You can read each lecture in essay form; there is a separate page for each lecture. At the bottom of each lecture page will be a link to download the power point version of the lecture and to view a video version of the lecture.
Ground
"Ground" is a great place to start because we always have to start where we are- where we are standing. In the history of art, "ground" has some old and important meanings. In oil painting, the first layer of a base color (often a red-oxide based red, or a sienna, or sometimes a terre verte) is called the ground. From this we have the terminology, foreground, middle ground, and background. This is why in design class we sometimes refer to positive and negative shape relationships as "figure/ ground".
Ground is literally the starting point of art since all of the oldest pigments (except charcoal) were from the ground- usually forms of clay and chalk. Early Homo Sapiens often went underground to paint and draw. (I highly recommend the Werner Herzog film Cave of Forgotten Dreams about the cave paintings of Chauvet Cave.)
"Ground" is associated with beginnings and foundations. Learning the basics of field (like art) is often referred to as a "grounding".
If you are grounded, you are centered (or you are in trouble); you know where you come from and where you are going. And that is the point. We start with ground because the first step to figuring out what kind of artwork we are going to make is figuring out who we are and where we come from.
Before laying out the themes of this lecture, I am going to display a myriad host of "ground" imagery. It is a lot but it is literally laying the ground work.
A grid of "ground" related imagery:
Images include a figure shadow work by Andy Goldsworthy, two images of Miami Mound, a composite photograph of David Hockney, Saffron Mound, and the famous Serpent Mound.
....a photograph by Andreas Gursky...
A set of documentary photographs of Richard Long's work. For those that do not know his artwork, his very first ground-based work was also his graduate thesis work; it was a straight line across a field created by him walking to his studio every day. (That piece is the first photograph.)
Here are a few examples of the most familiar earthworks: two views of Smithson's Spiral Jetty and one view of Christo's wrapped islands.
...two examples of Brian Alfred's ariel view type paintings:
And now, something completely different, the overarching themes of this lecture:
Stand Your Ground-we have already started the discussion of this theme. You cannot not know where you are going till you know where you are from. (or maybe not- that is for each artist to figure out.) In this section we will look at artists who needed to address their starting ground in order to make solid work.
Back to Basics- Ground can be the start of a foundation, and many artists have found it useful and necessary to return and return again to the foundations of their media, discipline, tradition, and process.
Living in the Past- Many artist's have found ample resources for new, original work by mining the art and ideas of past artists. On the other hand, one southern bard wrote "...standing on the shoulders of giants, leaves me cold."
...but first a video interlude on the theme of starting where you are:
Stand Your Ground- Part 1: Eggleston
William Eggleston is the perfect artist to start with; Southern (a Memphis based Mississippian), idiosyncratic, and passionately local. He found his voice by focusing on his world, on what he really saw. He created his very successful (critically acclaimed) career by ignoring art centers like New York and concentrating on his home ground.
•Looking
at home (mostly Memphis); an appreciation of the local and the vernacular.
•Though
this was unusual in the 60’s, now, this approach seems both easier and more
common in photography than in other media.
•Other
photographer’s to look at Sally Mann, Maude Schyuler Clay…..
•Do
not underestimate the importance of his unique, slightly critical, slightly
amused, very dispassionate point of view.
The work is not just documentation of a time and place but also
documentation of one outsider’s point of view.
Stand Your Ground, Part 2- Anselm Keifer
After World War II, German artists had a lot of past, a lot of
baggage to address.
They needed to know who they were, where they came from. The first German artist to face up to the crippling weight of German history was Joseph Beuys.....
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| yes, he's the guy who lived in an apartment with a coyote... |
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Unlike this piece, most of his installation work aimed for an extreme "un-art" feel. Like most of his art, this heavy grey felt suit only makes sense if you know something about his biography, his philosophy, and his mythology. It is too much to get into here, so you should look it up.
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Some other German artists of this period include George Baselitz, Sigmar Polke, and Gerhard Richter...
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| This is an early example of a Gerhard Richter, photo based, painting |
Like artists in post-war Germany, artists in Japan were also struggling with identity- how much does the artist challenge the burdens of history? How much does the artist accept the influence of western history and western art. Murakami's answer was the concept of "superflat" where all of history, recent and distant, western and eastern, is treated as equal and the same; where all of culture and art, high or low, pop or serious, literary or visual, eastern or western, is treated as equal and the same. Some have commented that this is a uniquely Japanese solution that allows the artist to deal with identity and ignore or recast it as the artist chooses.
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| The artist in front of the platinum surfaced, Oval Buddah. |
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| 727, painting. |
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| Gero Tan, painting. |
Back to Basics- the
return to the foundations, to the fundamentals is a constant theme in art,
especially in the twentieth century.
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