Saturday, December 12, 2015
Utopia Documentation
2015 Combined Student Exhibition Review
Sadly, I am embarrassed to say, this was my first venture to one of these combined student shows. That being said, I was really impressed with this exhibition. A lot of the student artwork that made it into the show was marvelous. There was nice coverage of a number of different mediums as well, this provided a nice variety in the works.
There was a projector that had some video works playing on loop, one of these projects was a recreation of the Martha Rolser's piece "Semiotics in the Kitchen", which the recreation turned out very well. Paintings lined the opposite walls, there was one that stood out among the rest. This painting pulled heavy influence from popart and the comic book style. The subject matter of this painting being three males very close and surrounding one erect penis. The whole exhibition was separated into three rooms, with each room having a theme. This first room involved works that were about the body.
The second room had much more abstract works, another video piece and some more paintings and some sculptures.
Probably one of my favorite pieces out of the exhibition was the only piece in the third room. It was a stegosaurus that was built out of cardboard panels. The paneling had oil company logos spray painted on them, which gave the dino a wonderful aesthetic. The stegosaurus was close to twenty ft long and about ten ft high. I wanted to be a paleontologist when I was little, so seeing something like this in my collage career hit me with some nostalgia.
Overall, the works in the exhibition showed off how talented a lot of the universities students are in a variety of mediums. It was a great experience and allowed me to see some of the creative work our university has to offer.
There was a projector that had some video works playing on loop, one of these projects was a recreation of the Martha Rolser's piece "Semiotics in the Kitchen", which the recreation turned out very well. Paintings lined the opposite walls, there was one that stood out among the rest. This painting pulled heavy influence from popart and the comic book style. The subject matter of this painting being three males very close and surrounding one erect penis. The whole exhibition was separated into three rooms, with each room having a theme. This first room involved works that were about the body.
The second room had much more abstract works, another video piece and some more paintings and some sculptures.
Probably one of my favorite pieces out of the exhibition was the only piece in the third room. It was a stegosaurus that was built out of cardboard panels. The paneling had oil company logos spray painted on them, which gave the dino a wonderful aesthetic. The stegosaurus was close to twenty ft long and about ten ft high. I wanted to be a paleontologist when I was little, so seeing something like this in my collage career hit me with some nostalgia.
Overall, the works in the exhibition showed off how talented a lot of the universities students are in a variety of mediums. It was a great experience and allowed me to see some of the creative work our university has to offer.
Kevin Chen Artist Talk
The day Kevin Chen had his talk was also the day I had an off campus field trip for my last class, which caused me to be just late enough to miss his introduction and see him began to start introducing one of the exhibitions he curated. I honestly didn't even know his name at this point and was really confused when he was just talking about other peoples work. I obviously figured it out, but dang, what a confusing intro.
The exhibition Chen was discussing was absolutely fascinating. I love maps a great deal and was in awe with what the artists were doing with them. The amount of detail and uniqueness in each one was something else. I really enjoyed the idea having data driven maps and the things produced were visually intriguing and it was great seeing data being represented in a way that allowed it to be displayed in a gallery and featured in an exhibition. The variety of the artwork too, was something spectacular. Another piece of art work that really stuck out was the magic spinning table. Being a digital media student, I am always interested in the way artists are taking new technologies and interacting with them. This artwork really showed how much more we can get out of existing platforms by being a bit more creative and applying a "filter" so to speak. The application of forcing people to look at something they have been using for one purpose from an entirely different perspective is fascinating to me. This is something that really inspires me and gets me excited about the potential digital art has.
Kevin Chen's personal art caught me off guard. I was not expecting something like that to come from him, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Having started out with graphite myself, its refreshing to see graphite art making into galleries. Chen's focus on scale opened my eyes to what manipulating scale can actually do for an artwork. I also appreciated his drawings and his ideas of these super cities built from all sorts of different architectural styles. The combination made for a great visually appealing piece.
The exhibition Chen was discussing was absolutely fascinating. I love maps a great deal and was in awe with what the artists were doing with them. The amount of detail and uniqueness in each one was something else. I really enjoyed the idea having data driven maps and the things produced were visually intriguing and it was great seeing data being represented in a way that allowed it to be displayed in a gallery and featured in an exhibition. The variety of the artwork too, was something spectacular. Another piece of art work that really stuck out was the magic spinning table. Being a digital media student, I am always interested in the way artists are taking new technologies and interacting with them. This artwork really showed how much more we can get out of existing platforms by being a bit more creative and applying a "filter" so to speak. The application of forcing people to look at something they have been using for one purpose from an entirely different perspective is fascinating to me. This is something that really inspires me and gets me excited about the potential digital art has.
Kevin Chen's personal art caught me off guard. I was not expecting something like that to come from him, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Having started out with graphite myself, its refreshing to see graphite art making into galleries. Chen's focus on scale opened my eyes to what manipulating scale can actually do for an artwork. I also appreciated his drawings and his ideas of these super cities built from all sorts of different architectural styles. The combination made for a great visually appealing piece.
Clicks and Pops Artist panel
This was my first my experience with an artist panel here at UNR and it was actually rather inspiring.
The panel was made up of Louis Niebuhr (Musicology), Jean-Paul Perrotte (Music Theory and Composition), Robert Morrison(Profesor Emeritus Sculpture, UNR) and Tohm Judson (Composition and Digital Media). I think the professors on the panel where a nice concentrated group of individuals that really showed the diverse areas of music research that UNR covers and having Tohm there really provided a nice diversity in opinions and perspective that I thought made the for a better well rounded discussion. They were all very knowledgeable on their respective areas of focus and were passionate about those areas.
My favorite part of the panel was listening to Tohm Judson talk about his work and his perspective on being outside academia. I think this is a view that is extremely important to students, especially digital media students, because he was discussing the possibilities someone has to do professional art in a digital medium setting and how you can be successful in that practice.
The other professors had a lot of great things to say and you could see how each individual viewed their subject material and how that produced their current viewpoint. Though it was odd for me to see Robert Morrison on the panel, as I have had a drawing class from him and it was predominantly focused on perspective. Also knowing that his background is in sculpture, though he did bring in some interesting points on how music and sculpture can interact and become a piece together. I guess he was another outlier in terms of major focus on music.
The panel was made up of Louis Niebuhr (Musicology), Jean-Paul Perrotte (Music Theory and Composition), Robert Morrison(Profesor Emeritus Sculpture, UNR) and Tohm Judson (Composition and Digital Media). I think the professors on the panel where a nice concentrated group of individuals that really showed the diverse areas of music research that UNR covers and having Tohm there really provided a nice diversity in opinions and perspective that I thought made the for a better well rounded discussion. They were all very knowledgeable on their respective areas of focus and were passionate about those areas.
My favorite part of the panel was listening to Tohm Judson talk about his work and his perspective on being outside academia. I think this is a view that is extremely important to students, especially digital media students, because he was discussing the possibilities someone has to do professional art in a digital medium setting and how you can be successful in that practice.
The other professors had a lot of great things to say and you could see how each individual viewed their subject material and how that produced their current viewpoint. Though it was odd for me to see Robert Morrison on the panel, as I have had a drawing class from him and it was predominantly focused on perspective. Also knowing that his background is in sculpture, though he did bring in some interesting points on how music and sculpture can interact and become a piece together. I guess he was another outlier in terms of major focus on music.
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