Interesting website for understanding Marcel Duchamp. You can find the chronological works of Duchamp. Some of his widely discussed works are animeted, and the author gives detailed information about them.

 

Link: http://www.understandingduchamp.com

 

 

Yve ONE, Yve TWO

 

May all that emerges from me be beautiful,” Yves Klein prayed.

Resource: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2010/06/28/100628craw_artworld_schjeldahl?currentPage=all

 

This is a rather non dada, dada unsurprising remark coming from Yves Klein, and yet he was a complex neo-dada, non dada artist. Yves Klein, (1928-1962) was the child of two French painters and lived a life as what would imagine an artist to live. He married an artist and had a son who became an artist. Klein has been considered the last French artist on the global arena, and has been credited to have revitalized the French avant-garde. After he died at the age of 34 years old (heart attack plus amphetamines), his son Yves Amu Klein was born soon after. When reading about Yves he appears to be a brilliant kind of megalomaniac who declared himself a genius even before he started painting. He has been labeled a neo-dadist or a nouveaux réalistes (he preferred the expression "today's realism") (réalisme d'aujourd'hui). He is full of contradictions as he was deeply religious and felt a calling to change the world.

Klein is best known for his monochrome paintings which became his signature work. He used appropriation, a dada method in his art strategy, but unlike dada he felt that the art product was essential. Klein's major appropriations were from nature, not necessarily from the urban environment which the nouveaux realistes preferred. It was the appropriation of the blue of the sky (1947) at the age of 20 that gave Klein a bold and innovative direction to his work. In the following excerpt he made his declaration, almost as similar to the Spanish Conquistadors who embarked on America and declared everything that they saw was theirs to keep. This appropriation is absurd as it is rational as it is complex as it is simple.

 

Resource: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2010/06/28/100628craw_artworld_schjeldahl#ixzz1mG8dQNvc

 

He dated his aesthetic from a day at the beach in Nice, in 1947, when he “signed the sky.” (He hated birds, he said, “because they tried to bore holes in my greatest and most beautiful work.”) His self-mythologizing temerity, an airy parallel to the earthy mystique of his contemporary Joseph Beuys, made him a prophetic figure for the Conceptualism that took hold in art in the late nineteen-sixties. But he would—and could—have no proper successors. He and the critic Pierre Restany, his friend and collaborator, were leaders of Nouveau Réalisme, the last coherent French avant-garde, which specialized in appropriations and formal presentations of urban detritus.

Klein labored over his colors for his monochrome paintings. The colors were calculated and it seemed he used raw pigment, texture and brush work to indicate content. One of the first blues he used was a deep blue described as a Paris night sky with the headlights of traffic still reflecting the energy of life. At one point he exhibited 11 blue paintings and asked to be compared to be Picasso. He even patented his common blue color:

 

Resource: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2010/06/28/100628craw_artworld_schjeldahl#ixzz1mG9szHBQ

 

His monochrome paintings in a color he patented as International Klein Blue (it is ordinary ultramarine pigment, with a polymer binder to preserve its chromatic intensity and powdery texture).

Calvin Klein would be proud.

 

Several articles have hailed Klein as a forerunner, if not a founder of installation art, conceptual art and institutional critique. He orchestrated photographs, set-up events for paintings and musical non-events as in the following excerpt:

Resource: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2010/06/28/100628craw_artworld_schjeldahl#ixzz1mG9szHBQ

 

Klein heavily promoted a Paris gallery show (1958) and invited 3,500 people that consisted of exactly nothing but the gallery walls, (“The Void,” 1958). There was also the rigged photograph of himself apparently leaping from the second story of a building, with an expression of rapt confidence in continued flight (“Leap Into the Void,” 1960); a chamber-orchestra “symphony” that held a single note for twenty minutes, followed by twenty minutes of silence; paintings made with the aid of torches, or by exposing canvases to wind and rain; fountains combining water and fire; and assorted architectural ideas, including one for a city under a weather-deflecting roof of blowing air. Then, there were the Immaterials. For these works, a collector paid Klein a set price and was given a receipt for the sum. Klein then spent the money on gold leaf, which he strewed over water—most often, the Seine. At that point, the collector burned the receipt, consigning the work to mere memory.

These seem to be very funny events, I wonder is anyone laughed. Again it was making the audience work. And in the true tradition of dadaism his dada antics or gestures got the attention of the avant-garde and he seemed to have become their darling. Other theatrical antics included:

Resource:http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/features/yves-klein/

 

In 1960 he published a fake newspaper. In 1962, he sold certificates for non-existent works of art. In 1960, he staged a public performance of his new “Anthropometries,” instructing his nude female assistants to daub themselves with blue paint and press their bodies against a large canvas, while a small orchestra played a “Monotone Symphony” of Klein’s own composition. The next year, he launched a series of fire sculptures and paintings made with Bunsen burners and flamethrowers.

 

Klein is also associated with the nouveaux réalistes who wanted to bring life and art closer together by direct appropriation of reality, highlighting a urban, industrial reality. They used real objects into their work similar to the Duchamp's readymades. In 1960 Klein disassociated his relationship with the nouveaux realistes, contradicting himself and how was perceived.

 

I find his paintings and his gestures have a certain elegance and style. He had a sense of design that translated into his installations and events. He played with his audience with dada whimsy and he became their darling by his bold arrogance. There are some accounts where he seemed mad or was it that he was just pushing how far he could go. In the work of his son who he never met, one can see the same elegance and sense of spare design. Yves Amu Klein is concrete in his methodology an his approach to art. This Klein comes from a robotic background steeped in technology. His work exhibits a bold new step on a balance of art and science. His work is very innovative exploration on emotional behavior of robots and their relationship to the world and humans.

 

Yves Amu Klein is the son of Yves Klein and lives in Arizona. The second Yves works in a very different material and method than the father he has never known. Yves Amu Klein has a background in robotics, and he seems to be merging his science and art into his living sculptures. The second Yves is trying to make the connections between animate and non-animate objects. He wants to bring emotional intelligence to inanimate objects. The Yves Amu is trying to get people to reexamine their lives in the world. Thus lies the connection with Yves One. Yves Two creates objects that has been called Living sculptures or Organic sculpture which manifest in unique large scale creature type robotic sculpture. Yves Amu is trying to blur the line between robots and art, culture and inanimate and animate. Very much like his father's work he is incorporating the randomness of life as part of the object and sees it as an inclusive element. Unlike his father there is no appropriation or found objects in his work, he creates from scratch his unique sculptures/creatures and they seem to be sleek and futuristic actually much like the Monochrome paintings.

 

In the following: Living Sculpture the art and science of creating robotic life: http://www.jstor.org/pss/1576604 He describes his attempt to integrate unusual technologies with his aesthetic sensibilities to create evolving sculptures that manifest learned behaviors dependent on their interactions with their environment and their viewers. He describes past projects and recent works such as "Octofungi" and the Gene Genie software, as well as his goals for the future of what he calls "Living Sculpture.

 

Notes on Yves Amu Klein
http://www.deweyhagborg.com/reports/YvesAmuKlein.htm

-demonstrates idea of embodiment; regarding the "dirty" world and all its randomness and noise as essential to a systems growth rather than as a nuisance

-questions the line between object and being; what it means to be alive

-aims unambiguously for living autonomy

-coined term "Living Sculpture" attempting to bring emotional intelligence to sculpture

-Idea of symbiotic sculpture, taking two species that would ordinarily kill each other and turning them into cooperative sculpture systems

-Idea of eating, digesting and self-reproducing sculpture; artificial robotic cells; true artificial life.

 

Resource:http://particle-space.com/events/2011/yves-amu-klein-2/

 

Abstract Organisms

Octofungi, a sculpture by artist Yves Amu Klein of Arizona, has eight arms activated by a shape-memory alloy. They can extend and rock from side to side like the tentacles of a sea anemone. Eight electronic eyes, hooked to a neural network computer, set the arms in motion when they sense changes in the environment.

 

In the following website called Particle (there is a contingency of artists working in this method)

 

Octofungi Spine:

Octofungi shoulder

Resource:http://particle-space.com/events/2011/yves-amu-klein-2/

 

Yves Amu seems to talk about these creatures as if they will live to be alive- living autonomy?

Is there a divide between an object and being? It seems he hopes to bridge this gap in the following excerpt:

Notes on Yves Amu Klein

-demonstrates idea of embodiment; regarding the "dirty" world and all its randomness and noise as essential to a systems growth rather than as a nuisance

-questions the line between object and being; what it means to be alive

-aims unambiguously for living autonomy

-coined term "Living Sculpture" attempting to bring emotional intelligence to sculpture

-Idea of symbiotic sculpture, taking two species that would ordinarily kill each other and turning them into cooperative sculpture systems

-Idea of eating, digesting and self-reproducing sculpture; artificial robotic cells; true artificial life

Octofungi eyes, top view

Octofungi
-8 legs, 30cm tall, molded polyurethane
-uses shape memory alloy (muscle wire) to actuate legs
-8 light sensors connect as eyes to a dual PIC processor neural network
-2 other PIC processors handle physical actuation
-neural net learns to be still when nothing is happening in the environment, to approach or recoil from other changes
-next version will have more complex recognition, able to recognize sequences of movements in the environment and respond with sequences
-Strong emphasis on the design of the art object, no use of found objects, strives for elegance

 

 

Gene Genie

-Used for making Octofungi's brain
-software for breeding neural network brains for "interesting behavior"
-incorporates the computer equivalent of time-dependent hormonal flows, hyper-dimensional neural geometry, electrical neural 'noise,' and both DNA and reproductive structuring based on biological models
-combination of neural networks and time-dependent hormonal flow can potentially create brains that are much more flexible and 'fuzzy' than conventional neural networks, simulating emotional changes

 

I see the Yve One paintings and Yve Two sculptures are similar in their sleek spare design. There is an attention to small details and materials that are integral to their process. Unlike the dadas the product is essential to the end gain. I wonder if it would have been different if Yves One had lived to have influenced his son Yve Two. They were both exploring interesting behavior and human emotions.

Yves One continued to open the door to what art can be and his ego justified its validity. The dadas blew open interpretations and possibilities and I am sure there were many doubters along the way.

 

In chapter 1 of Fluxus, Smith outlines the two categories that define modern art. Both challenging the status quo, the first on an aesthetic level (cubism, impressionism, expressionism) and the second on an ideological level, challenging the entire structure of the art world (futurism, dadaism, surrealism). There remains an over emphasis on the former in art education and common art knowledge. In all of my past art history classes, the focus for this time period has been on cubism, impressionism and expressionism. The one section I recall on futurism defined the movement in terms of superficial qualities rather than the social statement the movement was forming. Is this exclusion a purposeful move from the monitors of the art world (not in a conspiracy way but in the way that these things naturally develop over time due to aversions)?  After all statements being made by futurists and Dada groups made a mockery out of the art world structure all together. Or does it speak more to a failure on the part of the Dada/futurist's to be able to really penetrate the ideals of the art world and audience? As Helen Molesworth notes: "The categories of art and life are hardly self-evident, if one accepts the dissolution of painting, and hence, bourgeois categories of art through art's merger with life as one of Dada's goals, then certainly Dada, and all of its returns, can be read as a series of profound failures, the art object remains virulently strong, seemingly impervious to repeated threats of destruction". Is it that the institution of Art didn't (and still doesn't) know how to handle this type of “liveness”: the performance's of the fluxus artists could not be sold to an audience, reproduced or printed on t-shirts. 

Maybe this exclusion is not accurate and it has just been my experience but I find it odd that such an important movement, and contribution to the postmodern sensibility has been left out from general knowledge. It is interesting to think about what ideas about art have permeated the psyche of the public. I do not think its a stretch to say that concepts of deconstructing modern art practice are still foreign to the general public. Is this because our culture places so much value on product, commodity and the individual that there is no way for us to catch up to the ideas being used in the art world?  "At stake in every struggle over art there is also the imposition of an art of living, that is, the transmutation of an arbitrary way of living into the legitimate way of life which casts every other way of living into arbitrariness" (Pierre Bourdieu) With the cultural values of today how on earth could we ever grasp ideas that deterritorialize traditional forms or de-centralize the individual? 

In Fluxus: The History of an Attitude there is a statement from Duchamp that the "effect of personlaity and taste should be removed from the art making process".  I have read this several times, tossing the words around in my head, searching for what Duchamp was really trying to say.  For me, this seems difficult, almost an impossibility.  I have rarely made art where I did not put a bit of myself, or my personality into the work, or at the very least, the process.  However, when I stop and think about how the Dada movement encouraged the use of chance and designation, I can see how the person can become removed.  I cannot say that this is how I would like to do things, but is interesting to ponder how to completely remove the artist from the art, and yet why would we want to?

I have no clue if this is true, but it does add a little to the notion of mixing art and life.  

 

Marcel

Both Dada and Neo-Dada's attitude toward labor as discussed in the Molesworth reading showed an attempt to stay outside of the ability of capitalism to integrate whatever attempts to oppose it.  The Dadas refused to work for profit, the basic understanding of a laborer in the capitalist framework, thus removing the artist from the cycle of commodities.  The worker produces only in order to convert his or her labor into money in order to feed that very pay back into the system of commodities.  Refusing to work as artist for profit directly undermines the desire of the capitalist system to swallow the artist, redefined now as some sort of businessman, and then regurgitate the works as commodities.  The Neo-Dadas take this one step further with the ironic stance of mimicry of the position of the worker in the capitalist system.  In this way, the artists see the role that capitalism sets out and makes of themselves and their work a double that acts as a sort of parasite upon the body of capitalism.  It undermines from within rather than demanding to stay external.  The Neo-Dadas take on the mask of production in order to pour anti-production, like a poison, into the very veins and heart of the capitalist system.

"The old avant-gardes, Bourriaud tells us, were oriented toward conflict and social struggle; relieved of this dogmatic radical antagonism and macro-focus on the global system, relational-alleviational art “is concerned with negotiations, bonds, and co-existences.” (p. 45)"  (From the article "A very shoet critique of Realtional Aesthetics, written by Radical Culture Research Collective, found in Histories & Theories under "Art & Culture.")

This highlights the discussion that Johanna and I have been promulgating about the Futurism and Dadaism.  This article has the view point that I have been searching for.  That as artists we must understand that we are relationally tied to the environment we are in, and so is everyone that we are addressing.  The social structures that we live within may cause "alienation and misery", but we must understand that these systems are too large and nessecary to tear apart.  In order to affect positive change it is imperitive for us to accept the "Existing Real", then play and explore within the social framwork that is given.

I'm all for radical change but only within the ethos of positive reconstruction.  I still, maybe naively, believe that non-violence is the first step which should be taken.  This allow for the freedom of dialectical discourse, which I believe the be the path to a newer enlightenment.   

Although the styles and methods of the Futurists and Dadaists do not match my own, what I find admiral about them are their convictions and their intent on jarring audiences out of the status quo. 

Discomfort can be an effective tool for instigating change and provoking thought.  All the movements we have studied so far this semester have caused their audiences to be uncomfortable.  Examples of specific pieces include Fluxus artist Dick Higgins’ 4’ 33, Futurist artist Marinetti’s Zang Tumb Tumb, and Dada artist Duchamp’s The Fountain.

Like with most discomfort, meaning is not derived until time passes and contemplation occurs.  This phenomenon explains why these movements were typically misunderstood by the public during the time in which they thrived.  At the time, the audiences were captivated by the artists’ drama and mêlée, which evoked knee-jerk emotions like anger and hostility, leaving no room for insight.  In most cases, the importance of their work was derived long after the work was over.

As I consider these movements, I also relate them to my own work and practice.  I have come to the conclusion that the last thing I want is for my work to be misunderstood during the time in which I make it.  Clarity and meaning are of the utmost importance to me.  I reject the notion of using shock and chaos to convey empathy and human compassion, which are important elements of my work.

The Fluxus artists, Futurists, and Dadaists had specific goals and agendas and the conviction to act on them.  I admire their clarity as I work on sorting out my own.

I have read through the history of Dada, and presequentially Futuristism, and wondered what their impact on the world was.  I have been perseverating on this question for quite sometime because I am concerned about my own artwork.  I have some pretty heavy things to say and want to use my art and life to speak my mind.  To those of you who do not know me or my situation I will say that I am in a precarious position.  As a felon, and because my criticism of the incarceration system can be interpreted in many wrong ways, I hope to understand how to stand up and shout my opinion through various media and have more than most of the people listen and at least consider what I have to say.  

Instead, many people turn themselves off to whatever they don't want to hear.  Especially if it challenges their views of reality, meaning, and safety.  If you point at someone and say "Your a hypocrite" they are probably not going to stop what they are doing and say "Oh geez, your right let me change my ways to suit your perception!"  No, unfortunately what is likely to happen is they will get defensive, in a mindless reactive manner, dig a trench and stand their ground even if you could get them to agree with you through a positve dialectical discussion.  This is what I think the myriad reactionary forces of the Futurists and Dadaist didn't undertsand.

How is attacking people going to get them and others in society to believe in what your trying to say.  I admit that as a younger and more uneducated person I would generally look at these artworks and actions and call it nonsense that has no effect on my world view and move on.  If someone were to atack me or my ethos I would probably staunchly defend what I am not even sure of in the first place.  I think most people are like this.  Of course, we could use this this to our advantage as artist/social activist.  Sort of a reverse social action.  Maybe I'll go out an join the republican party and push that we build prisons to incarcerate anyone that doesn't think like us.  Though, I'm afraid that would work too well and not achieve it's reverse affects!

This is why I like what I have read about Kurt Switter.  He seems to be the answer I am looking for.  If you want to affect a social ethos and perception then maybe the best way is to make allies and find pathways that are alluring that free and democratic people will want to follow themselves.  To me this is the most organic way of growing anything.  Simply provide all the nesscary resources for enlightenment and sing to the people a song that makes them want to come and look.  If they believe in and love what they find enough they will defend it, and for that moment it will be right.