Reviews

Samantha Spreitzer

19 October 2016

Professor DeLappe

ART 346

Exhibition Response

Honey Baby

            I can confidently say that never before have I seen something quite like Honey Baby, though perhaps ‘experienced’ would be a better word. Admittedly, my experience with large-scale video works is somewhat lacking, but I get the distinct feeling that, even were it not, Honey Baby would still stand out. When I first heard the title, I could not say I really understood it, and I did not quite put together the accompanying picture. However, upon actually going to see the work and reading what was written about it, the title made much more sense, in a far more literal way than my mind had first thought. Everything about the way the work was shown added to the feeling that I was looking at what was basically a man in a womb. The dark room acted to block out everything else and force you to focus on the video and the sound from the speakers also seemed to create almost a physical space. I also happened to go by when there was no one else around, which only added to a feeling of almost isolation which, from what I read, appeared to be the goal. This is certainly a unique work, and I have never before had a work feel so personal despite not really being something I could directly relate to. That said, the more I think about it, the more it makes me think of being unable to escape something, an event or feeling maybe; despite all attempts to move out and away from it, one still remains trapped. Overall, it was a really unique experience that made me feel intimately close to the work almost through its presentation alone; the intimate subject matter made this a different experience too.

Samantha Spreitzer

25 October 2016

Professor DeLappe

ART 346

Artist Lecture

Joseph DeLappe’s Talk

            I suppose it would be helpful to start off by saying I had a decent knowledge of Joe’s work, mostly because of an interview I conducted just over a year ago for a different class that led me to look at his work and talk about it. Because of this, I knew about most of the projects he talked about. There were, however, things I was still unfamiliar with and even for those works that I knew of, I got a greater insight to them. Knowing the often political nature of Joe’s work, I was again reminded of events I do not often always think about myself (namely drones, though they do cross my mind from time to time). While personally, I do need or expect my own work in the future to have any sort of overt political meanings (though of course that may change), I find Joe’s works are an often unique way, especially the performance pieces, of getting those messages and meanings across in a sometimes subversive way. The dead-in-iraq project is one of the best, and possibly most well-known, works that showcases this. By subverting everything the America’s Army game is supposed to be about, Joe successfully uses it as a platform for his message. While there are obviously going to be mixed reactions to those works, it was interesting to hear a veteran who also attended give his viewpoint. It reminds you that there is more than one side of the story, and it also makes it clear that the world and morality do not exist in black and white but many shades of gray. Overall it was an interesting talk that gave me more insight about the works I already knew of and introduced me to a few that I did not have prior experience with. I would ask more about how he comes up with the techniques he uses in physical pieces and what, if any, impact responses from the public have on his work.

Samantha Spreitzer

20 October 2016

Professor DeLappe

ART 346

Exhibition Response

Swell

            On a visit this month to the Nevada Museum of Art, I came across Anthony McCall’s Swell piece and it quickly became one of my favorites. Not part of any particular exhibition, McCall was commissioned by the museum for this piece. It was such a unique, and even fun experience, that I loved and I also went back to it to check on it a second time before finally leaving.

            Walking into the dark hallway before the room, I was not entirely sure what to expect, even having read a statement on the work beforehand. The concept is a relatively simple one. There are two beams of white light projected onto the opposite black wall in a dark room with a smoke machine going as well. The way the smoke interacted with the projected light meant that it looked like you were walking almost into a solid wall, which made everything sort of surreal since it was very clear that it was only light and smoke. It was such a unique way of making the piece interactive so that one could easily walk around the room and watch things change from a different perspective, and it was fun. Visiting with someone only helps, as you can watch each other move through the ‘walls’, creating some unique effects. I truly cannot remember every having quite so much fun moving through a piece before. It creates a unique cross between interactive, sculptural, and light art. I have been interested in light art before and I found this to be a new and interesting way of creating that and blending it with other forms.

            I thought the piece was well-designed to fit its space. It takes place in its own room, with a short dark hallway separating it from the rest of the museum, which also serves as a place to let your eyes adjust before entering. The room itself seems to almost transport you to a different place, one dominated by this ‘solid light’ sculpture, as McCall calls it. The addition of someone stationed in the space to explain it really helped, as just walking in can be almost intimidating if you are not entirely sure what to expect. If I could ask the artist, I would want to know what in particular inspired him, since this apparently differs from his previous works, and how he got started with his pieces to begin with.

Samantha Spreitzer

1 November 2016

Professor DeLappe

ART 346

Artist Lecture

Cullen Washington Jr.’s Talk

            I will freely admit that I had previously never heard of Cullen Washington Jr. or his work, so coming into this lecture, I had no real idea what to expect. What I found was an artist trying perpetually to answer the question ‘who am I?’ and one who knew those answers changed as we grow. He mentioned at the start of his talk that we are often looking for truth, as well as how to say that truth and that in the end, the answers all lie within us; this really resonated with me, as did a number of his other statements (one of my other favorites being ‘let questions be your answer’ in that you should never stop searching for answers). I though it was interesting that his art has moved from being more realistic to very abstract (something that seems to happen often with many artists) and representative in a different way from his early works. In the latter part of the lecture, he focused on his collographs. Having just made a collograph series in my printmaking class, I was impressed, especially with the scale of his works, and I often found the process to not exactly be my favorite. He said that ‘the painting is the body, the collograph the spirit’, which I could sort of understand, as he would use his paintings as ‘plates’ for the collographs. Overall, I thought Washington had a lot of unique ideas and an interesting way of looking at the world, one which I enjoyed hearing about. Sometimes it can be important to be reminded that there are so many ways to see the world and how to interpret it, and the same goes for art too. He even said that he does not see his work as art but more of a language and thoughts that can excite him. It reminds me that art can be hard to define and that there are so many approaches to it. I would ask Washington whether or not there was anything in particular that triggered his transition to abstraction and, since he said he often does not understand the meaning behind a piece for some time, whether or not that makes the work more difficult or easier to complete.