structures Art:21 production stills, 2005 Matthew Ritchie born 1964, London, England Fred Wilson born 1954, the Bronx, New York Richard Tuttle born 1941, Rahway, New Jersey Roni Horn born 1955, New York, New York How do we organize life? What are the ways in which we capture knowledge and attempt greater understanding? The artists in this hour create systems, shift contexts, and engage with perception, utilizing unconventional devices such as exhibitions within exhibitions and dramatic shifts in scale. DISCUSSION Before Viewing • How is art related to language? How is our understanding of identity, history, or the world around us tied to language? Are there ideas or experiences that are impossible to articulate verbally? • Describe yourself using 25 words. How do you know these things about yourself? How is your identity related to groups, communities, or other social structures? How is it related to personal experience? After Viewing • Fred Wilson says, “I look at things and wonder what they are and why they are. I see things and wonder why people are not wondering about them.” To what type of ‘things’ do you think he is referring? What are objects or images that might be taken for granted when seen on a daily basis? • How does Hubbard and Birchler’s video, placed at the end of this hour, relate to the rest of the program? How does it defy or meet the expectations of a television program? How does it call attention to the constructed nature of video as a medium? A CTIVITY • Create a series of lists that represent your ideas about personal identity, family history, learning from school, and philosophies or belief systems with which you are familiar. Turn these lists into a visual web or narrative that connects related words to tell a story about yourself or your family. play Jessica Stockholder born 1959, Seattle, Washington Ellen Gallagher born 1965, Providence, Rhode Island Arturo Herrera born 1959, Caracas, Venezuela Oliver Herring born 1964, Heidelberg, Germany Spontaneous and joyful, subversive or amusing, play can take many forms. The artists in this hour improvise games, draw inspiration from dance and music, and employ color, pattern, and movement to elicit delight. These artists transform naïve impulses into critical statements about the nature of identity, creative expression, and pleasure. DISCUSSION Before Viewing • Consider how fantasy, imagination, and the unconscious have been incorporated into literature, art, or other expressive movements and trends over the last century. • Is it important to set out to make a work of art in order to end up with a work of art? What is the role of intention in creating an art object? What is the role of chance? After Viewing • Jessica Stockholder says “I think what kids do is play. [It is] a kind of thinking and learning that doesn’t have a predetermined end.” What methods do these four artists use to avoid a predetermined end to their work? • Consider the ways in which the four artists in this hour begin their art-making process and the importance of process to their work. When does the process end and the work of art begin? How do these artists know when a work of art is finished? ACTIVITY • Oliver Herring says, “After the first five or ten minutes, the performance is entirely self-perpetuating. You don’t know what’s going to happen. The rules I start with are not binding.” Make up a set of rules to fol- low through the process of creating a sculpture, collage, film, or poem. Using found objects, images, film clips, or text create a playful assemblage that begins with your rules and then breaks them. Ellen Gallagher DISCUSSION Before Viewing What are some of the prevailing notions about male and female beauty in contemporary society? Where Born do these ideas come from? 1965, Providence, RI Discuss the role of advertising with your students. Education How do ads communicate their messages? What BFA, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH makes advertisements effective? Which ads do you MFA, The School of the Museum of Fine pay attention to and why? How are images that Arts, Boston, MA are created by artists different from the ones Lives and Works created by advertisers? New York, NY and Rotterdam, Netherlands Review examples of narrative painting such as Art:21 Theme Gericault’s The Raft of the Medusa, Goya’s The Play Third of May, or Chinese scroll painting. Discuss Biography the similarities and differences between ‘reading’ Mr. Terrific, from DeLuxe, 2004–05. Aquatint, Repetition and revision are central to Ellen a painting and ‘reading’ a book. photogravure and plasticine, 13 x 10 inches. Edition of 20. Photo by D. James Dee. Courtesy Gallagher’s treatment of advertisements www.pbs.org/art21/education/technology/lesson1.html Two Palms Press, New York. © Ellen Gallagher that she appropriates from popular maga- zines like Ebony, Our World, and Sepia and uses in works like eXelento (2004) and After Viewing DeLuxe (2004–05). Although the work has How does Gallagher’s work reflect stereotypes from often been interpreted strictly as an exami- the past? What characters and motifs appear in nation of race, Gallagher also suggests a Gallagher’s artwork? How does Gallagher alter these more formal reading with respect to materi- characters and address these stereotypes to change als and processes. From afar, the work the way the original images are read and interpreted? appears abstract and minimal. Upon closer inspection, googly eyes, reconfigured wigs, Consider different ways that artists have used tongues, and lips of minstrel caricatures repetition in their work. Compare and contrast multiply in detail. In her earlier works, Gallagher’s use of repetition with that of other artists Gallagher glued pages of penmanship paper onto stretched canvas and then such as Andy Warhol, Ida Applebroog, and Roni Horn. drew and painted on it. Gallagher has many Gallagher makes connections between her work, influences including the sublime aesthetics language, and literature. What is a lexicon? What of Agnes Martin’s paintings as well the subtle shifts and repetitions of Gertrude images and symbols make up Gallagher's visual Stein’s writing. Isaac from DeLuxe, 2004–05. Lithography, tattoo lexicon? How does Gallagher’s use of the grid engraving, laser-cutting, crystals, gold leaf, velvet, alter the way her images are ‘read’? Media and Materials and plasticine, 13 x 10 inches. Edition of 20. Courtesy Two Palms Press, New York. © Ellen Gallagher drawing, painting, printmaking, video; collage, mixed-media, ledger paper, plasticine Key Words and Ideas ACTIVITIES advertising, grid, identity, lexicon, Explore the changing styles of advertising. Choose a product such as soap, make-up, or clothing Minimalism, minstrel, narrative, race, repetition, scrimshaw, sequence, brand and research how it has been advertised or addressed over the last 20, 50, or 100 years. stereotypes Modify a found advertisement on paper or with a computer. Experiment with the following alterations: re-framing, coloring, shrinking, enlarging, changing the words, and finally chang- Additional Images on the Web ing the meaning or intention of the advertisement. http://www.drawingcenter.org/gallagher.htm http://www.mocanomi.org/html/ When you’re reading a magazine or a book, that’s a particular kind of reading. It’s a kind of html/gallagher.htm “sequential page-by-page, and you remember what you’ve read five pages ago—or you don’t—but http://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/ that’s how you keep that information. And the reading of a painting, what I loved was the idea of archive8(EG).html opening up the pages so that your sequence was then more spatial, rather than sequential.” Turn a painting into a series of images presented in sequential form that allows a reader to ‘read’ the painting the way you ‘read’ it. www.pbs.org/art21/education/technology/lesson1.html 13 Arturo Herrera DISCUSSION Before Viewing Research the history of cartoons and comics and identify the characters that were popular for different generations. Where do you see these cartoons and characters today? Born What do the terms high and low culture describe? What are the similarities and differences 1959, Caracas, Venezuela between them? What are examples of each? Education What are the differences between conceptual and aesthetic concerns in art? Is one more BA, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK MFA, University of Illinois at Chicago, important than the other? Why or why not? Chicago, IL After Viewing Lives and Works Herrera says “Being Latin American, you’re New York, NY and Berlin, Germany made up of so many fragments from different cultures. Venezuelan culture is extremely Art:21 Theme Play complex. And then you’re part of Latin America, and part of America itself. The Biography European tradition is part of you because you Arturo Herrera’s work includes collage, work came from there.” How is Herrera's mixed cul- on paper, sculpture, relief, wall painting, tural identity reflected in his work? photography, and felt wall hangings. His work taps into the viewer’s unconscious, “I’m always looking for something that will hold often intertwining fragments of cartoon the image into place. What I want to create characters with abstract shapes and par- is basically an image that has this . aesthetic tially obscured images that evoke memory and recollection. For his collages he uses and also this conceptual power.” Discuss the found images from cartoons, coloring ways in which Arturo Herrera’s work conveys books, and fairy tales, combining fragments both aesthetic and conceptual power. of Disney-like characters with violent imagery to make work that borders “ I think there’s still potential for abstraction between figuration and abstraction and sub- to become a viable language of .