I went to Bye Bye Kitty Exhibition with our professor Julia and classmates few weeks ago. When I think about Japanese art, cute images come into my mind, plus the title of the show reminded me of Hello Kitty which I have loved since my childhood. As I was seeing the works of 16 different artists’ provocative and creepy paintings, photographs, videos, objects and installation, I realized that the show really meant “Bye Bye Kitty”, meaning bye-bye to typical cute art.   

This exhibition features 16 artists, half women and half men, working in their individual styles with different mediums but all rejecting their cute pop cultural images. The works displayed were very peculiar and seemed very different from the ones that I’ve been seeing in other exhibitions. I am more exposed to Western Art than Korean art and I am currently a student in art school located in Manhattan, NY. Although I have done one painting that is based on my own culture (Korea) for the particular project, it is hard to build a boundary between Western art works and Asian art works. However, strangely enough, many people have commented on the painting that it is very Asian-like. I started to wonder what it is that differentiate Japanese artists to western artists.   

As we stepped into the show, we were introduced to Makoto Aida’s Ash Colored Mountains. First thing that came to my mind was “Was he expecting the recent devastating earthquake and tsunami when he was working on this piece?” Most of the works seemed to have envisioned the recent natural disaster. The truth is that the earthquake has been part of their culture as well; they have lived and died through the earthquakes. Then I realized not only because the artists featuring are Japanese, but also because they have lived and experienced their culture, their works originate from their soul, which makes them Japanese artists.   

The artworks I wish to discuss more in depth are Makoto Aida’s. One of his paintings called Ash Colored Mountains was placed in front and invited us into Japanese culture. When I looked at the painting farther away, I was amazed at how he expressed the distance between one mountain to another in foggy atmosphere. When I approached closer, I realized that the mountain was made of men entangled with landfills. I believe most of the audiences including me would’ve probably thought or expected this work to be based on something to do with natural disaster. In spite of our beliefs, Aida maintained that this work is about his trying to understanding today’s generation and society by expressing men in suits as a symbol.  

Looking at the painting after learning about the content of the work, I started to analyze the muted tones of the palette and people in suit entangled with office objects. In present,   many people are struggling over their work and living through stress and anxiety. I wondered if he has strived to show that living present is boring and repetitious in his work.     Whether or not he meant to express earthquake, it is very realistic and leads changes in the perception from amazement to threatening because of the recent disaster.

Then the next work called Harakiri School Girls which looks more like a poster that commercializing manga than to be called a painting. With bright and neon colored palette, the attractive young girls in cute little school skirt, posing and winking for the audiences, lead the audiences to think about unnecessary and perverted imagination. But at the same time, individual girl is portrayed very brutally. As a whole, the girls are portrayed as they are enjoying the pain as they are committing suicide. In my own culture, we have had a person representing himself or herself as the leader of the school in every school that regulates students’ every move. If they don’t like any student’s attitude, they tend to change that with violence and bully. Today’s bullying got very intense and led many deaths including suicide. It is similar to Japan’s society. The intentionalized brutality in this work makes audiences feel very uncomfortable but it brings current political issues to attention, concerning problematic of today’s generation

I think it is very brave to show their darker side of their own nationality in foreign country. It has been our stereo typical belief that Japanese are quiet, shy, kind, and submissive. Although there were a lot of works in detail and show soft side of Japan, I felt like I was sneaking into their hidden secret and violent culture. It was amazing to see such a peaceful country like Japan could think of brutal, dream-like, fantastical images in their art work. It seemed to me the point of the exhibition was to tell the foreign country that even in the quiet country like Japan has unsettling nature- both in humans and nature forces – existences. All 16 different artists seem to communicate the silent violence and emerging danger like a nightmare through their art works.

I grew up in a culture where people do not respect younger ones’ opinions as much ad adults’. Different from other students, I felt more comfortable drawing and painting with instruction throughout semesters. While this project was opened to students’ ideas, I felt more trapped and lost. This project was like going on a trip to place that I have not gone before. Although I felt lost, as soon as I found the path, I could not be excited than before. I did not change much from the initial plan but  as Joel’s suggestion, I painted lighter on female’s face and on the male’s penis because thats where the attention goes. The male’s face is not identified but his penis is so it gives away the wonder that just the male’s sexuality matters. The way famale  is poised and facing her head to the viewers show that only her emotion matters. However, the colors that Ive chosen for the female’s face  suggest melanchoy mood and her face is expressionless. So it tells that the female is the dominant figure in this painting. Before I made changes, it was definite that the female was in charge of the male and she looked as if she is ready to devour him alive. After making few changes, I thought of another view on this painting.   She looks like she is going through this sexual intercourse against her will.  She is about to have  a forced sex with a stranger. I thought this view was threatening because if we see this painting with this view, we are seeing an abusive scene with a female seeking for help. The female’s face is expressionless because she doesn’t feel anything like her sense just shut off to protect her while her mind stored as much information as it could. She looks like the her soul is killed and left her body alive.

For the last painting, we had to create figure painting based on Freud’s model of the psyche. My painting is based on Id and my central figure is an adult female sitting on bed waiting for the male figure to come closer. We could only see the male figure from the torso because he is anonymous, which means he could be anyone. The female’s body is fronting the male but her face is turned to the viewers. The background is painted in dark blue (almost black) because I wanted to express the sinful atmosphere and at the same time, suggest that they might be in their fantasy or dream. Those figures are stepping on the yellow floor which I meant to express they are violating the religious or moral principal. And the female is sitting on a bloody red bed because red is a color of passion which is one of important elements of sex. People, who have seen my painting, said she looked disappointed at the size of his penis because her face is expressionless and turned to the viewers. My depiction of the female was that she never feels satisfied with pleasure and wants more desire. So she is seeking for more men who could give her what she wants. In other words, she turned her head to the viewers in search for more men in order to invite them into her fantastical and private room.

standing figure: this is one of the studies of male model, which eventually became part of the painting.

a man masturbating

I have presented 25 drawings and 6 paintings that convey my concerns and insecurities that frequently invade my mind. I wanted this project to be successful in terms of personalizing and explaining my emotion visually but I realized that the theme I have chosen was too general.

I initially drew and painted abstractly because I thought my emotion cannot be described in recognizable forms and I wanted let the viewers to figure out. However, the colors that I have chosen for the drawings looked more exciting and thus, confused the viewers instead. So this project was a little disastrous and they needed to be organized. I also realized that colors and abstracted images don’t necessarily tell everything because they may bring controversy.

I liked my paintings than my drawings because they seemed to portray loneliness and sadness through the colors and the materials that I have chosen. I burned the canvas and some burlaps. Then I ripped the canvas from the stretcher and glue gunned the burned burlaps. I had dried yellow roses so I took some of them and cooperate them into my painting. The second painting was painted in brown, blue, yellow, and purple. Then again, I glue gunned some burlaps. The third painting, I painted the canvas with red, purple, and white and I pasted bandages on my canvas. Putting bandages in the first place was not intended. It was more likely that I did it in unconscious mind. But  afterwhile, I think I might’ve done it because since we put the bandages on the areas where we get cut or hurt. I think it was a good description to what I wanted to narrate through these paintings. Then I glued the burned canvas that I had ripped out from the first painting for the fourth painting. The fifth painting and the sixth painting are the self portraits, like how I see myself. So the viewers can also easily feel that I wanted to portray being hurt, lonely, burned, and ripped.    

Although we have finished the project in class, I am going to rework on this project. I will have to do more drawings and deduct some images at home.  And if I think I need additional details for the painting, I will do so. So in the future, I will decide clearer content and draw some recognizable images that are not random but somewhat explains the content of the work.

My 25 drawings and 6 paintings convey my insecurities and concerns. I tend to become concerned very often and I wanted to flush that out through the work of art. My drawings and paintings are all abstract because even when you are writing, it is very difficult to describe in few words when you have too many things that gets into your mind. Likewise, it was very difficult for me to describe how I felt. So I decided to let my hands and my mind do the work. I havent been able to fully figure out the arrangement yet. However, the arrangement is likely to stay as it is in the picture. The center row will be my self portraits and the left row will be my emotional colors. And the right row will be the state of my mind. However, I might change the arrangement and add different drawings.

I went to Matisse show last Friday with my friends. The artworks were so bold and clear that they grasped my attention and I lost friends in the crowd.  I have always thought he was great with colors so when I entered the room, I recognized some paintings I have seen in my text book and posters. His paintings were a bit decorative for me like I want his paintings for my apartment. Before I really looked into his paintings, his paintings were cartoony because they were flat, off scaled, and no depth.    

Opposed to his decorative style, I could see his focus on construction of forms in his heavy brush strokes, hatched shadings, and different colors that build up the form of the figure. I think he also explored depth in his paintings using colors. Almost every painting that I saw in the exhibition seemed to be in colors that just come out from tubes. Although he used colors that we do not see in nature or reality, the harmony of colors was beautiful.

I could get a sense of innocence in his artworks because they look like they were painted by children. However, I was very surprised when I saw the paintings closely because I could see thick layers of paint on his canvas. The paintings do not look like they were thought-out and look like they were painted beastly.  I realized that he, too, doubted and struggled in his works.

first drawing:

This is my first drawing. When we were instructed to show the function of our chosen utility, I wanted to show how a hammer would’ve felt if it were a person. This might sound very silly but if I were a hammer and if I had to hit a nail on a surface, I would’ve felt very tired after the labor. So I put the hammer upside down like it’s taking a break (a hammer cannot stand upside down by itself unless a person holds it). And the handle of the hammer was actually a metal but in the drawing, I drew a wooden-like texture in order to give a dramatic effect. I left the background dark so the viewers know the background and the base, where the hammer is standing, are separated. I like how I rendered shadows and lights but I feel like I need to add more lights because the middle part of the hammer looks flattened.

2nd drawing:

I didn’t have a chance to take a picture of my second drawing. My second drawing is a black and white collage. I did this in a smaller scale in my freshman year. I remember this as a painful experience because we had to find every different value of grays in Morandi’s painting. And we had to mix the black and white to get different grays. Then on a 18×24 drawing sheet, we sketched lightly with a charcoal and cut the little pieces of grays to glue them on the right spot. I am very obsessive at finding very little details so even if it were a small scale, I had spent a lot of time. It was also very difficult to mix the colors to get the right gray. The size of my collage should be about 4th times bigger and the reason behind doing this again is it’s pain-worthy. And it’s always good to go back into basic. Only thing that I wish I could have is…. not having the due date because I oftentimes take a risk and try a new thing that unfortunately leads me to take more time than other students. I could’ve done a drawing not a collage if I wanted to get over with this project by the date of our critique. But I value the work of art over finishing up by the given time. I will try to do as much as I can do by Monday anyway.

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1st painting:

This is my first painting. I thought we were only allowed to use black and white for the whole project. So my original thought was to paint the background black, sketch with a charcoal and paint with white and gray tones since hammer is a metal. Then as I was painting the background with black, my arms started to get very tired because it was my first time painting this (60×70) large. So I just painted as if I was throwing the paint on the canvas and very loosely. And I left some part of the canvas unpainted because I liked to bring the canvas into the painting as if it were a part of the painting. Then I started to draw the hammer, leaning toward left, structurally. As soon as I finished drawing, Prof. Joel suggested me that I should leave it and look at it for awhile and add more if I wanted to.  I looked at it for days and finally realized why Prof. told me that it is a good painting. I was glad that I left some part of the canvas unpainted. If you look at the picture of my painting, there’s canvas showing through in the upper left which pushes the hammer forward. The accidental brushstrokes plus the hammer, leaning toward left, give a visual effect of the motion.

2nd painting:

This is my second painting in which I am still working on. This canvas is as big as the first painting. I wanted to show a hammer in the middle of hitting something. The scale of the hammer was successful but this rainbow-ish color palette did not fit into the theme. And the little brushstrokes killed the solidness of the hammer. So I scrapped off the paints with palette knife and started everything from beginning. I chose two complementary colors: red and green. I mixed up colors to create as many different greens and reds as possible and started to put it down on the canvas. But somehow, I kept going back into rainbow-ish colors. So I scrapped off the paints again and observed the hammer. When I saw the hammer, I could see grays, white, green, and yellow. So on Sunday, I will come back to it and I think the color palette of this painting will be neutral.

RELATIONSHIP IN SPACE (1976)

REST ENERGY (1976)

GREAT WALL OF CHINA (1988)

I visited Marina Abramovic’s exhibition several weeks ago from MOMA to experience a performance art, which is a very new term of art for me. Although I love art, every artwork looks similar because every artist’s stylistic and technical way of working seems repeating from the old masters’. Therefore, without any expectation, I went into the exhibition. There were approximately 50 works of her early interventions, sound pieces, video works, installations, photographs, and performances.

 I was very skeptical about this exhibition because I didn’t really enjoy looking at her works. Her works were too extreme, shocking, and weird. But after reading out her works, I felt like I can understand her story behind this violent performance. She explored the relationship between the performance and audience, limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind. I was most fascinated by the video clips of her exploration of the physical and mental limitation of the body. As soon as I entered the exhibition, I saw several video works: dancing naked until she collapsed due to the hydration, screaming until she lost her voice, saying out words that comes through her mind until she lost her memory. It seemed as if she was trying to test her endurance and consciousness that was incorporated throughout her works. She believed that there is a physical limit if she lost her consciousness.    

Then she kept exploring the consciousness and physical limit with her lover and German artist, Uwe Laysiepen. Their video works included: banging their bodies together for hours, screaming at each other until their voices gave out, facing each other with Marina holding a large bow while Uwe pulled the string, aiming the arrow at her heart and connecting their mouths and took in each other’s exhaled breaths until they had used up all of the available oxygen and fell to the floor unconscious. The couple’s work seemed very personal, expressing trust, having troubles due to different perspectives, and killing each other’s ego in order to become united. Then their final work was the walking the Great Wall of China. They walked the Great Wall of China, starting from the two opposite ends and meeting in the middle which meant “end of their relationship”. It seemed as if the huge distance of walking toward each other meant a marriage but they eventually decided to mark end of the relationship when they met in the middle.

I really thought about this exhibition many times. There has to be some serious agony involved in her works, both physically and emotionally. I wondered what her experience was like when she was demonstrating and when she planned out her performance. I think her works were not only interesting but also very dramatic.

Before learning about her artworks, I was too tired of seeing artworks that looked similar to early art works so I was not aware of artists’ different emotional context within their works. I didn’t realize it is not only the stylistic skills that make the artworks interesting but also, the emotional context adds to it.