. I would say it was a huge success and I enjoyed myself. I was only planning on staying until 7pm, but I ended up not leaving until after 8pm. The first thing I did when I arrived was find out where Professor Andrew Connelly's performance piece was and I was very confused when I did find it.
               Andrew Connelly and ART ONEEIGHTSEVEN, his students, constructed a large brain out of material somewhat like plastic bags and blew it up with hot air to construct a giant dome-like brain that people were invited to step inside. When I first came outside to the courtyard I was greeted by Andrew, but he was using a different name and thanking me for my illness. I was very confused to say the least. We were then instructed to write whatever medications we had been prescribed, onto a balloon, step inside the brain and release it. I wasn't quite sure what was going on, but it had me intrigued. We'll revisit this later on.

ART ONEEIGHTSEVEN and Andrew Connelly performance art


                After releasing "drugs" into the brain, we went on to view some of the art that was on display by some of Sac State's very own professors. It was kind of nice to see the art of current and past art professors of mine. It gave me a nice glimpse of what they knew and what they could teach us. I photographed a few that really interested me, including Joy Bertinuson's, I Wish I Had A Wiley. I think it mostly caught my attention because it was Disney, but after looking at it for a while and noticing all the small details and pieces that went in to it to construct it, I began to really like this piece. My favorite part was the small sail boat that looked like it was constructed from a walnut, which attached into the piece and led my eyes to what looked like a pencil drawing of a room filled with toys or figurines. I'm not sure what the meaning behind it all was, but it was definitely a piece that sparked my interest.

Joy Bertinuson, I Wish I Had A Wiley, 2014

             The piece right across from it was just as interesting with recycled kitchen utensils that were used to construct this Ticking Kitchen Witch by Sue Foster. I loved all the use of her materials, and I even got to see the artist herself come by to wind it up, so as to hear what I believe was the heart of the witch, ticking. By far one of my favorite pieces.

Sue Foster, Ticking Kitchen Witch, 2012



            I also got to see a professor of mine's work, Brenda Louie, who I've had as a beginning drawing teacher, figure drawing, and currently, life painting. Every now and then she gives us demos in class and we get to see her work, but it was nice to actually see a finished piece of hers and one that has to do with anatomy, at that, a common subject in figure drawing and  life painting.

Brenda Louie, Foot Journey Series #2011-003, 2011


           From here we went and listened to the opening remarks of the founder of U-Nite, Elaine Gale and a few other important figures from the Crocker Art Museum and Sac State who make this all possible. It was nice to get to see the faces of these important people and hear a few of their remarks.

 Elaine Gale, U-Nite founder

 

           Soon after we went and heard a comic book reading from Mario Estioko, a graduate from Sac State who earned both his BA and MA from there and is now teaching graphic design. His comic is called Peck and it's about a deformed man named Dent who is discovered in the dump of Sac Town by a man who lives among the trash, who then nurses him back to life only to discover he has powers that make him a hero. Definitely an odd tale, but an intriguing one at that and told very well, by the artists and creator himself. I wanted to hear more!

Mario Estioko, Peck comic book reading


           After that we met up with a few other art students and began talking and catching up right up until 8 o'clock when "the brain" released all of it's "drugs" or balloons into the sky. It was a great end to my night, as I left shortly after, but what I consider to be one of the highlights of the event. I really enjoyed myself and I look forward to attending next years U-Nite!

Sacramento: inspire * collaborate * create

              There is A LOT going on around campus this week! I'm looking forward to UNITE tonight at the Crocker Art Museum and the Art History Symposium going on at Sac State this Saturday from 1-5pm. Just recently I had the opportunity to visit the current exhibition on view in the Robert Else Gallery at Sac State. It is a collaborative show of artists from Sacramento. The catchy title Sacramento: Inspire * Collaborate * Create, says it all. It was curated by John and Carol Brewer, Marie Dixon and Virginia Chavez; they did an excellent job displaying the work and providing info on each of the artists. One of the featured artists, Kenneth Potter's, sculpture is artwork displayed on the flyer and it definitely caught my attention in the exhibit.
              Brainwashed Man, is a bust that combines a completed half of a man's face and an uncompleted half of a man's face, although when looking at it, it doesn't appear to be uncompleted at all. It just appears as two different styles or an asymmetrical bust. It's not like any sculpture I've seen and it allows you to see inside this sculpture, allowing for the viewer to see what I assume is the inside of this Brainwashed Man's mind. It's a very intriguing piece and I can see why they chose to feature it on their flyer.

Kenneth Potter, Brainwashed Man, cast alloy (lead) welded steal

               Another artist who really grabbed my attention was Margaret Pollan with her water color paintings. I was totally in awe with her painting, Counter Point. It was the first one that really made me stop and stare and even say, I really like this! So naturally I took a picture of it and then stood there for a few more minutes staring at it and reading about her and some of her other works. The colors of the wire are by far my favorite. It does exactly what I would like to do as an artist, keeping the subject realistic, but adding a contemporary touch to it by exploring outside of the object's true color. Margaret Pollan has been a founding member of the Sacramento Fine Arts Center since 1985, serving the board as President, Past President and recently Facility Chairman. Her husband Gene and her both work together making huge contributions while also enjoying making art, which stands out in her painting.

 

Margaret Pollan. On Point, 1990, watercolor.

 

               Another water color artist who caught my attention was Jan Miskulin, an award winning water color artist who believes that the subject matter of art is not nearly as important as important as the feeling towards it. Her paintings Mendocino View and Mendocino Mist are both landscapes, but instead of filling the entire canvas she paints them almost as of they are an abstract splatter of paint. As you look more closely you begin to see a landscape appear. This aspect of her work along with her vibrant colors makes her work another favorite of mine.  

 Jan Miskulin, Mendocino View 42, 2013, watercolor

Jan Miskulin, Mendocino Mist, 1995, watercolor

 

            Overall, I very much so enjoyed seeing the collaborative work of these Sacramento artists, and I have apparently come to the realization that I am a huge fan of watercolor art. I look forward to seeing and experiencing more of the art and art events that will be at or around campus within the next few days and I hope to see some of you there as well!





TB-9 at the Crocker Art Museum

         Over the break I had the opportunity to visit the Crocker Art museum and I found that many of the pieces that actually interested me were from the 1800's; apparently I am an old soul.  Mostly I just prefer paintings that look realistic. I have never really been able to connect to contemporary art or abstract art. I did visit Sam Francis' exhibition at the museum though, but I could not connect with it. Instead I chose to revisit a few pieces I already knew and explore some that I had not yet seen. In honor of the Remembering TB-9 lecture I attended a few weeks ago, I chose to revisit Robert Arneson's work and a few other TB-9 artists.

         First I chose to revisit Robert Arneson's self-portrait, Overcoooked. It's a piece I've seen many times before and very much so enjoy for his sense of humor. Robert Arneson as many of you may know was a professor of ceramics at UC Davis and is also known for his involvement in the funk art movement. Throughout the 1960's his work became more personal as we see in this self-portrait bust and others that he created. His humor in these busts were of utmost importance which we see in the face of this one, with it's tongue sticking out. In the back of the bust he places a kiln to represent many of the goods that he bakes. I find this to be the most interesting part of the piece and the decision to include the kiln is by far my favorite part.

 

 Robert Arneson, Overcooked, 1973. Terracotta.

 

 

          In the same room that Arneson's piece is found, is work of Wayne Thiebaud, a painter best known for his colorful works depicting commonplace items. Thiebaud was also an assistant professor at UC Davis where he remained and influenced many art students into the 70's.

 

 

         A few pieces of Thiebaud's that have always had some interest to me are his pie pieces. In Boston Cremes, and Pies, Pies, Pies he places his subjects up against a light colored background and then outlines his subject with a halo of rainbow colors to emphasize his subject. He also uses blue shadows to create contrast between the pies and the surface they sit on. Although he was associated with the pop art movement for his bright colors and repetition, he stands out from Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein in the way that he plays with the paint medium to emphasize his subjects and make them appear more life like. Although these pieces are considered contemporary and fall into the pop art movement, they still have a realistic look to them which catches my attention.

 

 

Wayne Thiebaud, Boston Cremes, 1962. Oil on canvas.

 

Wayne Thiebaud, Pies, Pies, Pies, 1961. Oil on canvas.

 

           Last, but not least, I made sure to visit Stephen Kaltenbach, one of the artists who spoke at the Remembering TB-9 lecture, Portrait of My Father. Of all the times I have been to the Crocker, I can't recall having seen this one before, but I do remember other pieces that were displayed in the same room. I don't know how I could have missed such a large and awe inspiring piece! The portrait is a memorial of a loved one who passed from this life to the next. The detail of the facial hair and the spark of life that looks as if though it is his last breath leaving his body, almost has the look of a nervous system which to me, although it may have nothing to do with this, represents not only his dying breath, but the nervous system as it shuts down. It also has a very spiritualistic look to it as if though Heaven's light is shining down upon him. The detail and technique put into this work is one that was well worth it, Although it is very life-like and portrait like, you know from the texture and overlaid design that it is indeed a work of art and an inspiring one at that.

 



Stephen Kaltenbach, Portrait of my Father, 1972-79. Acrylic on canvas.

 

        Overall it was a pleasant visit to the Crocker Art Museum and I enjoyed seeing familiar works of the TB-9 artists and even those I had not seen before. I hope to make it back again to take another look at Sam Francis' work before it is taken down and maybe even make it to U-Nite this year! 

Video: William Kentridge: Drawing the Passing

William Kentridge, born April 28, 1955 is a South African artist best known for his prints, drawings, and animated films. In the video William Kentridge: Drawing the Passing, it shows Kentridge’s process of drawing and making his animated films. It is very different from many animated films that I have seen, as it is done in charcoal and chalk. He begins with sheets of paper and a film camera and constructs 20-30 drawings which are altered many times. He will draw out his first scene, film it, and then erase and redraw certain elements, re-filming it again to create a new sequence.

 

When William Kentridge first started out, he believed that to be an artist, he had to work in oil paint, but he felt most comfortable creating work with charcoal and chalk as his medium. In the end, if he hadn’t chosen this as his medium of choice, he could not have made all of the art that he has created up to this point.         

 

The technique he uses, is a sequence of time and progression. Kentridge begins with an image or key element in mind, but he doesn’t know how it will evolve. He goes with his first impulse even if the final meaning of it is not yet clear at the starting point. In the process of creating a sequence, new ideas are formed and the real work starts when they are being filmed so his process is very quick.

 

William Kentridge, Drawings (video stills) for Stereoscope, 1998-99

 

I find some of his pieces and films to be a little dark or to have a deeper meaning, and although some if his work is not something that would grab my interest, his process of creating, filming, and reworking, does grab my attention. I think his process is key and is a very important part of his work. It’s very different from animation art that we usually see that is created on a computer or is happy and playful, and I think that is what really makes Kentridge and his work stand out.

Artist Lecture: Remembering TB-9: Steve Kaltenbach, Peter VandenBerge, and Jerry Walberg in Coversation

On Thursday March 6^th, I had the pleasure of attending the lecture, Remembering TB-9, a conversation between the artists, Steve Kaltenbach, Peter VandenBerge, and Jerry Walburg. The lecture began with an insightful introduction by Professor Elain O’Brien about the artists who would be speaking.

Photo by Shannon Veach

 

TB-9 stands for Temporary building 9 and it was an art and sculpture building at the University of California in Davis. Richard L. Nelson was the one responsible for founding the art department at UC Davis and hired faculty such as Manuel Neri, Wayne Thiebaud, William T. Wiley and of course Robert Arneson. Arneson, commonly referred to by the artists as Bob, began teaching at UC Davis in 1962. He and several other artists began to abandon the traditional manufacture of functional items in favor of using everyday objects to make confrontational statements. This new movement was called Funk Art and was a Neo-dada and pop-art style and Arneson was the father of the Ceramic funk movement.

Robert Arneson pictured in front of TB-9

 

I first heard about TB-9 and Robert Arneson a few semesters ago when I attended a lecture at Sac State about the Candy Store, an art gallery owned by Adeliza McHugh. This gallery housed many artworks that were produced through the funk art movement including the works of Robert Arneson, Wayne Thiebaud, and William Wiley, all who were apart of TB-9. Shortly after this lecture, I visited the Crocker Art Museum and saw Robert Arneson’s self-portrait, Overcooked, which portrays him as a chef, on top of some of his famous bricks and in the backside of the chef there is a kiln. I love this self-portrait and I loved it even more because I knew about the Artists as a person. So naturally, when I heard about the lecture, Remembering TB-9, I didn’t want to miss it!

Robert Arneson, Overcooked, 1973. Terracotta

 

The artists in the lecture, Steve, Peter, and Jerry, as they were referred to during the discussion, were all students of Robert Arneson, and they had a conversation with us the audience, and themselves, all discussing and remembering TB-9. Peter, was the first to arrive at TB-9 and it was after meeting Arneson at a fair, that he was invited to work at UC Davis, so when he finished his master at Sac State, he headed over to TB-9. Steve arrived a year later and was Arneson’s first student. They all loved the environment of TB-9 and Jerry mentioned that in his first semester there he took a casting class and loved that the space was always available for them to do whatever they wanted and with the pressure and support of their peers, they were always encouraged to work.

Peter VandenBerge, Steve Kaltenbach, and Jerry Walburg

                Arneson would make the artists build something and then break it, just so they wouldn’t get too attached to their work and would be working for the sake of learning. He also encouraged the artists to explore different materials and to stand behind their work and defend it.

 

                Jerry applied to TB-9 with clay work for his graduate school and worked in clay entirely, until he began working with geometric shapes, in which he was then encouraged to try working in metal. He worked in metal for quite some time and then was encouraged to go back to what he knew, which was clay.

                Steve also worked with geometric shapes and moved from clay into other mediums, in which he had to defend his wok, and that was perfectly fine as long as he could negate it.

                Peter recalled Arneson telling him and other students to try something different and if they negated it, he would joke about smashing their work, but the students would joke back about smashing his work, and he would just laugh. It was the perfect environment for you to be challenged, but it also allowed for humor.

                Jerry was encouraged by TB-9, to take over ASL at Sac State and he did so in 1968. If it weren’t for him ASL might still be a Forestry and Fish and Game building or an empty storage space.

                When talking with the artists, all three of them believed the most important thing they took from TB-9 was the obsession with the work. They feel that obsession and communication with the work is lacking in today’s art. As an art major, I feel I should have this obsession and motivation with my own work, but I am sometimes lacking in that area. When I asked how someone might find motivation in their work, it was suggested that trying new things and experimenting with new materials and supports can sometimes help. I am hoping that as I find more free time after I am through moving into a new house and planning a wedding that I can find the time and the motivation to try new things and find the obsession with my work that I really need to have. These artists are truly an inspiration and I hope to aspire to find that same motivation.