After some glitches, my review of the exhibit at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art is now up on Review. Sadly it was posted the last day of the exhibit, but you can still check out the review here!
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Season 1 of Bravo's Work of Art: The Next Great Artist has come to a close. It's unbelievable to think that when it started I was typing up my thoughts on the show ... months later, I get to interview one of the final contestants! The editors at ABN (whose blog Picked Apart has been following the show from the beginning) are giving me the opportunity to interview second runner up Miles. It kind of shocked everyone when Miles, the judges' favorite from the start, came up short of a win. Stay tuned for my Q&A with the artist and congrats to Abdi for the win! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Check out my Q&A with Miles, now on ABN's Picked Apart. I had the joy of spending the past week in Long Island and New York City with my family. We ate a lot of wonderful food, saw beautiful scenery (both beach and city), spent quality time together and (of course) squeezed in a little bit of art. My mom and I got to spend an extra day in the city -- chose to, really, just so we could fit in seeing an exhibit at the Metropolitan. The exhibit, American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity, closes this Sunday, so for those who won't be making it to the Big Apple in the next few days, please watch the video below and get a glimpse of the wonderful fashion exhibit put together with costumes from the Brooklyn Museum of Art collection. The exhibit incorporates music, clothing, backdrops and historical explanations to weave together a compelling and striking story of how woman's fashion has evolved over the centuries to what it is today. My personal favorites were the Gibson girl and flapper collections. But my absolutely favorite dress from the entire collection was this gem from the Screen Siren era. I love the flow of the fabric with the tight-fitting halter top. Oh, and the fact that those are leaves embellishing the entire gown. Absolute love.
I'm really excited to be the fall intern for Next Step Media. It's a great opportunity to write about art for one of the company's publications, Art Business News. Because the editors mostly work from home, I'm able to contribute to a magazine in St. Louis from lovely Louisiana (way to go, technology). I've already gotten to write something small. The editors of ABN have a blog, "Work of Art" Picked Apart, which highlights the latest episode of the Bravo show, interviews each week's losing contestant and offers a great place to talk about the show. Check out what some of the editors (and I!) had to say about last night's episode here. As a recent grad, and even while I was still in my cocoon of college, I realize I have trouble defining my dream job. Some days this frustrates me and leaves me feeling hopeless. Other days -- and today is one of those days -- I accept it for what it is and realize it's not the worst thing in the world.
I have trouble defining this dream job not because I don't know what I want to do but because I know too many things I want to do. I feel like every day I come across a different job and think, "Oh, THAT would be my dream job!" But the next day is something else. And at the end of it, my real dream job would be incorporating all of those jobs into one. I want a job that combines my love of writing with my love of art. My love of food with my love of crafts. My love of architecture with my love of design. My love of nature with my love of cities. My love of odds and ends like colors, memories ... the list goes on! I want a job where I'm surrounded by beautiful things and a job where I can help fix the broken things. A job where I can inspire children to cook, craft, create and be imaginative. At the end of a day, I'm aspiring to live a creative life. I stumbled upon that sentence today, and it immediately struck a chord deep inside. I can't phrase it any better than that, I really can't. ((To read where I got his beautiful nugget of truth, read this interview on Design Sponge with Keith Johnson, buyer-at-large for Anthropologie. He is just one of the many people whose job I think I would love.)) I admit I haven't kept up well with Work of Art on Bravo, so I was excited when episodes were replaying this afternoon. I had wanted to see episode 3 where the artists' challenge is to design a book cover for a classic: Frankenstein, Dracula, Pride and Prejudice, The Time Machine, Alice in Wonderland and the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The winner would have his/her cover used as a Penguin Classic cover. I'm completely guilty of judging books by their covers. Can you blame me? Who doesn't love beautiful design or images? But, thanks to my magazine design course last semester, now "content-driven design" is also forever burned into my brain. So while I watched this episode I got really worked up by the works that had nothing to do with the corresponding book's content. Pride and Prejudice cover by Jaclyn For example, this does not tell me anything about Pride and Prejudice. Half-naked woman with a top hat ... no, I don't get it. Oh, and although you can't see it, she misspelled Jane Austen (Austin). No, no, no. Pride and Prejudice cover by Judith Judith, on the other hand, decided flipping the name of the book was a good idea. Oh, and her finger prints are supposed to resemble a flower because, apparently, all Pride and Prejudice is about is flowers, gardens and romance. Humph. Maybe because Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite books (and because I admittedly haven't read any of the other books) , I didn't like either of these pieces. More so, I felt like neither of them gave the book's content any consideration. Judith complained that she is a fine artist, not someone who designs book covers. OK, but couldn't you at least try to tell a story with your work? I'm sure that's nothing new for any artist. This was the winning cover by John. I've never read The Time Machine, but this cover kind of makes me want to. It's graphically interesting and, if nothing else, grabs the viewer's eye simply with its bright colors. I wish I could say whether I think it's content-driven design, but the judges sure thought so. This challenge brought up the age-old discussion of low art and high art. Andy Warhol blurred the line between the two when Campbell soup cans became a work of art. He made screen printing an art medium and not something just used by advertisements. I care less about whether something is "low" or "high" art than whether it's interesting. I'm a sucker for great design and interesting images. That's why on my bedroom wall you'll find something like this: Next to this: Each speaks to me and about me in different ways.
There's no arguing that June is the month of weddings. Especially when The New Yorker recognizes it, too. The illustration covers of The New Yorker are some of my favorite things, and this June 28, 2010, cover might be one of my new favorites. I don't know if it's the fact that it's so sweet and simple or that it's so sweet and simple and on The New Yorker.
The last time that I was at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, I fell in love with the above work. It's nothing tremendously well-known or academically significant, but it spoke to me. Really, the title is what I loved most. If I could have this be my logo or motto or slogan ... no, better yet, I hereby change my blog to "The Typewriter: On the Art of Writing and On the Writing of Art." Hmm, too long? Well, I love the work nonetheless.
Before I left Missouri about a month ago Jonathan and I took a day trip to St. Louis to enjoy a day together and visit some of the city's venues I'd never gotten to see. One of those places was the St. Louis Art Museum. While there I reviewed their current exhibit by artist Yinka Shonibare MBE Mother and Father Worked Hard So I Can Play for Review magazine. Check out the review here!
And because in the actual review we couldn't use the photos I took (museum rules regarding commercial use, etc.), here are some not-so-great images -- but they help give context to the works. The exhibit is up until July 5. Part of me is surprised it has taken this long for a network to come up with a reality competition show for artists. Chefs, fashion designers, hair stylists, singers, comedians, dancers ... all these professions had a way to be "the next big star" but not artists. Well, Bravo bit the bullet. The new show Work of Art, which is executive produced by Sarah Jessica Parker (I guess high end fashion wasn't doing it for her anymore), airs on Wednesdays on Bravo. The winner of this competition will get his/her own exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and $100,000 in art supplies. These are both amazing prizes and I'm so glad that some artist will get this opportunity.
But part of me also cringes at the idea of this show. Not to put artists on a higher pedestal than the professions that have thus far been covered by reality TV, but I can't help but think this show is slightly off base. I love that it's giving an even larger audience insight into the world of art and hopefully even inspiring new artists along the way. However, after watching only seven minutes of the first episode -- so yes, maybe some of these comments are too rash -- I already have my reservations about what this show is doing. For one thing, the art world as I see it is a community. Yes, there's the art market that makes some artists more "valuable" than others, but they're not meant to be pinned one against the other. Every artist I've ever met embraces his or her fellow artist. They support each other, collaborate with one another and grow from that. Sure there are art prizes where there are winners and losers, but at the end of the day, most artists will agree, it's not about the prize. Secondly -- and I know this would be true for singing, cooking, fashion designing and an endless list of talents -- one or two judges are not enough to decide what is "good" and what is "bad" art. OK, I think most people could agree on what is good or bad singing or cooking. Comedy is a little more subjective, and fashion is somewhere in between. But art is the end all be all of the discussion of good vs. bad. I think what currently has me a bit annoyed is one judge's comment: "My approach to art is purely physical. I usually know within the first split second if it is a great work of art." Ahh, this is where we differ, and it's probably because of my love for the history of art and the story behind a work. There are so many times when I look at a painting (sorry that I tend to talk about that medium the most, but it's what I know better) and think, "Hmm, what's going on here?" It's not until I know more about the artist or what the artist was thinking that I appreciate that piece. And I know that this "method" has its flaws. Art should be universal, right? You shouldn't have to know about the artist or what he or she was thinking or any of that, correct? Well, OK, but you miss so much of the point if you don't care about that stuff. Even when I know the background of a work, I still might not like it aesthetically, but at least I can find value and appreciation in it in other ways. Because whether art is visually pleasing is so subjective, so personal and so non universal. All that being said, I think I'll play the rest of Episode 1 (again, I've only watched seven minutes of it) and see how it pans out. And I urge you to watch the show, too. Maybe you'll discover a new artist that you love (winner or not). |
AuthorValeria Turturro is a journalist with a love for art and architecture, cooking, learning and connecting people through storytelling. Archives
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