Claerbout: A Visual Analysis

In art, there are qualities that speak louder than words. It expresses many different messages and emotions and each person has an experience different from the next. In this paper, I will be discussing two artworks I encountered. The piece is a good example of how people can encounter different experiences in one piece. I attended the Orlando Museum of Art a while back with family and overall enjoyed my experience. On my visit, I found the museum quite impressive and felt a deep connection with specific pieces.

Some of the movements executed by the dancers are similar to those executed by dancers in a stepping performance and also in a tap dance presentation. This presentation falls into the group of the new trends of modern dance, in which the choreographer are taking more and more liberty with various dance combinations, and including strong messages in their work. I would definitely attend other dance performance, not only from this company, but also by other companies; and would also recommend this performance, especially to people going through a dark period in their life. This performance finished convincing me that dance is surely the most communicative of the art forms, and that a single presentation can convey more than one

Watching a video of a dance piece called “The Moroccan Project,” choreographed by Alonzo King was quite impressive. Living in San Francisco and taking dance classes brought me to Lines Ballet which is King’s dance studio. I have seen a great deal of different types of dance at the studio waiting for my Ballet classes and there are some great dancers. It comes as no surprise that Alonzo would have such great dancers. It appears that Alonzo King is exploring different cultures in dance in Contemporary Ballet. His near-perfect choreography is articulate, passionate, and graceful- he brings diversity in dance to San Francisco and other parts of the world. This piece articulates the expression of the two dancers coming together yet dancing apart at times- it is a fusion of several different types of dances into one using video editing to create a story about the coming together of two individuals.

“Vrrrrrrrr” sounds the fans cooling the projectors displaying video instillations of Terry Berkowitz “the last supper”. As I strolled into this gallery, I instantly thought of both “ted talks” we previously had this semester and how the artist we using rather unconventional means to portray their art. In visiting the Boca Museum Of Art I observed 3 specific pieces that tied into lessons I’ve come to learn more about in this semester.

After walking into the museum, you see the first exhibit- modern art. Ripping off a band-aid quickly is a great example of how it felt moving through this exhibit “analyzing” this “art”. While walking around, each piece just got more and more complexing but what was more of a conundrum

This video documents an international cultural festival that took place in Los Angeles. Again, while many of the groups presented here are not American, you will hear peoples from around the Pacific beautifully expressing how dance is an integral part of their culture. While the American public might not be as conscious of the powerful connection between movement and identity, it is the claim of this course that the former can be an important lens on the latter, even in America. Listen closely to how the participants at this festival talk about dance and culture. Compare this with how you relate dance and culture.

This video documents an international cultural festival that took place in Los Angeles. Again, while many of the groups presented here are not American, you will hear peoples from around the Pacific beautifully expressing how dance is an integral part of their culture. While the American public might not be as conscious of the powerful connection between movement and identity, it is the claim of this course that the former can be an important lens on the latter, even in America. Listen closely to how the participants at this festival talk about dance and culture. Compare this with how you relate

The purpose of this essay is to fully employ all of the new observational skills that I have learned from the start of the semester to now. With that in mind, I was feeling very excited to use these new “abilities” as I was observing art. The San Diego Museum of Art was very interesting indeed, and I have never experienced art in such a way that is sort of hard to describe. The museum had paintings and galleries ranging from the Renaissance era all the way to the eighteenth century and even Impressionism and Post-Impressionism as well. However, my eyes instantly caught Henri Matisse’s painting, Bouquet, this painting had so many details, elements, and meanings as well as similar characteristics from past chapters that I have read this semester.

Photographer Elliot Erwitt once stated, “To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” This quote has deeply guided me in my analysis of what I call a cycle of art creation. When one pays close attention to the artwork of a particular artist, one is able to distinguish certain details that prove it is the artist's work. To me, it is significant to be able to establish an artist as their own rather than just another person following the trend. Each artist, whether they notice it or not, has a series of repercussions in their art; there are details that continue to reappear in

When one compares Duchamp’s process of producing these objects to Koons, it is easy to view Koons as an adaptation of that theory, yet an adaptation that almost carelessly and haphazardly capitalizes on the art world’s increasingly confused worship of artists like Duchamp, Rauschenberg and Warhol. In observing this group of artists, we begin to see a neatly unfolding chronology that places Duchamp at the top whom subsequently influences Rauschenberg and Johns who then propagate the emergence of Warhol who then directly begets Koons. These artists both criticize and celebrate commercial culture making it the subject of their work. It is Koons however, who emerged to artistic prominence in an era of extreme media saturation, and therefore presents a body of work that capitalizes on commercial

Warhol’s work separates execution from concept, attesting that it is the artist’s mind that matters. The greatest

Multiple generations of masterpieces by such artists as Leonardo Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Andy Warhol, to even graffiti artist Banksy, can be found within art museums. Ways of Seeing author John Berger writes, “When..we ‘saw’ the art of the past, we would situate ourselves in history. When we are prevented from seeing it, we are being deprived of the history which belongs to us” (Berger, p.11). Berger notes that when one views a piece of art, they “situate” themselves in different interpretations on the significance and/or message it holds (conveys).

Its only by “bringing ourselves before Van Gogh’s painting” (350) that we allow for the art to do its work. So, what is an art’s work, other than this disclosure of the shoes in truth? Like racing to the subway, we fail to acknowledge the shoes-in-their-being through an overstimulation of the senses. Its this overstimulation that thwarts our ability to focus on the particular. The art work, however, is the lens by which the particular may come into focus. In a goal-oriented society, where tunnel vision often clouds our capacity to stop and take a look around, these works of art provide us with a novel outlook by making us stop and take that look around. “The nature of art would then be this” Heidegger writes, “the truth of being setting itself

Working thesis: Bill Viola’s video installation of The Quintet of the Astonished serves as a breaking point for art because of Viola’s ability to so successfully portray and convey the complexity of human feelings.

They presented a story of a goddess teasing a boy with a magical ball, then throwing it into a pond where a monster is asleep. The boy then awakens this monster trying to reach the ball. The story is meant to encourage people to face their fears and fight for what they want. I liked how they used the same movements when they were describing the story before starting their performance which they later used during the dance. For example, one of the dancers showed the same throwing movement which she later used in the performance. The dance was accompanied by an Indian chant like song over the speakers. It had the same simplistic nature as the African music discussed above which I again noticed that it put the focus on the dancers. They music and movement was much slower and calmer than the Africans, which makes sense when seen in light of the Eastern Asian spiritual philosophy of