annotated bibliography: zhang huan

1/2
1998, Beijing, China

Yilmaz Dziewior, RoseLee Goldberg, Robert Storr, Zhang Huan. ZHANG HUAN. PHAIDON PRESS, 2009.
overall, a good book. with three different perspectives (one including the artist himself) i found it very painless to learn about him. i personally am a fan of phaidon books, so i find them very helpful. i always appreciate the photographs they include in the book.

Essay by Zhang Huan: Altered States, Published by Charta and Asia Society, 2007.
this was an essay written by the artist himself. it is an autobiographical document of his life as an artist. i found this very interesting and really learnt and took in what he wrote; things about himself and about why he creates, his values and beliefs. 

Richard Dale. ZHANG HUAN. 1999.
this was a little book only specifying in his earlier photographic performances. it really helped me to understand and fully grasp his intentions on why he chooses to only use photographic documentation. it was a really great descriptive document, not only explaining the piece but giving in full detail the materials and hours and planning that was made in order to create the piece. details that i couldn't find anywhere else. 

Gilbert & George

Gilbert Proesch and George Passmore are a collaborative art duo known for their eccentric, yet highly formal appearance and manner in their performative, graphic/photo-based works. From an art education based in Austria and Germany, Peroesch moved to England where he met Passmore, also with an art education, claiming that it was 'love at first sight'.

Gilbert & George

The Singing Sculpture

1973

The Singing Sculpture is known best as their launching artwork. As the duo dressed in suits with their heads and hands painted with metallic-bronze coloured powders, and a table as their plinth, they sung along to two songs, one of them being 'Underneath the Arches', whilst making mechanical gestures as if they were in a music box. 

Annotated Bibliography: Marina Abramović

Relation in Time. October, 1977. Performance, 17 hours. Studio G7, Bologna.

Chrissie Iles, Kristine Stiles and Klaus Biesenbach. Marina Abramovic. PHAIDON PRESS LTD, 2008. 

This book was extremely helpful in giving specific details on her solo performances and collaborations with Ulay. It was almost autobiographical, with an interview that focused on her history of art-making and her thoughts behind them. There were different sections that focused on her childhood and personal issues with her family - these were particularly interesting as Marina's childhood was rough, but it wasn't completely relatable to the presentation.

Klaus Peter Biesenbach. Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present. Museum of Modern Art (New York) 2010.

This book was great as it focused on the progression of Marina's art practice. It was also written and constructed in chronological order, which made it a lot more easier for my research on her artworks and different era's of art making. With the book being made available as a part of her retrospective exhibition of her performance works, it had a lot of focus on the retrospective, focusing more on what she thought about her works now, rather than her thoughts before. 

Marina Abramovic "The Star" YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISotAeqpEd8

This forty minute YouTube video was not very helpful with information, but was a great way to look inside and watch the world of Marina's performances. You could hear her direct thoughts because she does a voice-over throughout the entire video. I found by watching these pieces being re-performed, I got the essence of her performances and what she was aiming to communicate to the audience and to herself. 

Filled-Space Installation: Enchantments

"Schwitters wrote of a 'contemplative immersion of the self in art', in which the individual would experience release from 'life, from all things that disturb mankind'". The first known artwork to be made in the enchantment-type installation was Merzbau (1919-1937) by Dadaist Kurt Schwitters; with each wall covered in materials produced from different sources and the mimicking of a film set, came a personal meaning through the application of iconographic forms, enveloping the viewer completely. Through this work, Schwitters wanted to demonstrate a different psychological aspect that he thought single works were in lack of, creating an immense environment of possibilities with his installation technique. The architectural elements of Merzbau would later develop an important aspect of installation. Installation artist, Ilya Kabakov, describes the enchantment as a strong level of "falsity ... artificiality ... deceit,". Absorbing the mind, the enchantment allows one who walks into an environment to experience a growth of disbelief, cultural familiarity, literary and psychological possibilities; giving a sense of a sharpened reality and a peek into the artist's mind. In the structural setting, enchantments seldom relate to the architectural space in which they are installed. In the 1920s, installation work was in a prolific stance. An abundance of experimentation increased at the Bauhaus and by the De Stijl group in Holland. Their installations called for a switch between different artists' of various media in a collaborative project. In particular, The First International Dada Fair in Berlin (1920) included an unkempt, floor-to-ceiling ambience of objects, with a political tone and a violently anti-aesthetic statement, the art overtook a new purpose. Marcel Duchamp created an installation in which he hung up twelve hundred sacks of coal from above, with leaves and a brazier on the ground; not only comprised of his own work, but also of the paintings hung up by other artists in the space provided. A year after, Salvador Dali created a highly theatrical installation entitled Dream of Venus. This, along with Merzbau, established the stage for all following enchantments, adorned with a perplexing overtone in surreality. The next example of enchantment was the opening of Disneyland (1995), though not found in an art context, the viewer is left with a transforming experience as Walt Disney describes "here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy". This lead to a more wider use of the tableaux formation; with elements of a walk-in environment creating a worldly aura, theatrical in the most fundamental sense. In close relation, video installations follow the model of the enchantment, captivating the viewer in a different realm. With poetic implications and a sense of entering a world apart from the external world, the enchantment, though initially presented in one space, can be moved to another location with ease. 

Unmonumental // Going to Pieces in the 21st Century

In the contemporary art world, sculpture has become one of the leading forms of conversation leaving behind the conventional methods of molding and carving, but rather a whole new way of piecing together a vast array of found objects, nature and figurative ideas into appropriated, objective forms. In this text, Laura Hoptman explains the development of assemblage from the 20^th century to this day.  The use of putting together found objects and the strategy of using these materials in juxtaposition with each other (without the intention that they are art materials) as a technique of sculpture-making was first given the name "assemblage" by artist William Seitz in an exhibition called "The Art of Assemblage". Its origins are believed to have begun with artworks assembled by Picasso and Duchamp, as well as through the Dada and Surrealist movements. Much of these influences occurred throughout the 1930s, 40s and 50s, with the dispute that artists' were in a move of a neo-avant garde. A predominant artwork in relation to assemblage is Robert Rauschenberg's series of Combines, a mixture of paintings and sculptures created in the time-span of ten years. Rauschenberg explained that the connections between the elements in his work were completely by chance, with the familiarity of these objects, by contrast, displaying perplexing appearances. A point was made that assembled art was less a representation of the world rather than a part of it. Today, most things are easily accessible with the growth of new technologies, a shift in the way that we present and produce artworks through sources like the Internet and an effortless contact with the world. The development between the 20^th and the 21^st century is the organization and processes of different materials. A heavy influence of 1980s practice of appropriation is evident in today's neo-neo avant-garde, with sculptural elements being carefully picked as opposed to being aleatory. Sculptures today are represented with a different thought-process, having particular focus on content, but not by forgetting the fundamentals of modern sculpture; but rather, expressing ideas and messages through a contextual approach. This is the twenty-first century interpretation of assemblage, with each sculpture revealing a narrative of today's world.

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hey amanda!