Tesserae

Summer Break

2008-06-01T16:31:00.000-07:00

Tesserae and I are both on a bit of a break during the summer months. For the first time in a very long time I am not teaching courses over the summer in order to focus my efforts on my research. I'm taking a couple of weeks off to travel through parts of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras to visit Maya archaeological sites. For the remainder of the summer I'll be completing some much needed writing. See you in the fall. -John

Stonehenge Was Cemetery First and Foremost

2008-05-29T23:23:00.000-07:00

James Owen
National Geographic News
May 29, 2008

Stonehenge stood as giant tombstones to the dead for centuries, new radiocarbon dating suggests.

The site appears to have been intended as a cemetery from the very start, around 5,000 years ago—centuries before the giant sandstone blocks were erected—the new study says.

Robert Rauschenberg dies at 82

2008-05-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

Sad news.

Prolific and influential American artist Robert Rauschenberg died Monday, May 12th at the age of 82.

A painter, photographer, printmaker, choreographer, onstage performer, set designer and, in later years, even a composer, Mr. Rauschenberg defied the traditional idea that an artist stick to one medium or style. He pushed, prodded and sometimes reconceived all the mediums in which he worked.

Building on the legacies of Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, Joseph Cornell and others, he helped obscure the lines between painting and sculpture, painting and photography, photography and printmaking, sculpture and photography, sculpture and dance, sculpture and technology, technology and performance art — not to mention between art and life.

Mr. Rauschenberg was also instrumental in pushing American art onward from Abstract Expressionism, the dominant movement when he emerged, during the early 1950s. He became a transformative link between artists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and those who came next, artists identified with Pop, Conceptualism, Happenings, Process Art and other new kinds of art in which he played a signal role.

No American artist, Jasper Johns once said, invented more than Mr. Rauschenberg. Mr. Johns, John Cage, Merce Cunningham and Mr. Rauschenberg, without sharing exactly the same point of view, collectively defined this new era of experimentation in American culture.

GRAFFITI = ART

2008-05-12T00:36:00.000-07:00

Graffiti has been a symbol of urban cities across the United States for over three decades now. The work has always been shunned down as vandalism, or just meaningless junk put on walls by gang members; but if you actually take a long hard look at what most of these individuals do, you would appreciate this amazing art form. Ok, yes, there are those bad apples who mark things up just because, or do it for street gang purposes, but there are hosts of individuals who have a passion for the artistic manner of graffiti. The colors, lines and compositions in these works are amazing. These people are using paint, many times out of a spray can, and applying it to large unpredictable canvasses. That is not by any means easy. It takes skill and hardwork to do one of these extrodanary pieces that range from simple dimension letters that have very impressive color schemes, techniques and mixes, to extremely intricate three-dimensional figures that impress and drop the jaws of the most conservative art critics.

Terracotta Army

2008-05-11T22:32:00.001-07:00

THERE IS THE MOST INTERESTING EXHIBIT AT BOWERS MUSEUM OF CULTURAL ART IN SANTA ANA!!! The Terracotta Army meaning "soldier and horse funerary statues" is an eclectic group of statues ranging from warriors, chariots, horses, officials, acrobats, strongmen, and musicians created in 210 BCE. These statues that were made to serve and protect the first Chinese emperor Shi Huang Di of the Quinn empire in his after-life were only recently discovered in 1974 by a group of local farmers who were looking for a water hole around Mt.Li in China (interesting enough the material used for the sculptures was gathered from the same area).

According to some historians it is believed over 700,000 government laborers and craftsman were used to create the sculptures, neo-acropolis, and burial (which has been excavated but unopened). The life-size sculptures which vary in size, hairstyle, and armor according to rank were put together with an incredibly advanced "production line" system that assembled the separate pieces including hands, torso, face, and feet into one mold. The sculpture are within four different pits that were constructed with solid dirt and concrete!

The best thing about this Terracotta army, we Chaffey students don't have to go to China to view the sculptures because the Santa Ana Bowers museum will be having them on display

San Quentin Art

2008-05-11T21:10:00.000-07:00

I read a very interesting article in the Los Angeles Times on a San Quentin State Prison convict turned artist in the 1950's. In 1953 Alberto Santos was incarcerated in San Quentin, during this time an opportunity for inmates to submit mural sketches to cover the cafeteria's wall was administered. Santos submitted his sketches, won the contest, and was commissioned to paint the mural.

The area where the mural was to be painted was originally only one side of the cafeteria but soon after the warden saw his work, he ordered Santos to paint all three side of the room. The 12 by 100 foot mural Santos created is a chronological time line of California history. Depictions of the State's history in a Diego Rivera and Expressionism style includes images of the golden state bridge, Groucho Marx, WWII bombers, and Fransiscan missonaries.

The mural which was done with a sienna raw oil paint in the color red was completed in a two year span and still remains today. Recently Santos was recognized as the artist after years of the murals anomynity. After Santos was recognized as the painter of the mural his paintings which once sold for 50 cents at a garage sell are going for more than 2000 dollars. Sadly this documented history of San Quentin prison and American cultures have endured defacing from younger inmates who have entered the prison and don't feel a connection to the murals, although for decades the mural was highly protected.

Quinton Bemiller Art Exhibition

2008-05-08T07:07:00.000-07:00

QUINTON BEMILLER paintings
MERIEL STERN installation/sculpture

Opening Reception Sat. May 10, 6p-8p

LouWe Gallery, 306 Hawthorne St.
South Pasadena, CA 91030
626 799 5551

Gallery Hours: Thurs., Fri., Sat. 3p-6p;
Sun., 2p-5p; and by appointment.

Please stop by if you can!
Quinton teaches art and art history courses at Chaffey College.

30,000

2008-05-05T07:29:00.000-07:00

Woohoo! Tesserae just hit 30,000 visitors today :)

Starving Dog Exhibit Causes Public Outcry

2008-05-04T10:08:00.001-07:00

I wanted to take a moment to respond to this story that has been circulating since about October of 2007. In many ways it is a non-story, but it continues to grow and spread and now over the last couple of weeks has made it through my campus.
Here is a link to one account.

The reason I say this is a non-story is not because the topic is not important, but because it appears to have not happened. The dog was not actually starved to death.

The artist exhibited a stray dog in an exhibition to bring people's attention to something that outside of a gallery context they would normally ignore. The rumors that the dog was starved (rather than a dog that was starving on the streets was brought into the gallery) spread from an inaccurate (sensationalist) news report and then through the internet. The gallery owner reported that the dog was cared for and fed. There has been no evidence uncovered that the dog was starved.

In some ways this reaction to the exhibit seems to support the artist's intent. The general public is not outraged on a regular basis in this way about the fact that many dogs and cats are abandoned on the streets and may starve to death, but rather the actual exhibit that was designed to bring this situation to the attention of the public is what people have become upset about.

This may ironically turn out to be a powerful example of how art may still be able to raise both public awareness and expose public hypocrisy.

The Living Maya and the Late Linda Schele

2008-05-03T22:24:00.000-07:00

This article on my former professor Linda Schele was in the Austin Chronicle yesterday. I still miss her.

Austin becomes a hotbed of past and future Maya knowledge
BY ROB D'AMICO

Linda Schele was always quite a show.

A towering figure, both physically and intellectually, she strode across the stages and workshop rooms at the annual University of Texas Maya Meetings, often peppering her language with curses and enthusiastic exclamations at moments of discovery. She liked the attention she commanded, and it fed her enjoyment in being at the forefront of research on the ancient Maya. And unlike many of her counterparts in academia, who zealously defend their findings from competing scholars, Schele encouraged lively discussion and revision of her theories, not only among the elite ranks of archaeologists, epigraphers, and art historians of Harvard, Yale, and the like, but also among those with no formal training. "She had a guru quality about her, and people would come from all over the world to Austin to hear her pronouncements," said David Stuart, a longtime Schele friend and protégé who now heads the UT-Austin Mesoamerica Center.

Schele died in 1998, of pancreatic cancer, at the age of 55. Her continuing intellectual and cultural legacy, in terms of her contributions to the reading and interpretation of Maya hieroglyphs, remains enormous. She also put UT-Austin on the map as a leading center for Mesoamerican research. Today, UT researchers continue to be at the center of groundbreaking discoveries in the world of Maya archaeology. But they also are leading a movement to bring the world of the ancient Maya into the lives of the living Maya and are engaging in new debates over archaeological discoveries of ecological destruction and its relevance to our planet today.

Read much more here about the Mesoamerica program at the University of Texas.

FLW = Permanent Modernism

2008-05-03T00:58:00.000-07:00

I hadn't even considered or thought about taking an Art History class here at Chaffey College when I first witnessed a Frank Lloyd Wright home. I was in a department store when I picked up a book with the "coolest" looking modern home I'd ever seen on its cover.

The picture was actually a photo of Frank Lloyd Wright's "Robie House" which was from what I have recently learned was built in 1910?? Yes, to my disbelief and extreme shock, 1910 a year when the Ford's model T along with other ancient steam cars were roaming around undeveloped, skyscraperless cities. The television came over a decade later than the "Robie House" a building which to me resembled a concept car coming out in 2010 not 1910.

Looking through the book I noticed many more of these similar homes and was so intrigued and astonished I purchased it. I even told my girlfriend I wanted to by a house created by this man when I got older. To find out that these aesthetic, innovative and futuristic structures were created before a computer, microwave, and even a television, the very objects that make houses into homes in present day America was just completely astonishing.

Frank Lloyd Wright has impressed me the most out of any artist we have covered in class from Michaelangelo to Picasso. This man was definitely 100 years ahead of his time in the way he structured these homes, incorporated nature, and the use of functionality first was simply amazing. In fact his works might never be of "time" they might always be a step ahead of the rest. Simply some of the best and most amazing architecture I've seen in my life.

Arts Appropriations Disputes: The Musical!

2008-04-22T08:37:00.000-07:00

By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts
Washington Post, Friday, April 18, 2008; Page C03

If you followed the culture wars circa 1990 -- the angry battles over federal funding for sexually charged works by artists like Robert Mapplethorpe and Karen Finley-- you probably thought at some point, "Hey, this would make a great musical comedy!"

Well, so did the man at the center of it all -- John Frohnmayer, the National Endowment for the Arts chairman forced to quit in 1992 in the crossfire between conservative pols like Sen. Jesse Helms and liberal-learning arts advocates.

And the retired lawyer actually wrote that musical, a fictionalized and heavily satirical take called "Spin," which debuts at Oregon State University next month. It features a Helmsian senator (played by David Ogden Stiers, Maj. Winchester from "M*A*S*H") and a wacky performance artist-provocateur whose flash-point artwork is "a vomit flag" on the Mall. ...

New Crayola Crayon "Colors"

2008-04-21T23:47:00.000-07:00

The Irascible Professor's commentary on the new names given to the Crayola crayon colors.

Color Me Ishmael.
Guest commentary by Carolyn Foster Segal.

Color me annoyed. Color me exasperated. Or despairing. Or frustrated. Just don't -- even though it would be the most precise description--color me blue.

Crayola, in honor of the 50th anniversary of its 64-box, recently sponsored a contest inviting children to send in their ideas for new names for eight of its crayons.

The company supposedly received over 20,000 entries. So, color me baffled -- I just can't figure out why, out of all those entries, the judges chose the eight new names announced last Wednesday. Color me confused -- because I can't find a single color mentioned. ...

Click here for the rest of the article.

Blank Canvas

2008-04-19T18:07:00.000-07:00

From the April 21, 2008 edition of The Breeze.

Works of art graced the campus in March
by Jodie Cavalier

"March Madness" has got nothing on the art scene at Chaffey this past month. March highlighted three well coordinated art events as part of the Cucamonga Peak/Art Avalanche during the two weeks after spring break. These were truly unmissable, unless you simply didn't go to school. Public artwork was displayed all over campus in the Temporary Art Park (TAP), from down south near the Breeze office to hidden niches on the Wignall patio and even unexpectedly in the Student Services and Administration building. In addition, the Wignall Museum presented a group show curated by Andi Campognone that featured former Student Invitational participants, while the Chaffey Art Organization (CAO) unveiled reNEW/reSTORE, a shop selling original art objects based on the theme of renewal, inside the Wignall project space.

The Chaffey College Art Committee and Art Department sponsored the Temporary Art Park. After the 125th Anniversary celebration on March 29th, many gathered at the Wignall Museum to attend the much anticipated art walk and artists reception. Viewers had the opportunity to take a guided tour around the campus with the TAP subcommittee chair Stan Hunter, co-chair Misty Burruel, and several of the artists to learn about the artworks.

One piece in particular, Filings by Matthew Hebert, encouraged viewers to touch and interact with the work. The piece requires you to look through peepholes in the drawers of a file cabinet and to trigger dioramas playing inside by unlocking the drawer using the button next to the handle. The dioramas, powered by solar panels, critique the cultivation and over-consumption of fossil fuels. Without knowing how to use it, many people looked at the work on the grassy hill near the Social Science building and never approached and experienced the artwork fully. Luckily, many caught on to the abundance of work presented on campus and went to the Wignall Museum for a TAP map to guide them.

Number 27 on the TAP map directs you to the Wignall Museum's exhibition and art sale 30 Years: Student Invitational Exhibition Artists Revisited. This group show invited former participants of the Student Invitational from several decades to come back to display and sell their work in the Museum. All of the artwork in the museum were for sale, and a portion of the proceeds went toward future events planned by the Wignall and the Chaffey Art Organization. One of the most talked about works in the show was the towering sculpture of cement spray paint cans titled UEC (P) #1 by David Delgado. The piece was equipped with over 200 molded cement cans that hung from the rafters down to an asphalted section of the floor.

Observers of all ages were fascinated and thoroughly enjoyed the great variety of artwork on campus.

[click for images]

The Old Guitarist

2008-04-18T13:48:00.000-07:00

I was looking through my World Book Enciclopedia DVD doing some research for school when i came across this painting. The Old Guitarist by Pablo Piccasso. It made me realize the huge role that color plays on emotions when looking at a painting. Here, the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso uses blues to create contrasting moods. Picasso evokes a sense of sadness and loneliness in the painting. It makes you feel extremely sad for the old and lonely man.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. What do you guys think?

Carolingian miniatures - Medieval art

2008-04-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

The left miniature is from the gospel of Ebbo: Saint Mathew(before 823 A.D.) The right miniature is from the Four gospels (845-882 A.D.) I encountered these online at http://www.hp.uab.edu/image_archive/cr-03/index.html

I find it is very interesting to compare how the art has evolved during Medieval period using these two images. The left image is very dramatic, even theatrical I should say. All the lines sketched on the dress and background, his hair... shows as if the wind blows so hard that St. Mathew is just seconds from being blown away from his chair. His face expression shows a bit of fear, and also deep concentration, look how big his eyes are.. His fingers are portrayed in such awkwardness, but keep the same fluent movement of waves, probably from the strong wind. Even from looking at the frame alone, the waves on the frame created a feeling as if the wind blows out of the picture.. On both, there is a small angel flying on the upper right corner. Only on the left, the angel is less detailed, but I assume that here, the religious experience is so powerful and well presented that there is no need in so much detail.

On the right picture, I am not sure about who this figure represent, but the individual is sited at the same position, only he seem to be reading instead of writing. Here, the scene is less dramatic, bit I think it is also powerful because now, instead of using lines or sketches, the artist is using the power of the light, or Ora, that surrounds the figure to show its religious greatness. But itself, I found the background to be more calm, more detailed.

What do you think??

The Color of Life - at The Getty Villa

2008-04-10T03:14:00.000-07:00

Has anyone checked out this exhibition yet? I went to the Getty Villa two weeks ago and just about had a heart attack. Unfortunetely, I didn't get to The Color of Life collection until about 20 minutes before the museum closed. For those of you who gag at the thought of ancient art, have no fear! There was a nice variety of different time periods (statues dating from Egypt's Old Kingdom to Contemporary).

Some artists took ancient Roman statues and painted replicas of them (there were a few examples for each piece) to get an idea of what they may have looked like at that time. The majority of them were pretty bright and gaudy, but it was amazing to see the existing pigment on the originals. There were a few polychromy (the use of multiple colors) statues in the exhibition, a reconstruction of the Augustus of Prima Porta (most definetely worth driving out there to see, lol), and an interesting wax sculpture called Anatomical Venus. I guess it was originally used for scientific study (it was like those HeShe plastic bodies you had in Jr. High science classes, you know, where you could take out all the organs?) and it was insanely realistic, and rather gruesome.

The exhibition continues on until the 23rd of June, so go see it!

What is art?

2008-04-06T08:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, this made me laugh.

Phantom Sightings

2008-04-05T07:45:00.000-07:00

For those of you taking my contemporary art course you might enjoy this exhibition opening tomorrow at LACMA. You might also recognize this artwork by Christina Fernandez (Lavanderia #1, 2002). It was exhibited at Chaffey College in the Wignall Museum's Leaving Aztlan in 2006.

Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement

April 6, 2008–September 1, 2008

Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement is the largest exhibition of cutting-edge Chicano art ever presented at LACMA. Chicano art, traditionally described as work created by Americans of Mexican descent, was established as a politically and culturally inspired movement during the counterculture revolutions of the late 1960s and early 1970s. This exhibition explores the more experimental tendencies within the Chicano art movement—ones oriented less toward painting and declarative polemical assertion than toward conceptual art, performance, film, photo- and media-based art, and "stealthy" artistic interventions in urban spaces. The exhibition includes approximately 125 works in all media, including painting and sculpture as well as installation, conceptual, video, performance art, and intermedia works that incorporate film, digital, and sound art. Artists featured are photographer Christina Fernandez, who documents the poetic and “phantom” in the urban landscape; Mario Ybarra Jr., who creates performances, site-specific installations and intermedia works; the “intermedia synaesthesia” of the seminal conceptual art group Asco; and the New York-based artist Nicola Lopez, who creates dramatic installations with drawings that extend from the wall into the gallery.

Marcel Duchamp Redux

2008-03-30T00:15:00.000-07:00

Norton Simon Museum
April 25 through December 8

Opening next month is Marcel Duchamp Redux, a special installation commemorating the 45th anniversary of Marcel Duchamp's legendary retrospective at the Pasadena Art Museum (now the Norton Simon Museum). Organized by Director Walter Hopps in 1963, By or of Marcel Duchamp or Rrose Sélavy was the first-ever retrospective of the artist's oeuvre. Organizing an exhibition around this groundbreaking artist was a major coup for a small West Coast institution. The Museum's challenge to East Coast authority was widely touted, and Hopps went on to organize a series of innovative exhibitions there.

Marcel Duchamp Redux features 12 Duchamp works acquired by the Museum during and after the 1963 exhibition, as well as photographs and ephemera from the retrospective.

Frozen in Grand Central

2008-03-27T18:25:00.000-07:00

In this performance piece 207 people walking through Grand Central Station in New York all "froze" in place at the same moment. During the five minute event onlookers were truly bewildered as they tried to figure out what had happened.
Watch the video here.

Update: Can I get a napkin please.

Impressivenism???

2008-03-26T22:45:00.000-07:00

The impressionist movement which came out of France in the 19th century was an art campaign that encompassed light in its changing forms, unique angles, vibrant brush strokes, in a calm everyday setting. The movement in the visual art brought along movements in music, and literature of that time. This movement much like others in any form of art brought about a lot of criticism and hostility from art schools and critiques. Criticism is expected with any good change, the time period gave fame to world renowned artists, like Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne, Pierre Renoir, American born Mary Cassatt and many others. The impressionist or to my eyes impressivenist style is one of my favorites, for many reasons but the painting by Georges Seurat "A sunday afternoon on the island of la grande jatte" Sums everything i can say with hundreds of words, in one piece.... Enjoy

Bowl (dinos) with symposium scene

2008-03-19T15:08:00.000-07:00

Click on the title to enter MFA Boston website to view more details about this piece.

Bowl (dinos) with symposium scene

Italic, Etruscan

Archaic Period about 530 B.C.

Ceramic, Black Figure

Height: 22 cm (8 11/16 in.)

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Francis Bartlett Donation of 191213.205

Although you will find this piece to be an Etruscan art, Isn't the style similar to the Greek's black-figure pottery style?

Black Figure pottery is a Greek style developed during the Orientalizing period around the 7th century BCE. It is called "Black figure" since the figures on the vases were black, while the background was usually a pale color. Athenian artists adopted this technique and it turned to be a dominant style in Greece around the 6th century BCE, during the Archaic period. During the same period of time, the Etruscan art flourished in Etruria (Italy). I think that either the Greeks and Etruscans traded art pieces or one must have copied the style of the other.
(background info & dates taken from Art History, third edition, by Marilyn Stokstad)

Any thoughts on who might the artist was? I guess he was Greek...

I just do not think that the figures themselves portrait a Greek style; the faces, the body form...

Any suggestions to why it is classified as Etruscan art?

A Day in Pompeii

2008-03-18T21:06:00.000-07:00

For those of you taking the history of ancient art, you might want to take a trip to San Diego to see this exhibition. The San Diego Natural History Museum has more than 250 artifacts from Pompeii currently on display, including some of the body casts I mentioned in class. This is a cast of a dog that was buried in the volcanic ash.

A Day in Pompeii
February 15 – June 15, 2008

Discover an ancient story of human drama and natural disaster. This compelling exhibition features authentic artifacts from Pompeii, buried in 79 CE by a catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius. Most poignant and dramatic are the body casts of the volcano's victims, frozen in their last moments. Objects such as frescoes, jewelry, and household items take visitors back in time to experience life and death in ancient Rome's favorite vacation resort.

Broissin Sci-fi Residential Homes

2008-03-16T16:23:00.000-07:00

Broissin Architect Firm, located in Mexico City, Mexico has created many innovated buildings in the last several years, mostly in Mexico. He has been competing his architectural ideas for some time and won his current commission internationally. His work appears to look very futuristic and environmental. The new building the “Urban Shelter” commissioned to be built in Vancouver, Canada, as a residential building that holds clinging pods to the exterior of it. It is planned to be a 270 square foot aluminum pod, occupying up to 2 people, with all the usual necessities that a home would require. There would be solar panels on the roof and octagon windows to help energize the transportable units to the side of the building. Broissin definitely depicts a sci-fi notion of a habitation capsule. It is beautiful and cutting edge, it reminds me of the new Star War films. So, far the dates when thought to be constructed, is currently unknown. The pictures give you the idea of the construction of the pods and the building itself.

Look at their website to keep up with the news of the building. http://www.broissin.com/

Refered to article from Architectural Record by Beth Broome (2007)