Thesis Reflection

The Crisis, Tiffany Dodson, 2011

The Crisis, Tiffany Dodson, 2011

     Overall, for “Drawing a Blank.”, I felt that the show was good in terms of the variety of topics and types of art presented to the public. Obviously, I enjoyed some pieces more than others’, but I still feel there was a healthy mix of concentrations and ideas in our show. However, I feel that certain pieces may have worked better with others in the same room, such as Briana Gaydo’s work in the same room as Jenny Chang and Sasha Flimlin based on color and composition. I also feel that there were too many large pieces in the main gallery that may have worked well in other rooms in addition to the main gallery. Being that the title of the show was Drawing a Blank, I found it interesting how each person decided to fill in their piece of the blank.  There were many abstract pieces that I enjoyed viewing, including Lauren Rago’s paintings, Renee Giannoobile’s works, and Ilana Cloud’s string sculpture. There was also much conceptual art work in the show, including Dan Morowitz’s painting, Kelly McGovern’s posters, Tika Prosper’s installation, and Briana DeVita’s restriction signs. I actually feel that the conceptual works in the show overpowered the abstract ones based on the power of the messages behind each piece. My piece, entitled, The Crisis, was also conceptual.

            In my installation, I had an entire room to myself in which I conducted a sound installation, complete with four photographs (images of eyes, a mouth, feet, and a clown face), as well as tangible items such as balloons, stockings, light bulbs, and clothing. The soundtrack included clips from civil rights leaders Malcolm X, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks, as well as clips from current Black leaders/intellectuals, including Cornell West, Michael Eric Dyson, and Professor Todd Boyd. It also included two clips of poetry from poet Jasmine Mans and a past Black exploitation film. The soundtrack began and concluded with two quotes from W.E.B. Du Bois, one delivered through a computerized narrator voice from Souls of Black Folk, and one recorded by me from The Crisis. My critic, Justine Reyes, was very interested and impressed with my piece after looking around the room. She gave me some helpful hints in terms of pushing the piece, and gave a few suggestions as well, like elevating the pillows I had in the middle of the room to a height where my photographs could be seen. At the end of our discussion, I felt even more empowered about my work and was excited to push it a little further. My video teacher, Damian also was helpful in perpetuating my thought process about what I wanted to do with my thesis project, and narrowing my idea down to The Crisis. I pushed it by adding colorful balloons to one wall, as well as silver fringe around the pedestal of the same wall. During the opening, I also incorporated a performance piece where I painted viewers’ faces as clowns to extend my work throughout the entire gallery. Originally, I was going to paint my face as a clown, but I felt that painting other peoples’ faces was be more effective in getting my point across to the audience. I received and continue to hear very positive feedback about my installation, which encourages me to continue work as a practicing artist even after graduation. 

My Critique - March 4th

     During my critique, I took my classmates into a recent surround sound installation I had created for my Video III-B class. The sound contained a loop of Kanye West's "Dark Fantasy" where individuals sang the phrase "can we get much higher?". In addition to the loop, it also included historical speeches, radio interviews, and television show clips which were broken into 4 sections of sound: the "n-word", history, political, and hip-hop, all of which allude to the Black community. In the room I hung different fabric that held ethnic connotation, as well as flyers of words such as "revolt" and a crossed out "black is beautiful". I also posted images of positive and negative "blackness" which ranged from a picture of Malcolm X and the sheet music to "We Shall Overcome" to a picture of hip-hop artist Nas and his girlfriend wearing "nigger" on their clothing. I also posted a number of Curious George pictures on one section of a wall and ended the series with an image of blackface. Additionally, I posted text from historical art passages on "The New Negro" and African-American art on the walls. Finally in the center, I had a bamboo mat with a stool on top of it containing a pair of black combat boots, which were meant to represent the Black Panther Party.
    Upon entering the room, my classmates and GA were immersed in culture and history, being that it was in almost every aspect of the room. I received various comments about my ideas and current project, including that my thesis project should be more minimal (which is ironic being that I consider myself a minimal artist the majority of the time). The group overall had positive feedback on what I was trying to express concerning the Black community. At the time, I had a certain idea, but it became completely changed after my group's discussion of my piece. Being that I have a room to myself in the gallery, Ilana suggested that I use different areas of the room to break down the different themes I would be using in my piece. She thought that lighting would assist in this. Sasha liked the dim lighting I used in my current project as well as the current Kanye music against the historical words and speeches. Gabrielle had an interesting thought of using jazz or blues music behind the words my speakers were saying. Our group leader, Doug thought of translating the text I used in my video piece to finding historical signs and blowing them up and placing them in my space in the gallery. Needless to say, my group gave me a lot to think about, which is why I changed my project once again to the idea I wrote about in my thesis paper.

Group Critique - February 18th

I will continue to post everything onto my blog because most of my other classmates have not created links to theirs as of yet.

During this critique, we looked at work from artists who had very different ideas, and used very different techniques to illustrate their work.

Ilana Cloud - We visited Ilana's studio in order to take a closer look at her work. Ilana continued to use canvases that contained abstracted paintings and different signatures on top of it. She had a variety of these paintings in that some where black and white, and some used very vivid, bright colors. In addition, she used a variety of sizes to illustrate her work. I have always found her work to be very primitively modern, which draws my eye in to look at her pieces. I enjoy the color palette she uses, from brights to very darks. I made a suggestion to her in one of her pieces, and perhaps others, that it would be interesting to see hand, finger, or even footprints on some of her canvases to emphasize the primitiveness her work exudes.
     Ilana also described to the group the way in which she plans to show her work in our thesis show. Ilana described a structure that was almost like a combination of a dome and a tent in which she would hang her work all over --- from floor to ceiling --- and engulf the viewer in it. I thought that it would be interesting to have different footprints leading up to the entrance of the tent to underline how she wants to express different cultures and nationalities.

Princess Belton - We also visited Princess Belton's studio where she showed us some of the paintings she was working on. Princess showed us a 3 paintings in which she glamorized Black models portrayed in hair books that are in over-exaggerated poses and heavy make-up.  In addition to these paintings, Princess also showed us an illustration of a woman who seemed regular, and had natural hair. This woman stood out to my classmates and I because of it's simplicity and because she was facing us straight on, as opposed to the other models that were turned to the side. Although Princess has changed her ideas for the thesis show a few times, her underlying concept has remained the same --- African-American hair. I believe that she has changed her project once again, but I am not sure what she plans to do now.

Jenny Chang - Jenny showed us some mock-ups of ideas she had for her graphic design project. Her idea is to take common phrases that are said in the United States and jumble them up, so they are wrong and not understandable. For instance, one of her sayings was "Like a good farm, state neighbor there." She intends to jumble up American phrases like many Americans jumble Chinese lettering. Many individuals get Chinese symbols tattooed onto their skin and do not even understand the culture behind it, or what it means. I believe Jenny is trying to express how it feels to the audience to misunderstand someone else's culture. She intends to place these different phrases on silkscreen in order to put them on t-shirts and hang them in the gallery. I think it would be more interesting if she had people wear the shirts and walk around during the reception. This would help to turn her piece into more of a discussion.

Alexandra Berger - Alexandra showed us some pictures of the sculptures that she is creating. She is using a mixture of materials, including a foam that hardens. She said she intends to make an environment of her project using items she's seen in some of her dreams. I believe she wants to make her objects glow in the dark, which I think would add a surreal quality to her overall piece and emphasize what she is going for.The term she used to describe this was "lucid dreaming". I feel that her project ideas are very interesting and fun, but she should narrow her focus a little bit more before she creates her environment in the show. Perhaps she should use one specific dream that she can remember very well instead of a combination of a few of them.

Art Critique - February 4th, 2011

This week it was my turn to show work that I've been doing, and I decided to show a sound piece I worked on last semester because it directly corresponds to the work I'm thinking of doing for my thesis. The sound piece used different samples of individuals speaking, including singer/actress Jill Scott. I recorded part of an interview that she did with a prominent news team and added it to a musical accompaniment I created in GarageBand. I also used recordings from conversations had between some of my friends regarding people of different classes/racial groups. I secretly recorded these conversations knowing that they would be altered or never spoken out loud if I told them. Additionally, I recorded some of my friends reading the infamous "Crime Alert" emails that the Rutgers Police Department sends out to students and faculty. Without manipulation, these notices sounded almost exactly alike, because the description was extremely similar every time --- Black male, wearing a hoodie, etc, which is something that I've always noticed and something that has always bothered me.

Upon playing this track for the class, all of my peers enjoyed listening to it and felt it was successful. They focused on what was being said and eventually got into a dialogue about what it meant, and what I was trying to say with my piece. They understood that with this information I was trying to spur conversation about this issue, and why it exists in the first place. Meghan especially liked how I related the concept to Rutgers directly. Originally for my project, I was thinking of doing a more over all view of race relations in America, and hadn't thought about narrowing it down to Rutgers. I thought it was interesting how she explained the idea of individuals being molded during their college years and basically being educated to fear these types of people. College is meant to prepare you for the "real world" and the rest of your life, but should part of that education be to place a further rift between different races by sending these messages?  I feel it is an interesting idea being that it is where the audience will be and it is essentially their backyard. However, I want everyone who views my piece to relate to it, or become interested in talking about it. Not everyone who sees it will be from New Brunswick, or attend Rutgers. I do not want to limit myself, but also, I do not want to overextend myself either.

I will continue to think about these topics as well as different suggestions given to me by the other artists in my group.

Critiques - January 28th, 2011

It is evident that the artists in this year's thesis exhibition are moving forward and progressing with their individual works. We are all growing as artists that are concerned with different themes and use different mediums to portray those ideas. It is very interesting however, the ways in which those ideas that seem so separate are actually so starkly related. Although I have never seen Ilana Cloud's works before, I could almost see a direct correlation between hers and my own. Her paintings draw on ideas of history in order to explain some of the present. She uses a primitive style of painting in which she is very abstract, as well as uses mark making in terms of quick signatures and small quotes that may or may not make sense to the viewer. Ilana makes an effort in her pieces to incorporate different cultures of the world into her works, which is evident through different color uses and an attempt to incorporate different font styles on her paintings. Her work is very aesthetically pleasing although somewhat random. 


Princess Belton's paintings have evolved very much since last semester. In the past she has contemplated using sculptural accents in combination with her paintings to portray a deeper conceptual message regarding the styling (primarily straightening) of African-American women's hair. Princess has begun to paint pieces based on different pictures of African-American women that can be found in various styling magazines. In these magazines, women are portrayed usually with straightened or over the top hair styles and can be meant to portray the ideal of African-American hairstyles. Many of these styles draw on European culture and are attained through perms, straightening combs, or weaves, which is something Princess intends to explore. I find it very interesting that she is considering adding a performance aspect to her work in which she sews a weave into a woman's hair during the thesis show. 


I found Gabrielle Ambrozia’s  sculptures to be very elegant in their simplicity. I thought it was very interesting how she decided to use paper and paraffin wax in order to build her pieces, although what we saw were just templates. I also thought it was interesting how she pointed out that sculptures are often viewed as masculine based upon the medium they are made out of, such as steel or metal. People don't often think of sculptures being soft or maybe even fragile. She also had the idea of  making these sculptures extremely large in which, viewers would have to walk through them, which I think is a great idea. The only concern I have for Gabrielle would be the strength of her works in the show. Being that she had the idea of constructing her works out of water paper does not seem very stable, especially if children will be present and individuals will want to touch her pieces. However, I feel that Gabrielle is moving in an interesting position with her work and I look forward to seeing more from her. 

Studio Journal: Theme Idea 2: Identity Politics



Lorna Simpson, "Wigs"



Wangechi Mutu, "Untitled"

 

Adrian Piper, "Self-Portrait Exaggerating My Negroid Features"




Carrie Mae Weems, "Mirror, Mirror"



Studio Journal via Video III A.

Throughout much of the curriculum of my Video III class, we have been working and expanding on a project called "Put Something Here". To date, we have done about 4 versions of it. The assignment has to do with personal identity in some form, as well as the ways in which we perceive the world (as most art is used for). For the first project, I made simple signs for all of the water fountains in Mason Gross that read "Colored" and "White" as a step back into how America was in terms of African-American and Caucasian racial interaction. Many people were confused when they saw the signs, and they were taken down within the hour.

October 20th, 2010
 
Put Something Here Pt. 1


November 7th, 2010
As part two of this assignment, I created signs based off of old slavery posters from the 1800s and changed some of the text to be targeted toward African-American and Caucasian Rutgers students. Some students became angered upon reading the signs, and I saw one girl rip one off from my livingroom window.


The first poster I changed to "Colored People of Rutgers" and "Watchmen and Police Officers of New Brunswick". For the second poster, I changed "Negroes" to "Whites" and inserted a picture of the Venus of Urbino by Titian, and a picture of Caucasian blonde models I found wearing all white and standing in a line.

(YouTube link to video documentation soon to come!)

November 10th, 2010

For part 3, I continued with the theme of text, placing a political cartoon of a tea party member holding a tea bag in the shape of a KKK mask in some Targums and leaving them in random places.

November 17, 2010

For part 4, I participated in performance art, where Princess and I acted out certain stereotypes pertaining to African-American women. She was pregnant, and I was overly loud --- we both had scarves on our heads as well. We did this (like the rest of my projects) in a public space --- the Douglass dining hall during chicken takeout night.

Put Something Here Part 4