James Jaxxa

Finally got some photos of my previous work:

Just a quick photo from when we went to Liverpool Bienalle:

Site/Site photos:

Above my three final collages relating to visual impairments and the idea of a cure.

Imitation:

Plato thought of imitation as a negative thing

Epistemological: an imitaion is at three removed from the reality or truth of something

• Theological: Poets and other artists represent the gods in inappropriate ways.
• ·      Moral and Psychological: A good imitation can undermine the stability of even the best humans by making us feel sad, depressed, and sorrowful about life itself.

Aristotle, Poetics

Art is imitation, and that’s all right, even good.

• ·      Imitation is natural to humans from childhood.

·         ·      Imitation is how children learn, and we all learn from imitations.

• ·      Tragedy can be a form of education that provides moral insight and fosters emotional growth.

• ·      Tragedy is the imitation (mimesis) of certain kinds of people and actions.
• ·      Good tragedies must have certain sorts of people and plots. (Good people experience a reversal of fortune due to some failing or hamartia.)
• ·      A successful tragedy produces a catharsis in the audience.
• ·      Catharsis = purification through pity and fear.

Friedrich: Wanderer above the Sea of Fog

The Sublime:

an ultimate form of beauty

overpowering

Immanuel Kant, in “Critique of Judgment” (1790), took up the sublime and distinguished it from the beautiful: “the Beautiful in nature is connected with the form of the object, which consists in having boundaries, the Sublime is to be found in a formless object, so far as in it, or by occasion of it, boundlessness is represented.” British travellers in the Europe found the concept a perfect fit to describe their experiences before the vistas of the Alps, as represented, for example, in Caspar David Friedrich’s “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog.” Another common example of the sublime in painting is J. M. W. Turner’s “Snow Storm: Steamboat off a Harbour’s Mouth.”

Painting by Van Gogh of his bedroom.  I hope to create something of my own to show my own space as being a part of my home.  Concentrating on a few things involved in my idea of edinburgh as home.  Firstly an important persons home.  I have also decided that a home doesn’t have to be somewhere someone lives.  Thought about the idea of just occupying a space for a while does this mean your at home? Secondly the temporary home – a hotel room.  Third my own home exactly as it is to me this will be difficult.  and last I hope to show someone who helps me to feel at home.

 Above is the first example of site specific art that I have been able to sort of understand. 

I have thought a lot about ways to create a site specific piece in the college like the big cow sculpture outside I always think she looks like she would be cold and so I might want to make her a scarf maybe with daisys on it cos I think she would definately like that.  For some reason I kept thinking about things to sew and then went on to thinking about making squares like the patterned ones that you can sew and making them blue to replace the paper towls because they would be softer.  It feels like I really dont like the whole site specific idea but trying to understand it.

Red Pear Tree, 2004 by James Jaxxa
Site-specific work
Chelsea Waterside Park, New York

The pears have been made using sequins and added to the branches on this tree.
below is another example of site specific art by the same artist I have also added a page of examples in my 3D.

Sexy, 2003
Site-specific work
11th Avenue between 27th and 28th, New York

There is something I really like about this painting above by Mathew Cerletty.  His work varies from realist paintings to work with text distilling images of lifestyle ideals. Throughout his practice Cerletty defines the rules of attraction, using the formal qualities of painting to explore the principles of beauty and fixation.  In N, traditional imagery is exchanged for a simple letter: a person’s initial, empty logo.  This is set on a textured white ground, the letter’s domination commands with its force of expression and humour.  I feel that it becomes something different when it is painted by hand it makes me appreciate it a bit more and I like how simple yet effective it is. 

 Fridays class was really kindof formal but I really liked all the stuff we did looking at artists because its a great chance to ideantify some really talented artists to take inspiration from there were a lot of artists in the presentation which I would like to look further at.  I paricularly liked the yellow flooded hallway and also sortof liked the people with bright yellow hair after it was explained further.  I definately know what i like and what I dont.  

I am tring to get further with research.  I have decided to research Piero Manzonis work further as I believe there is a strong connection between his way of working and the idea of a celebrity – the artist as a type of celebrity.  I will then be able to make connections between the work i hope to do -for example my idea of using the red carpet, limes and stars all things I have connected with the celebrity breif- and the way Piero Manzoni uses his ideas.

I have also decided to look further at Jasper Johns painting for the work using stars which I have started by repeating the image on various surfaces mainly poor surfaces old pieces of paper, cardboard, documents, envelopes, this is because I was thinking about how to make the stars stand out as though they were celebritys (superstars) amougst or against something poor so the stars are rich because they are within something poor.  I know Jasper Johns is not necessarily a conceptual artist as his work was involved in process much more than obvious conceptual artworks and his work was not specifically based on the concept itself even although there is concept involved.

 A heap of language by Robert Smithson.  A great piece of conceptual artwork which I find very effective in making a point without being offensive or having to shock people in some way.

Robert Rauschenburg’s “Erased de Kooning Drawing.”

Below one is my favourite examples I have re-searched this week for sculpture its by Grenville Davey and titled button.  I have also looked at some of his other work and am considering re-searching him further as one of my artists.

Grenville Davey often used steel, rubber and hardboard and exaggerated scale giving objects a new identity as they are enlarged.

At first I would expect when recogninsing this object that it may be functional as some of his sculptures are but this one if now.  I like the simplicity of the idea and the precision with which Button is made emphasises its ordinary nature and the possibility of function.  A function which cannot be fulfilled, however, leads to other considerations, and a sculpture which initially may seem bland in its form and colour, takes on more meaning in my opinion.

This is a painting by Inka Essenhigh who I chose to look at as a contemporary 2D artist anyway I really liked this example and the way everything is so bold and definite.