Review of the Florida Prize in Contemporary Art at the OMA

I was very excited to have witnessed this past weekend, the inaugural show of the Florida Prize in Contemporary Art at the Orlando Museum of Art. It is the first time such an award and show has been executed in Central Florida and it has long been overdue. In the past the Orlando Museum of Art has been somewhat conservative but has been progressing slowly to bring a current exhibition of what is happening currently in the contemporary art world. Giving visitors a visual experience that there is more beyond abstraction, tropical sunsets, palm trees, nudes, and low-brow art. We have longed moved away from art movements of Impression, Pop Art, and Surrealism and it is nice to finally see a show that is refreshing, which is rare for viewers in Central Florida to experience unless you frequent museums in South Florida or Art Basel in South Beach. The artists that gave my senses the most impact both visually and mentally, and which I will be writing about in this post were: Sarah Max Beck, Vanessa Diaz, Ezra Johnson, Jillian Mayer, and Agustina Woodgate.

Sarah Max Beck is a sculptor. I heard her speak a couple of months ago about her process and how she got to this point as an artist making tapestries using plastic bags. It was a very personal story of how she was a caregiver and she did not know what she was doing with her life at that moment, so she started weaving plastic bags that were used to deliver newspapers, bargain newsletters, and such. Viewing these large quilts you see how colorful and beautiful plastic bags can be but at the same time upon closer inspection the smell, and the texture of the plastic makes it feel abrasive and uncomfortable unlike a normal quilt. Thoughts of large amounts of waste and longevity start to creep into my mind. Her work makes me think of El Anatsui, who also made fabric like tapestries using scrap metal which is found in large quantities in his country. Sarah’s quilts references our waste culture.

Vanessa Diaz is another artist that I had the opportunity to see prior to this exhibition, and I must say the venue where her artwork is displayed plays a big part on how I experienced her work. Her work are site specific installations, and the ones I responded to the most at the Orlando Museum of Art were; Here Enticement is Not Always Difficult, Upon Which Everything Rests, and Where Traps Can Be Set at One’s Good Pleasure. She takes objects and gives them a new form or function giving you a different perspective on an everyday object, for example Where Traps Can Be Set at One’s Good Pleasure is made up bedposts she found, which she then seamlessly joined two top ends to make them into one long piece, giving them a look of big bulky javelins piled on the floor forming a bonfire before it is lit. I found this piece funny and at the same time very real making a comment on what happens in relationships in the bedroom. Here Enticement is Not Always Difficult, and Upon Which Everything Rests made me think of missing parts of a history unknown to me, sadness, new type of furniture design, and viewing objects differently than what they have been intended for.

Ezra Johnson’s paintings I found very refreshing using very lose brush strokes, collaging pieces from magazines and other sources, and using dark colors. Reclining Nude I found both sexy and vulgar at the same time. Reclining Nude and Coffee Table Group had a mix of influences such as; graffiti, Henri Matisse, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It has been four years since I have witnessed a passionate use of brush strokes so determined in emitting genuine emotions. He also had paintings he used to create a stop motion video animation titled Stranded in a House, which heavily references William Kentridge. The video is under three minutes long but the desperation of the main character going in and out every room in the video trying to find a way out this house starts to set in.

Jillian Meyer’s work spoke to me the most, because she made me think about how technology is around us on an everyday basis, and sometimes goes undetected because, we are getting accustomed to it, or we do not question it. She uses video, installation, photography and humor to make us aware of the real world and virtual world. Simulacrums of catchy 80’s pop-tune videos (Mega Mega Upload), home shopping network, DIY’s Youtube videos, online portraits, and the sky, she makes the viewers question our interaction with the virtual world. In a small skit from her video titled PostModem, she uses satire of the home shopping network where you can purchase in just only three easy payments of $399.99 your own personal vortex where you can never feel the loss of someone close to you because you can place them in there eternally and at the same time get rid of unwanted items easily, such as a tamagotchi. Thinking about it don’t we all live in our own constructed vortex already? In her installation Cloud Swing, the viewer is welcomed to sit on a swing set, but the sky is just a projection with our shadows breaking the visual plane as we swing back and forth. Her artwork makes the viewer question the virtual versus reality, the analog versus the digital and the big roles they play in our lives.

Agustina Woodgate was this year’s recipient of Florida Prize in Contemporary Art. I can understand why since they are very beautiful pieces. Seven Seas, Milky Way, and Peacock are all made from the skin of stuffed toy animals, which references oriental rugs. Seven Seas and Milky Way start to morph into visual maps of some sort, which play well with her other two pieces; Simplified Maps and Beginning Maps, where she took world maps that hang in almost every world history class in schools, then she sanded them down erasing all the words, borders, or any information and leaving only the hues that represented the country.  In these two bodies of work she creates her own maps that have no boundaries that have been defined by society or will ever be.

Overall this exhibition is a delight in the Orlando area, and must see for people to become informed about the world of contemporary art, and the Florida artists that help create them.

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2014 Graduate Show at the Southeast Museum of Photograhy

So this past month I saw two photography shows.  One was held at Gallery 500 at West Livingston in Orlando, Florida and other was held on the Main campus of Daytona State College at the Southeast Museum of Photography.  Both shows were made up of 2014 Bachelor of Science Photography graduates from the joint program between Daytona State College and The University of Central Florida. The differences between the shows were location, title, and gender.  The one exhibiting in Orlando was titled Bed of Roses, and the photographers exhibiting were all females.  The exhibition in Daytona was the entire 2014 class including some repeat images from the exhibition in Orlando, but some were framed differently.

The thing that caught my attention was how the show was laid out.  My main complaint is that I am tired of seeing poorly displayed art.  Not knowing the circumstances such as; did the show have a curator? Were the students responsible for hanging the work themselves? Who determine how much space to exhibit the artwork?  This statement is aimed mostly towards the exhibition at the Southeast Museum of Photography at Daytona State College.  Most of the images were crammed onto the gallery walls and not given enough space between each photographer, so some photographers were limited to 2 or 3 images while others had a little more up to 6 images.   Again I do not know  the behind the scene circumstances if some photographers had only two images to exhibit and hung what they had, but it is disappointing seeing an art show and wanting to see more images.  Do not get me wrong I have seen the artist’s concept come across crystal clear in one image, but when the artist states “This is from a series,” and I only see two images, it is  disheartening!  Maybe the school should give more consideration, and attention to the students on their exit from the program when they are showing their best and final work, and this also reflects on the school’s program.  They should have somebody who understands the visual language when displayed on the wall, which seems to lack from the several shows I have seen in the past, and assign each student a certain amount of wall space, and make room if possible in other galleries.

One thing I have been noticing is the current fad of photographers choosing to ignore intentionally, or unintentionally the formalist style in the history of photography.  I do not know why this is, but this is my hypothesis.  I believe that taking photos with smart phones is heavily influencing current photographers and this is becoming the norm, giving current photography a new standard in how we define beautiful.  If there is a movement in photography today similar to Picasso first paintings into Cubism, or Warhol’s introduction of screen prints, I find myself being the guy in the camp of formalism and opposing the new style.  I consider myself very conceptual and I will not care about the quality of the image as long as it fits the artist intentions and concepts, but I find myself having difficulty viewing images when the photographer is approaching one constant theme with the same wide angle.  I understand that documentaries use of the Single Lens Reflex cameras and love the look, but they will jump from portraitures, to informal portraitures, or capturing the moment from far away, to up close and personal, or capturing that specific moment before it slips away, but if the photographer is taking the same image from the same distance, the composition is the same in all images, and the photographer is not adding or taking away from the frame then they should treat is with respect.   The reason I bring this up is because in the exhibition the works of MaKay Hartley, Kristina Jarquin, and Nathan Wyatt had good basic concepts, but missed the delivery.   I believe if all three had moved away from the wide-angled lens of a Digital Single Lens Reflex camera and used a large format camera and treated their subject with respect the images would have been more powerful.  Even if they could not get their hands on a large format camera, at least they could had straighten lens perspective and vertical lines using Photoshop.

MaKay Hartley’s body of work titled Remembrance was one of the strongest concepts in landscape photography.  Using her hometown of Lake Wales, she captured various places where pivotal situations in her life occurred while growing up.  She does not offer insight to what happen exactly, but through the use of titles the viewer gets a glimpse into what might had happen at that specific location.

Four photographers working with concepts that have been used in the past by previous photographers, but with a twist is Kristina Jarquin, Alicia Lynn, Corryn Lytle, and Nathan Wyatt.  Kristina’s work titled Modern Families remind me of August Sander’s attempt at documenting German society at the beginning of the twentieth century.  Kristina is defining new portraiture on how a family looks in the United States in the twenty-first century.  The images depict not only the family, but also the exterior of their own homes are used as backdrops adding more rich information about the environment.

I’m not a fan of Dawoud Bey’s portraits of today’s youth, but Alicia Lynn’s work titled Young Reflections bridges the distance between viewer and subject, which Bey’s lacks in my opinion.  Alicia made a series of informal portraits of Daytona’s Boys and Girls Club that you make you feel like you personally met the children in the images for a brief second.

Nathan Wyatt’s No Vacancy is about vacant buildings found in the Central Florida region reminiscent of local photographer Rick Lang, but with the use color. Wyatt is recording Florida’s economic history through the architecture of various buildings that are vacant.  Both Wyatt and Kristina Jarquin are dealing with two different themes, but are documenting and showing our present landscape in Florida’s society.

Eternal by Corryn Lytle works on the same level as Alicia Lynn’s images.  You understand and feel the relation of the subjects, which is a documentation of the special bond and unconditional love shared between a little girl named Marlea and her Great Aunt Sarah.  We are reminded of the lack of innocence as adults when viewing these images.  The only negative thing I have to say about Lytle’s work is that I want to see more images and in a wider span of time if possible.

Becoming the Son by Robert Biferie was a very powerful work on a conceptual level, where he acknowledges his father’s influence in his life by combining the images of churches that his father took with his own images of natural landscapes.  To me this speaks on many different levels.  This attempt to combine two definitions in what they believe is spiritual, his father’s search for some kind of resolution in religion, and Robert’s natural landscapes could be seen as his own church in a spiritual sense.  This reminds me of sorts the story of Jesus’s and his conversation with his Father the night prior to being captured by Roman soldiers, where he went through a barrage of emotions and coming to an understanding.  The series is a very private conversation between Robert and his father and only he knows the outcome.

The one body of work that surprised me the most was that of Nicholas McNeill titled Persona.  The four images on displayed are a self-portrait of a young man, but the face is always cropped right below the nose.  He is dressed the same in blue dress shirt and jeans in all the images, but the setting, the object he holds in his hands, and his shoes change in each image.  You can see a very controlling and intentional hand of the photographer in all the images.  What surprised me is that I did not agree with his artist statement and the images shown.  He goes into too much into detail of what inspired him or in this case a physical handicap that formed his identity that I feel he loses sight of what his work reflects.  Yes as artists we sometimes lose sight of what our intentions with our results.  The images caught my attention because of the darkness, oddity, and controling factor reenacting a past scenario by photographer and not so much about “fitting in.”

I want to congratulate the graduating class of 2014, and I hope to see works from these photographers/artists in the future.

Pt. 3 (Final) of my thesis

En El Nombre de…(In Thy Name of…) Inkjet Print, 2014.

 

THE EXPERIENCE

The second body of work for my thesis exhibition celebrates a real life experience that seemed to pose the question, “Is God speaking to me?”

The experience in question happened about two years ago, when a blue notebook appeared on top of an electrical transformer in my neighborhood.  After several days of noticing the book go unmoved, my curiosity finally won and I opened the book.  I was amazed to find pages filled with color slides, with images touching on religious themes of astronomy, idolatry, creationism, morality, natural disasters, paganism, history, and religious iconography.  The slides may have been used as part of a sermon, because each page was labeled by subject matter and with a brief description in Spanish.  I began to wonder, “Is this experience directed only at me?”  I thought this because I found this notebook two houses down from my address, and because I collect things related to photography.  Furthermore, the writing throughout the notebook was in Spanish, and the majority of the enclosed images related to religion in some form.  In the past people who claim to have communicated with God typically describe their experiences as voices in their heads, some type of apparition, or something that they alone understand.  My own, strange experience could be characterized in those terms.

The sculptures Zarza Ardiente (Burning Bush), and El Vitral de Pedro (Peter’s Stained Glass Window) are inspired by this experience (Figs. 11, 12).  I began to relate my experience to Moses and the Burning Bush because both of us interacted with an inanimate object that was the vehicle for communication with a higher power.  I do believe my unusual experience was addressed to me, and it became my responsibility to create artwork to share with people.

My intentions with Zarza Ardiente was to recreate a life-size, common electrical transformer that is found in the suburbs, but at the same time is an object that does not seem part of this world, to evoke a spiritual feeling, since I wanted it to coincide with my experience, and to be more spiritual than religious.  With the slides my intention was to create a vehicle that had a double function.  I wanted to simulate a stained glass window, because as a child I would sit in church looking at the beautiful colors emanating from the glass and their distorting effect upon the landscape on the other side while I wondered what was transpiring in the world.  The other function was a light box, because I wanted to emulate daylight and a light box is a tool that photographers use to view slides.

Each slide depicts an issue that troubles the world and is still connected to everyday life, but that offers no resolutions or explanations.  I titled the piece El Vitral de Pedro, because Saint Peter is the founding father of the Catholic Church.  I wondered if St. Peter could look at this window, how would he interpret these slides?  Is the subject matter of the slides a consequence of him having created God’s church?  Would St. Peter be happy, angry, or sad?  My intentions for the window were to display the slides in a grid, so that those who view it can face, as I did, the dilemma of deciphering its message.

 

Zarza Ardiente (Burning Bush) Acrylic, LED lights, and sound, 2014.

 

El Vitral de Pedro (Peter’s Stained Glass Window), Lightbox, and found slides, 2014.

 

El Vitral de Pedro (Peter’s Stained Glass Window), Lightbox, and found slides, 2014.

El Vitral de Pedro (Peter’s Stained Glass Window), Detail, Lightbox and found slides, 2014.

 

CONCLUSION

My spirituality developed from my experiences in Catholicism as well as nature, society, relationships, and family.  Also, by visiting museums, exhibitions and galleries, I have found ways to further reflect upon the world’s current situation.  Simply going to Mass and hearing the sermon of the week no longer mediate my view of the world.

I have learned that my artwork is working like the religious imagery that I had a hard time connecting with in the beginning, in such way that the photographs and the sculptures demonstrate my understanding of the scriptures, my faith, my culture, my time period, and my wanting to share a spiritual experience.

This self-exploration shows my struggles with my faith, whether I make light of it or at the same time hold it in high regards.  I believe in a higher power, but to say that it is definitely God, Allah, or Buddha, I cannot decide.  I struggle with the need to give it a face or a body, something that I can identify, something tangible and thus similar to the doubt that Thomas had.

 

Pt. 2 of my thesis.

Continuation from last post.

 

CREATING

I use photography in this project to establish a tangible connection to my corporeal existence.  My problem with paintings and drawings is that they are not realistic, by which I mean they do not represent something I have personally witnessed, touched, or captured, which a camera has the ability to document.  Yes, a photograph “can lie” with the use of darkroom and Photoshop techniques, but photography still has the power to make the viewer question reality in a way that no other visual mediums can, except for video.  Another aspect about photography that made it viable for my intentions is that I was interpreting my beliefs, after all “interpretive photographs make no claims to truth or that they do not have truth value.  Fiction can offer truths about the world” (Barrett 78).

For the past several years I have two criteria for taking photographs that invoke my spiritual side and seem to reflect a biblical scripture, namely that: (1.) I must shoot instinctively, and (2.) I must only use found scenery.  The reason for this is because I am approaching my subject matter as a documentarian, capturing God’s hand at work.  My photographsof the soap, which is part of the triptych En El Nombre de…(In Thy Name of…), and Blessed (Bendecido), were the only exceptions to these criteria (Figs. 4, 6).

I understand that the images are open to interpretation, but I needed to keep the images consistent in reflecting my understanding of the scriptures.  I titled the work to inform the viewer of my intentions.  One example is in the triptych, El Frutos de Nuestro… (The Fruits of Our…), in which I leave the title vague enough for the viewer to complete the title with such words as: labor, love, loins, the Holy Spirit, etc. (Fig. 5).  The three images in the triptych address the elements of the Adam and Eve story that most strongly resonate with me.  It is most significant that Eve was created from Adam’s rib, that the pair lived in Paradise, and that we are their descendants.  I envisioned the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in a contemporary setting, and I used imagery arising from my interpretation of the scripture.  The first photo documents the bruised ribcage of my friend, whose name is Adam.  The second photo employs an idealized setting to represent Paradise, which is inhabited by a couple scanning the landscape.  The third image contains a pole with nametags.  All three images direct the viewer to provide the titles based on their own interpretations.

An artist, who works with the theme of religion, using primarily the medium of photography, is Duane Michals.  He was raised Catholic, as was I, and has made photographs that dealt with his struggles and understanding of religion.  “Michals used three to fifteen shots to compose picture stories which, however, were not usually complete narrations, but mysterious events meant to raise questions and to entice the viewer into further contemplation” (Bieger-Thielemann 433).  In the piece titled Paradise Regained, Duane Michals made a series of six images that show one male and one female in their apartment, and as the series progresses the two slowly lose their clothing as the apartment becomes more like a garden.  The sequence of the photographs suggests that we should consider letting go of our worldly possessions, to regain the paradise we have lost.  Unlike his suggestions, my version is a re-visioning of the story of Adam and Eve of the parts that made me question its validity.

My use of personal imagery was vital to ending the religious confusion that I had experienced, because it required me to engage my notions of my culture, my race, my beliefs, and the time period that I live in.  Although many of the images are serious, such as El Frutos de Nuestro…, others allow me to poke fun at myself.  En El Nombre de…(In Thy Name of…) is an example of the latter (Fig. 6).  As a child I had difficulty grasping the concept of the Holy Trinity for two reasons:  (1.) the Holy Trinity consists of three beings, namely the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, though it is regarded as a single entity, and (2.) the distinction between the two Fathers of Jesus Christ.  How can Jesus have two fathers?  I had always incorrectly assumed that Joseph is the father of Jesus.  Joseph was the father of Jesus only on earth, and is not the Almighty Father.  I incorporate my own symbolism to artistically share my confusion.  I photographed a clipboard that had the name, Jose, written in graffiti style – as if my discovery of the name itself were a miracle.  José is the Spanish language equivalent for Joseph, which is significant because Spanish is my first language.  The Holy Spirit is often symbolized as a white dove, which – also by coincidence – is the trademark of my mother’s favorite brand of soap.  The triptych uses cryptic symbolism to embody the things that define me: family, language, and beliefs.

Christmas contributed to my confusion about what to believe.  Under my Christmas tree the presents were labeled from “Niño (Baby) Jesus,” and not Santa Claus.  At home I was being exposed to one ideology, and at school, another.  In the triptych, Noche de Paz (Silent Night),I address this apparent contradiction (Fig. 7).  The first image is that of a family of snow people, the second is a fence, but in the distance are Christmas lights forming a star with the moon in view.  The final image is a Nativity scene.  I illustrate the cultural dichotomy juxtaposing Christian and secular North American icons, the family of Jesus beside the snow family.   My comparison is obvious, but I do not indicate which, if either, iconography better represents Christmas.

The images titled Cuarenta (Forty) and Tercer Dia (Third Day) satisfied the two criteria mentioned in this paper, and they were the only two taken with a pinhole camera (Figs. 8, 9).  The 4” X 5” Leonard pinhole camera that I used lacks a viewfinder, which forced me to guess at the pictures’ composition.  Another procedural element that I left to fate in these two images was their long exposure times.

The idea for Cuarenta was to make a symbolic 40-day exposure of my bedroom to reference Lent, which commemorates the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness. Catholics fast and sacrifice a token during this period.  I decided to photograph my bedroom, because the camera needed a secure and steady location to record me, the subject, during the exposure.

Cuarenta and Tercer Dia were influenced by the works of photographer Michael Wesely, who uses long time exposures of days to years.  I employed Michael Wesely’s formula, in which he places heavy density filters over the pinhole so as not to expose the film too quickly during long exposures.  I attempted to develop an image on film, but failed.  The reason for the failure was that I used too many red filters to cover the pinhole.  In my final attempt I exposed the film during the 40 days of Lent without filters.  The result is a wide-angled image of my bedroom, with certain objects appearing as ghostly material, and in others a bright white light.  Wesely stated, “The framework is an architectural view, but it’s only the frame.  Time itself is the subject, manifesting itself in many details.  The details are the essential things that tell the story, and for that reason it is important to look closely” (Meister 13).  Time is the main concept in both of my images.  During the forty days the shutter was open it recorded me sleeping, getting dressed, having sex, having conversations, making decisions, making sacrifices, etc.  It became a photo diary of my life.  Wesely is more interested in documenting the activities around him, instead of documenting himself.  In his early work he experimented with long exposures at train stations across Europe, by positioning his camera on the platforms of trains heading to Munich.  He would then expose the film for the duration of a trip, starting with the train’s departure until it reached Munich, his birthplace.  His first successful one yearlong exposure made was titled 29.7.1996-29.7.1997, Office of Helmut Friedel (Fig. 10).  Wesely concluded that if he could make a yearlong exposure, why not undertake a two or three-year exposure, which he then embarked on.

My work and Michael Wesely’s employ long exposures and share a concept of time, although our subject differs.  Instead of documenting the activity of the world myself, as Michael Wesely does, I choose to document my own bedroom, a private space that only a few people see.

Cuarenta and Tercer Dia also differ from the other photographs in that I did not know what would be captured on film; I was working with faith in hopes that a wonderful image would be the result, distinguishing it from the other images, which imply how I view the scriptures.  If I were to try and retake these images their results would be different.

 

En Frutos de Nuestro…(The Fruits of Our….)by Ivan Riascos, Inkjet Print, 2014.

Bendecido (Blessed) by Ivan Riascos, Inkjet Print, 2014.

Cuarenta (Forty) by Ivan Riascos, Inkjet Print, 2014.

My Thesis

Hi Everyone,

I recently finished my MFA degree and I have decided to put my thesis paper on wordpress. I will be posting according to chapters. If the response is good I will keep posting. In the end I will put a link to my artwork.

Please remember this is copyrighted, so please respect! If anyone wants the actual PDF, please go to UCF Library to view it.  Also I added links for references only on the web, they were not part of the original paper.

Best,

Ivan

 

 

DOUBTING THOMAS: THE TESTAMENTS

by

IVAN RIASCOS

B.F.A the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2008

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of Master of Fine Arts

in the School of Visual Arts and Design

in the College of Arts and Humanities

at the University of Central Florida

Orlando, Florida

Spring Term  2014

© 2014 Ivan Riascos

 

ABSTRACT

This paper will discuss the creation of my artwork, which has been inspired by my experiences and understandings of Catholicism and its icons.  I will consider how iconography works in art, its influence, and how and why I have created this artwork dealing with my beliefs.  I will also refer to the works of contemporary artists Duane Michals and Michael Wesely to help explain my exhibition, which I have titled “Doubting Thomas: The Testaments.”

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.. 1

UNDERSTANDING AND DOUBTS. 2

 

 

INTRODUCTION

Having been raised in a religious household I witnessed my mother’s unwavering belief in and devotion to Catholicism, despite highly publicized reports of pedophilia, and corruption within the institution.  When I was a child I did not question going to Mass or the Church’s teachings, but as I got older, those teachings began to conflict with what I was witnessing in the world.  Also, I often felt disconnected from the religious imagery I was exposed to, because I was taught that the images were actual representations of what had happened according to the scriptures.  Instead, that imagery came from the imagination of an artist and his view of the world, or from his interpretation of the scriptures of the Bible, which did not relate to my views or offer substantial proof.

For my thesis show I have created two bodies of work that explore my experiences and understanding of Christianity.   First is the use photography to create my understanding of the biblical stories that my mother and I often discussed.  The second are sculptures referencing a specific experience that I believe was directed, perhaps from God, towards only me.  That experience raised the question, “Is God communicating with me”?  For the installation, I created an object similar to the one that I encountered during the event to recapture the spiritual effect it had on me.

This paper will discuss how and why I created the photographs from the first part of my exhibition and the sculptural installation for this exhibition, which I have titled “Doubting Thomas: The Testaments.”

 

UNDERSTANDING AND DOUBTS

In this chapter I will provide a brief history of Catholic iconography and of my formerly incomplete understanding of it to justify my thesis.

The origins of iconography are hard to determine, because many cultures have been shown to “write with images.”  Iconography is a term used in anthropological studies and art studies.  Iconography is also general term applicable—generically—to the West and the East, as well as to their respective religious sub-genres, such as Christian, Orthodox, and Buddhist.  Each branch has specific criteria, such as its location, culture, beliefs, and a system of symbols that have been established through historical studies.

In the Oxford Dictionary of Art the word icon is defined as:

An image of a saint or other holy personage, particularly when the image is regarded by the devotee as sacred in itself and capable of facilitating contact between him or her and the personage portrayed.  The term, which derives from the Greek word eikōn, meaning ‘likeness’, has been applied particularly to sacred images of the Byzantine Church and the Orthodox Churches of Russia and Greece (The Oxford Dictionary of Art).

Because several meanings and histories of icons exist I do not intend to write broadly about the subject.  Instead I primarily discuss Catholic iconography I was exposed to and its relevance to my artwork.

While growing up I encountered religious iconography inside churches and in an illustrated Bible.  I accepted their truths as literal.  Two paintings that affected me were Saint Michael the Archangel Michael Bringing Down Lucifer by Francesco Solimena, and The Collapse of the Tower of Babel by the Dutch School.  Solimena’s painting depicted a winged creature banishing the angel who was to become Satan.  But I began to wonder, if Michael had the opportunity to defeat Lucifer once and for all, why did he not do so?  Michael would have eliminated evil in the world.  I believed that evil arose from Satan’s desire to lead us away from God.  Where did a world of winged, and powerful creatures come from?  How did they relate to me?  Would they rule over me if I reached heaven?  How does someone become an angel?  It did scare me into not wanting to be a sinner and end up in hell.  I was less inquisitive about The Collapse of the Tower of Babel because its message was clear and it was such a powerful image that I did not question its validity.  In the story of the tower of Babel, God was angered that humans believed they could reach heaven on their own.  God destroyed the tower and created different languages so humans could not complete the construction of the tower.  I reacted equally strongly to images that depicted the scriptures in which God punished humans for not obeying him, especially from the Old Testament, such as; The Destruction of Sodom by Jean Baptiste Corot (http://worldvisitguide.com/oeuvre/O0030826.html), The Evening of the Deluge by John Martin (http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_130359/John-Martin/The-Evening-of-the-Deluge-1828), The Plague of Asdod by Nicolas Poussin (http://bible-library.com/imgfullsize?id=ag1iaWJsZS1saWJyYXJ5chALEgdQaWN0dXJlGI_w8QIM), etc.  These images blurred truth and fiction and confused me as a child.  Images created by these artists matched my understanding of particular scriptures.  I was taught, “you do not question the word of God,” which meant the Bible is the truth.  At the same time I was being taught in school the theory of Evolution and other scientific theories.  Why did men attempt to give us a metaphorical understanding of the world at a time when it was not possible to explain the phenomena referenced in these stories?  This conflict weakened my trust in biblical scriptures as tools for resolving my daily moral dilemmas.

When author Albert Moore discusses Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn’s, The HundredGuilder Print (http://www.artbible.info/art/large/446.html), he suggests that an icon is a ‘likeness,’ and that the reality it seeks to embody is actually present.  Thus Rembrandt’s etching shows us that Jesus was a person 2000 years ago who preached and healed the sick.  The picture purports to provide us his likeness despite the fact that neither Rembrandt nor anyone else could be sure of what Jesus looked like.  At the same time we are drawn into the picture as a depiction of the present, for it represents (makes present again) to our mind’s eye Jesus meeting a group of people who would have seen him.  The “reality” of the image has simply been taken from its original time and place – or at least from Rembrandt’s – and made available to us (Moore 30).

Over the years as an artist I’ve learned that the purpose (or effect) of art is to illustrate the artist’s intentions as well as the culture and time period that the artist lived in.  “Art is sometimes classified by anthropologists as cultural tradition and as communication-to convey ideas and emotions by means of conventions and formal symbols and to reinforce beliefs, customs and values” (Moore 33).

After reading Albert Moore’s ideas, I understood my feeling of separation from the religious imagery I had grown up with.  These images from the past did not relate and coincide with my understanding of the world.  This alienation became a primary motivation for the creation of this body of work.

Three main things that I was taught about faith were: (1.) one does not question it, because God works in mysterious ways; (2.) God’s intentions for us are incomprehensible to us, and (3.) one can witness God’s hand in the everyday if one pays attention.  The ideas correspond to “blind faith,” which I had difficulty with, but the third idea was also a motivation for my thesis project, which meant if I witness God’s hand at work or its results, I can photograph it.

To be continued…

Zarza Ardiente (Burning Bush)

I know it has been awhile since I last posted on my blog, but my last year in graduate school has been a very busy one.  I promised a couple of my readers to post a picture of a sculpture I have written about.  Please reference “The Object,” originally posted on April 2013.  The sculpture photographed will be part of my thesis show.  I had this sculpture fabricated in acrylic, and it is a life size replica of an electrical transformer you find in the suburbs. Click on it to enlarge it!

Interview with Coco Fusco and Team Coco at the Atlantic Center for the Arts

Sorry for being silent for such a long period, but with me being in my last year of the MFA program things have gotten very busy.   Earlier this year I had the pleasure and privilege to interview Coco Fusco and her Team at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. This is my first time interviewing and I hope you find it interesting.

Interview with Coco Fusco and Team Coco at the Atlantic Center for the Arts

Art World aka Theme Parks.

So I live in Orlando, Florida, the world’s foremost expert in theme park experiences.  Over the weekend I flew to NYC to view James Turrell’s, Aten Reign at the Guggenheim, and Paul McCarthy’s, WS at the Park Avenue Armory.  Both were in a sense a theme park based experiences that overtook the entire interior of building they were exhibiting at.  Two polar opposite artists in every sense of the word, from the issues they address, Turrell dealing with the spiritual and how light affects our lives, and McCarthy addressing consumerism that is heavily driven with sexuality and fantasy, to the medium they work in, Turrell principally works with light, and McCarthy with video, and over the top installations.

James Turrell’s piece takes over the entire rotunda at the Guggenheim (http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/on-view/james-turrell ).  They altered the circular staircase to accommodate for the visual aspect in creating the experience of Aten Reign.  To fully enjoy this piece one needs to dedicate an hour of laying on the first floor, or grabbing a seat along the perimeter.  The best way to describe the piece is to imagine a slow moving color field, which envelops you.  The majority of the time is spent looking up that at the graduation through a spectrum of various colors.  The center circle remains a neutral white that is not apparent at first.  This neutral white is actually the natural light filtered from outside.  The more you look at it the more it becomes like a meditative piece.  You start to think how beautiful the world is in having witnessed such a beautiful creation, or things that you overlooked because you are too busy to notice the subtle changes in your daily surroundings.  Another aspect that is overlooked in the piece is that it’s a wonderful place to people watch.  Seeing the people’s reactions while they look up or lay down.  The security guard futilely repeating to the visitors that photography is prohibited.  Also the colors in Aten Reign causes a chain reaction to the colors in the room, so depending what you are wearing you will see colors become fluorescent or a different color.

Paul McCarthy’s WS, is the taking of Walt Disney’s tale of Snow White (http://gothamist.com/2013/06/18/paul_mccarthy.php#photo-1 ), and twisting the story with many references such as: biographical (the set and house is a replica of where the artist grew up), art history (Olympia by Manet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympia_(Manet) ,  The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden by Masaccio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_from_the_Garden_of_Eden), Oedipus (the relationship between the characters White Snow, the mother figure and Walt Paul aka Paul McCarthy, the son), Hollywood set designing, and to add a final topping to the cake McCarthy mimics a Disney store where actual Snow White merchandise can be purchased.  This show has an age restriction of no one under 17 is allowed to enter.

I will admit that prelude to visiting WS, I saw Llyn Foulkes retrospect show at the New Museum.  Some of Foulkes work was heavily influenced by the Mickey Mouse Club handbook where his belief that Disney’s intentions are to brain wash children’s minds.

Below is an excerpt from the THE MICKEY MOUSE CLUB handbook:

The primary purpose of the club is two fold:

a) It provides an easily arranged and inexpensive method of getting and holding the patronage of youngsters.

…Everyone knows how strong the “gang” instinct is in children.  The Mickey Mouse club is unique in that it…implants beneficial principles, the latter so completely shorn of any suggestions of “lessons” of lecturing, that children absorb them almost unconsciously.”

While viewing WS I saw the same issues being address by McCarthy.  His installation in the main room consisted of 3 large screens on one side of the room, with duplicate videos being shown on 3 other large screens.  They show a party that is unraveling with White Snow and her different personification (each personality wears a specific color yellow, blue, and red), since there are 3 princesses then there has to be 3 Prince Charmings, Walt Paul, and 9 dwarfs.  The movie is 7 hours long, so if you want to see the ending you need to stay till the closing.

Between the video screens there is a large set of the interior of the house where the evidence and bodies of the party gone wrong remain, including the smells of the food left over.  The sets are the same location viewed in the videos.  Of course you can’t forget the magical forest where White Snow and the Dwarfs reside in, which was recreated but in plastic plants and trees that have the color of human excrement and somewhat shape like it.  Also located within the forest the artist offers you an exterior view of the house, with its white trim and yellow siding.  The side rooms in the armory include videos showing.  These videos are chapters to the story.  One video includes Prince Charming having intercourse with an animated sex doll of White Snow, basically he is trying to revive our princess.  The strongest video for me was Adam & Eve, Etant Donnes.   Seeing WS and Walt Paul running naked in slow motion and the slowing down of the audio their voices calling in agony, you feel the pain, shame, and the gravity of the crime they have committed.  It heavily references The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

Going through the different viewing aspects of the installation; eye level, peeping through windows, cut out holes, from below, and from up above, you feel like you are in a Disney amusement ride minus the cart on the rails, and the innocence.  The viewer is constantly bombarded visually and especially auditory, no matter where you go it mixes with other sounds of the installation.

Both exhibitions or should I dare to say theme rides, was such an interesting clash of perspectives, but powerful and strong artistic statements.  One installation being so meditative and spiritual, while the other installation being perverted and decadent, showing the ugly side of humanity in a very pessimistic way.  But of course real life works the same way in that you have good days and bad days and to me this is the beauty of seeing both works back to back.

Review of The Aesthetics of Scale by Simmons and Lines

One of the small treasures in the area for those seeking to be exposed to contemporary themes in the art world, the Orlando Museum of Art has a program called New Work: A Series of Bi-Monthly Exhibitions of Contemporary Art.  I always look forward to seeing these exhibitions, which are shown in a small gallery space, that is set-aside from the museum’s main galleries and an added bonus, it’s free! So how can you beat that?

The majority of the time the art shown here is more cutting edge and conceptual than what is shown in the museum’s main galleries.

New Work is aimed to educate viewers in the area of contemporary art that work in various mediums including new media and collaborative projects.

The exhibition I went to see was The Aesthetics of Scale, by Rachel Simmons and Lee Lines (http://www.omart.org/exhibitions/rachel-simmons-lee-lines).  The images were black and white on white paper, with visible traces of charcoal and graphite.  The sizes of the paper were roughly 16 X 20 inches or 8 X 10 inches, which was a series they titled POSTCARDS, even though they were not the standard size of a postcard.  The imagery came from photographs taken by Lines on his travels across the world, which are later transferred by a printing method to paper.  Barren landscapes and modern structures are juxtaposed.  The choices made by the duo sometimes work and sometimes loses the formal qualities and disorients me, questioning what I’m looking at.

The pieces that I thought were particularly strong were;

–Landscape as Measure 2, I thought of how humans make themselves at home no matter how isolate the area.

–Economy of Scale, made me think of arteries and how we are connected.

–Unconformity 2, the past versus the present, or is the past in the picture really the present, but we assume time lines without understanding the full scope.

–Landscape as Measure, is it possible to contain the world in glass houses, and of course what happens when we throw stones at these structures.

The Postcards, were smaller images, covering one wall from top to bottom, and reusing the imagery from the large prints, but juxtapose differently, which did not offer any new insights to the artists intentions.

This exhibit was collaboration between an artist (Simmons) and a scientist (Lines), a dialog between the professions that started on a trip to Iceland where they witnessed first hand a nation that is dedicated to renewable energy.   They are addressing scale and sustainability in the landscape.

Overall the concept is very contemporary, but the artwork and use of materials did not relate to the concept.  It did not bring it into the 21^st century, which stop me from defining it as contemporary art other than the fact the year is was made.

Here is a link to Rachel Simmons’s blog that has some of the images from the show.  http://www.omart.org/exhibitions/rachel-simmons-lee-lines

Review of SNAP! in Orlando

SNAP! took place this past weekend, which is a five-day photography festival.  Three years running and with each year the festival grows in bring in a talented scope of photographers/artists that work in this medium.  This year’s theme was Motion to Light.

Over the years SNAP! has shown photographs that are very beautiful, and this year is no exception, for example Jill Greenberg’s portraits of horses; sharp, clean, large, luscious, and mesmerizing to look at, in other words eye candy.  SNAP! organizers try to bring different genres of photography such as: fashion, commercial, documentary, portraiture, and conceptual, but the main qualification that dominates what gets into the show is eye candy, and I believe this to be a handicap sometimes.

In this critque I have decided to only write about photographs/art I found interesting in the festival:

Stephen Knapp’s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqWnU3ClG6I) light painting titled Next Yesterday, grabbed my attention at first glanced.  This piece was installed on the second floor with one directional light, its beam broken up my various shapes and sizes of glass that created color fields as the light shined through.  It reminded me a little of Dan Flavin’s installations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Flavin), but without the fluorescent tubes, and this twist grabbed my attention with is jagged edges, and the way the light traveled from intense colors to soft hues in various directions creating a kaleidoscope on the wall.  His photos on the other hand were too closely related to Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and I felt the images functioned as documentation of his light installations.

George Rousse’s work came to mind when I saw Jeff Frost’s photographs, but the videos he made I found strong and captivating, again a twist on something that has been done before, but mixing video and stop motion into the artwork.  He showed three videos titled: Flawed Symmetry of Prediction, Modern Ruins, and War Paint for Trees, the videos not only references George Rousse’s work, but National Geographic, NASA, movies, and news broadcasts. His installations that referenced George Rousse came to life in their creation, but at the same time he wants the audience be aware that no graphics or CGI was used to create the videos, which I believe is not necessary.  Why destroy the illusion of what is transpiring? Does the audience need to know?

The last body of work that caught my eye was the large photos of Kerry Skarbakka (http://www.skarbakka.com/portfolios/struggle.htm).  Where each image is a self-portrait of him falling from different scenarios, such as a balcony, a tree, a cliff, stairs and slipping on something in the living room.  Two images where he falls from the tree, and him is slipping, closely references Sam Taylor-Wood’s photographs (http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/sam%20taylor%20wood), where the overall feel of the movement is that of levitation and not the movement of falling, which results in being weak in what his body of work. When he blurs the line of reality and makes you believe that he is actually falling, he makes the viewer’s mind race with several questions i.e.; Did he survived his fall without major injuries?  To what point of desperation is an artist driven to capture what he is trying to convey?  Were there props to break his fall? Or how many attempts did the artist do until he felt it was perfect? And this is what makes these images intriguing and beautiful.

I want to educate people on the history of photography and to point out the differences between past and present photographers/artists, and how they work, this is why I name artists that I see have something in common.  I firmly believe SNAP benefits the Orlando area in educating the public on current themes and trends in photography that is seldom seen here since we live in a world dominated by theme parks.