Art Through History

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:42:23 GMT

Favorite quote by an artist?

art parodies

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:49:00 GMT

Hey all, I have been tapped to do a humorous presentation to my college peers. I thought I would do a Powerpoint with parodies of fine/modern art in a mock/serious vein. I have a small collection of stuff I have found on the web, but would LOVE any others that you all might be hiding.

Hit me up and I can send you an email addy for where to send.

Thanks.
Tom

she-wolf

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:47:24 GMT

Famed Roman statue 'not ancient'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7499469.stm

Positions for Fall 08 in Michigan

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:52:46 GMT

We are in need of adjunct faculty to teach two art history classes here at Jackson Community College in Jackson, MI. You can find us on line at www.jccmi.edu for info on the college and its locations. You can also find our employment application and information on the HR page on the site.

Art 111: prehistoric to 1400 and Art 112: Renaissance to present are the two classes we are hiring for. Classes begin mid-August. Jackson, MI is 45 minutes from both Ann Arbor, MI and Lansing, MI and 90 minutes from Detroit. Please forward this information to anyone you might know in our area.

For more details, please email me at mcmillethomasa@jccmi.edu or leave a comment here on LJ.

Thanks.

Tom

i'm not an art historian but i have a question

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 04:44:09 GMT

what's the name of that painting with the angel/cherub holding herself/himself -- hands on shoulders, etc?

Jesse Helms: RIP

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:50:59 GMT

A little somethin' for ya Jesse.

The art world will NOT miss your tired ass.

Over the falls

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:32:10 GMT

So, the modern art world is all a-buzz about Olafur Eliasson’s
“Waterfalls” in NYC. While I have a lot of respect for his work, and would love to see the retrospective at MOMA, I have to say this to him…

SUCK IT OLAFUR!

Some Philistine on NPR was chattering away about how “Amazing!” and “Special!” the installations were and actually said, “Well, no one has ever built a waterfall before!”

Give me a break. Come to Jackson and you can behold the amazing Cascades Park and Falls. They’re just around the corner from our house and yes, they’re a fucking waterfall. So yeah, Olafur, you’re sooooo innovative. Considering that the Cascades have been around for over 85 years… and they’re still going mind you. Ola’s scaffolding, which is really all it is (see the picture on the link), will be taken down in October.

You can learn more about the original “Waterfalls” here:

http://www.jacksonmich.com/cascades2.html

or you can be all artsty-farsty and read about Olafur’s here:

http://curbed.com/archives/2008/06/26/the_gates_who_the_freakin_waterfalls_are_on.php

Mon, 26 May 2008 06:57:37 GMT

I'm looking for the name of an Albrecht Durer print that I can't seem to remember.

It's a woodblock print that includes on small angel flying in the sky controlling a monk on the ground via marionette strings. I can picture the image but can't for the life of me remember the name. Anyone know it?

Help, Please!

Tue, 20 May 2008 17:41:20 GMT

I've hit a financial emergency 2.5 months before I am supposed to start the dual degree program (Art History + Arts Admin) at the Art Institute of Chicago! Does anyone have any good sources for funding/grants/etc. for women who study Art History?

Thanks!

Just wondering...

Tue, 20 May 2008 08:03:46 GMT

I don't know if this has been asked before & whatnot, but what got you into art history?

For me, I took a lower division art history class for my Academy of Art requirement at a local community college, and was amazed by my British professor. It astounded me how much he knew about the world through art. Around the same time, I really just gave up a lot of my own drawings/paintings in favor of pursuing a lifelong passion in guitar (admittedly though, I still draw ever-so-often, although lack of practice makes me a bit irritated some times). Anyway, after all that, I decided I wanted to be an "art historian" simply because I had a new-found thirst for knowledge, and after a couple of years of my undergrad, I decided I wanted to focus on Japanese art (specifically modern art, like manga/anime trends, etc. [the Osama Tezuka exhibit at the AAM in SF was a real treat!]).

Anyway, feel free to share your stories. :]

Alberto Giacometti

Tue, 20 May 2008 04:40:40 GMT

Hey everyone,
I did a research assignment on Alberto Giacometti. However in the assignment i was unable to find out what makes his work unique from other work being made at the time. I lost marks for this, and i'm still unable to work it out. Its really bugging me, if anyone knows the answer and can put my mind at rest that would be tops.

Thanks
elle

sad news

Wed, 14 May 2008 00:55:20 GMT

RIP, Rauschenberg

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/14/2243994.htm?section=entertainment

<3

Language/Study Abroad Questions..

Mon, 12 May 2008 04:06:17 GMT

This may seem kind of silly...but I don't really like any of the advisors at my university and don't find them helpful. Anyway, due to my unhappiness at my undergrad school, I find myself constantly looking at grad schools as a way of motivation/keeping myself sane. It seems like many of them require a "reading knowledge" of both German and French. I'm kind of confused about this though. Do you need to know those languages to get accepted (in general...I'm sure it varies, but from your own experience)? Or can you learn them while doing graduate work? I'm starting French over the summer and I'm planning on starting German when I get back from studying abroad. Also, about how many years of both languages do you think it would take to do well on one of those proficiency exams? I've taken Spanish, but since I started it in high school I've taken so many years of it that would have been condensed into much less time at a college level.

As I mentioned before, I'm studying abroad in January. I'm going to London, so any recommendations as far as good galleries, etc. go? Obviously I want to go to the Tate, and I'm fortunate enough to have a friend who will be studying abroad in France at the same time so I'm going to go to Paris at least once, so any recommendations of places to go there, aside from the Louvre, would be appreciated too!

Thanks :)

Pictionary, with the Masters

Thu, 08 May 2008 03:34:14 GMT

Not really safe for work, not really safe for the classroom, but dammit, I really want to show this to my art history class.

http://www.quietlibrary.com/videos/?video=44

Mon, 05 May 2008 22:58:21 GMT

The Tuymans Experiment

This is really interesting...the first half is all talk but the second half talks about the actual "experiment"

Does it bother anyone else that this is the new Coldplay album artwork?

Fri, 02 May 2008 18:24:08 GMT

And that the whole "Google Artist Themes" calls it "Coldplay"?

edit~I love how much play this post is getting! I actually don't dislike Coldplay's jams (dub it a guilty pleasure, if you must), but it really does bug me that Google would label it as they did (see http://www.google.com/help/ig/art/# and click on "Coldplay"). As for the cover itself, I just wonder why...and what all of you think.

Books on pre-Columbian art

Fri, 02 May 2008 17:06:40 GMT

Hi, everyone.

I'm an art history major, and next semester I'm planning to do an independent study about pre-Columbian art. Does anyone have suggestions for books about pre-Columbian art and/or civilization? I'm hoping to at least order some books over the summer, if not start reading. I've read 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, but that's pretty much the extent of my pre-Columbian studies, so any help you could give me would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

(cross-posted to art_historians and historyisfun)

You dare blink in this country...

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:03:16 GMT

EDIT: http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200804/042408e.html

OOPS!!! The article was sent to me by a (usually) trusted source, and I didn't like what it stood for so I got worked up and didn't think to check the accuracy of it. The person who wrote the article made the same mistake and didn't check his facts, so sorry about the confusion, but it is a wake up call. The author wrote about apathy- some of us are so wrapped up in our art that we don't always remember to check our sources!!

This is the wrong info:
http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=Columns&article_no=3605&page=1#

GOTHIC ART

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:27:27 GMT

I'm not sure if this is the correct community to post this in but any help would be very much appreciated.

I'm writing a paper on the gothic movement.
I'm trying to look for information on why gothic art and architecture was not as popular in italy as it was in Northern Europe.

Any books, websites or opinions would be greatly appreciated as i am finding this quite difficult to understand.

-elle

let's have a discussion!

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:34:29 GMT

I don't know how many of you read the ArtsJournal, but there was an interesting article posted a couple days ago called The Lost Art of Writing About Art. I was right with the author until he got to this point, near the end of the article:

It was Marcel Duchamp who unwittingly launched art criticism on its current path of willful obscurantism. His "Readymade" art -- mass-produced commercial objects (most famously a urinal) that the artist removed from everyday utilitarian contexts and displayed in a museum -- almost required this development.

Until Duchamp, criticism was aesthetically based. The critic talked about a painting's subject, the way the artist handled color, drawing, composition and the like. With Readymades, the object's appearance and beauty were no longer the issue -- indeed, they were irrelevant. What mattered was the idea behind the work -- the point the artist was trying to make. So art criticism moved from the realm of visual experience to that of philosophy. The writer no longer had to base his critical observations on a close scrutiny of the work of art. [emphasis mine] He could simply riff.

I do think the texts from the Whitney Biennial that the article quotes are worthless at best, but I'm not convinced that they have anything to do with Duchamp. I'm disturbed by the implication that considering intellectual aspects art somehow cheapens art writing, and that conducting purely formal analysis is the only way to write something worth reading. I think the bolded quote is particularly outrageous--but what do you guys think? Is art writing in trouble? Why? What contemporary art critics do you like?

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:01:39 GMT

whatisntart.net

I'm constantly discussing the nature of art in classrooms, at lectures, in galleries, coffee shops, the internet and so on. In my own blog, the topic comes up fairly often. I've posted my own perspective, but I feel the debate ends up being too one sided in a personal blog. I often link people to various sources around the net, refer them to books, artists, documentaries. What I realized was I couldn't find one place that collected the opinions and content in an easily searchable and clean manner.

The domain name whatisntart.net was available, so I decided the easiest way of presenting the information was as a wordpress blog that people could discuss and submit content to, both original essays as well as found information, quotes and excerpts. As a starting point, I've supplied the blog with ten backdated posts from various sources, and a few people from varied backgrounds (from pornstar to art buyer) are working on original content to be posted soon.

So this is an open invitation to participate, share words you've found challenging or inspiring, or submit your own thoughts for consideration. Submissions will be moderated through email (details on the front page of the site), but discussion in comments is unrestricted. Some original content will be in interview format, but these people will generally be contacted directly.

Since this is a non-profit project, with no advertising, mainly intended for educational use and public debate, you will not be able to be paid for your words, but credit and a link (either to your website, or email, etc) will be supplied. I hope this is ok to post here, as I mean it to be a resource (all the sources are linked for further investigation). If this goes against the advertising post, let me know.

The design of the blog is currently a work in progress (though it will remain minimalist) and feedback is whole-heartedly appreciated. Feel free to repost this information in whole or in part.

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 02:45:33 GMT

I posted this as a comment to the Dimensions blog, but I figure it's worth discussing.

A quick sum up: Artist creates performance that includes press releases, news articles, etc and people (understandably) take it at face value. And then respond with even more hate and shortsighted attacks when it's revealed that it was creative fiction. People don't understand how much they are manipulated by the media they consume on a daily basis, and then when art POINTS OUT the manipulation phrases such as "masturbation" and "pretentious" are soon to follow (along with various other insults, and attacks on the artist's appearance, age, race, school, any other easy to notice feature).

The rest of the discussion, my full post and comments here, in order to keep this post short and the responses from various places consolidated. Feel free to discuss in my lj post, I consider it just as public of a forum and I really want to hear people's thoughts on this. It's just more convenient for me to check back in one place instead of three (xposted to art theory, art historians and my personal journal)

New York Orchid Show and Music

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:09:17 GMT

Orchid flower and ancient Chinese music story about friendship. Orchid has always been an important part of the ancient Chinese scholars culture among pine and bamboo. And the music instrument (Qin) played in this music is also the ancient Chinese scholars' favorite instrument as highlighted by the quote "a gentleman does not part with his Qin or Se (another ancient Chinese instrument) without good reason," as well as being associated with the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius. It is sometimes referred to by the Chinese as "the father of Chinese music" or "the instrument of the sages".

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 23:43:39 GMT

I'm about to go to grad school (well, in fall) for art history and am wondering what books and movies everyone would recommend reading and watching as preparation. Thanks!

haha

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 23:12:15 GMT

i'm sure people here will enjoy this...