Sunday, July 19, 2009

Inspired Aesthetic Quality

Snippits, brief thoughts, whatnot…

Rogue Wave 2009 at LA Louver – I went because it’s the Rogue Wave show, and because Kaz Oshiro was in it. Turns out someone I sort of know (Tia Pulitzer) was in it. Her work stood out at Superficiality and Superexcrescence at Otis, as it does in this show.

Nice scene, a lot of sculpture, as Sara Simon pointed out. We attempted to formulate a theory about how the economic downturn would usher a new opportunity for sculpture in the art market. Painting has always been the most archetypal of marketable art objects; sculpture has a reputation for being more, well, inconvenient. But much of what was at LA Louver Thursday made it seem worth the effort.


Lawrence Weiner at Regen Projects – I like words. I like poetry. I like typography. I like conceptual art. I like artists with funny last names. I like seeing John Baldessari at openings. I like being able to park. 6 out of 7 ain’t bad.


I’m beginning my initial preparations for teaching again in the fall – Introduction to Art Concepts and Introduction to Digital Media. My respective goals for this semester are to give the students practical tools for writing about art, and to emphasize more ideas about two-dimensional design in the digital class.

My basis for the latter has come from the realization that the students tend to catch on to how to use the software with incredible ease. What escapes them is how to create compositions and images that have an inspired aesthetic quality. A new book I have been studying, and have adapted for the class, Digital Foundations: Intro to Media Design with the Adobe Creative Suite by xtine burrough (sic) and Michael Mandiberg, provide a possible curriculum with this in mind, and it has become one of my favorite pedagogical materials.

As far as getting students to write about art better, I was wondering what all of you think. What are the essential points of emphasis when trying to get newcomers to art to articulate about it?

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