Visiting Lecture #6: Curator Paola Antonelli

Paola Antonelli

Trained as an architect and thinks that it contributes to her curating position. MOMa. Brought up in Italy.

“Secret is to build teams and know who to ask for help when needed.”

Secret Strength- also biggest weakness. Get lost in details and lack retention. (lard and honey…)

--Changed fifteen professions. Can’t be an astronaut with cavities… Different ideas of what she wanted to do. Organic path and keeping your mind opening and following the things you like to do. The right direction for her was to be a writer.

·      2 years of economics

·      moved to architecture to be free

·      realized she wasn’t great at this and moved to writing

o   Worked for Domus magazine.. which started as a house wives magazine..

o   Also freelanced exhibitions

--Came to NYC in 1994. Found her job already set up for her. Design is not only something that comes from Europe. She realized that there were established institutions within the US that don’t have design critics.

-Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design first show. (1995)

80% of audience is @ MOMA to see Picasso’s etc. She tries to design the shows to draw people in and check out the design.

Make due with what you get. Juxtapositions of designers. 

Achille Castiglioni: Design! (1997)—explain very clearly the process behind products. Arch lamp.

Thematic shows allow for more authorship. Designers need to find their own narratives.

Tricks

·      make exhibitions manageable for children. They aren’t insecure and are best at critiquing. Show is good if children enjoy.

Projects 66: Campana/Maurer (1998)

·      Furniture vs lighting

·      Campana—

·      Maurer—Luccilino. 

Campana brothers. Vermelha chair

Workspheres (99-2001) beginning of wireless technology. Ready to be in the future but the future was resisting and they weren’t ready.

Humble Masterpieces (2003)—masterpieces are everywhere. Try to look at things differently. Book was published once they realized that people liked it.

SAFE: Design Takes On Risk (2005)—design that had nothing to do with aesthetics and more to do with function. Original idea (emergency) was to happen around the time of 9/11. Renewed and increased optimism among New Yorkers.

Objects of Design @ MOMA – vast collections that reflects progress. Objects that always push you a little forward. Idea of forward motion.. Need to stick to your own story in order to have a presence. MOMA is writing their own history of design.

Design and the Elastic Mind @ MOMA—only two design and architecture people on committee. Collaborations between scientists and designers/architects. . . Lesson-scale has changed. More about quality of image/complexity. Micro/nano-scale…human scale… intangible large scale

·      Sperma zoe

Nanotopia- Future Farm. Michael Burton. –critical design

 http://www.michael-burton.co.uk/HTML/nanotopia4.htm

Smell+

James Augner

Front

Sketch Furniture 2006

3/11/10: 5th Visiting Artist: Sanford Biggers

"The only limits are those you impose on yourself." Sanford

Sanford Biggers was introduced as a former professor at VCU and is currently teaching at Columbia. He is a sculpture and installation artist. After seeing his work I would say he is definitely a multi/mixed-media artist interested in collaboration. His work considers cultural and race relations as well as adding a bit of spirituality and african heritage.

At first I was very suspicious of Biggers because he didn't seem very organized. He started off by showing a compilation that I thought would never end. I sort of wish he had shown it last and used the first section of time just to talk and show individual pieces. I had to leave before he was done because I had a test to take. I could tell once he started to talk that his work is very important for me to take a deeper look into. He was very excited about his work though, which is refreshing.
 

"Beyond the floating smile of the Cheshire cat, this image makes reference to the “raced” body, racial stereotypes organized around a set of symbols profoundly anchored in white discourse as if the white observer was presuming to speak for all without the slightest mention of his or her own "raced" identity. It evokes overtly racist images such as the early advertising of Banania chocolate and Darkie toothpaste, but also the complex fact that several black performers from early minstrelsy to current hip-hop have embraced and exploited racial stereotypes as a tacit acceptance to benefit from the social and financial ascension that entertainment offers to African Americans."

Artist's Website

2/16/10: 4th Visiting Artist: Hank Willis Thomas

 Pitch Blackness, Off Whiteness 2009. Neon Sign. (multiple views)

"There is something called black in America and there is something called white in America and I know them when I see them but will forever be unable to explain the meaning of them because they are not real even though they have a very real place in my daily existence, a fundamental relationship to my understanding of history and a critical place in my relationship to humanity." Carl Hancock-Rux

Branded Head, 2003 Lambda photograph

How to Market Kitty Litter to Black People: Ebony Magazine, 2005/2006

Ball and Chain 2003

 

Scarred Chest 2003

Hank Willis Thomas
Along the Way Video (youtube)
Jack Shainman Gallery

Hank Willis Thomas is a contemporary photographer who deals primarily with advertising, pop culture and race. He strives to challenge depictions of african american men. Hank Willis Thomas was raised in New York City. He received a BFA in Photography and Africana Studies from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He received an MFA in Photography and an MA in Visual Criticism at the California College of the Arts. His mother, Debra Wilis, is actually a photographer as well which immersed him into imagery early on. His book Pitch Blackness was published by Aperture and was driven by the loss of his cousin to murder, advertising, and the idea of "off-whiteness" or "black-ness".

He was really interesting and I found that I could relate to the themes within his work. "Five year olds recognize that they are not black or white...I'm not black, I'm brown." Willis Thomas stated that before the slave trade, black people were just people. By taking a complex race and cutting it down to "black", they were seen as sub-human and that justified why they should be sold. He talked about how you can tell a story a new way, referring to the murder of his cousin Songha Thomas Willis. He was murdered over a chain and when his story was published in the newspaper, they chose to use Hank's image of him. He said that was the first image of his that was ever published. He made a stop motion film, "Winter in America", using his child-hood G.I. Joe's to retell his cousins story. His work all ties together...we are all materialistic. He made a mastercard ad with an image from the vigil and spoke with us about how much a casket cost. Why put so much value on something that will be buried? He talks about commodity and what sells.

Prodigy Mother/son collaboration "Sometimes I see myself in you"

 

Priceless 2004

2/11/10: 3rd Lecture--Race Matters

google image from post-racial google search

Race Matters: Post-Racial America in the 21st Century

7:30 pm VCU Commons Ballroom 2/11/10

Panelists: Bradley Brookins (undergrad accounting), Dr. Njeri Jackson, Jennifer Black, Dr. Utsey and Dr. Wood (Religious studies/adjunct afam professor). 

 The panel was questioning the idea of a "post-racial America" and if the issue of race still exist today. Are we post racial?

Questions and some answers summarized from panelists:
What is post racial America? "Allusion, fiction, myth, propaganda".... "a construct"... "interesting how  rules have changed."

What would one be? Postracial--colorblind--appreciative of diversity. One with little culture disparities.

Thoughts on reverse discrimination? I wrote down Affirmative action when this question was brought up. The idea is grounded in Affirmative Action. Some white people are threatened by affirmative action because they think they will not be hired because the black person gets hired to fill diversity. Most of the panelists talked about how we are all human and that everyone can be discriminated against. Utsey believed that engaging in the thought of reverse discrimination is fueling the idea....Reverse..The word is assuming that discrimination is solely towards one group of people.

 They also talked about Barack Obama as president. He was considered the best candidate because he transcended race. This is seen as a double standard though because why should black have to transcend above race and not white? I also think about the fact that he is not as dark as some african americans and the fact that he has mixed background. People think that since we elected a black president that everything is okay now. This is similar to when women got the vote. "Well we gave them the vote, what do they want now?" Its more complicated than that.

The history of racial categories dates back to slavery, when it was necessary to group people.

Audrey Smedley was mentioned. I researched her and found out that she is a professor at VCU and that she thought, "Race is an ideology that says that all human populations are divided into exclusive and distinct groups; that all human populations are ranked, they are not equal. Inequality is absolutely essential to the idea of race. The other part is that the behavior of people is very much part of their biology". Smedley questioned the relationship between the color of skin and any other variable that assumed direct correlation. If black then _____. 

Its "free to speak, and expensive to be heard." To trust anything in the media one should look to several sources. Many people stay silent because of the consequences that follow. 

Clarence Walker, a specialist in African-American history at the University of California at Davis, dismisses talk of a “post-racial” society as “bulls–t.” “The U.S. has come to recognize it is multiracial. But it is not post-racial. To say it is post-racial is like saying the world is post-nationalist!” I agree with this statement. To say that America is post-racial is to say that it is free of and absent of race. There are still big gaps between fairness of blacks and whites, not to mention other ethnicities that are left behind in the white/black binary.

  Google Images that come up when searching "post-racial america":

 more lecture notes:

"Pro_______, doesnt mean anti- anything."

Race is a sociological idea. There is presumed "biological" categorization. The attempt to make anything multi-cultural has the power to actually dilute issues of people. It reduces demands groups have made. To be diverse/multi-cultural is to be non-white. Dr. Utsey questioned the term inter-racial. I have always seen it as a positive term but he made me think more about it. It echoes difference and he compared the categorization of non-whites as if they were a different species. (across races).

 

2/11/10: 2nd Visiting Lecturer: Michael Kimmel

Michael Kimmel, sociologist and author of "Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men", came to speak at VCU on the 11th. His groundbreaking work on masculinity has made him a household name. Michael Kimmel is author of works such as: Changing Men: New Directions in Research on Men and Masculinity (1987), Men Confront Pornography (1990), The Politics of Manhood (1996), The Gender of Desire (2005), and The History of Men (2005). At first, I was reluctant and suspicious of this author.

He described himself as a "pro-feminist man for gender equality". The book of topic was Guyland, what he believes as a new stage of development between adolescence and adulthood. Adolescence is between the ages of 13 and 17 where children
find themselves". He talked about adolescence and when it was created as a term. Children used to go straight from childhood into adulthood. Now he talks about the idea of "10 is the new 20" and "30 is the new 20". There is more than a decade after adolescence until one achieves adulthood. There is this continuum with "Will they ever grow up?" on one side and "They're growing up so fast" on the other. Culturally, adulthood is when you finish the five pre-requisites: finish school, get a job, move out, get married, have a kid. When asked if anyone was an adult by these standards only one or two actually raised their hands in a theater that houses more than 100 students. 


He talked about four basic changes:

1. Demographic Revolution: people are living longer
2. Economic Transformation (different trajectory). Employers are no longer loyal so employees become less responsible/reliable. 
3. Change in parenting styles--(idea of helicopter parents always hovering), withdrawal of parents/adults into "real life" or college
4. Men threatened by successful women. 

 Students today find themselves in college because they were always supervised and guided when under their parents roof. Being initiated into manhood is no longer in the hands of adults, peers are the ones to gauge whether someone is ready (ie frats and sports teams hazing). Kimmel talks about how this is mostly due to men/boys but that it affects women's lives. He told us about going on an Oprah episode titled, "A Black Woman Stole my Job".

1/27/10: 1st Visiting Artist/1 Idea: Alec Soth

 Alec Soth "like both"

Alec Soth Photography
Representation
Blog

Alec Soth startles the sleepers along the Mississippi for a brief but profound moment; they open their eyes to his camera just long enough to reveal the immemorial, often dreamless, sometimes hopelessly trashy quality of their sleep, then sink back into the mud of their impecunious marginality. Alec Soth's visual journey has the decency (or affection) to disturb none of his subjects, though he disturbed me, a viewer, plenty.
Andrei Codrescu, poet and NPR contributor 2003

Joshua, Angola State Prison, Lousiana 2002

Venice, Lousiana 2002

Alec Soth was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota (1969) where his work is also based. He has received numerous fellowships and is in the collections of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His first work Sleeping by the Mississippi was published in 2004 and since then he has published NIAGARA (2006), Fashion Magazine (2007), Dog Days, Bogata (2007) and The Last Days of W (2008).  

 

I thoroughly enjoyed Alec's lecture last night. It was refreshing for me to see the process behind an artist's work and be able to relate to how one functions. He showed us an image of his steering wheel with a written list of images he strives to make. List making and keeping a journal/sketchbook is very essential. I'm sure there are some that do not function in this manner, but it is very helpful. Soth mentioned Hockney's "paralyzed cyclops" and Eggleston's "Democratic Forest". I thought these were interesting concepts and inspirational launching pads for Soth. He said that to shoot democratically you pick up the camera and photograph anything and everything. Hockney said, "photography is all right if you don't mind looking at the world from the point of view of a paralyzed cyclops -- for a split second." I think that Hockney must have said this at a frustrated part in his career because he continues to break the mold in his own photography.

To the love of my life 2005

Soth had a lot to say before he even showed his own work. He spoke about the idea of doing narrative photography, attempting to tell a story. He pointed out that most attempts at the narrative are actually staged/hollywood-like images. He attempts to photograph actual narratives, traveling from here to there and "connecting dots". He bases his work method on a trip he made in college with his girlfriend. He now travels around with his dog doing different documentarian type projects. Sleeping by the Mississippi is an interesting project where he juxtaposes portraits of people and images of sleeping environments. When he takes their pictures, he asks them what their dreams are. Niagara was a piece about love, romance and sex. He photographed newlyweds primarily and was curious as to why they came to an enormous waterfall. He spoke about how new love is destructive and started collecting love letters.  

Heart 2005

Overall, I enjoyed Soth's honesty and commentary on photography to today. I look forward to researching some of the ideas he mentioned. He was a great speaker and I hope that we have more in the future that are as willing to share as he.

Visiting Artist Lecture #6, Amy Hauft, (Cassie Mulheron)

Counter-Reformation, wood/canvas/gesso/styrofoam/sugar/plastic, Amy Hauft, 2009

Amy Hauft

Anderson Gallery

Amy Hauft spoke at the Anderson Gallery on December 2nd. She is a chair representing the department of Sculpture and Extended media. She spoke about her newest piece/series, Counter Re-Formation.

It was refreshing to listen to an artist talk about work that was actually more tangible than an image on a screen. It was right in front of you and she could talk about exactly what she meant. Anderson Gallery explains her work on their site, "Amy Hauft combines shifts in scale and perspective, the arcane craft of sculpting sugar, art-historical references, and metaphor to create a rich perceptual experience for viewers of her new installation." Sugar! I was really intrigued to hear that she used this as her medium. When you are inside of the piece it is hard to understand what is really going on. Hauft explained that the aerial view helps the viewer better understand what is going on. In order to experience this she has a staircase built to the ceiling. The piece is really neat. I like that you have to observe it from multiple viewpoints in order to fully understand what is going on. Her inspiration for form came from a banquet table designed for Louis XIV. She responded to that table by creating something more assymetrical, more modern and less functional.

11/17-Visiting Artist #6-Diego Sanchez

Diego Sanchez

Page Bond Gallery

Diego Sanchez is a painter that is originally from Columbia. I thought that it was really interesting that he was so focused on coliseums because it has nothing to do with his heritage. He hasnt even been to Rome. Sanchez spoke of how he enjoyed the architecture and will keep painting them until he gets sick of them. He starts with the surface and builds onto it with stains of color. After several layers of gesso and color he starts to include an image. If he isn't happy with what he is doing he will sand over it and paint over it. He feels as if the work is intuitive and he enjoys working that way the best. The work itself is very vibrant and eye catching. It is very geometric and he often works in grids. I think this is his way of staying organized. His subject matter mostly includes coliseums and chairs. He uses these objects and hopes to find a "happy medium between representation of elements and nonrepresentation of elements..." He talked about how people read visual information and how it is different from person to person. Most of the depth achieved in these paintings is used by overlapping.

11/17-Visiting Artist #5- Mary Scurlock

Mary Scurlock
Page Bond Gallery
Nov 17, 2009 Lecture

Scurlock began her talk saying that she worked on paper for over 25 years and transitioned to using wood panel instead. She felt that it was really risky because she knew she would have this big show at the Page Bond Gallery. Around the time she changed mediums she injured her hip and found out that she needed surgery. "One leg feels like glass, one feels like wood" is what the doctor told her. She thought this symbolism was a really good juxtaposition. I thought it was interesting that she decided to change her medium but that she wasn't that concerned about concept. That's so weird to me because at this point in my education I am so focused on concept first and aesthetic after. Trees came to mind when wondering what to depict. Because she wanted to get the technique down first and she stated that it was really hard. This bothered me. She put 5 layers of gesso on her panel and dug into it, power sanded areas and used oil pant and wax. She described it as a back and forth process. All of her pieces were pretty small and she stated that it was mainly because it was really detailed work. I thought that was a weird excuse and that she should own whatever size chosen and have a reason for doing it. The scale is successful though because you have to get close to it and it shows how intricate and detailed the work is.

Unfortunately she doesn't have a website. The work on the Page Bond Gallery's website is work previous to this show. I couldn't find any of her new work online. Her style does travel over into her new work though. The color scheme is very cool and neutral. There isnt a whole lot going on in the background but the multiple layers of paint and wax give it a lot of depth.

If anything what I got from this lecture is the idea of experimentation and not being scared to try something different from what is already working. I also know that for me my concept is very important and primary to the aesthetic. I feel like I need to have a reason for everything.

11/12-Visiting Artist #4-Shimon Attie

Almstadtstrasse 43, Berlin (1930). (car parked in front of Hebrew bookstore)

Shimon Attie uses a variety of processes to reclaim the world’s buried histories. His works have included laser texts, projections onto buildings, glowing light-box portraits submerged in canals, and multi-layered photographs that conflate past and present. His body of work reveals the rich complexity of the past, and the dark secrets of our surrounding environment. Attie’s work is held in numerous public collections worldwide, including those of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Museum of Modern Art-Berlinische Gallery, Berlin.

Mulackstrasse 37, Berlin (1932). (children and tower)

The first two images are among what Shimon first showed our group. Out of all the presenters this year I enjoy Attie's the best. He was really laid back, well spoken, and had a good sense of humor. His work is amazing. The imagery is so rich and colorful and once you add concept it blows your mind. He showed us color slides while the slide projector would behave. I enjoyed that his images use no photoshop or digital effects. He researched to find archival images of what these delapitated places used to look like. None of his work implements digital enhancing and I respect that. I enjoy seeing what he chooses to do to get his imagery to work. He is very clever and patient.

The piece Mulackstrasse 37,a slide projection of former Jewish residents. In this case, they happen to be two young children. What you see in the distance, to the left, that's the Berlin Alexanderplatz, and that large tower which comes up from the platz, was the former television tower of east German state television, before German reunification, so it's a very potent symbol.

The graffiti is a very important layer in the fabrics of these photographs. The entire sentence means "What the war spared did not survive socialism." So it was anti-socialist, anti–East German graffiti that was painted on the wall of this building after the Berlin Wall fell. So you have pre–war Jewish history, you have the history of the war, you have post-war socialist history, and you have post-German reunification history, all combined in one.

In a sense, I'm working as an artist-archeologist. I'm working to give visual form to personal and collective memories, in public spaces—memories that are latent in the architecture but that aren't visible. I think most people's response was the response of most of us to something that's beautiful. There was a sense of awe and fascination, wonderment, curiosity and intrigue. And then, only after, when they start to maybe read the Yiddish lettering or look at how the people are dressed and realizing that, in fact, these are Jewish phantoms from the neighborhood's pre-war past, then there's maybe a goose bump kind of response and maybe more a feeling of either sadness or discomfort.

What really inspired my Berlin project is I was walking along the streets of this neighborhood and I had such a strong feeling in my gut, "where are all the missing people?" I felt them but I couldn't see them. MOMA

What struck me strongest about Attie was his concern for the people. He wanted their humanity to show through and cared about where they had been and what had happened. His stories about the interaction with these people was amazing. I feel this was successfully done in his piece, Between Dreams and History. He interviewed various people around the lower east side of NYC and had them write down their favorite childhood rhymes/stories/poems etc in their first language. He narrowed down these and chose a handful to laser project on the facades of buildings at night, in English, Spanish, Chinese, Yiddish, or Hebrew. Watching the response of the viewers in a snippet of a documentary he showed us, there was a positive response. He wanted everyones stories to be there.



Most of the work he does like this is site specific and difficult to document. Seeing it on the dvd was very touching, Im sure live it would be even more. I really enjoyed how the writing appeared as if it was being written at that moment.

10/18-Visiting Artist 3-Brian Ulrich

Brian Ulrich
website
representation

Brian Ulrich is an artist photographer (b. 1971 in Northport, NY) living in Chicago, IL. He came as a visiting photographer to VCU's Photo and Film Department.

COPIA
Plenty, a plentiful supply: now chiefly in L. phrase copia verborum abundance of words,
a copious vocabulary. Cf. COPY n. 1c.

I. a. Plenty, abundance, a copious quantity.
b. Fullness, plentitude. Obs.
c. esp. of language: Copiousness, abundance, fullness, richness.
copy of words : = L. copia verborum. Obs. (from artist statement)

Untitled, Thrift, Chicago (2006)

Brian Ulrich observes our consumer based culture. His lecture was very easy to sit through because he is so down to earth and real. He didn't try to force a vague or trite concept down our throats. He presents issues that are in front of our faces daily. I thought he was really funny too.

The series Copia, "explores not only the everyday activities of shopping, but the economic, cultural, social, and political implications of commercialism and the roles we play in self-destruction, over-consumption, and as targets of marketing and advertising." I found the image of fake Nike shoes particularly interesting. They sat in heaps in the basement of a thrift store and were brought up periodically to make the consumer think they found a great buy. I am pretty sure that everyone in the audience said "whoa" or gasped at the same time. To think that even thrift stores participate in capitalism.

Ulrich refers to Thrift as the "secondary life cycle of consumer goods". When people appear in portraits they are the middle/lower class. Before this series he did Retail, focusing on the middle-upper class shopping experience between malls and super centers. They are both chapters of the Copia project.

Ulrich's process is admirable. He carries around a medium format, and sometimes a large format camera. He was talking about how scary it was to ask for permission in getting a portrait or even documenting a space. He found that most people are friendlier than they seem. It doesnt hurt to ask...most of the time. So some people, like Jessica in the portrait, stood still for his exposures. His pictures are so rich though because he takes the time to do it with film. He makes sure he gets the shot and if for some reason there is camera shake or the film is ruined, he will travel back to that place and try to take it again. I make the mistake of getting discouraged when something doesn't work but I think many artists could benefit from this type of attitude. If it doesn't work, do it again. Do it until you get what you wanted. Its easy to get put behind when something doesn't go the way you want.


Some more of Ulrich's images. These are from his Dark Stores, Ghost Boxes and Dead Malls series which I also really enjoyed. He started this in 2008 and it branched from his other series'. They are beautiful large format pictures of old buildings and spaces once used for consumerism.

10/8-Visiting Artist 2-Anders Ruhwald

We all float in space and cannot perceive the new order
Miyako Yoshinaga Art Prospects, New York
2007

Anders Ruhwald
artist website
gallery

I attended this artist lecture at Bowe St where Ruhwald was thoroughly welcomed for being an international artist. My expectations were very high and I have to say that I was pretty disappointed in the lecture overall. It was really dry/monotone and Ruhwald read directly from a script rather than engage his audience in conversation. I came to this lecture with an open mind since my only prior knowledge of the artist was that he was a sculptor of some sort. As an artist, he is very well shown and attempts to work in various studios around the world to be more well rounded. It seems as though his work In Between is most popular.

I enjoyed some of the things he had to say most apart from the work. He talked about the idea of the "form giver" and how that functions between artist and piece. He likes to make ceramic objects that have some functionality in domestic spaces and likes to juxtapose pieces together. I wasnt too impressed that he had no interest in concepts. The most meaningful thing he had to say was about objects once they are purchased..."Objects change meaning by context...how does work continue to exist after being purchased?" He showed a piece that was bought and displayed in an ambassador house.

The pictures depicted are what I respond to most out of his work. It involves a piece where the viewer has to participate in order to fully experience the piece. I think his sculptures otherwise are very uninteresting and can understand why he said some are "dumb" and have no functionality.

10/6-Visiting Artist 1-Penelope Umbrico

Penelope Umbrico
website
representation

Penelope Umbrico is an artist living and working in New York City. She attended undergrad at Ontario College of art and received her MFA at NY School of Visual Arts. She currently teaches graduate and undergraduate photography programs at School of Visual Arts, Parsons School of Design, Rhode Island School of Design and Bard College. Aside from teaching she does various visiting lectures and is widely shown. She is represented in the collections of MOMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I wasn't really sure what to expect when I came to this lecture. A friend told me that I really needed to go to it but I assumed because it was photography. But I realised later that Umbrico's work was highly appropriated and that it would be good insight to a direction I think I'm going in.

Her body of work is really extensive. I can only imagine how many harddrives she owns. She said that she works on several projects at once and that they are constantly growing over the years. I think her most popular work is probably the Suns From Flickr. She searched Flickr to find out what the most popular type of picture was, resulting in sunsets. Umbrico collects thousands of images and documents the count from the site and uses it in the title. Most interesting to me is the idea of "fair use". Some viewers argued whether or not she should be able to use their pictures and questioned Umbrico for what she was doing in a Flickr discussion board. Umbrico argued that once you upload an image into such a public domain, you lose ownership somewhat. She compared it to leaving a belonging out on the ground. Someone can walk by and pick it up and take it into their ownership. She wasn't assuming ownership of the images though. She is appropriating to make a statement, educate in a sense, so that is fair use. She wasnt taking pictures of other pictures and claiming that it was her original work.

I wasn't too sure how I felt about appropriation before seeing this lecture. Is it right? Is there a right and wrong when it comes to art? She opened my eyes to the different types of appropriation and various reasons. You have to make it your own. I don't necessarily agree with artists that directly copy work and claim it as their own (Sherrie Levine) but I understand why they do it.

Some of Umbrico's work was just incredibly pleasing to the eye. Aesthetically, I liked the Doors and Mirrors pieces the most. She flips through home improvement catalogs and rips out different things that she likes. With the doors she was interested in what was depicted outside of the doors and cut just those sections out. She was interested in what replaced the viewer in mirrors and cut those mirrors out too. She scanned the mirror scraps at an incredibly high resolution, reprinted it, and mounted it to come out from the wall. They almost function as real mirrors, void of the experience of the viewer. The inspiration was her mirror breaking at home and feeling displaced not seeing herself.

I was pleased with the lecture overall. Its definitely motivated me and made me feel better about the idea of appropriation.




Out of Place/Mirrors and Door Openings From Catalogs, 2002,
Installation at Julie Saul Gallery, NY