DOCSLIB.ORG

Balance: Art and Nature

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Balance: Art and Nature Balance: Art and Nature To all artists who believe in freedom Copyright © 2014 John K. Grande No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system— without written permission from the author, or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from the Canadian Reprography Collective, with the exception of brief passages quoted by a reviewer in a newspaper or magazine. National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data Grande, John K. Balance: Art and Nature / John K Grande. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.) 2. Art Modem-20th century-Economic aspects. 3. Art, Modem-20th century-Social aspects. 4. Artists-Psychology. 5. Nature (Aesthetics) E-Book ISBN 978-0-9938036-0-4 Caver design: Rasa Paoilams. Cover Photo: Andy Goldsworthy, Arizona, 1989, courtesy the artist Contents Introduction 1. Waiting for a Cultural Break Between the Commercials 2. Like A Bird with No Feet 3. Nature is the Art of which We are a Part 4. Ephemeral Inspiration/Concrete History 5. Stolen Subjects & Exhausted Spirits 6. Duelling with Dualism – Descartes, Rodin, Picasso, Suchamp et al 7. Maleness & Femaleness in Art 8. Andy Goldsworthy – Ephemeral Integration 9. Outside, History, Inside, Nature 10. Native Art is Contemporary Art 11. Prelude or Requiem 12. Solid State Angels – Contemporary Japanese Art 13. Anish Kapoor – Presence or Absence? 14. Armand Vaillanocurt – The Eye & The Storm 15. James Carl’s Euphemistic Reality 16. Bill Reid & the Spirit of the Haida Gawaii 17. AmericanaNacirema – The Other Side of the American Dream - Duane Hanson 18. Carl Beam - Dissolving Time 19. Dmitri Kaminker’s Mythical Menagerie 20. Antony Gormley Being a Landscape 21. Which Public? Whose Art? 22. Earth Sensitive 23. The Nuclear Map – Bob Del Tredici 24. Transitions - Trois Rivieres Praise for John K. Grande "Grande defines a future where small-scale societies exist in harmony with their individual bio-regions, and he finds art that articulates this vision. His writing is clear and blessedly free of postmodern jargon." - Public Art Review "Demonstrates that art criticism doesn't have to give readers a headache. His grasp of details—both artistic and political—makes this book convincing, and interesting." - Books In Canada "One doesn't have to agree with everything Grande writes in order to welcome this book's arrival." - Globe and Mail "Ideas are plentiful...Grande is clearly versed and passionate about nature's role in art." - Quill & Quire "Fascinating reading...Grande has assembled an enormous breadth of material and judged it from the perspective of a well-informed heart." - Montreal Gazette "Grande makes an important statement. Despite the various causes artists embrace we still have one common cause: to preserve the earth." -McGill Daily "Reinvigorates my desire to consider contemporary art as a vital form of expression and encourages the reader to see that art in relation to daily life and society at large." - Canadian Forum "Engaging, provocative and thoughtful...Grande cares passionately about art, the environment, and the relationship between them." —Compass also by John K. Grande INTERTWINING: Artists, Landscape, Issues, Technology Over forty essays and reviews around the themes of artists, landscape, issues, and technology. Topics include the effects of the Internet on museums and education; artists working in and around a nature park; agriculture as art; the artists' response to breast cancer; to animal rights; to violence and children's toys; to art and illness. "Grande's essays have literary merit and insight that remain vital. When critics do their work well, they increase their readers' understanding of art." — Hour "A readable, engaging book... Grande has taken contemporary art out of the exclusive domain of the art world demi-gods and given it back to anyone who dips into this collection." - Canadian Forum 320 pages, photographs, index Paperback ISBN: 1-55164-110-0 $24.99 Hardcover ISBN: 1-55164-111-9 $53.99 Introduction "Which nature? Whose art?" reads the brochure from the Tranekaer International Art and Nature Centre (TICKON). Located on the island of Langeland in Denmark, TICKON is a recently established testing ground for an art dedicated to creating a new relationship be- tween humanity and nature. For artists working towards the betterment of "a world that is vulnerable in some absolute sense,"' this relationship is crucial. .For centuries we have assumed that history and art are a series of progressions inimically tied to the economic progress of Western civilization. Our cultural conception of nature, like environmental art itself, has defined nature as "aesthetic real estate" — mere matter to be manipulated, transposed and reformed in order to affirm our superiority over nature. Duchamp once said; "Man invented art. It wouldn't exist without him. Art has no biological source. Ifs addressed to a taste,"^ yet who could now deny that art has always been a part of nature? Art is as necessary to society as the sun is to nature, for it sheds light, to paraphrase Gauguin, on who we are, where we come from and where we are going. It is a point many of today's assemblage artists should remember. By appropriating and manipulating the flotsam and jetsam of industrial society in new and ingenious ways, artists such as Tony Cragg, Bill Woodrow, David Mach and Richard Deacon allude to the malaise of overproduction and consumption. A seemingly reflexive response to utilitarianism and resource exploitation run amok, their work does nothing to reconnect us with nature: it merely reaffirms the syntax of the industrial product. David Mach's massive installations — Ploughman's Lunch, exhibited at the Milton Keynes Shopping Centre in England, and The Art that Came Apart, exhibited at the Musee d'art contemporain in Montreal — are the most extreme examples. A kind of temporary per- formance sculpture, these works were literally built up out of tons of magazines and various consumer products including television sets, a piano, a bulldozer, cars, and a canoe to name but some of the items. This eco-Pop brand of postconsumer art may look more contentious than a Magdalena Abakanowicz or Shigeo Toya, but the effect is hardly as profound or lasting. The inner ear of these altered product statements will always be their materials' original, natural context. Ashley Bickerton deals with these problematic issues by encasing in- dustrial waste, seed pods, trash, dried grasses and earth or, as in a David Mach. The Art that Came Apart (detail), 1989.Exhibited at the Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal, Montreal. Photo by Ron Diamond. Photo courtesy of the artist. work titled Minimalism's Evil Orthodoxy Monoculture's Totalitarian Esthetic #1 (1989), by juxtaposing soil and crop samples from South America, Asia and Africa. Another Bickerton piece approached the question as it relates specifically to artist's materials: two structurally designed boxes had tiny squares of cadmium yellow and cadmium red painted within them — the toxic components in cadmium were listed on the boxes' sides. At the other end of the spectrum, responding directly to various aspects of climate, geology, vegetation, even other life forms, today's most prominent environmental artists — David Nash, Karen McKoy, Andy Goldsworthy, Giuliano Mauri, Jane Balsgaard, Lars Viks and Nils-Udo among others — express these concerns by creating natural constructions: installing plantings, welding ice assemblages, making dandelion chains, grafting tree forms, arranging patterns of berries and leaves in idyllic backwoods settings far from the hue and cry of the urban centres where most of us live. But the question arises, while these works may present themselves as ecologically sensitized, how socially involved is this new vision? It has been a long time since we idealized landscapes and saw nature as a seemingly inexhaustible reserve as the Romantics did when the first factory smokestacks went up. As environmental artists opposed to the alienation and confused reality of our cities attempt to rediscover nature on its own terms, they proffer a vision of art as a detail of the landscape. Disconnected from the root cause of environmental devastation — a burgeoning civilization and economy based on profit and competition — this brand of environmental art is as exclusive in its purist vision as formalist art. In one of her "mock monuments" titled Excess Volatility,]enlea Zempel responded to these issues from within the urban situation. Zempel dragged a burned out, abandoned Volkswagen bug into Battery Park and clothed it in tree clippings and cuttings donated by the park management service, sheathing its exterior with a skin of pine needles and painting its interior a bright orange. As Zempel comments; “To me these stripped down, burnt out wrecks are like animal carcasses picked clean by urban predators. I wanted to reclaim one of those vehicles, exaggerate its animalness using another kind of debris from nature rather than culture." Ephemeral is now fashionable. We attribute ethical values to works of art based on their supposed permanence or impermanence Jerilea Zempel. Excess Volatility, 1989. Abandoned Volkswagen and tree branches. Battery Park. New York. Photo courtesy of the artist. without considering that human civilization has always been a product of the culture of nature. Goldsworthy inverts the order, finding design as a quality of nature. Though it may seem too simplistic and socially uninvolved, it is an art that achieves a balance between ethics and aesthetics. His works promote an ecological consciousness as premeditated as Duchamp's once was — a land art in microcosm where the subject has been preselected and nature is considered within a purist context. Yet such designing with nature is a primordial or Jungian social act because it recognizes our own unconscious origins in the forms that exist in nature's holistic state.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Oral History Interview with Ann Wilson, 2009 April 19-2010 July 12
    Oral history interview with Ann Wilson, 2009 April 19-2010 July 12 Funding for this interview was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service. Contact Information Reference Department Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Washington. D.C. 20560 www.aaa.si.edu/askus Transcript Preface The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Ann Wilson on 2009 April 19-2010 July 12. The interview took place at Wilson's home in Valatie, New York, and was conducted by Jonathan Katz for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. This transcript has been lightly edited for readability by the Archives of American Art. The reader should bear in mind that they are reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose. Interview ANN WILSON: [In progress] "—happened as if it didn't come out of himself and his fixation but merged. It came to itself and is for this moment without him or her, not brought about by him or her but is itself and in this sudden seeing of itself, we make the final choice. What if it has come to be without external to us and what we read it to be then and heighten it toward that reading? If we were to leave it alone at this point of itself, our eyes aging would no longer be able to see it. External and forget the internal ordering that brought it about and without the final decision of what that ordering was about and our emphasis of it, other eyes would miss the chosen point and feel the lack of emphasis.
    [Show full text]
  • John Miller, Untitled (March 20, 2020), Ink-Jet Print, 61⁄2 × 9"
    John Miller, Untitled (March 20, 2020), ink-jet print, 61⁄2 × 9". Tony Rosenthal, 5 in 1, 1973–74. ON SITE CROSSED PATHS Alex Kitnick on the public art of Lower Manhattan August 2020 print issue THE MUSEUEMS ARE CLOSED but the sculptures are still there. Memorials and monuments, too. If you’re in Lower Manhattan, you can ramble along the Irish Hunger Memorial’s serpentine path, a rugged simulacrum of peat and stone. I’ve never been to Ireland, but I take it that parts of it look like this. The strangeness of the work is its location in Battery Park City, where since 2002 it has sat like a souvenir between corporate towers, with the Hudson River stretching out to the west. Robert Smithson called certain of his sculptures “nonsites” to denote their difference from the sites whence they came: A pile of shale in a steel trough in the middle of a gallery stood as a nonsite to a quarry somewhere off in New Jersey. The Irish Hunger Memorial has always struck me as a massive nonsite, a memory displaced and brought over from elsewhere, now made even stranger since the host site is no longer what it was. An eastward walk takes you to Federal Plaza, where Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc once stood. For most of the 1980s (I never saw it in person), the sculpture cut a steely line across the cobbled space, casting stark shadows, collecting graffiti and pee. Many office workers didn’t like it because it obstructed the building’s entrance, but certain judges looked out the window and saw a threat—a cover for bomb throwers or a simple sign of menace.
    [Show full text]
  • Old Works / New Works: When Contemporary
    OLD WORKS / NEW WORKS: WHEN CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTWORKS HELD BY CANADIAN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS CHANGE AFTER ACCESSION by Anne Cibola Master of Arts, York University, Toronto ON, 2005 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Concordia University, Montreal QC, 2003 A thesis presented to Ryerson University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Program of Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2014 © Anne Cibola 2014 AUTHOR’S DECLARATION FOR ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION OF A THESIS I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I authorize Ryerson University to lend this thesis to other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. Anne Cibola I further authorize Ryerson University to reproduce this thesis by photocopying or by other means, in total or in part, at the request of other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. Anne Cibola I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. ii Abstract Old Works / New Works: When Contemporary Photographic Artworks held by Canadian Public Institutions Change After Accession Master of Arts, 2014 Anne Cibola Film and Photographic Preservation and Collections Management, Ryerson University This thesis explores what is at stake when changes are made to artworks after Canadian public institutions have accessioned them. It argues that the materiality of an art object matters, and together with the narrative or history of the artwork, contributes to its interpretation. Changes at the object level can have an impact not only on the history of an artwork, but also on an artist’s larger practice and on an institution’s collection.
    [Show full text]
  • Old Works / New Works: When Contemporary
    OLD WORKS / NEW WORKS: WHEN CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTWORKS HELD BY CANADIAN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS CHANGE AFTER ACCESSION by Anne Cibola Master of Arts, York University, Toronto ON, 2005 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Concordia University, Montreal QC, 2003 A thesis presented to Ryerson University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Program of Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2014 © Anne Cibola 2014 AUTHOR’S DECLARATION FOR ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION OF A THESIS I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I authorize Ryerson University to lend this thesis to other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. Anne Cibola I further authorize Ryerson University to reproduce this thesis by photocopying or by other means, in total or in part, at the request of other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. Anne Cibola I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. ii Abstract Old Works / New Works: When Contemporary Photographic Artworks held by Canadian Public Institutions Change After Accession Master of Arts, 2014 Anne Cibola Film and Photographic Preservation and Collections Management, Ryerson University This thesis explores what is at stake when changes are made to artworks after Canadian public institutions have accessioned them. It argues that the materiality of an art object matters, and together with the narrative or history of the artwork, contributes to its interpretation. Changes at the object level can have an impact not only on the history of an artwork, but also on an artist’s larger practice and on an institution’s collection.
    [Show full text]
  • Off Museum! Performance Art That Turned the Street Into 'Theatre,' Circa 1964 Tokyo
    Performance Paradigm 2 (March 2006) Off Museum! Performance Art That Turned the Street into ‘Theatre,’ Circa 1964 Tokyo Midori Yoshimoto Performance art was an integral part of the urban fabric of Tokyo in the late 1960s. The so- called angura, the Japanese abbreviation for ‘underground’ culture or subculture, which mainly referred to film and theatre, was in full bloom. Most notably, Tenjô Sajiki Theatre, founded by the playwright and film director Terayama Shûji in 1967, and Red Tent, founded by Kara Jûrô also in 1967, ruled the underground world by presenting anti-authoritarian plays full of political commentaries and sexual perversions. The butoh dance, pioneered by Hijikata Tatsumi in the late 1950s, sometimes spilled out onto streets from dance halls. Students’ riots were ubiquitous as well, often inciting more physically violent responses from the state. Street performances, however, were introduced earlier in the 1960s by artists and groups, who are often categorised under Anti-Art, such as the collectives Neo Dada (originally known as Neo Dadaism Organizer; active 1960) and Zero Jigen (Zero Dimension; active 1962-1972). In the beginning of Anti-Art, performances were often by-products of artists’ non-conventional art-making processes in their rebellion against the artistic institutions. Gradually, performance art became an autonomous artistic expression. This emergence of performance art as the primary means of expression for vanguard artists occurred around 1964. A benchmark in this aesthetic turning point was a group exhibition and outdoor performances entitled Off Museum. The recently unearthed film, Aru wakamono-tachi (Some Young People), created by Nagano Chiaki for the Nippon Television Broadcasting in 1964, documents the performance portion of Off Museum, which had been long forgotten in Japanese art history.
    [Show full text]
  • 2018 /2019 Community Report
    2018/2019 Community Report NOVEMBER 1, 2018 TO DECEMBER 31, 2019 GUIDING PRINCIPLES Vision Enriching our community by inspiring participation in the visual arts. Mission Providing opportunities for people to express, experience, and learn creatively through art. Mandate Serving our region through our developing collections, exhibitions, education, and public programs, we are a leading resource for creativity. Core Values Serving the Public Good Leading Through Excellence Ethical & Transparent Inspiring & Innovative Inclusive & Inviting Responsible Social Engagement ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Woodstock Art Gallery is situated on the traditional territories of the Indigenous Peoples and covered by the Upper Canada Treaties. We acknowledge the history of the traditional territory on which the Woodstock Art Gallery stands. We also respect the longstanding relationships of the local Indigenous groups of this land and place in Southwestern Ontario. 01 1 MESSAGE FROM THE ADVISORY BOARD The fall of 2018 and 2019 marked two as Past Chair at the end of 2019. On behalf significant contributions towards the long-term of the Woodstock Art Gallery, I would like to sustainability of the Woodstock Art Gallery acknowledge and thank Carol for her dedicated (WAG). The first was the naming of the Toyota service, her passion and commitment towards Motor Manufacturing Canada (TMMC) Art the promotion of the importance of the visual Education Studio. One of the most active and arts in daily life. The Gallery has welcomed exciting places in the Gallery, the TMMC Art three new members to the Board. Martha Education Studio is a unique place of learning Gingerich, Jay Heaman and prominent artist and creative experimentation serving children, and recent Order of Canada recipient Maxine teens, adults and seniors.
    [Show full text]
  • Cutie and the Boxer, 1/11/2013
    CUTIE AND THE BOXER, 1/11/2013 PRESENTS A FILM BY ZACHARY HEINZERLING CUTIE AND THE BOXER US|HD UK THEATRICAL RELEASE: 1 Nov, 2013 RUNNING TIME: 82 minutes Press Contact: Yung Kha T. 0207 831 7252 [email protected] Web: http://cutieandtheboxer.co.uk/ Twitter: @CutieAndBoxer Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cutieandtheboxer CUTIE AND THE BOXER, 1/11/2013 SHORT SYNOPSIS A reflection on love, sacrifice, and the creative spirit, this candid New York story explores the chaotic 40- year marriage of renowned “boxing” painter Ushio Shinohara and his artist wife, Noriko. As a rowdy, confrontational young artist in Tokyo, Ushio seemed destined for fame, but met with little commercial success after he moved to New York City in 1969, seeking international recognition. When 19-year-old Noriko moved to New York to study art, she fell in love with Ushio—abandoning her education to become the wife and assistant to an unruly, husband. Over the course of their marriage, the roles have shifted. Now 80, Ushio struggles to establish his artistic legacy, while Noriko is at last being recognized for her own art—a series of drawings entitled “Cutie,” depicting her challenging past with Ushio. Spanning four decades, the film is a moving portrait of a couple wrestling with the eternal themes of sacrifice, disappointment and aging, against a background of lives dedicated to art. LONG SYNPOSIS Cutie and the Boxer is an intimate, observational documentary chronicling the unique love story between Ushio and Noriko Shinohara, married Japanese artists living in New York. Bound by years of quiet resentment, disappointments and missed professional opportunities, they are locked in a hard, dependent love.
    [Show full text]
  • Masters Thesis
    WHERE IS THE PUBLIC IN PUBLIC ART? A CASE STUDY OF MILLENNIUM PARK A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree Master of Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Corrinn Conard, B.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2008 Masters Examination Committee: Approved by Dr. James Sanders III, Advisor Advisor Professor Malcolm Cochran Graduate Program in Art Education ABSTRACT For centuries, public art has been a popular tool used to celebrate heroes, commemorate historical events, decorate public spaces, inspire citizens, and attract tourists. Public art has been created by the most renowned artists and commissioned by powerful political leaders. But, where is the public in public art? What is the role of that group believed to be the primary client of such public endeavors? How much power does the public have? Should they have? Do they want? In this thesis, I address these and other related questions through a case study of Millennium Park in Chicago. In contrast to other studies on this topic, this thesis focuses on the perspectives and opinions of the public; a group which I have found to be scarcely represented in the literature about public participation in public art. To reveal public opinion, I have conducted a total of 165 surveys at Millennium Park with both Chicago residents and tourists. I have also collected the voices of Chicagoans as I found them in Chicago’s major media source, The Chicago Tribune . The collection of data from my research reveal a glimpse of the Chicago public’s opinion on public art, its value to them, and their rights and roles in the creation of such endeavors.
    [Show full text]
  • Ruth Asawa Bibliography
    STANFORD UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES, DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS Ruth Asawa Bibliography Articles, periodicals, and other printed works in chronological order, 1948-2014, followed by bibliographic citations in alphabetical order by author, 1966-2013. Listing is based on clipping files in the Ruth Asawa papers, M1585. 1948 “Tomorrow’s Artists.” Time Magazine August 16, 1948. p.43-44 [Addison Gallery review] [photocopy only] 1952 “How Money Talks This Spring: Shortest Jacket-Longest Run For Your Money.” Vogue February 15, 1952 p.54 [fashion spread with wire sculpture props] [unknown article] Interiors March 1952. p.112-115 [citation only] Lavern Originals showroom brochure. Reprinted from Interiors, March 1952. Whitney Publications, Inc. Photographs of wire sculptures by Alexandre Georges and Joy A. Ross [brochure and clipping with note: “this is the one Stanley Jordan preferred.”] “Home Furnishings Keyed to ‘Fashion.’” New York Times June 17, 1952 [mentions “Alphabet” fabric design] [photocopy only] “Bedding Making High-Fashion News at Englander Quarters.” Retailing Daily June 23, 1952 [mentions “Alphabet” fabric design] [photocopy only] “Predesigned to Fit A Trend.” Living For Young Homemakers Vol.5 No.10 October 1952. p.148-159. With photographs of Asawa’s “Alphabet” fabric design on couch, chair, lamp, drapes, etc., and Graduated Circles design by Albert Lanier. All credited to designer Everett Brown “Living Around The Clock with Englander.” Englander advertisement. Living For Young Homemakers Vol.5 No.10 October 1952. p.28-29 [“The ‘Foldaway Deluxe’ bed comes only in Alphabet pattern, black and white.”] “What’s Ticking?” Golding Bros. Company, Inc. advertisement. Living For Young Homemakers Vol.5 No.10 October 1952.
    [Show full text]
  • THE COLLECTION Permanent Collections Are Complex, Amazing, and Very Weighted Things
    THE COLLECTION Permanent collections are complex, amazing, and very weighted things. The ways they are formed, presented, and interpreted all speak of choices—choices made one hundred years ago and yesterday. These choices express who we are, and crucially, who we want to be. The Art Gallery of Hamilton is proud of its collection, while at the same time recognizing that there is still work to be done in accounting for the biases, omissions, and—yes—idiosyncrasies of our holdings. Although we aim to have old favourites out on the floor as much as possible, we also have a responsibility to bring lesser-known work to public consideration. Given the challenges of properly balancing these concerns, and knowing that for practical reasons only a small percentage of the collection can be out of the vaults at any given time, what kind of choices inform how we present the collection? This selection is founded on an internal conversation among staff members aimed at demonstrating and testing the dexterity of our holdings. This conversation repeatedly returned to a set of central questions: How does the collection articulate an identity for the Hamilton region as well as for Canada? How can it reflect the shifting perspective of a single artist over time, as well as illustrate the shifting perspectives of many artists tackling a common subject, be it abstraction, landscape, or representation? Who do we see represented? And perhaps most importantly, who is not here? These questions, while directed, are fluid and organic; they change and shift over time and should reflect the times we live in and the things we are talking about as a society.
    [Show full text]
  • San Francisco Architecture Guide 2020
    WHAT Architect WHERE Notes Zone 1: Fisherman’s Warf and the Piers + North Beach Pier 39 is a shopping center and popular tourist attraction built in 1978. The marina is also home to the floating Forbes Island restaurant. The sea lions at Pier 39 have become a tourist attraction in their own right. Although the reason for their migration to the pier *** Pier 39 Warren Simmons Pier 39 is unclear, the refurbishing of the docks in September 1989 required the removal of all boats from that area, leaving large open spaces for the sea lions to move into. Once the project was completed, boat owners returned, but did their best to navigate around the sea lions; no efforts were made to encourage the new guests to leave. Aquarium of the Bay was built in 1996 as an aquarium. It added additional attractions to the original building and has 273 species and more than 60,000 fish. Sharks circle overhead, manta rays sweep by and seaweed sways all around at the Aquarium of the Bay, where you * Aquarium of the Bay ? Pier 39 wander through glass tubes surrounded by sea life from San Francisco Bay. It's not for the claustrophobic, perhaps, but the thrilling fish- eye view, leaves kids and parents enthralled. General admission $27.95. Mon-Sun (10am-6pm) A few California sea lions began “hauling out” on PIER 39’s K-Dock shortly after the Loma Prieta earthquake hit San Francisco in October 1989. By January 1990, the boisterous barking pinnipeds started to *** Sea Lion Colony - Pier 39 arrive in droves and completely took over K-Dock, much to the exasperation of PIER 39’s Marina tenants.
    [Show full text]
  • Discovering Carl Beam Political Messages in the Columbus Project
    Discovering Carl Beam Political Messages in The Columbus Project Nadia De Beijer S4836723 Bachelor’s Thesis American Studies Academic year 2016/2017 Radboud University Nijmegen 14 June 2017 Discovering Carl Beam Political Messages in The Columbus Project Abstract The Columbus Project by Carl Beam consists of twelve collage paintings and two sculptures. He made this in observance of the quincentenary celebrations surrounding the discovery of the American continent by Christopher Columbus. The individual art pieces in this project contribute to the collective memory of this event. It is important to know more about who Carl Beam was and why he constructed art like this. After that the messages that can be discovered throughout the art will make more sense. As a Canadian First Nation, his messages allow for a different voice in the remembered history of the American continent. The works are a combination of postmodernism, First Nation history and culture juxtaposed to that of Westerners. In addition to that the works are infused with political messages due to the imagery that is used. The work was received well by the art world in Canada and can still be viewed in many Canadian museums and art galleries today. Acknowledgement I would like to thank a few people for their help during the writing of my thesis. First of all my supervisor Mrs. Dr. Mathilde Roza for acquainting me with Carl Beam and being there to offer advice. Secondly, Stefan van den Berg to help me edit and organize the information clearly. Key words Art, Aboriginal, postmodernism, collective memory, identity, history, Native American and First Nation culture, Carl Beam, Canada, art galleries, politics, imagery, Western culture.
    [Show full text]