Final Art projects and presentations

Part of your final grade will be to create a work of art that has been inspired by any of the works of art or artists that you have seen or learned about in this class. You can choose any media (painting, drawing, photo, performance, etc) that you would like. You will be presenting the artwork to the class as along with a short (400-600 word) paper about your inspiration (the artist or artwork), elements/principles  of design present, your choice of materials, and the process by which you made it. The artwork and the papers will be due on Mon 4/30.

Menil Collection Visit Due Mon 4/23

Instructions: Visit the Menil Collection, take as much time as you can to look at the building itself (designed by Renzo Piano) and around the museum until you find a work of art that you are drawn to or are most interested in to write about. It is extremely important that you complete this writing at the museum, DO NOT rely on your memory! First write about the building then a work of art. Then post the info on the blog by Monday4/23.

Ps. You can also read up on the building and its history here

Menil Collection building Basic info:

Artist’s Name (if available): Renzo Piano

Date: 1982

Formal (Visual) Analysis –Describe the building visually and be as descriptive and detailed as possible. What are the size, colors, materials, etc?

Finding Meaning- Why do you think Renzo Piano designed the Menil building in the way that he did? What  effect does it have on you looking at it from the outdoors and experiencing it from the inside?

Work of Art

Artist’s Name (if available):

Title:

Date:

Materials:

Size:

Formal (Visual) Analysis –Describe the piece visually and be as descriptive and detailed as possible. What are the size, colors, materials, or sounds?   

Finding Meaning- Use titles, text, symbols, how the subject matter represented (abstract, representational, nonrepresentational), role of the art, the cultural origin, or any other info you can to try to find the meaning of the work.

Artists That Draw (blog #6 Due 3/30)

or this week's blog home work I would like you to do some quick research on an artist from the following list (choose 1)

Julie Merehtu

SUH SE-OK

Trenton Doyle Hanckock

R. Crumb

Once you have familiarized yourself with their work, choose one piece to discuss in your post (it will be helpful to upload an image to your post) Focus on how the medium of drawing is important to the artist's work and how it functions in helping the artist convey their meaning. Remember to prove all of your claims with physical descriptions of the work.

Extra Credit

Lev Borodulin, Parade, Moscow, 1956. Courtesy of 
Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography, Moscow.

I hope you all enjoy your time off this spring break. Coincidentally,  Fotofest, the oldest and largest biannual photography festival in the country, also begins this week and lasts for a little over a month. It is mostly focused on Russian photography but it goes beyond this with photo exhibits literally all over the city. People from all over the world come to Houston to attend this festival and I thought it would be a great opportunity to get to experience it especially since we will be covering photography soon. 

If you would like 10 extra point added to your midterm exam grade attend one of the many events or exhibitions (most are free) that are a part of fotofest and write about your visit (at least 100 words) and post it on the blog. Have fun!

Online museum visit (blog #5)

I hope you all enjoyed the Museum of Fine Arts and seeing art in person rather than on a screen ( a very different experience). Unfortunately some of us have trouble making it across town to see the museum much less travel the world to see great art. Luckily today we have at our fingertips the ability to "see" many things online that would have otherwise required a plane ticket. Now with many museum's collections posted online you can see so much art for free anytime, and I want you to familiarize yourself with these great resources.  For this week's homework I want you all to spend a good amount of time, at least 30 minutes, exploring the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York  website  as if you were actually there looking for things that interest  you. The website allows you to search all of their collections by materials, time, etc or even look at a time line of art history . For the blog homework I want you to find at least 2 works of art that appeal to you and respond to them or respond to the website as a whole. (You could answer questions like, was the site easy to navigate? Were you able to learn enough about what you were interested in ? etc)

                                               Metropolitan Museum of Art  in New York

Museum Homework (blog #4)

Hello class,
I want to remind you that we are not meeting for class on Thur. Feb 16th instead use the time  for this week's homework. To do the homework, visit the Museum of Fine Arts Houston or your could also visit the Contemporary arts Museum across the street (iboth are open till 9pm on Thur) . Check their websites (in the links) for hours and locations- I know that if you show your student ID and tell them you are there for a homework assignment you will get in free to the Museum of Fine Arts- the Contemporary Arts museum is always free.

Instructions: Take as much time as you can to look around the museum until you find a work of art that you are drawn to or are most interested in to write about. You can pick absolutely any work of art in the museum.  It is extremely important that you complete this writing in the museum, DO NOT rely on your memory! If you can, take a photo of the art that you choose. In most cases they will let you shoot without a flash. Then post the photo on the blog where you will also turn in the review. This post is due by Monday 2/20.

Basic info:

Artist’s Name (if available):

Title:

Date:

Materials:

Size:

Part 1:

Formal (Visual) Analysis –Describe the piece visually and be as descriptive and detailed as possible. What are the size, colors, materials, or sounds? 

Lovely! Lovely! (blog #3)

And now for something completely different.
What about beauty in art, is it still important? Does it still matter? Watch the final episode of "This is modern art" where Collings focuses on a few artists that embrace the power of beauty in their work. Choose one of the artists from the video to look up further and respond to.

PS
Remember that I have included links on the blog to help you find reputable sites for research. Be careful where you get info and pictures on the web, many of you are posting images of art that is not by the correct artist. If you do include images of art in your post, always include the artist's name and title.

Shock! Horror! (blog#2)

For this week's homework watch the second episode of Matthew Colling's " This is Modern Art: Shock! Horror!" But be warned that the video contains explicit images of art meant to disturb and possibly offend. And because of this I want to hear your true gut reactions to the artists  and art that you see even if you are disgusted. This is work that is not about being beautiful, its about something else entirely. Some questions you may want to consider while you watch. Why do you think these artists choose such subject matter, and what role do this work fulfill? How does the meaning of this work change over time? Also should public funds go toward paying for art that is offensive to some (and if it it who decides what is offensive or not?)

THE BIG THREE (blog #1)

For the the most part, I want to use the blog as a platform for discussion artists and their work. It work as either a more in depth than our classroom discussion or to look at artists that aren't address in the lecture or book. This week I want you to become familiar with the "super star" artists Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock , and Andy Warhol. You probably have even already seen a lot of their work and didn't realize it. Watch the first episode of the series " This is modern Art"  (it is boken into segments on youtube) Select one of the super stars that interested you the most, look up more of thier work online and come up with a response to their art. Keep the posts to a minimum of 100-150 words.