20th century art history: 2012

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Journey of Colin Cherlin....wk10

In his final showing, Colin Cherlin, per the wishes left behind to his estate, expressed his dying sentiment. It is well known that in the latter years of his life, Colin began to develop a bitter taste towards the direction he felt society was heading. His final work represents that bitterness. His body, encased in a sealed in a Plexiglas coffin, was to decimated and picked clean by dozens of skin beetles for all to witness.

Journey of Colin Cherlin....wk9

This is one of Cherlin's more controversial pieces know as “The Cocktail Party”. This instillation has two popular interpretations. The first is that the contrasting character is the life of the party, spreading the “spirit” of drunkenness to all the party goers. The second lies within the rumors of Colin’s prejudice towards the homosexual community and that this was a message in the wake of the introduction of the AIDS virus.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Andrew Klein, final homework

This skull was created similar to Damien Hirst's "For the Love of God". Unlike the original, there are about 1/2 the amount of diamonds in the cg version, which is rendered using MIA and Dialectric materials in mental ray.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Andrew Klein, week 9 homework

This piece is based off the works of Chuck Close. The head was created in ZBrush, Maya, and Photoshop, and the Maya render was then taken into Photoshop and cut into square sections. Each section had a variety of filters applied to it, starting with Radial Blur, then Zig Zag, Glass, Ocean Ripple, and finally several color adjustments.

Journey of Colin Cherlin....wk8

Commissioned by the city for a local park, Colin conceived a piece of standing architecture meant to first isolate the viewer from the local surroundings and then give a more appreciated view back into the beauty of the park life itself. Towards the end of its completion, the city board, pushed by one of the local retail chain backers, changed the intended view originally plotted out in Colin’s vision. Although furious, Colin had no means to contest. Days later, after the initial unveiling, vandals struck and left a somewhat poignant message across the structure. So poignant, that its presence only added to the piece. Even with rumors abound, no one will admit to knowing who the “vandal” is.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Andrew Klein week 8 homework

This piece is reproduced after James Turrell's skyspaces. I used Vue to render out a slightly cloudy patch of sky, then created a contained interior space with a ring of artificial magenta illumination around the exterior just above a ringed bench. The camera points upwards examining the interaction of the colors of light.

Journey of Colin Cherlin....wk7

While living one of his lady loves Colin was caught in sensitive situation. During her routine cleaning of the home, she stumbled upon on the humble beginnings of Colin’s Playboy magazine collection. During the ensuing fight, one of her cherished porcelain dolls was broken. In the aftermath, Colin promised to make it up to her creating beauty out of heartbreak in this boxed assemblage.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

The Real History of Perfomance Art

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Andrew Klein, week 7 homework

This piece is representative of the Wall Drawings created by Sol LeWitt starting in the late 1960s. His works were large scale geometric structures similar to his earlier sculptural work and often filled whole walls (or whole rooms). This piece was created and rendered out of Maya.

(sorry for my absence, but I'm cough-city, population: coughs over here)

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Journey of Colin Cherlin....wk5

Not long after returning home and taking a break from the art world, Colin was faced with grief. The start of World War 2 and the invasion of France hit hard. Week after week he would receive correspondence of friends who were lost and places destroyed. Angered by the turmoil in his “second home” and sheer frustration. Colin created this early “action painting” as seen in this rare archived footage.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Andrew Klein week 5 HWK

Should we call it the "Jackson Pollock Simulator"? "Jackson Particle"? "Abstract Expression-driven-ism"?

Since it uses random functions to control the movement, and since the color is also customizable, the simulator will generate a random new painting every time it is run.

Using Python and MEL to generate geometry with particle systems

http://www.kylenikolich.com/scripting/particlesToCurves/particlesToCurves.html

Journey of Colin Cherlin...wk4

After years in the Parisian art scene, Colin began to wonder about the life he left behind. More in particular his father. With some deep soul searching, he made his way back home. When arrived and found his father, he was none worst for the wear. Still tough as nails and stubborn as a mule, but now with a great respect for his son who followed his own path. Colin as well had developed a greater respect. He saw in his father the fortitude and pride that made a man and a country strong.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Andrew Klein, week 5 homework

This piece is representative of the works done by Pablo Picasso in the 1930s. During this period he built upon the foundation of Synthetic Cubism he developed in the 1920s and started to add elements of political and social commentary. One of most used symbols was that of the bull or minotaur, which depending on which translations of his work you ascribe to, acts as a sort of heraldic national symbol for Spain or as a symbol for the brutality which the Spanish people endured in the 30s and 40s during the civl war and WW2. In this piece, the bull is attacking a citizen, while others, fenced off, watch helplessly. The portrayed idea is one of helplessness in the face of modern "total" war.

This piece was created in maya with a few layer adjustments in photoshop.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Journey of Colin Cherlin by CBell weeks1-3

Week one

Colin Cherlin was raised in Parma, OH. His mother was a elementary school teacher and at young age took him to museums in a attempt to give him the culture she felt their poor neighborhood was lacking. His father worked impossible hours in the salt mines below Lake Erie. Taken by the art he saw prior that day, he attempted to recreate his own. The result was this first portrait of his father, arriving home from work.

Week two

Years later, Colin’s mother left to meet her sisters new husband in Fort Riley, Kansas. Upon her return she became deathly ill. She was soon diagnosed with Spanish flu and died like most of the infected. Colin’s father was in shambles. The lost of his wife compounded with her suspected infidelity, forced him to renounce everything she stood for. No longer given supplies or opportunity for art, Colin would not let his passion die. Using the often uncompleted newspaper puzzles his father would disregard, Colin created this work in secret.

Week three

Longing to be released from mundane life of factory work his father had planned for him, Colin stowed away aboard a merchant marine freighter. At the end of the cruise, he found himself in the heart of where he was surrounded by numerous other kindred spirits, the city of Paris, France. Now immersed in artistic culture, Colin was able to start to full explore his potential but not without lingering regrets of home. This early painting shows the struggle he had deciding his true path in life.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Andrew Klein's week 3 Homework

This piece was inspired by the Greek Surrealist artist Giorgio de Chirico. He was influenced by his Mediterranean surroundings in much of his subject matter, which he painted in an austere and lonely sort of way. The piece created here attempts a painterly style, outlined, and with strong harsh shadows, including neo-classical elements such as towers, arches, and greco-roman styled sculpture.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Surrealism

"Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for its visual artworks and writings.

Surrealist works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur; however, many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost, with the works being an artifact. Leader André Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was above all a revolutionary movement.
Surrealism developed out of the Dada activities during World War I and the most important center of the movement was Paris. From the 1920s onward, the movement spread around the globe, eventually affecting the visual arts, literature, film, and music of many countries and languages, as well as political thought and practice, philosophy, and social theory."

Wikipedia

Andre Breton - wikipedia - artcyclopedia

Max Ernst - wikipedia - artcylcopedia - google images

Georgio De Chirico - wikipedia - artcyclopedia - google images

Jean Arp - wikipedia - artcyclopedia - google images

Man Ray - wikipedia - artcyclopedia - google images

Joan Miro - wikipedia - artcyclopedia - google images

Rene Magritte - wikipedia - artcyclopedia - google images

Salvador Dali - wikipedia - artcyclopedia - google images

The Magnetic Fields (first literary work of surrealism)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Champs_Magnétiques

Andrew Klein's week 1 and 2 Homework

This piece is inspired by the work on Constantin Brancusi who created the bulk of his most famous work in the 1910s. As a pioneer of abstract sculpture, he was drawn to the minimization of form and created an aesthetic designed with the same treatments as primitivistic and tribal/neolithic sculpture. For Brancusi, the "visible world veiled mystic truths and obscured the essence of reality" (1). The piece I have created in 3d displays a similar interest in the primitive essence of the human form as subject matter.

(1) Modern Art, Sam Hunter, John Jacobus, Daniel Wheeler. 2000. Prentice Hall

This piece from Week 1 is based off of the work from Emil Nolde, a member of the Die Brucke (the Bridge). It is representative of the time he spent in the tropics, and uses a limited color palette with flatly applied color.