Objectives:

Understand avant- garde. 

Questioning art/ design that relies on concepts. 

Understanding "art for art's sake"

Questioning the notion of "genius"

Considering political perspectives relating to avant - gardism

Questioning the validity of the concept "avant - garde" today. 

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Dictionary definition:

1. Ideas of doing something that is progressive - innovating, challenging, radical etc..

2. A group of people that are innovative - "part of the avant - garde"

- The phrase is always used in popular culture to the point where it becomes meaningless. Avant Garde typeface, hotel, florist, bridal shop etc...

A group of radical artists who were shocking, rebellious, and engaged in experimentation. 

Marcel Duchamp

- Defaced urinal (not even in his own name) - "Fountain" 

-Defaced print of Mona Lisa - the letters at the bottom, when said quickly in French sound like "she's got a hot ass"

"Fauves" - WIld Beasts

LCAD Quotes  (from description of each course) prioritises certain concepts:

1. Innovation - creating new stuff

2. Experimentation - process in order co create new stuff

3. Originality - to copy is bad, to be original is good

4. Creative Genius - to bring out a hidden creative depth within a student

If every course is challenging conventions and producing things new, isn't the idea of challenging conventions being conventional in itself? 

Art & Design used to be learnt and taught, specific styles were learnt pre - mid 18th Century. It was never seen as innovative and different?

There are certain myths about the creative person born from mid 18th C. 

Chatterton - Painting where he has killed himself with his poetry ripped up, and taken lots of Arsenic. This exemplifies that artists are trying to show that they are different - the cruel world can't understand him, and the everyday man has killed him. 

Fine artists can see themselves as a special breed and superior. Poverty is seen as a positive thing. Artists don't live on fresh air. Artist practise is talked in a special way where it is romanticised, and tries to be separated from other disciplines. 

The notion of Avant - Gardism relies on the myth that the indvidual is a genius. You are dealing with the concept that someone sees themself as a leader or separate. 

The French use the term previously with "elite soldiers". To be part of the avant garde, you need to judge yourself as a superior. Through artistic practise, a variety of groups have said they are - left and right wing political groups. 

Right Wing Avant Gard - Art for Art's Sake

Just for aesthetic, no political meaning. Avant Garde in the way that it looks. 

Whistler  - Nocturne  in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1875)

"No my lord, I got payed 20 guinies for alll the knowledge I've learnt in a life time" 

End of the 19th / Early 20th C

Two approaches to avant garde:

1. Art that is socially committed, pushing forward political objectives. 

2. Art that seeks to expand - politically shaking things up - art for art's sake. 

Writers and critics explain to us iAvant Garde's importance, and there is a cycle between an artist and a critics opinion. Artists do the work, then critics explain to the world why it is any good. Art gets driven away from society, and artists don't seem to care if people like their work. 

Clive Bell -  The one quality shared by all art is "significant form" - "The relations and combinations of lines and colours, which when organised gives the power to move someone aesthetically" 

Clive's fave painting - Cezanne - Mount St Victoire - 1900

If you don't feel "moved" by it, you "don't understand it"

In Russia, there Stalin banned genuine Avant Garde art, as people did not understand it, and it was being elitist. All you can make now is conservative art that isn't radical at all. 

A major problem for the avant- garde is that it seems to necessitate "Elitism" - you need to accept no one will understand your work. 

If you're interested in being understanding, you can't be experimental. For those members who were`'left wing", they have to stick to academic techniques. 

Avant Garde and Kitsch

Kitsch - "commercial art, designed to be mass marketing and mass produced" - Greenberg

The term comes from art critics, to distinguish high culture from low culture - an elitist value. 

A painting that is not kitsch can be reproduced in a bad frame or on a plate, then it is seen as kitsch. 

Durer - Praying Hands (1508) - replicated in several ways. 

Charles and Diana 1981 commemoration mug. 

Anything with animals has the danger of being kitsch. 

Jeff Koons: Michael Jackson & Bubbles the Monkey (1988) 

- The one quality shared by all art is "significant form". 

Life size sculpture replica of something he found, and it sold for thousand of pounds. 

Thomas Kinkade - "painter of light" 

He's one of the richest artists in the world. He appears on QVC, and sells prints, mugs, all sorts of tat. 

If most people like this and call it art, then being in the minority, does it just make me a snob?

Carl Andre -  "Equivalent VIII" 

Scorn by the media. 

The public get told why it is an important piece of minimalist sculpture, but a description is needed. 

People aren't that interested in the Turner prize, but rely on critics to tell them how to understand it. 

Yung Cai - Tracey Emins work isn't avant garde at all, but they were - they took their tops off and jumped on the bed, pulling everything off it. The REAL avant garde express themselves.

K Foundation Award (1994) - Radical art terrorists. Famously burnt a million pounds. Instead of £20,000 - The Turner Prize, the K Foundation Award was £40,000, and judged by the public instead of select few. Rachel Whiteread won both, proving that the most hated piece of art was also liked the most by critics. 

Damian Hurst - Shark Sculpture- Came about when in the Gaucho club in Soho, a rich friend gave him money to produce it. A shark was killed them taken to Germany to be put in formaldehyde. Hurst had very little input at all, then Saatchi bought it for his gallery. 

" For The Love of God" - 2007- How can a skull with diamonds in it (which he did not produce) be avant - garde or even art?. 

If there is an avant garde today, it is more likely to be found in media, film making, or design. These things speak to people in an understandable language, and aren't excluded. 

Smart Object - When something is pasted from another form of software. It lets you go back to the original file and adapt it, and it updates in Photoshop. (essentially when many photos are used, they are combined into one, but can be adapted afterwards)

The combination of images, in order to see the sculpture without any people: 

 

In order to change the skyline, I placed another image over the top, then used the quick selection tool to remove the people again. 

 

Contact Sheets:

 
Used when in contact with a photography, and selecting a photo.

Lossless - file formats that are for print. - TIFF

Lossi - file formats suitable for the internet. - JPEG

PDF -  Portable Document Format - A file format so you can send files between different users.
Drag the two TIFF files into acrobat reader - "combine files into PDF"

Save it as a PDF, then open on preview in order to print. Preview - layout - long edge binding & short edge binding - which side should be flipped, as if the images were bound.

Portrait - Long edge
Landscape - Short edge 

The Auteur – Author in French – Hitchcock, Kubrick..

-       a film maker whose movies are characterised by cultural influences, leaving a personal stamp. An Auteur has a person film language, and holds a lot of creative control. They break rules, and do not follow a certain genre.

What makes someone an auteur? (According to Sarris – 1962 – American)

-       Technical competence

-       Distinguishable personality

-       Interior meaning

Why Hitchcock?

-       Long career in early years of film.

-       Worked in both Europe and America.

-       Innovation in film making.

-       Known as the “master of suspense”.

-       Influence in later genres like the American Slasher, Italian Giallo, or the psychological thriller.

-       Inspired by avant – garde expressionism, surrealism etc..

Technical Competence of Hitchcock:

-       Expressionist lighting

-       Story telling visually in silent era

-       Use of the subjective camera

-       Dolly zoom

-       Clever use of montage and cutting to create tension in spite of the production code. Certain thing’s weren’t allowed to be shown, but were expressed through montage.

1920’s

-       Hitchcock joined the film industry around 1920, drawing the sets.

-       In 1925, he was dispatched to German as part of a apprenticeship.

-       F.W. Murnaus’ Nosferatu -1922

-       The Lodger – 1927 – One of Hitchcock’s first directed films. Inspired by German visual arts and cinema.

-       Subjective camera – Jamaica Inn – used by many other directors.

-       Dolly Zoom –  An unsettling camera angle - Used in “Vertigo”

Cutting and Montage

Psycho – 1960 – He couldn’t show naked women or blood, so he fragmented everything.

-       “a lot of people think that cutting is taking a man from one place to another”

-        “it had to be done impressionistically, so it was done with little bits of film”

-       “ I think in there was about 70 pieces of film in 45 seconds”

- "the second murder in Psycho was treated quite differently" 

- "if it were music, it would be tremors on the violin, then suddenly a brass instrument, to create shock" 

The Directors distinguishable Personality ( Style)

- Expressionism - form evokes emotion (dark emotions)

- Cameo appearances pf the director

- Narrative is often visual rather than told through dialogue

- Certain actors are often used: Cary Grant, James Stewart, Tippi Hedren, Doris Day, Joan Fontaine - the same actors, different roles. 

- Obsessive use of blondes - "Blondes make the best victims. They're like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints" 

Suspense

- Generated when the audience see danger his characters cannot see

Expressionism

- Hitchcock films are not concerned with realism or naturalism 

- Give them pleasure, the same pleasure they get when waking up from a nightmare"

Voyeurism, Trauma, Madness, Subjective point of view

Interior Meaning 

1938 - Hitchcock leaves Gainsborough studios to work in America. 
- David O Selznick introduces him to psychoanalysis
- Rebecca (1950), Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946) 
- Collaboration with Dali - Spellbound 

The Art of Hitchcock 

Birds are always used to simulate danger, doom and gloom. 
- "Birds" - 1963
- Also see in "Psycho"
- He's scared of small children and other shit

Themes That Are Revisited

- Ordinary people 
- Mistaken Identity
- Espionage
- Murder 
- Search for identity 
- "Death drive"
- Relationship between the sexes
- Spectators
- Guilt / desire
- The nature of cinema

Critique of the Auteur

- made by the elites - often male
- It disguises the work of the people - art director, cinematographer, screen writer, sound technicians etc.. 
- It offers a universal view of quality
- It is often a capitalist device by selling a film by virtue of it's director. 

What are the differences between Fine Art and Graphic Design? 

MASS PRODUCTION VS INDIVIDUAL PRODUCTION 

HISTORICAL SPECIFICITY VS TIMELESSNESS

Graphic Design normally has an audience that has been pre- decided. Fine Art tends to be produced,  then the audience is considered later. 

Graphic design tends to be for the masses, whereas Fine Art is still considered as high culture. 

Graphic Design normally has a purpose, whereas fine art tends to communicate a message or sheerly be composed for aesthetic reasons. 

Graphic Design tends to be more business and strategy  in terms of it's production and audience. Fine art is often a skill or hobby turned into a career. 

Graphic Design is normally in a given context, so therefore can become dated. Eg. An advert for cigarettes produced in the 1930s's. Fine art can be contemporary, but never seems dated.

Graphic Design has to communicate a message, whereas Fine Art doesn't have to, as it is seen as a challenge to understand it. 

Graphic Design is seen as a function, and is often taken for granted. Fine Art is always presented in a observational and unique format such as in a gallery. 

Fine Art

Fine Art has it's routes in history as part of the upper classes. The artists came from the ruling classes, or employed by them. They were the only people with the money and could invest in art. 

At it's roots, artistic culture now is still seen as elitist and retains the same stereotypes as from it's past. 

Elitism - the exclusion of others in terms of meaning of the work gives the artist or it's viewers more power. 

- Supposingly involves more talent, as drawing ability etc. can be needed. 

-----DESIGN WITHOUT A MESSAGE-----

Graphic Design 

Industrial Capitalism - by the people for the people - designed to be popular and understandable. 

"The everyman art" 

People like to compose false distinctions between the two. Fine art has a lot of pretentious defences, which make it seem more special than it is. 

Arisman, M (2003) "Is There a Fine Art To Illustration?"

1. Fine Art is pure. 

2. Illustration is the beginning to selling out. 

3. Graphic Design is commercial art. 

4. Advertising is selling - period. 

-floored: 

- Fine Art is selling. 

-  Fine Art is seen as special and still top ranked. 

Art Vs. Graphic Design

- Ambiguity or complexity of meaning. Hard to understand, therefore seen as more interesting and worthwhile. Graphic Design is simple, open and clear. 

- The designer as wage labourer. Apparent not creative, as the career itself is still run in a typical way, and limited by the nature of employment. 

- Indisputably  Fine Art holds much more cultural significance. Fine Art sells at a much higher price, there are millions more Fine Art books in the world than that of Graphic Design. Fine Art is taught in school, Graphic Design is seen as a smaller bi section. 

- Art is about "individual creative expression", whereas Graphic Design is "problem solving". Art is seen as free, design is limited. 

- Design is seen as sheerly for function. 

Ambiguity and Complexity of Meaning 

Fine Art

SIgmar Polken - 1969- The writing says "Higher powers command, paint the top right corner black" - If an artistic object is an investigator for a debate or creative review, then somehow generare a sense of importance. 

Manet - 1882 - Work produced sheerly for aethetic, but meaning can always be made up, or interpreted. The debate that surrounds art is what is interesting, and not actually the work itself. 

Graphic Design

David Carson

Allen Hori - (1989) 

There is no reason why we can't have the same debate in Graphic Design  as we do in Fine Art. 

Graphic Design can be philosophical, experimental and against rules (see Hori piece above). 

The Designer as a Wage Labourer

- Designers can still have a creative control, and choose who they would like to work for.  In contrast, a designer can also be seen as a wage labourer as they could work for a large firm. 

- Fine artists tend to produce pieces THEN sell them. Fine artists are almost always free lance, therefore not seen as a wage labourer. 

- Fine artists seem to always like to feel as if they are the outsider, and not "selling out":

... maybe Van Gogh's work wasn't very good, which is the reason he wasn't successful when he was alive. The only reason Van Gogh could live was because he had a rich brother, and wouldn't have made any work himself. His main body of art was in 4 years, and the last were in a mental asylum. Maybe this influenced his popularity? 

In Fine Art, there seems to be an honour in being unique and underground. Artists feel like a special breed, unique from everyone else. A lot fo the time, their work can be centered around their image. 

Damien Hurst

- Nothing on individual creation - sheerly commercial. 

An almost form of anti - art. 

Cultural Significance

Both fine art and design hold the same longevity. eg. Constuctivism holds a lasting influence on our culture. 

Constable (1821) - The Haywain

It is seen as a typical scene of England. Now thousands of tourists flock each year to see the actual scene itself. 

At the time, this image was a complete lie. It has come to represent an idea of England, but there was a revolution at the time. 

Monetary Value

Is art really worth the money it is payed for? 

In the late 80's / early 90's, there was an explosion in impressionist painting sales:

- Van Gogh - Sunflowers - sold 1987 - $ 39.7 mill
- Picasso - Les Noces de Pieerette - sold 1989 - $ 49. 3 mill
- Renoir - Bal Du Moulin de la Galette - sold 1990 - $ 78.1 mill
- Van Gogh - Portrait of Dr Gachet - sold 1990 - $ 82.5 mill

They were all bought bu the Yakuza, with "dirty money" as an investment, an object more stable than property. 

Expression and Individuality

The idea that artist talk about, the concept of "expression". People who want to champion art, like to show that it has expression, and that it has more value than any other discipline. 

Abstract Expressionism - Art stripped down to just expression. Emotion is meant to be expressed. 

Jackson Pollock (1947)

Designers produce work in a logical process. There is no difference in Fine Art. Pollock  is speaking to people who also hold this visual language. He is making art for an art world, for people who understand that type of art.  He is communicating to a certain audience, "tapping into a certain code". 

Innovation comes from research and experimenting on it. It is an informed innovation  from a set of visual codes. 

Could the same be said fror script fonts, are they "expressive"?