Sorry for the delay, I've developed a bit of a sore throat and have been trying to take care of it. Meanwhile on Monday we endured two lectures in the morning and a visit to the famed Saatchi Gallery.
Our first lecture was on Globalism and global art. I was very excited for this lecture because a lot of the art I have been studying in school has been from other countries and cultures, so it was nice to round that out in the contemporary world. Some of the artists mentioned that I really admire (now) or already really admire are....
Zhang Huan
He's a performance artist and he documents many of his performances with still photography, that stand alone in some cases.
Here are three of his pieces which you have probably seen if you live in either Los Angeles (at the Getty Center) or San Francisco (SFMOMA).
"Family Tree," 2000
"To Raise The Water Level in a Fish Pond" 1997
Another artist whose work I really liked, but I have never heard of before, was Kim Sooja, from Korea. The work we were shown was in the 1999 Venice Biennale. I am considering going to the Biennale when I am in Venice in a few weeks... we shall see if it's worth the cash.
"Bottari Truck in Exile," 1999
Our second lecture was entitled "The Moving Image" which we had with our frequent guest Lecturer, Maxa, who is from Germany. I really like her a lot, and she has some great references in art and film, although I do not agree with her entirely on certain aesthetics in art.
In this lecture we watched two films/videos that very much contrasted with one another in terms of their theme. One was by Jean-Luc Godard (the famed French filmmaker). It was a five minute film that compiled clips from other films (some of his) and ideas about how the art of fim and video is lost in the digital age. One of the quotes in the film (entitled "In the Darkness of Times") was something that I found to be rather beautiful. I think it went something like this:
"When I talk about time it is because it does not exist, when I talk about a place it is because it has vanished."
The film we watched in comparison was by artist Oliver Laric (who also does sculptural work). I strongly consider all of you to watch the film as it is online and you can watch it for free. You may get a bit distracted by the images and what you are looking at (and this film totally qualifies my utter disgust for Disney) so you should watch it a second time to listen to the text. It is also about the image but I think it is quite different than the Godard piece. The piece talks about the appropriation of images which is something that is discussed a ton in contemporary art. It is called "Versions" and it is the 2010 piece, not the 2009!
http://oliverlaric.com/vvversions.htm
As far as Saatchi goes, I had extremely high expectations and I was completely unimpressed. The space was beautiful, but the majority of the works in the show and in the collection were extremely poor choices. Some of the work was utter crap, and I have no idea why the gallery is so praised. Maybe if I had seen another show, or if I had other expectations I wouldn't have been so disappointed. Nothing more to say about that.
