Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei is probably one of the most famous contemporary artists to come out of China.  Deeply rooted in Chinese tradition, Weiwei decided to break from his traditional values to stand up against the oppressive Chinese government.  In and out of jail and house arrest he continues to create works that demand freedom and personal expression.

The most intriguing of his pieces are his Ming Dynasty pieces in which he paints over vases from the Chinese 'golden' era.  This symbolizes the erasing of the Chinese culture and tradition as the country moves into the 21st century.  One of his latest pieces is a youtube video of him dancing to the Gangham style song.  This video is what sent him to jail due to his gestures against the Communist party.

In response to this video several other artist in the art world have showed their support of Ai Weiwei by making a similar video.  It's interesting how youtube and social media has been used to fuel social and political change.

His Art21 video explains his work well.

Chiho Aoshima

Japanese artist Chihi Aoshima is prolific in the art world, dealing with technology, social media, animation, and kitsch.  The idea of kitsch in Aoshima's art speaks to the consumerist notions plaguing Japanese society, not only that, but the globalizing world.  The reason her artwork is important to media is that it addresses what we value as well as how we value things.  Do we simply value something because the media we're surrounded by tells us we should value it?

Aoshima's digital artwork is deeply rooted in the Japanese animation tradition that came from woodblock printing in the 17th and 18th centuries.  What is fascinating is seeing the progression of Japanese printing.  Being able to look at a historical perspective of Japanese printing can help us draw parallels to our own western printing tradition.  We see that printing comes out of a consumer culture and now that technology has progressed Japanese culture very far the amount of images and ideas is nearly infinite.

Her images are bright in color and very appealing to the eye, but there's a dark side to her work that make the viewer understand the tone to which she's talking about popular images.

Below are some examples of early Japanese woodblock prints.

Art in the Age of Globilization

Currently at the Minneapolis Institute of Art is an exhibition featuring the works of many artists to present the idea of our globalization of ideas and cultures in our digital age.  The exhibition give interactive and unique insights into our societies as we become less 'us' and 'them' and become more united as a world.

When we begin to look at different ideas of culture it is really only in the 21st century that we can get a feel for the ideas and begin to look at them objectively.  Spanning centuries and originating in nearly every place on Earth, the artworks in this show explore the significant aspects of the world's evolving cultures.  How do cultures change and conform in a society that is digital and moving more and more toward social media?  This show gives us a lot of insight into where our society is going and how our networked lives are quickly evolving us.

Future of Art???

What is the future of studio art?  This has almost literally been the question of the century, as art has been placed up against philosophy since the late 19th century.  Today we live in an age of globalization, or more specifically a digital age of globalization.  Artists in the 21st century tackle our contemporary needs of seeing who we are.  Artists such as Chuck Close, Cindy Sherman, Brian Ulrich, and many others.  These artists use traditional media to ask why we're relevant and what it means to live in the 21st century.

So what good is art?  Art gives us a sense of who we are, or it gives us understanding of who we are through intuitive and sometimes scientific means.  Art will always be around because we'll find new medium and devices to express ourselves with.  I found this website helpful.

It seems to only be a matter of questions that I can give you.  Such as, what is the value of art to you?  What are things that you value?  Why do you value them?  Can art be of value?  Answer these questions.

A Human Printer?

It hasn't ever come across my mind what a computer printer had done for us--the human race.  I should to some extend realize the realities of a printer because I myself work in art that uses a printing press, but to take the actual job of a digital printer means a lot!  The Human Printer is project in which artists try to recreate images that a CMYK printer does.  This means lot and LOTS of dots.  

I try to image this process and the time consuming nature of it, and think just how complex and giving our contemporary printers are.  Unlike artists who may critique how we live with our technology and try to discover perhaps the darker side of technology, these artists are very much interested in celebrating printers and our aesthetic that we've built around it.

The Laser Cutter and 3D Printers

Something that I think about is the practice of making art.  As an artist I expand my ideas of the world by creating physical objects that point to a spiritual/metaphysical reality.  The making of objects is my job, but is it my job to literally make the object with my OWN hands?

I've been exposed to laser cutters and 3D printers, devices that allow us to use the computer to make the physical objects we desire and with our exact intentions.  This is perfect isn't it, objects that make exactly what we want?

An issue that stems in using these machines is why?  If these machines are so perfect then what is the reason for the artist?  When a laser cutter or a 3D printer is used, we seem to associate the artwork as manufactured, or one step removed from the artist, so therefore, to keep this post short, we must have purpose for why we are taking away our human nature of creating with our own physical hands.

Penelope Umbrico

A show currently on display at Bethel University features the artist Penelope Umbrico and her work with photographs by George Poundstone in the Bethel University permanent collection.  It is a big deal to have Umbrico featured at Bethel University because her acclaimed status in the art world as an artist who seeks to understand the objects we photograph and the means in which we do them.  A very nice article about the show was written Knight's Art website, and give insight into some of the deeper questions that Umbico's work lays out.  



Umbrico took photographs by George Poundstone, an amateur photographer in the early 20th century, that she had received over the internet and then took pictures of the photographs from the computer screen with her iPhone.  She uses many different filters and apps that are commonly used for iPhones.  This process brings up many questions about why we photograph images, and in this particular work, why we photograph mountains, and further the pieces asks questions about how to photograph.  Umbico has realized that the world is a changing place and images are being flooded into our every day lives as digital imaging becomes more and more accessible, through our phones, computers, and the internet.  

The show brings about many interesting ideas associated with digital imaging that is very relevant to our understanding of the technology and how it effects us.  She manipulates the photographs to a point that makes them unrecognizable, poking toward how we obscure the reality we see on the internet and in our digital pictures.  The world is vastly different from the images that flood our virtual reality and this show really begins to question where our humanness is and goes, and why we photograph the things we do.  What is the significance of photographing a mountain, it's always there.  If thousands of other people have photographed the same landscape why is it worth taking a photograph for ourselves, especially on the media that we've chose, such as an iPhone.  

A further look at a piece that brings up these same ideas can be found here.

The show is up until May 25th so see it soon!