Art Appreciation 4 - DPChallenge Forums

09/19/2002 05:21:00 AM · #1

Here are 1, 2 and... 3... what happened to that? If this is going to be happening to any more of these posts, it would be a huge shame... as far as I know, "fair use" exemptions to copyright law allow reproduction of images (especially low quality reproductions, on a non-profit site) for the purposes of education.

Anyway, I've intended to keep posting these, but I was really busy for a while and then got lazy :). However, I've wanted to post about this artist for a while, so here goes.

This is an image called "My hands are my heart #2" by Gabriel Orozco.

There's a really large scan of it here, which looks great on my desktop :). Here you can see this photo along with the first (#1) photo in that series, however #2 seems a lot more popular since I can only find larger versions of it on the web, and none of #1.

Orozco is a Mexican artist who works in sculpture and photography. I saw some of his photos at the Guggenheim when I was there in July, and found them breathtakingly beautiful. All of his photos are related to his sculpture in some way, which makes them quite unique. He works with found objects in both media, it just seems as though when the objects he wants to work with are only transient, or won't have the same meaning when they are removed from their context, he photographs them instead of presenting them as sculptures.

In this photo the sculptural element is the clay in his hands, which as you can see in #1 has been pressed with his fingers to create those impressions. He holds it forward in his hands as though he's displaying his heart for us. My feeling from this photo is that it's an interesting exploration of the relationship between the artist and his work, and his audience. With his hands, he creates his work, and then shows it to us. The work is so personal, and reflects so much of the artist, that he really is showing us himself through it, his own heart. His hands in this case are a part of the artwork itself, and they were used to create it. So the title "My hands are my heart" is very poignant to me.

I think this is an interesting photo to discuss right now because of the emotional tension there has been lately in these forums. We ARE our artwork, and when people criticise our photos it's hard not to take it personally and be wounded by it. How much of DPC is about judging the photo and how much is about judging the photographer who took it? It's a difficult subject.

Orozco's photos are usually not so personal, they're a more contemplative exploration of nature and objects, a mingling of the built and natural environments. His work is described as "lyrical" a lot of the time, as though it's more akin to poetry than art. Here are a series of untitled photos of a small plastic ball floating in a puddle that reflects the sky, which I saw at the Guggenheim:

Something I'd like people to think about is - what is the nature of photography? Is it a work of art in itself, or does the "art" exist in the world outside the camera, and is only captured or represented by the photo? I'm going to talk more about this in my next Art Appreciation post :). I'd really like to know what other people think of these photos, so please post your impressions.

Message edited by author 2002-12-16 11:43:00.

09/19/2002 08:23:47 AM · #2

Lisa,

I really like the "My Hands Are My Heart #2" photo. I think that this photo could also be appropriately titled "Offering" or something of that nature as well. This is a good example of a photo that conveys a powerful mood. In a photo like this, the 'technical' issues don't really matter much to me. The image displayed here and the mood/message conveyed overrides anything else...

09/19/2002 10:05:04 AM · #3

"My hands are my heart #2" by Gabriel Orozco is so powerful I am stuned. It speaks so deeply of Creation and the act of creation and our role as artist.

The other reminds me of Monet's Waterlillies series. Variations on a theme. Perfect for meditations.

Thanks lisea

09/19/2002 11:04:06 AM · #4

Bump :)

Gordon

RIM BlackBerry Curve

Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM

09/19/2002 11:35:00 AM · #5

Originally posted by lisae:
Bump :)

I find myself feeling inadequate in the face of the interesting pictures
Lisae is posting here. I feel slightly discouraged for a couple of
reasons

1/ I don't think any of my pictures have one tenth of the thought
or interest that have gone into these.

2/ I think all of the pictures you've shown would do terribly badly
on here.

But I've decided its time I learn to draw as a start towards trying
to improve the pictures I take - who knows, I might start taking some
good ones some day.

09/19/2002 11:39:49 AM · #6

Gordon, I think this is why we need an 'imposter' account here at DPC that posts a famous photo of some sort to the challenges to see how they stack up in the face of the dpc voter...

Seeker

Canon EOS-30D

09/19/2002 02:49:14 PM · #7

As a newbie I've been hesitant to "add my 2 cents" but this forum touched on something I've been thinking about while wading through all the posts, rants, critiques, etc. I remember a quote but don't know the source that went:

A man who works with his hands is a laborer.
A man who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
But a man who works with his hands, his head and his heart is an artist.

Here is an example of a "technically flawed" image yet its power and presence overrides these "flaws". As pointed out I wonder how this would be scored? Points off for the color cast? Points off for the missing head? Cropped too tight? Where are his elbows? Yet the image can touch and inspire. It speaks.

If it speaks, it's art.
If it whispers, itâ��s a photograph.
If it's silent, itâ��s a snapshot.

Would this be a valid criteria upon which to vote?

* This message has been edited by the author on 9/19/2002 2:48:17 PM.

09/19/2002 03:34:35 PM · #8

Seeker, any way that you feel comfortable scoring photographs is probably the best way to do it. Everyone has their own methods...

09/19/2002 03:45:44 PM · #9

But I Seeker, find your thoughts very agreeable.
Welcome. May you find much more to say. :)
aelith

Seeker

Canon EOS-30D

09/19/2002 05:48:13 PM · #10

I just realized I may have opened the door to a voting criteria debate which is not what I meant to do. (Sorry Lisae) I'm curious about the artistic aspect of photography and thought this forum on art may be the place to ask questions about the judging of art. Is it art if I have to be educated on how to view it before it can be appreciated? Many works can touch the viewer/listener without any art background at all. Is this the "high art" I've heard about? Is it only art when it can touch someone without regard to education, background, borders, race or any other affiliation? Since you seem to have such a strong artistic bent (based on many of your posts and the fact you're creating these appreciation forums) I thought you would be the one to ask Lisae.

* This message has been edited by the author on 9/19/2002 5:48:45 PM.

09/19/2002 09:31:15 PM · #11

Well, I think that there's a special problem in western society that impedes our ability to view art. We're always surrounded by visual stimuli from our TVs and movies and magazines and packaging and billboards, so we learn a certain way to look at images. We expect them to have an impact on us without requiring us to think about them at all, and if they are at all uncomfortable to look at (compared to the simply composed, well balanced images we see each day) we react against them.

In a lot of other cultures people are more used to being surrounded by religious or even historical artwork, and expect art to have a meaning they need to think about. I can only imagine what it would be like to grow up in one of Italy's ancient cities and be surrounded by Renaissance art, sculpture and architecture all my life. Or to grow up in India surrounded by Hindu statues and paintings of the gods, all telling stories and full of significance that I would begin to understand at a very early age.

So perhaps it's not really that we have to be "educated" to understand art, it's more that we have to be able to re-educate ourselves, or just open our minds and stop resisting images that require some thought. It's not that difficult a process. Somehow I started it at an early age, and I really, really thank my parents for taking me to some art exhibitions when I was a kid. I struggled to understand all those paintings, they didn't seem comprehensible at all to me, until I started to work out that there are things to look for like colour and shapes and composition... and that whenever I identify one of those things I should take the next step and ask myself "how does that make me feel?".

Perhaps we're all too used to being manipulated by all the images around us each day that we don't pay enough attention to that last step.

As an example - I didn't say this in my post but something that really grabs me about Orozco's "My hands are my heart #2" photo is that the clay and his skin are the same colour, and the impressions in the clay line up with his ribs. His thumbs also parallel his clavicles (collar bones). It's easy enough to identify those things, but how does that make me feel? I'm still thinking about that.

09/19/2002 11:26:23 PM · #12

Ah hem, Lisae. Some americans do have art education. *grin* In fact I'm overeducated. Can't exscape any image's underlying message overt or covert.

And yes the color and lines said exactly the same to me. That's why I refered to Creation ---- "we are molded in HIS image" or so it is said.

At first glance I thought the clay was his body.

09/20/2002 01:26:02 AM · #13

Aelith, I know you weren't being completely serious, but I didn't use the word "American" once in my post. If I use the words "western society" and then follow it with "we" and "us" (bearing in mind I'm Australian), it's a bit annoying to be interpreted as criticising Americans.

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8G IF-ED

09/20/2002 02:20:11 AM · #14

Ok I will amend my friendly responce with "some westerners" do get Art Ed. Yourself included if informally by your standards.

I suspect you are right. Westerners have a strong bias towards visual communication that is saturated by the advertizing mentality of Hollywood and Madison avenue. (historically if not actually). There is no high art in McDonalds and I cringe to see it world wide like a red and yellow fungus.

As for seeker's question -- yes the best of the best usually speaks to every man -- of its culture and to anyone else who is open to the different.

hokie

Nikon D2X

09/20/2002 07:32:23 AM · #15

I'll tell you why people give you 5 seconds of thought on art or appear to have "No education"...a lot of folks only have 5 seconds to breath while they try to survive working, raising families and the millions of things that demand time of them.

Most people (myself included this week) just don't have the time on a regular basis to be introspective.

Yeah, if you sit around with a bunch or "deep thinkers" whose day is mainly made up of determining the meaning of whether a shift of 5.34 degrees of an owls beak means the artist is referring to heaven or hell...it APPEARS there is education at work. But mainly people don't have the time to do that.

This coming from a person who is an art/ad director. I get PAID to try and delve into the human psyche to find that right combination of "WoW! and "hmmmm?"...in images and designs. But...do you know where most of my stuff comes from? Spec/Stock work. Why? Because it is FAST!! Grab it and Bag it and don't forget to tag it.

So yeah..if you got time to wander through art galleries
and photo displays to discover the deep meaning (if there is any) to art...fantastic..I encourage it for sure. But time is the reason for most of western societies behaviour to art and culture..not lack of education in art or exposure to it.

Excuse me...gotta run >:-D

09/20/2002 08:49:48 AM · #16

I think I've been really badly misinterpreted. I was just trying to say I don't think it matters at all whether people are "educated" or not when they want to appreciate art, they just have to think about how it makes them feel. I never said a single thing about people being uneducated, I was just trying to say I don't think an education in art history is a pre-requisite to being able to do that.

But whatever.

* This message has been edited by the author on 9/20/2002 8:48:33 AM.

09/20/2002 08:55:33 AM · #17

My bad, you are quite correct. sorry

09/20/2002 09:24:52 AM · #18

Originally posted by lisae:
I think I've been really badly misinterpreted. I was just trying to say I don't think it matters at all whether people are "educated" or not when they want to appreciate art, they just have to think about how it makes them feel. I never said a single thing about people being uneducated, I was just trying to say I don't think an education in art history is a pre-requisite to being able to do that.

But whatever

This still ties into what Hokie is saying... The "Think about how it makes them feel" comment is the key. In "western culture", if the image does not have a very high initial impact, it is not likely to get that second thought. There must be something that grabs the viewer initially.

09/20/2002 09:36:17 AM · #19

Originally posted by jmsetzler:
This still ties into what Hokie is saying... The "Think about how it makes them feel" comment is the key. In "western culture", if the image does not have a very high initial impact, it is not likely to get that second thought. There must be something that grabs the viewer initially.

OK, I'm going to try this again :). Yes, this is true, it's what I started my previous post with. We're bashed over the head all the time with images that have that high initial impact and we're used to that. Then people who have this day in day out will sometimes look at something labeled "art" and wonder what on earth they're looking at. Seeker wanted to know whether we have to have a certain level of "education" to understand it, and my answer was no, I don't think so. You can take someone aside and tell them the whole history of art and every rule there is about colour theory and composition, etc. etc., but that doesn't teach them to stop and just ask that simple question (How does this make me feel?), which is the key, in my opinion.

I don't think people are ignorant for not doing this, or anything of that kind. I'm not the kind of person who thinks that there's a "better" way for the world to be. We're all just people existing in the same world and doing what we have to. I was just trying to give an answer to Seeker's questions.

09/20/2002 09:48:51 AM · #20

There is some 'education' sometimes required to look at art and YOU touched on it in an earlier post in this thread. You don't have to take an art appreciation class. All you need is a minor prod, possibly, to learn what questions to ask yourself when you are viewing.

I would love to see you post a totally GENERIC set of questions. Nothing specific.. Stuff like... "how do the colors blend and create an impact for you?" know what I mean?

09/20/2002 10:22:04 AM · #21

Hmm, well... thinking a bit more about this...

I really think the steps I go through when I see an image and I'm intending to think about it a bit (I don't always, I have other things to do as well you know :P) are a)"How does this make me feel?" and then b)"What in the picture is making me feel this way?"

It's funny, my boyfriend was just looking at some weird Japanese thing that had an anime girl with huge boobs shooting a laser out of her nipple to kill some monster. It was hilarious :). But I didn't have to wonder for very long why it was funny. Most of the time we don't have to think about those things. It's when an image is difficult to read that we have to go through that process deliberately (if we WANT to, of course) and wonder about it for a little while.

So... um... what am I saying? I think I know what you mean by the generic set of questions, but that kind of seems random to me because for any image that question of feeling comes first, in my mind, and THEN the realisation of what's creating that feeling. Perhaps this is why I don't look at overexposure or blur or any of those things as "flaws" in a picture straight off because if an image made me happy or sad or scared or whatever else, and I can put my finger on that blur or the blown out highlight somewhere and say that caused it, then it isn't a flaw.

In the end, all the reasons I come up with for why an image evokes certain feelings could be complete crap. Hokie is always saying that people really vote based on what they like/dislike and then justify it later, and I agree with that. It really is an arbitrary process :). It's handy to have a little shopping list of things to look for in an image to help you break it down and analyse why it works for you or doesn't work for you, at least so you feel like you're in control of the situation, but maybe it's just an illusion?

Eep, too metaphysical... *backs off*.

09/20/2002 11:32:49 AM · #22

Well, I'm in a very thoughtful mood tonight so I'm going to waffle a bit more and use the photos of the ball floating on the puddle as an example of how I approach art and why I think virtually anyone can do the same thing :).

First of all, I look at the photos and I see that they create a feeling in me that is calm, peaceful, contemplative, maybe with a touch of awe. As I've been saying all along, this is the important step, and it really takes SELF knowledge to do this more than anything else.

So then I start wondering why they make me feel that way. I'll start with the colour, because it's a very obvious feature of these photos. Blue dominates them all, with white highlights and some black shadowy areas. We all know that blue is calming... therapists tell you to picture a "calm blue ocean" when you're stressed. It's the colour of the sky, and in this case that's the origin of the blue colour. Looking at clouds in the sky is calming... is this why blue has that affect on us, or is the way blue makes us feel the reason why looking at the sky is calming? Chicken and egg argument :).

Then there is also the presence of water. There are many, many things to be said about water. In eastern philosophies like feng shui or the design of zen gardens, water is used for specific reasons to do with meditation. In ancient celtic stories bodies of water were like gateways to the other world, eg. the "lady of the lake" gave Arthur his sword and that signified his divinity. I'm sure in Orozco's culture there are other significances for water, and they influenced him in taking these photos. In the first photo the water is still, in the second the ball has made it splash, in the the third the ball just bobs on some ripples. I have a book called something like a "Dictionary of Symbols" that's sometimes useful to take out when I'm thinking about such things.

This leads me to wonder about the effect of the ball... Do I put myself in the ball's place there? It steals the focus of each photo, and by seeing how it interacts with that water, beneath the sky, maybe I'm experiencing those things vicariously through it... feeling the stillness in the first photo, splashing the water in the second and floating on the ripples in the third one. The ball seems like a perfect sphere, the simplest physical form in nature. It seems so pure and perfect that you can read anything you like into it, and again... that all depends on YOU, how you interact with that little object, and not on some kind of education about art history :). It leads you into the environment of the photo and makes you experience it... that's really what Orozco achieved here, which I think is very beautiful.

I could go on and on about these and think about them further, but that's just because I was the teacher's pet in my English classes in High School, not because I have any deep understanding of art that other people don't have. As an example, I could go into Freud's theories about the Id, the Ego and the Superego, somehow likening the water to the Id (the primitive, subconscious mind), the ball to the Ego (the self) and the sky to the Superego (the conscious thinking that guides the self and sublimates the Id)... honestly, it would get me extra credit, but it wouldn't be particularly meaningful :)

Seeker

Canon EOS-30D

09/20/2002 12:41:36 PM · #23

Hokie,

While I'm not sure, you may have just made the point FOR Lisae. Appreciation comes from understanding (IMHO). If we are constantly bombarded with stimuli then we grow accustomed to it, it no longer has the same effect on us so the next hit needs to be stronger to get a response. Since you are an ad director I was wondering if you find it harder and harder to "Wow" or "Hmmm" people. How many beautiful/interesting/unique things are we missing because they are not spectacularly beautiful/interesting/unique?

I too find that I have too many things to deal with and they all seem to keep piling up. I have chosen to take back my life and slow down to enjoy things a bit more and an appreciation of art was one of those things I feel I need more of. We have more labor saving devices available to us than any time in the history of man and yet people talk about struggling to survive. Survival requires food, water and shelter, but this is survival of the body. What about survival of the spirit?

There is an Arab proverb that goes:

If I had two loaves of bread I would sell one and buy hyacinths, for hyacinths feed the soul.

To this point in time I have spent my life creating things with my mind (I'm an engineer). I intend to spend the rest of my time creating things with my soul. I hope to become a "deep thinker" because far too often these days we are a product of response or reaction rather than thought and contemplation. I'm hoping the return on investment in art appreciation will be what I think it will be.

Remember that this opinion was worth every penny you paid for it . . .