Sunday, February 24, 2008

UC Course: The Art of Looking at Art, Week 3

Wow! This was such a great class, held at the Contemporary Art Museum. We had time to look closely and engage with the work of local contemporary artists Juan William Chavez and Michelle Oosterbaan. After having some great conversations in the galleries about their work, we were able to have the chance to meet these two artists and talk to them about their work. We also discussed the role of artist's intentions (and personal motivations for making their work) in the overall experience with the work.

An interesting quote from the gallery brochure:

"I invite the viewer to put his or her imprint on the isolated images--to apply multiple interpretations of work--an act that maintains a sense of mystery and curiosity and in the end increases the layers of the story's potential." -- Michelle Oosterbaan

I'd love to ask members of this class to continue any discussions from our meeting here (by adding Comments to any of these postings), or to add thoughts or ideas that you were not able to express during our class meetings.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was disturbed Chavez'a work and also by his statements(in our class & in the written material at the museum). He was casual about the violence and seemed to say that as an artist he was not part of it. My belief is that he had the freedom to chose the subject, and how it is display and that makes him part of it.

Mike said...

For me, it was interesting to hear Chavez talk about why he chose "A Clockwork Orange," and especially this scene -- he said that it had really been burning in his mind, and he needed to "scratch that itch." I got from this that the scene also bothered him, but he wanted to deal with that through his artistic process. His work seems to be a project about what drawing can bring to film, and how he as an artist might be able to tackle these scene that he has always been unnerved by.

Mike said...

CLOCKWORK ORANGE:

If anyone is interested in watching one of the scenes from the film “A Clockwork Orange” that Juan Chavez used for his drawings, below is a link to the fight scene on YouTube. I thought it was interesting watching this scene again after seeing Chavez’s drawings – esp. to see how short the scene really is in the film. To me, the drawings seem to slow the film down and (at the same time) draw more attention to the violent acts—since we get to encounter these images as stills.

Click Here to View Clockwork Orange Fight Scene

What are your thoughts? Does watching the film clip again make you see Chavez’s work differently?