The Bad Art Cafe

A Short Guide to Writing about Art by Sylvan Barnet

if I had taken this guy's class, or a class using this text book, I would have been informed to drop out. you would never see the bad art cafe in this book as referance.

this book is written in the old style. the formal style. the old school of art critque, the reason most art critique is BORING beyond hell. it was the first book on the subject I bought trying to school myself for the standards of writing art crit. I put it down, and looked for something else

now I glace at it. is there anything of of value for me?

(there's a great picture of Jackson Pollock flinging his paint on an unstretch canvas on the floor, so famously captured by Life Magizine in in 1950)

art critiques are harder to write than book critiques.

I liked:

"he knows all about art, but does he knows what he likes?" a James Thurber cartoon

a n unknown critic from the days of yore wrote about Picasso's, The Young Ladies of Avignon (1907): " the drawing is hasty, the color unpleasant, the compostion is confuse . . . . too much concern for effect . . . . in the figures" but then he manages to humble himself: it was famous for what it opened rather than what it achieved.
ok.

A Class in Art

Me, clarie, proprotress of the Bad Art Cafe is brushing up on her art theory. I'm taking a class in Moderism. Really. I'm really being instructed, not merely giving you my version of the art story.

Well, you will still get my version & vision. People read this weblog; people whom I suspect are art history students, and need a break from the professor. I know I did. I remember Greek vases, and spending hours and slides on them. (we can run through that later, if you like)

So it must be because the real art theory in real terms is, well, scary. Why not be creative with creativity? The only art critic I can read who does this is Matthew Collins. Which is why he's quoted here, in this weblog a lot. In fact, I just ordered a new book from him off my Amazon wish list.

But we will distill much of the knowledge from my new course into this space, because that's what we're here for. The real thing. And the funny thing.

Meanwhile, from another one of my favorite art texts: The Annotated MONA LISA, a crash course in Art History . . . . a list of "Artspeak" pg.89

Relief a projecting design carved or modeled on a flat background

Perspective a technique for representing space and 3-D objects on a flat surface

Figurative stle that accurately represents figures, animals, or other rcongnizable objects

Graphic art on a flat surface base on drawing and use of line (as opposed to color or relief); especially applied to printmaking

Plane a flat, 2-D surface with a defined bounary

Static arrangement of shapes, lines, colors that reduces visual movement when looking at a picture (opposite of dynamic)

Flat without illusion of volume or depth; also pure color lacking gradations of tone

Complementary opposite colors on the color wheel - orange/blue, for instance

Values degrees of light or dark in a color

Monumental pertaining to monuments; heroic scale. (we have lots of these in Chicago)

Hay, I'm just trying to get you through a museum without going to sleep on a nearby bench!

ps. the instructor warns not to rely on sites like mine, because we might not have the reall art information.
Well, ok.

There might be reviews ahead for the "real" artsites.

When Looking at Art

If you can't stand looking at anything known as “fine art”,
try these standard critical breakdowns:

Description: the place to start. What do you see? Subject matter, the medium, the form it takes

Analysis: breaking down the components; the size, the color, the use of light & dark elements – try to take into account everything in the piece

Interpretation (the synthesis): what is the artist trying to say? Is it being connected to everyday life somehow? Trying to make a statement about something you look at everyday, but the artist is trying to make you notice more – keep it open ended in its interpretation

Investigate: try to find out something about the work and the artist’s life – think about the idea behind the work, sometimes the idea is more important than the work itself – think of art as a risk taking activity

Judgement: how good is this work?

Carl Andre, Zinc Lead Plain

The course I took in contemporary art at the contemporary art museum a few years ago had the class walking around and looking at the art and analyzing it.

These are the notes I wrote down for Carl Andre’s Zinc Lead Plain, 1969. It’s a minimalist sculpture that is laid out on the floor of the museum:

Formalism, Art is just as it is . . . .
Zinc & lead
Can be walked on, structured simple
looks like a tic-tac-toe
decaying, changing, touchable
No attempt to be other what it is
“fruitful plain”
it’s across from the elevator
zinc & lead make different sounds when walked on
looks like a high tech kitchen floor
can be taken apart
blends into the carpet, might not notice it the first time you pass by here,
environmental?
6 across, 6 down, 36 pieces, 12” squares

An Art Lecture

Some notes (I) from a lecture on Conceptual artist Bryon Kim :

Wall drawings, describing his work
Went into a kind of "Corporate Space"
And wanted to make it dirty, he needed to find some dirt

contents of the vacuum cleaner from the building he was
doing the wall drawings in

mixed with water, then let it sit there for several days.
Washed or "painted" the walls with this

Brickwall, bricked in windows, "Wall Dining", really wanted
to invite Martha Stewart to the art opening. . . .

Exploited the look of the Modernist Paintings

Read from the comment book - some people were enlightened,
some were plain horrified

Notes from an art lecture I

International Art:

Conceptual/Minimalism – two art forms that cross-pollinated in the 1970’s
Moved more into the mainstream in the next 2 decades – a slide presentation
_________________________________________________________________
Hot Balls – Tom Friedman
Stolen pile of colorful balls
The fact they were stolen makes the viewer a part of the crime
_________________________________________________________________
2 Paintings
Everything painters love & hate
Love:
The color blue
Landscape
Large brush strokes
Setting sun
Hate:
Elvis
Suffering
Geometric floor
Cartoon action figures
_______________________________________________________________________________________
A room in museum with nothing but a single line of framed curators cards circling the room “ownership of property” as a kind of sculpture
_______________________________________________________________________________________
House for Pigs & People
Influenced by Joseph Beuys, the German artist,
2 set ups that reflect one another, a house for people, and then a house for pigs right next door.
Everyone oohed & ahhed over the piglets