MODULE 5.1EXPERIENCING ART

Art 100Understanding Visual Culture

M 5.1 overview

key things to remember in your initial approach to art it is a personal process knowledge can assist, but cannot substitute

for, your connection with the work find your favorites and keep an open mind

experiencing art: a suggested course of action experiencing effects accounting for those effects

I. “IT’S PERSONAL”

Each of us has his or her own taste in visual art. We find different things appealing, at different times in our lives.

Brandywine River MuseumChadds Ford, PA

This is a small regional museum where I spent a lot of time as a kid.

Interiorgalleries

Part of the museum is located inside an oldmill building along the Brandywine River. Localartists are featured, with a special emphasis on the Wyeth family.

Andrew WyethMaga’s DaughterTempera on panel27 ½ x 31 inches1966

This was a picture I adored as a kid. It really doesn’t matter where youstart in appreciating art. Start anywhere you like and go from there.

Finding out more about artworks you like is a great thing to do.

But no amount of information will answer all of your questions.

II. THE ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE

Andrew Wyeth,Indian Summer1970tempera on panel42 x 35 inches

Indian Summer, 1970

Maga’s Daughter, 1966

Andrew Wyeth's life

For more information http://www.askart.com/AskAR

T/artists/biography.aspx?artist=24079

Scroll down to second biography, by Frank E. Fowler

His brother Nathaniel Wyeth was an important 20th century figure too: http://

query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEEDE163EF934A35754C0A966958260

There are as many flavors of art as there are people who make it.

New flavors are being created all the time.

You get to pick your favorites.

III. FIND YOUR FAVORITES

The point is to give it a try and see which kinds you think are especially great. Then experience to the fullest and enjoy.

Hint: You might like them all.

Morris Louis, Tet, 1958, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 95 x 153 in, WMAA

Olafur Eliasson, Your strange certainty still kept, 1996, water, strobelight, plexiglass, recirculating pump, foil and wood

Bruce Nauman, Self-Portrait as Fountain, 1970, c-print, 20 x 24 inches

Nam June Paik, Magnet TV, 196517-inch black-and-white television set with magnet, 28 3/8 × 19 1/4

× 24 1/2 in.

Duane Hanson, Woman with Dog, 1977cast polyvinyl polychromed in synthetic polymer, with cloth and hair46 × 48 × 51 ½ in

Charles RayPuzzle Bottle1995painted wood, glass, cork13 3/8 x 3 3/4 dia

Joseph Kosuth, Five Words in Green Neon, 1965, neon tubing, 62 x 80 x 6 in

Jack Pierson, Desire/Despairmetal, glass, plexiglas and wood, 117 1/2 x 56 1/4

Willem de Kooning, Door to the River, 1960 Oil on canvas 80 × 70 inches

Brice Marden, Summer Table, 1972–73 Oil and wax on canvas in three parts, 60 × 105 5/16 in.

Doug Aitken, Untitled (Shopping Cart), 2000C-print mounted on plexiglas, 48 5/8 × 56 5/8 in

Vik Muniz, Double Mona Lisa (After Warhol), 1991Cibachrome print, 48 x 60 inches

Jean-Michel Basquiat, LNAPRK, 1982. Synthetic polymer and oil stick on canvas, 73 1/2 × 72 1/4 in

Catherine Opie, Self-Portrait, 1993chromogenic print, 39 5/8 × 29 15/16 in

quick review

I.

You’re allowed to—supposed to!—respond personally to artwork.

The artist wants you to have an experience—an emotional, physical, spiritual, intellectual, moral (some combination of these or all of them) experience of the work.

If you like a work of art, you’ll often want to find out more about it.

II.

That’s great, find out more, it will enrich your experience of the work, no doubt about it. But there is no “final correct answer” to the meaning of a given work. There are more and less satisfying interpretations, more and less sensitive readings, but no single reading is ultimately correct.

Like your parents probably told you, “How do you know you don’t like it if you won’t even try it?

III.

This class gives you a chance to try out different kinds of art.

There’s no obligation to like the things that I, or your classmates, like.

Pick your own likes and dislikes.

However, you can learn from—even come to appreciate—works you don’t particularly care for.

EXPERIENCE ART TO THE FULLEST?

With all this in mind., how do we…

One way we try to experience art more fully is by understanding how it creates the effects it has on us.

Experience, with your eyes, mind, feelings, memories, body. What does this piece do to me? Examples: Does it make me happy?

Uncomfortable? Sad? Upset? Does it turn my stomach? Does it make me shiver? Worry? Sweat?

EXPERIENCING THE EFFECTS

1. Experience comes first. What do you SEE and how does it make you FEEL in your bones.

EXPERIENCING THE EFFECTS

At this point, it doesn’t matter who made it, when, or why. The point is to try to figure out, as completely as possible, the effect the work is having on you.

EXPERIENCING THE EFFECTS

So let’s sum this up as “experiencing the effects” of the work. This process can take a while. It is not necessarily simple. In fact, one definition of art could be work that takes the viewer some time and trouble to experience.

Accounting for the Effects 2. Now that you have a handle on what

you’ve experienced, you want to know how the piece made you feel that way. Cf. driving a car to looking under the hood.

This is where formal analysis can be helpful. How did this piece make me feel (x, y, and

z) way? How is it structured to achieve those specific effects?

This is where purely personal, idiosyncratic responses can be weeded out if you are writing to share with an audience.

Accounting for the Effects2. Now that you have a handle on what

you’ve experienced, you want to know how the piece made you feel that way. Cf. driving a car to looking under the hood.

Accounting for the EffectsThis is where formal analysis can be helpful.

How did this piece make me feel this way?

How is it structured to achieve those specific effects?

NOTE: This is where your purely personal, idiosyncratic responses can be weeded out if you are writing to share with an audience.

Let’s try out this process with a few different examples.

John Singer Sargent

The Daughters of EdwardDarley Boit

1882

87 3/8 x 87 3/8 inches

First, take some time to observe the picture. Don’t startwith preconceptionsor ideas about what you are supposed to see. There is no “supposed to.” Just look at what is front of you.

I.

a. What does this picture make you feel? (This can be a single strong feeling, or a cpmbination of different feelings.)

b. Can you put your finger on what in this piece is producing this emotion (or set of emotions)?

c. Write a 1-sentence description of the piece that incorporates your gut reaction.

Effects 1

Bruce Nauman Hanging Heads #2, 1989, wax and wire two heads, the first is 10 3/4 x 9 1/2 x 7 ¾, the second is slightly smaller, both suspended approximately 6 feet above the floor

Effects 1

II.

a. What do you feel when youlook at this?What emotion/set of emotions?

b. Can you identifywhat parts of the piece, specifically,are making you feelthis way?

c. Write a 1-sentence descriptionof the piece, incorporatingif possible the feeling(s)it provokes.

Wayne Thiebaud, Cakes, 1963