Anti-Aesthetics

So, i guess the moral of the story here is that we should accept that their is no originality in the world of fine arts. That being said, i think it is really interesting how, through the progression of art history to this point, the photograph and its use has evolved. The photograph's impact on art (especially painting) can be seen as early as the impressionist movement. I thought it was insightful to see how, even recently, the art world is struggling to rectify the existence of photography. Instead of changing how painting were approached (as in the time of impressionism) the anti-aesthetic movement seeks to redefine how we approach the photograph. Artists like Richard Prince and John Baldessari even push the limits of artistic ownership in their blatant appropriations and reproductions of established pieces.
So, reading this chapter about anti-aesthetics made me realize how impactful the development of photography was (and is) in the world of art history. I would be interested in reading other people's opinions on how the camera has affected the last two centuries of art.

Neo-Expressionism

So what i take from the Neo-Expressionism movement is that the artist is attempting the same thing as the German Expressionists, but instead of being mocked and ridiculed (as in the Degenerate Art Show) they are making quite a bit of money off of their work. I guess this just shows how the 1980's contrasted post world war I Germany. The economy was beginning to boom again after a major recession and the middle class was making the "good" art. Some similiarities i draw when i compare these two time periods are the fact that the US and parts of Europe were recovering from the Vietnam War and America was under the leadership of a more socialy restrictive administration (not comparing Regaen to Hitler).

I would have to say that my favorite artist from this period would be Carlo Maria Mariani and his "regression" to a classical picture making approach. I beleive he is one of the few artists from this movement that successfully took what the German Expressionists did and adapted it into a style that was true to himself. As the German Expressionists took everyday situations, people and observations and depicted them in an almost ugly and curious way (in comparison to their reality), Mariani does the opposite and takes these everyday situations, people and observations and turns them into something that is more beautiful than their reality.

Happenings and Flash Mobs

So, Monday's discussion of Happenings and Flash Mobs really intrigued me. I've been thinking about how i would approach doing a Flash Mob. I've been looking up a lot of these events caught on video and have found that the one in Grand Central Station to have the most impact. The participators in this event did the opposite of every other Flash Mob instance i have seen, they did nothing. they stood still, and that seemed to have more of an impact on the spectators than a random kung fu fight or massive pillow fight.
I feel that this had more of an impact because it reflected the ideas of the Happenings that occurred in the 60s. The act of standing still and not doing anything directly contrasts the mind set of a person in Grand Central Station, since everyone there is thinking about rushing to work or back home or just in a hurry to get somewhere. The act of doing nothing contrasted this frame of mind and put the spectators in an awkward position. It looked like no one could figure this out. People were in shock. For me, this seems to communicate the soul of Happenings. It is all about integrating the audience into the event and shocking them.

The Sign in Structuralism

I keep reading and re-reading this essay on the The Arbitrary Nature of the Sign and still cannot fully grasp what these concepts mean and how they apply to art. I guess what really trips me up is that Saussure is trying to say that we understand concepts because we can negate all the concepts that do not apply to the one in our mind, or "... any sign is to be what all other signs are not." Thus, signs are defined by their opposites and our ability to keep one sign separate from another.
I guess that this is sort of present throughout art history. If we look at Baroque art we can see that each signifier is clearly separate and we understand that this is a painting of a man, or a fruit basket, etc.
The book applies this to Structuralism and uses Picasso's Bull Head as an example. The book says that this example shows that any sign can mean anything as long as it follows the rules of linguistics, but does that not go against what the structuralists believe? If there is an underlying syntax that governs how or world works, a law of binary, does that not break those laws and show that two can become one? Bicycle parts can became an animal?

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