elliseadams: art blog.
Review on: Great Artists in their own words.
Great Artists in their own words is a really insightful film about the development of contemporary art. It showed a variety of artists, all using a large choice of materials. Something I really enjoyed about this program was it gave the viewer knowledge about the artist, their practice, and the relevance of their work.
Another thing I really liked about the film was it made me question things about art I had never really thought about. For example, artist Richard Long creates pieces of art using natural materials and walking, which made me question whether or not it was art. Was the process he took to get to the end stage more of an art piece, rather then the photograph of the finished instillation. I'd definitely say his work makes me appreciate the process a lot more then I would have done, if i hadn't have seen the preparation behind it. Another thing the documentary made me think about was what people are willing to put into their work. Damien Hurst really pushed his work to the extreme with his animals being cut up and preserved to show the process of decay. I thought this showed the extremes of what artists will do, personally I think doing something as grotesque like that makes a statement but I don't know how much I agree with it.
Overall, I think the film was really interesting, I think it gave the viewers a better look at what it is like to be an artist with new ideas, and what it's like to be in the world when you're presenting new and different work.
Review on: Hollow Laughter.
Hollow Laughter was an interesting film about humour within the art world. It showed in depth how many different artists would use humour within their work, whether it was using unusual objects and calling them art, or writing and selling jokes. I thought it was interesting because it really showed how people interpreted it in their own way. For example, Duchamp's would take existing objects and call them 'Readymades', which totally changed how artists would use humour in the future. I think this is what I liked about the documentary, it really informed me about the past which I didn't know much about.
The documentary also introduced me into an artist which could inspire my project. Sean Landers uses humorous text within his work which is something I would be interested in looking at. Landers' uses a lot of small text within his work, so it creates the illusion that it is just a flat piece, but when you get close up to it you can see all the little pieces of writing and read them. I think it's a different take on using humour within art, it's not something completely outrageous like readymades, yet not as literal as writing a joke down.
Humour can be really difficult to have in art because it can be difficult to understand, others may not get it or appreciate it at all. This is what I thought was really good about the documentary, it explained the use of humour in great detail and the development over the decades really well. I think it is definitely one of my favourite documentaries, because it was about humour and it was really insightful.
Review on: All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry.
Grayson Perry's series is a 3 part documentary on Upper, Middle and Working Class Taste in the art world. I watched the Working Class documentary which was really interesting to see. It showed that 'Working Class Taste' isn't really traditional, or conventional art at all. It's a lot more personal and possibly superficial. The documentary was really interesting to watch for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was filmed in Sunderland which is where I am studying, so it was really fascinating to see what the people in the area valued as art. Secondly, divulging into class division and comparing the difference between them was really interesting, because it allowed the viewer a better insight into culture difference.
In this episode, it showed what Working Class culture and taste was. It also showed the difference in men and women, what they valued as their art. Men typically valued cars, football and tattoos, whilst women were more interested in getting dressed up and going out with their friends. I think what spoke out to me most, was this idea that things you do were also for everyone else. For example, men would heavily modify their cars to show off, instead of doing it because it was needed. I felt the documentary was easy to relate to, in the sense of what I see as Working Class art, which is probably why I enjoyed it so much.
I think this was definitely one of my favourite films, because of how I personally related to it, but also because I think it's interesting to look at the difference between class culture. I regularly forget that there are so many different tastes, instead of just my own, so it was really refreshing to see.