Beuys and Me: The Cat's Cradle

Ok, so it's saturday I know, procrastinating just doesn't work out as well on Friday nights. Anyways I got some thoughts to spit on Beuys, so here it goes. Generally I feel extremely different than Beuys when create my artwork. When I draw or paint, I focus almost exclusively on the aesthetics of the piece as opposed to the reaction it my draw from the viewer. I like for my art to be able to be 'understood' without a context, but this is not to say I discredit conceptual art; moreover I think conceptual art fills a certain void that I usually don't consider. Beuys was very much an activist and also a product of a dark personal history. I think this, in some ways, led to an interest in promoting concepts, awareness and reactions in his work. I'm not really looking to spread ideas or awareness right now, so I'm more focused on the visual quality of my work (just a quick update on my project, I have continued to log my snake and plan to start my portraits today). Honestly I can't say that I was particularly drawn to much of Beuys work, but I really liked how exploited himself and the art world to raise money for planting trees. I see a lot of conceptual work and come away thinking it's a bunch of lazy crap, but with Joseph Beuys I really get a sense sincerity that is a little refreshing.

Strozek, Fo Stro: Shit happens

Man these Fridays really sneak up on you, huh? Anyways I finally saw Strozek in its entirety Wednesday, and I guess I came away with a new outlook on the film. At first Strozek seemed more of a portrait of intersecting lives, yet as it progressed I felt the film took on a more explicit direction. The ending in particular emphasizes the cyclical nature of life as we know it. Instead of merely following Bruno through some sort of arbitrary adventure, we see him take a path that leads directly (almost meticulously) back to his starting point (mentally unstable, and imprisoned or dead). Eva too seems to come full circle as she resorts back to prostitution. One might interpret these situations as people unable to escape their own fate or destiny, but I see it more as them being unable to escape themselves--especially when confronted with the difficulties of society. Here we see another endless cycle forming; as society slowly rejects Eva and Bruno's dream of american success, so to do Bruno and Eva stop believing in their own possibilities off success and their lives, accordingly, begin to spin out of control. But what comes first in this chicken-egg-like scenario? In the final scene of the film, Herzog, bombards the viewer with more cyclical imagery (dancing chicken, chairlift, truck), yet now it is apparent that Bruno is fully aware of these metaphors, and once again we have to ask ourselves what is driving who? One may finish the film and come away with a pointless outlook on life, but I think that viewpoint is misguided. Instead the film compounds the difficulties of life with someone who is mentally unstable from years of abuse. For this particular case, the cycle is tragically impossible to prevent, yet we see that society alone is not responsible for this but also Bruno's own outlook on humanity (distorted from his abusive upbringing). From this we can gather that Bruno's life is one of unfortunate consequence, mostly out of his control. In Herzog's film, the word is a cruel and unforgiving place, but I think it shows that this is intensified the more one believes it to be true, and therefore it might be possible for us to break the cycle.

Ziegler on Herzog; a Shifting Kaleidescope

Oh man, I was just so psyched up for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, that I completely forgot to blog on Friday, but in honor of the big guy himself, I got to spit my thoughts out here about Werner Herzog. The reading "Herzog on Herzog," was really just an interview, that I found pretty entertaining. I like a lot of what Herzog had to say, but specifically I found his comments on anonymity particularly appealing. Herzog says, "To remain anonymous behind what you have created means that your work has an even stronger life of its own." I've all ways been a bit confused by the obsession with credits, and signatures on ones own work, and I never understood why I needed to do it. To me, it seems like you're debasing the work in some sort manner for the sole purpose of crediting yourself--why do we care about that so much? I guess credit is all that some people can hope for. But for others, myself included, what I hope for, is to produce something that stimulates me (and perhaps others ), once it is created I do not care that I made it, I care that it exists. Ideally everyone's art would be available to everyone else (technology is making this increasingly impossible) and one would not need to name-drop in order to like something. All a signature really does is put a very small (if not very large) filter on how someone might view the work. To me, the work itself is a signature, if it garners success and someone else is somehow able to take credit for it, I'll give them some credit (thats seems like it might be pretty tough to do). If I make something I know I made it, and generally when I do create something, whether video or drawing, I do not envision a little signature in the corner (it would make no sense to me) or a list of names and titles rolling at the of my film instead of some sort of climatic last moment (once again, no sense). Although credits and signatures might seem normal, or even fitting, they are not, and we have been conditioned to use them, and some how find meaning in them.

Warhol and Me; the Sacred Feather

Generally speaking, I would say that me and Warhol come at art in pretty different directions. I wouldn't really say that i'm too into the whole 'leftovers' idea. I think that 'recycling' (as Warhol puts it) is actually more like re-appropriation, and the whole recycling idea comes off as a little forced; I mean seriously nothing less is wasted in Andy Warhol's art than in anybody else's. But I guess that something of semantics. I do think Warhol's work relates to one of my project ideas, however, in that I may make food portraits of famous people. In many ways this project idea is deeply rooted in pop art, and may also in fact re-use famous imagery. So maybe I am actually into 'leftovers?' No, I still think its different (and I would also say that this project is not the norm for me).