Annotated Bibliography: Janine Antoni

Annotated Bibliography:  Janine Antoni

"Slip of the Tongue." edited by The Irish Museum of Modern Art. Dublin, 2000.

This book was very relevant as it contained multiple photos of each work that it explored, as well as a brief overview of each piece at the back. The first few pages give an overview of Antonis’ artists practice and a very brief summary of her background. Some works it depicted further then others, for example there is much more writing on “Slumber” then on “Lick and Lather” (just over a few lines worth). A good starting point to Antonis’ practice and covers some of her most celebrated works.

http://blog.art21.org/2009/10/07/talking-with-janine-antoni-part-one/ (Accessed: October 4^th 2012)

A short, but helpful interview with Janine Antoni. It doesn’t focus on any works in particular, but focuses more on her practice in general. It was done in 2009 so there is a lot of artistic history that Antoni can look back on, and she does, constantly referencing her pieces whilst discussing her general practice. She also elaborates on how her educational background has influenced her practice, as well as the role of specific artists and their influences. This interview was helpful for general purposes but nothing specific.

Weintraub, Linda. Art on the Edge and Over. New York: Art Insights, Inc, 1996.

This book covered a great deal of contemporary artists, as well as some major themes within contemporary art, and is further illustrated through examples of  the artists. It is also organized into categorical chapters which explore different aspects of contemporary art, such as; ‘Some Mediums’ and ‘Some Purposes.’ There isn’t too much depth surrounding each artist, but enough to give one an overall understanding of their practice.

( Janine Antoni is on page 124-128).

Tatzu Nishi

Tatzu Nishi is a Japanese artist, based in Germany, whose artistic practice focuses on historic monuments and sculptures.

 

Tatzu Nishi, War and peace and in between, 2009

 For Nishi's Kaldor Project, War and peace and in between, he constructed a room around two enormous equestrian bronzes Offerings of Peace and  Offerings of War, by Gilbert Bayes (1923). The viewers find themselves in a normal domestic living room and bedroom except the giant horse and rider wedged into a cabinet and the other on top of the bedsheets. 

Tatzu Nishi, War and peace and in between, 2009

His works invite the audience to look at his works through "fresh eyes" that question their national statuary in a critical way. His installation's are site-specific and are displayed in public places in which he constructs a box-like domestic space around them. Nishi places his monumental sculptures in domestic situations flipping context and scale - from public to domestic, impersonal to private.

Clock Time by Rosalind Krauss

Clock Time by Rosalind Krauss.

The main point that can be extracted from this reading is how Marclay has used the medium of ‘technical support’, as well as synchronicity to enhance the eclipse of his video works, such as The Clock. To further explain this, Krauss has categorized the idea of ‘time’ into several subdivisions.

The experience of viewing the film is made up of literal ‘reel time’, ‘real time’, and ‘now time’. Each element of ‘time’ either absorbs the viewer into the suspense of the film, or removes them so that they can establish their own ‘real time’ and be brought back to the ‘now present’. This is achieved through the characters in the film that are constantly expecting a tragedy: a bomb explosion, or a missile attack. It is within this fast moving pace, that Marclay has used the ‘cutaway’ of the scenes as the plot.

Within the length of the The Clock, the technique of ‘synch time’ (the projection of 24 frames a second, synchronized with the physio-psychological facts of optics) have been used in order to allow the film to flow rapidly, despite being created from multiple different slides, with a strong cut off point.

Opposing this is the ‘phi-effect’, which is the after image, established through the synchronization of the projected frames and the process of optical intake. Regardless of the ease in which the individual clips flow, the viewer will still hold on to the after image for a moment into the duration of the next slide.  

The ‘technical support’ Marclay has used, has becomes a new medium, in which he has used commercial sound film and has induced ‘pure synchronicity.’

Another interesting point that Krass has raised is how Marclay has harmonized the ‘reel time’ into our ‘real time’, allowing the viewer to be fully engaged with the film, and sense that these events could happen at any moment.

Hal Foster

Summary of Hal Foster: An Archival Impulse

Archival art is an investigation into figures, objects and events in history. This process has been investigated by many international artists, such as; Stan Douglas and Pierre Huyghe. One of the main points to extract from this reading is how Foster explores the ways in which archival art is different to database art.

Archival artists attempt to re-create the physical element of lost or forgotten historical information. They do this by elaborating on the found object, image or piece of text. A point that is extracted and must be acknowledged is the lack of access to the Internet at the time that this study was performed, and these artworks were made. With this, the works that were produced were often more tactile, and required human interaction. In this sense, archival art focuses more on the individual trace of the item (or the scenario that they are investigating) and are drawn toward unfinished or unfulfilled projects. Another interesting point raised is how archival art not only elaborates on ‘informal’ archives, but produces them as well. This highlights the nature of physical archival materials, as the authenticity is then lost, and has been recreated, yet is still based on fact.

In the sense that archival art differs from database art, is therefore still varies from art that explores the nature of a museum. The distinct difference is that these artists are not as concerned with ‘critiques or representations’, nor with the order of the institution instead they invent their own system of assembling. Archival artists seek to reveal what is behind closed doors, and what we as the public do not usually have access to.

As technology advances, the nature of archival art will further change and develop. It is through the ‘mutations of connections and disconnections’ that these artists have produced artworks that allow the audience to view historical elements in a new light.

Annotated Bibliography

Joan Jonas “Mirror Piece 1” 1969

"Joan Jonas Performance Video Installation." Hatjie Cantz, 2001.

This book was helpful as it directly focused on Joan Jonas. It formed the basis of my research, and helped to develop an overview of her pieces. It had detailed pictures, as well as a number of essays and interviews based on her works between 1968 and 2000.

Website: http://arttattler.com/archivejonas.html. (Accessed 25/5/12)

This website gives a great overview of Joan Jonas’ work, spanning from her early works to her more recent, current works. There are multiple images per piece, giving the reader a good idea of the actual performance. It also provides the date the work was made and the location. The only downside I would say is that it is not in chronological order of the time the work was created. Some of the works have extensive background writings and academic’s opinions stated.

Movie Clip from YouTube:

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiYsGBMHNqI (accessed 27/5/12)

This short interview was really useful as it combined interview footage and documentation of the actual piece “Mirage”. Jonas speaks about her influences, and what she has done in this piece. She also refers to the fact that the piece has been re-made and re=performed since 1976. It was helpful as it proved ridiculously hard to see any footage of her work, thus this piece was the closest I got to seeing “Mirage”.

Jonas, Jens Hoffman and Joan. Art Works, Perform. 2005. Thames and Hudson.

Although this book did not focus on Jonas, but was written on her, it was still a lot of help in understanding what is performance art. The first 32 (or so) pages directly discuss ‘performance’ art and give a good example of a few. It also focuses on the development of performance art, whilst still sharing a few perspectives and ways of interpreting it. 

Some Relations between Conceptual and Performance Art

Some relations between Conceptual and Performance Art

This article by Frazer Ward explores the connections between conceptual and performance art. Ward examines this by analyzing the inter-relations between the two, as well as exploring the audiences’ reaction to conceptual art.

Conceptual art can be considered the underlying condition of the aesthetics experience in relation to performance art, and is explored further through language and the use of the body as a mechanism of communicating the artists’ intentions.

Ward uses the definition; “Performance art is a form of art that happens at a particular time in a particular place where the artist engages in some sort of action, usually before an audience.” This illustrates the main difference between performance art and conceptual art as being that performance art is temporal, whether as conceptual art can be physically everlasting.

In the late 1960’s and 1970’s there became an interweaving of both conceptual and performance art, thus, it has become a common thought that performance art has ultimately challenged the foundations of conceptual art.

Conceptual art can be grouped into two main categories and are illustrated through Ian Burns Mirror Piece (1967), which demonstrates a “typical” conceptual piece, and “ambiguously” conceptual explored through Vito Acconci’s Step Piece (1970). Step Piece, illustrates an ambiguous piece of performance art as it is both an obsessive piece and has aspects of humor in it, and therefore can be interpreted on multiple different levels.  This opposed the rationalistic, more serious elements of conceptual art. Performance art has progressed through time. The earlier works demonstrated aspects of rationalistic pieces, and the latter explores obsessional performances, once again demonstrated through Step Piece.  Ward also examines how some performance art challenges the limitations of conceptual art and the notion of rationality. This results in a constant interchange between conceptual and performance art, sometime negative and sometimes positive.

Another interesting point in which this article explores is how conceptual art has been intended to discredit the circumstance of traditional art and remove the “elite” factor from it. This introduced hostility from within the non-art community, as they struggled to comprehend the rationalistic aspect of conceptual art. The conceptual artists underestimated the difficulty they would face in trying to persuade an audience who was highly fixated on the aesthetic aspects of more traditional work. 

Review of the John Kaldor Collection

Review of The John Kaldor Family Collection

In recent years the Art Gallery of New South Wales received one of its greatest gifts yet, the John Kaldor Collection. The collected works are made up of over $35million worth of international and Australian owned art, and collected over the past fifty years. It is the largest donated collection in Australia. Hence, the Art Gallery of New South Wales was given a grant of $27.6million to expand the gallery space in order to make room for the collected works.[1] There are over 200 works, which range across international contemporary artworks, and young Australian artists.

The collected works include some of the most influential artists of our time such as; Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, Jeff Koons, William Kentridge, Christo and Jean Claude, and Robert Rauschenberg, to mention a few. The works range from sculpture and installation, to painting and film. It covers a vast range of different themes yet there is a strong emphasis on minimalist sculptures and installations.

The large areas that hold these incredible works do much justice. The descending stairs into the gallery space enhances the excitement and suspense. The space is flooded with light and air, and there is plenty of room to ponder each work individually. The works are spread out around the spaces, across the corners, walls and floors. As well as that, there are allocated rooms that hold pieces which all embody a certain theme or concept, such as the room with mostly minimalist works, which includes Carl Andre’s pieces. Other spaces also held certain styles, such as the room with photography in it.

The interactive program that the gallery is running for children and adults, engages the audience in the works further. It is also an attempt to include the Australian (and international of course) public in this great gift that the gallery received. It could be considered just as much of a contribution to the Gallery as it is to Australian art intellectuals and collectors.

The contribution of the John Kaldor Collection will bring in an audience from all over the world. The different cultures and nationalities that the collection represents will be forever appealing to the public, of all ages. It is also the range of style, theme, materials, and scale that will enhance its value.

---

[1] Black, Simon. "John Kaldor Gives Away His $35 Million Collection of a Lifetime." In,  (2011).