Appropriation: Part II
Research and choose an art work which may be appropriated. Consider those requirements discussed in class as to what may be suitable.
Research and identify ‘icons’ of your contemporary culture, which can be incorporated with your chosen image, therefore changing its original composition, context and meaning. Consider:
magazines / newspapers
digital photography (blue screen)
photocopies
personal drawings etc. from ‘icons’
To create your new composition, context and meaning, consider using various techniques, such as:
computer manipulations, e.g. scanning, using Photoshop, drawing,
photocopying multiple sections
keyhole sections
collage
drawing into
adding text
Artist Book:
Plan and create an artist book to contain your composition, its variations, and all other manipulations. Your artist book must contain all of, or an element of, your contemporary ‘icon’: an appropriation of it.
HINTS:
Could you construct your artist book from a contemporary ‘icon’? for example:
a book
soft drink bottle/can
tennis ball
sports equipment
an old camera, instrument
buttons
nails
hair ribbons
a shoe
OR, place parts of the ‘icon’ into the book, for example the label of soft drink bottles?
Remember, any other materials, e.g. paper, objects added to your artist book are only limited by your imagination. Such additions will demonstrate your personal aesthetic.
Sculptural Display:
Finally, you must decide how your artist book will be displayed.
Consider its sculptural qualities
Could it be displayed in more than one manner?
How do you want your viewers to ‘read’ it?
Appropriation: Part I
Selecting an image for appropriation:
Answer the following questions in relation to the art work you have chosen.
1. Record the details of the original artwork you have chosen for your print, including: the title, the artist's name, the date of the piece and what media was used.
2. Answer the following questions concerning your chosen art work:
Subjective Response:
a) What do I see in the artwork?
b) What do I feel?
c) What does this artwork remind me of?
Formal observations:
a) What materials and techniques have been used?
b) Discuss the composition. Where does your eye travel to when you look at the art work? Why?
c) What are the relevant visual elements: color, tone, texture, line, shape? Describe them.
Cultural context:
a) What country and time does the artwork belong to?
b) Does it belong to an art movement or style?
c) Does it represent a culture - class, gender, politics, economics, and/or technology?
Critical Thinking: Judy Barrass
Excerpt from Judy Barrass' artist statement:
“Using the book form allows me to work in three dimensions with an object that has several states of being. When I’m working I have in mind a one-on-one relationship with the viewer. It is an intimate conversation. The idea for one thing flows from the thought processes in creating others, and leads to some logical (I hope) conclusion of concept from a sometimes nebulous beginning. It is like I am discovering my own ideas from my working.
‘This land is your land, this land is my land’ had its genesis in an artist residency at the historic gold mining town of Hill End in NSW in 2003. Work from this residency flowed into the next year and an exhibition at Bathurst in late 2004.
In Hill End I was fascinated by the patchwork quilts and patched linoleum in the historic houses and by the buildings that had been repaired with many patches over the years. I made several works on the theme of patchwork quilts and the piecing together of things. In exploring this theme it occurred to me that on maps the mining leases were depicted as a layer over the Hill End landscape like a giant patchwork quilt following the contours of the hills and valleys. I made a book called ‘Hawkins Hill’ which is similar, but larger than ‘This land is your land’. My idea was to create a book that could be closed, but when fully open would be able to follow the contours of the surface on which it rested.
Another aspect of Hill End that fascinated me was the wooden and wire fences that march across the landscape, dividing each parcel of land from the other and I made several works about these fences and protection of one’s own patch.
In ‘This land is your land’, which was made immediately after I completed the Hill End works, those ideas came together. The earth itself in the beautiful colours of the collected clays and the way mankind is determined to divide it up into parcels of ownership.
The book was made for Books.04 at Noosa Regional Gallery. The theme was ‘Nature’. It is the nature of man to create divisions. We believe we own the earth.”
--Judy Barass—
Description: 24 clay tablets ‘bound’ together like a book, and housed concertina fashion, in a small black box.
Answer the following questions in relation to the above image and text concerning Judy Barrass’ artist book:
1. What materials and techniques has Judy Barrass used in her artist book titled This land is your land, this land is my land?
2. In your opinion, what are the relevant elements and principles of design in Barrass’ work?
3. Does Barrass have a precise concept when she starts creating her work? Explain fully.
4. Three specific elements directed the final concept behind Barrass’ artist book.
a. What are these three elements?
b. What is the final concept of This land is your land, this land is my land?
5. How does Barrass’ use of clay relate to the concept of This land is your land, this land is my land?
6. Is there another artist’s book that you have seen that has a similar concept and/or sculptural quality to Barrass’ artist book? Give details.
7. Analyse the similarities and differences between Barrass’ artist book and one other from another collection. Please include the title of second artist’s book, the
artist’s name and a list of the similarities and differences between the two (in sentences).
Critical Thinking: Tennis Ball
Linda Newbown:
"The Tennis ball book was made in response to the dichotomy of book as object and book as information. A book is a difficult thing to define because half of it is object and half is an abstract concept. Is a book the sum of certain requisite characteristics? If a book has no pages is it still a book? If it cannot be opened is it still a book? These are the things I like to ask as I make my books. My artists’ books are a way of questioning bookishness."
(Linda Newbown's artist statement sourced from State Library of Queensland, Artists’ books online, 2005)
Description: Yellow tennis ball, cut in half, hinged and pages with text
Answer the following questions:
1. Linda Newbown states that Tennis ball was made in response to a dichotomy, or two opposing concepts, concerned with books as art. What are these two concepts?
2. Linda Newbown indicates it is difficult to define an object as a book. How do you define a book? Do you agree that the Tennis ball is a book?
3. As a process of creating your own personal definition of what constitutes an artist book, answer the same questions Linda Newbown has asked herself:
a) Is a book the sum of certain requisite, or necessary, characteristics?
b) If a book has no pages is it still a book?
c) If a book cannot be opened is it still a book?
“Tennis Ball is the concrete form of my thinking about the intersection of book as an abstract idea, as an object and as the carrier of information.”
--Linda Newbown--
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