"Time with Animals"

My first video- we had to choose a work of art that we like and reinterpret it as a video. I used a photograph that my friend Erin took of the carousel on the National Mall. I'll put that up here too when I get back to my own computer.






Here is the photo:

D.A.N.C.E.

This week's theme was modern dancers.

Martha Graham began dancing when she was 16 after seeing a Ruth St. Denis dance performance. At the time, American dance was similar to traditional ballet, but also influenced by “lesser” forms of dance and considered more entertainment than art. She was influenced by Denis and Isadora Duncan. She choreographed her first major piece, “Heretic,” in 1929. In 1936, she choreographed her famous “Chronicle” dance, which was inspired by the stock market crash, Great Depression, and the Spanish Civil War and accordingly was very dark. She kept dancing into her 70’s despite criticism of her age. She kept choreographing, but resented younger dancers performing dances she had choreographed for herself and her husband. As a result she became very depressed and abused alcohol. She insisted on referring to her work as “contemporary” rather than modern. From the few clips I can find of her or her company, some are more interesting than others, but it clearly is a big departure from the traditional dancing of her day. Also I don’t know much about dancing so I guess I shouldn’t judge. This image is from a piece that she collaborated with sculptor Isamu Noguchi, who designed the set for the dance.


Twyla Tharp formed her dance company in 1965, and has also choreographed for countless other prestigious companies. She won an Oscar for Movin’ Out and has also won many other awards. Some of her work seems pretty straightforward, but I like how in one of her dances, the choreography is pretty classic ballet except the dancers flex their feet instead of pointing them. I also saw a clip from her dance “The Upper Room,” which I liked because it interpreted the music well and again I liked the fact that it was mostly traditional dancing with subtle quirks. Here she is doing that foot thing.



Mark Morris founded his dance company at the ripe age of 24, and in less than thirty years has created more works than Tharp has in her whole career. He has choreographed modern dance, ballets and operas for major theaters worldwide. He is noted for his musicality and music choices. He and Mikhail Baryshnikov formed the White Oak Dance Project in which Twyla Tharp also participated. Morris is my favorite of these dancers. The movements look the most creative to me. While the videos I saw don't really exemplify this, the pictures of the dance group have interesting costumes and sets as well.

Spoon Doll

I made this when I went to an Irish restaurant with my family. They had these place mats with little knots in the corners so I made this traditional Irish step dance costume-inspired paper dress. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

More weirdos

Paul Pfeiffer is primarily a video artist. His most famous works are clips of sporting events in which the athletes’ clothing is edited to remove all logos and symbols or the figures are edited out completely. He also has made edited photographs and sculptures related to these videos. I was only actually able to see one video, The Long Count (Rumble in the jungle) in which two boxers are edited out of a clip. I really like how you can see sort of an outline where the figures were, so even though theoretically there is supposed to be nothing there, I find myself watching the blurs go back and forth. I don’t think that’s what Pfeiffer was necessarily going for (it seems that the video is supposed to emphasize the crowd), but I think it would be kind of lame if you couldn’t see even the trace of the boxers and it was just an empty ring with a crowd in the background. Here is the link to the video on youtube:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=tIj4IpTATLM

Vito Acconci’s videos and performances are very sexual, often in a crass or aggressive way. Open Book and Theme Song both feature close-ups of the Acconci himself pleading the viewer (or an unspecified person) to “come closer.” The close-up shots and subjects of the videos together are very confrontational. I think his work would make a lot of people uncomfortable, which is why I like it. At the same time, I imagine him being a very creepy man. And just saying… I would not want to participate in an interactive performance in which the artist masturbates while watching the viewers and fantasizing aloud about us. Here is a link where you can watch a few of his videos.

http://www.ubu.com/film/acconci.html


Alex Bag is yet another one whose work I can’t really find much of. I’ve only been able to find stills- not even a single video clip. She seems to use herself as a model for her videos (one article described her as a video artist answer to Cindy Sherman), which comment on issues ranging from prescription of antidepressants to witchcraft to the war in Iraq. It definitely sounds intriguing, but most of the reviews of her work that I read were negative, and since I haven’t seen them, I don’t really now what to make of it. However, I did think that this quote from one of her videos was funny: "It's like, what is the point of making work for people that are so smart that they don't even watch TV? It's just useless and depressing."

Josh Bishop's David Bowie Eyes

Josh Bishop has weird pupils look like David Bowie...


This almost makes up for his snappy attitude and for telling Nicky her drawings suck.