Dada & Dadaism

Dada was an art movement formed because of the changing social and moral values at the end of World War I. It was formed to prove how artistic expression has faded instead of giving off a style itself. Dada artist produce a lot of ambiguous, unconventional, and risky works that reflect the artists social status towards the world. Popular Dada artist include; Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Author Caravan, Jean Arp, and Francis Picabia.
Marcel Duchamp produced a famous sculpture called Fountain signing it R Mutt, which is actually a urinal. The initial R stood for Richard which was a French slang for moneybag, it also supposedly represents a sewage company (Wikipedia).
Man Ray was a photographer, painter, and sculptor. He was known for taking objects that had a useful purpose and making them useless. For example he took an iron and put spikes on the flat side, so it could no longer be used.
I think the Dada movement was extremely interesting. I love the fact that these artist took things to such a risky level knowing that it would cause controversy. Its amazing to think that these artist did all this in the 1920's and on, when everyone and was so conservative.

Sources: online Wikipedia ( Dada, List of Dadaists, Fountain)

playing with behaviors of everyday life.

This activity was really funny and very spontaneous. When my partner and I faced back to back we lined up our mirrors so we could see each others faces. We looked at one another and smiled and I made the first face and Jill mimicked. We took at step away from each other and continued making different faces. They were really childish and silly. It reminded me times when you and friends sit in front of a camera and take ridiculous pictures with the weirdest faces. Being able to see my partner through a mirror, I could catch the transaction of one facial expression to the next. That made it even more comical because you could see the thought process on her face as if it was saying, "What should my next expression be?" I think this was a cool activity being able to see facial expressions that are made everyday through a different perspective and mimicking them while slowly walking further away until you could no longer make out your partners face.

Marcel Duchamp-, "The Bride"

When i first looked at this piece my eyes were immediately drawn to the top cloud with the three squares. The white squares contrasting the dark cloud drew my attention. To the left it looked like a robotic person holding his robotic dog on a leash. The bottom section looked like a factory to me. I immediately thought of meat factories, especially with the objects hanging on the left side. I also found out that the cracks in the picture are unintentional. It was dropped while being moved.

After discussing, listening to the essay about Duchamp, and looking up him I found that this picture is very sexual and involves a bride and bachelors, it is very erotic. He shows this through geometric and organic shapes on two planes. The bride is supposed to be like a motor which produces this 'love gasoline' that sparks stripping. The figures hanging in the bottom left are the nine bachelors that are suppose to strip this mechanical bride.

I think what makes this art work interesting is the time period it was made in. When Duchamp made this controversial piece, art was very conservative. This piece has such a unique meaning to it and people during his time had to of found it appalling. I thought it was interesting how Duchamp considers this to be his funny piece, I don't think it's funny. If anything I think it is a little weird. I think that this piece has a lot to say, and I like how its meaning isn't direct, it takes a lot of studying to understand. That is what makes him and his art so interesting even today.

Making patterns

Our project making patterns on Adobe Illustrator was a very interesting one. I was a little nervous because I am still getting comfortable with this program. I made this arrow looking positive shape. It has roundness and sharpness to it, I really liked it. I made six different pattern designs for it, looking off the example pattern sheet. Then I printed that out as a reference. I then chose four of the six patterns and blew those up to each squares to the required size and length and printed. It took some time but I thought it was relatively easy.
The next class I thought I was done, so my teacher came over to look at it. She made some suggestions that the positive shape's point should touch the edge of each square. So that when they are put together they positive spaces could create negative spaces. I realized that would look more appealing, so I redid my shapes to touch the squares and reprinted them.
Overall I liked the project, it was a little tedious, everything had to be precise to make it look right. But learning short cuts on Illustrator cut the time down allot.

Islamic art

Islamic art is shown through architecture and applied art. Islamic art tends to use a lot of patterns also. When it comes to Islmaic art things have to be looked at as a hole. For instance, an entire Islamic building would be considered the finished piece of art. Most Islamic art is two dimensional but is seen as three dimensional because they use a lot of shiny materials, glass, patterns, and high contrast. Islamic applied arts is based off of geometry, calligraphy, and floral patterns. Its architecture is based off of the use of arches, repetition and patterns.
I think the Islamic art of patterns has had a huge impact on the world. Pattern is seen everywhere now a days. My purse has pink butterfly patterns on it. My light green carpet has off white patterns similar to the one above, and this is a random apartment complex in D.C. Patterns are used everywhere.
picture from: http://home.earthlink.net/~lazarski/home/detail.jpg