Art Review Blog Post # 9

Art Review Blog Post

“From The House of The Dead”


Looking through the New York Times, I came across an art piece called “From The House of The Dead.” In the painting, I see a display of a man doing pyrotechnics, and a huge audience of people crowding around him. There seems to be a universal voice that is displayed in this art work. The fire that the man uses in his expression plays the role of a voice, in a very inspirational way to the audience. Almost as if he is trying to send a message to these people who are crowding around him. The author makes an attempt on creating his work to look like the time of the Industrial Revolution. In the art work you can find run down apartments along the sides, with ladders connecting one floor to another. The group of people outside crowding around the fire man must be the hard workers of those industrial factories, who barely receive money to get by. The fire that the man expresses to the workers shows almost a symbol of a revolution. I think it has to do with an attempt on strengthening morale within the working class, to revolt against the unfair government regulations.

The author in the passage talks about the works of opera director, Mr. Chereau. Mr. Chereau’s works are viewed as pieces of art that contributes to the success of opera directing as a whole. The critics used research that including his old works such as “Queen Margot” and “Intimacy”. One being about blood and brocade, while the other discusses highly erotic performances. Nonetheless the works of Cheraeu are valued highly in the opera world, without a single negative feedback from the critics.

Soheil Tayebi

The article on sugar skulls was very interesting to read. I noticed that it was a very differnet format from say the art review we had to write for our third essays. There were alot more quotes throughout the review. I would say almost 80 percent of the article was quotes. I also noticed that this particular article wasn't so much as say a typical review where the author talks about how good or bad some art work is. This article revolved around letting people in the city know about the family that visits chicago once a year to make sugar skulls for the day of the dead at the chicago museum of art. I noticed that the say voice of the author was not really present but rather the voice of a viewer was more involved. As a reviewer i think they get a bigger say than an average consumer or viewer. But these piece seemed to be from the stand point if a normal person. I did notice that alot of say research was done to right the article. There was a load of facts all throughout the article revealing things to the reader about the art, artist, and other key points. I would say that this article was very different from the type of review we have to do. As the review really had no input on there opinion, we do not have acsess to interview the artists, and all around it was more of an informative summary than a review.

Edible Art

Edible Art. Sugar skulls or calaveras are a sweet treat that is a custom of the holiday, Day of the Dead. Yolanda Perdomo’s article “Sugar Skulls,” reveals the history of the Mondragon family who have been coming to Chicago since 1995. Each year the family comes the National Museum of Mexican Art to show how they continue to use the same traditions of making sugar skulls which has been past down from their ancestors. Throughout her entire article, Yolanda creates a visual image. It is as if you weren’t reading an article but watching a short documentary of celebrating life and accepting death, instead. The article is full of quotes of the Mondragon family and visitors who come to the museum to view their art. By researching and interviewing with a bunch of people, Yolanda is able to give a more personal information to the reader versus what you would get from a textbook. I think what would help make this article stronger is if the author would have incorporated her own voice more. For example, she could describe the sugar skulls in more detail or continue to add more detail of the Mondragon working on the sugar skulls in the museum. Even though there is plenty of history describing the sweet treats, it would have been nice to hear more of the history of the Day of the Dead holiday to understand what it is about and how the skulls play in to it. The author only begins to skim the surface of everything.

River North

The River North Dance company is one of the most popular and innovative dance companies in Chicago. Recently they performed at the Harris Theater as a part of their 20th anniversary program. The company, formed in 1989, has survived despite Chicago's failed support. In the review, the author, Sid Smith, uses some really cool and interesting description words to relate to the dancers and the performance. He doesn't use the normal words that most people would use to describe a dance piece such as beautiful , flowing, and graceful. Smith uses words such as, wriggle, turgid, tense, and expressive. In using terms like these it gives the reader's idea of the company a whole different feeling. He describes some of the movements of the first piece in the show. His descriptions were definitely vivid. He relates the dancing to some things we have usually seen such as, tug of war, cages, and acrobatics. At the end of that paragraph he goes on to describe the costumes. This I think, could have been left out for something else. He could have described the show as a whole and the feeling that it game him and the audience. I would have also liked it if he had described more of their repertory and how the different pieces related and didn't relate to each other. Overall I thought the article had a lot of good, interesting descriptions.

'Uneven presentation at Rhona Hoffman is still worth seeing'

Lori Waxman of the Chicago Tribune sends her regards to the work of the late Fred Sandback, in her review of his displayed work at Rhonda Hoffman Gallery. I have no personal input on what this piece looks like at all, but was intrigued by what was written as a representation of the space of a room covered entirely in yarn. In a generally positive write up, Waxman's overview of the work is personally described as difficult to put into words and that photographs would actually take away from the work. Essentially, the critic is saying there's a transcendence to Sandback's method. Other elements brought up in the review include her giving a brief background on the artist, describing him as a minimalist best known for his working with yarn, up until his death in 2003. In a quote towards the end of the review, 'There is more than one way to draw a line', something he had been doing for the 40 years of his career. From the amount of respect to comments of great originality shown in this piece, one could probably say she was a fan of his, but this isn't to say she is biased. The critic isn't without some negativity at the least; because she does point out that portion of the room in the art just doesn't work well in the position it's placed in. She pulls from comparisons as a method of writing also, using a passed work of Sandback's something of a hybrid between Sol Lewitt and Russian Constructivist as well as comparing it to a child's drawing brought to life.

fred sandback's magical lines in space

I used the Chicago tribune as my site to find an art review. The one I chose was called Art review: Fred Sandback's magical lines in space by Lori Waxman. The author of this article uses a lot of history about art how they are eluded. Specifically about the different techniques used to show how art can be more than one or two dimensional. She uses examples of different artist and their techniques. For example, she Italian artist Lucio Fontana took a razor blade to his canvas she was kind of comparing the different techniques of the two. Lori was very descriptive about the art. She talks about how there were so many lines, some even reaching from the floor to the ceiling. In addition to how hard it was for photographers to capture this art in its true form, which was three dimensional. Lori uses her imagery about the art and how it was hard to capture it on camera to describe the art piece. She describes colors of the yarn how they were placed in certain places even where the yarn came from to help describe it. She also talks about the placing of this piece of art. How just putting it anywhere would take away from the art and it would lose some of the essence of its beauty. So this in addition to the detail things about the artist Lucio Fontana, and Fred Sandback showed me that she did a lot of research about the art work and its history.

Atheist Damien Hirst

The art review that I read was from TimesOnline and was titled “Atheist Damien Hirst to display oil paintings in St Paul's.” This article began immediately in the opening line to tell the reader about the past work of artist Damien Hirst and then related that to the work he is currently creating. Before getting into the description of the oil paintings that are to be on display, the article gives a brief narration of the entire display that will put up in the church. This gives the reader a background before introducing the actual art. Finally the article gets to a description of the paintings, however it goes beyond just telling what the paintings look like. The reader is also informed of the inspiration and meanings of the paintings. Later the article goes into more detail about the history of Hirst’s artwork and his influences.

The methods used in this article help the reader visualize the art well. By having an image of what Hirst’s other work looks like, one can easily create a picture of the art being reviewed. Also the article talks about the other work in this display in the church, which assists in giving the reader the overall feeling of the display. At the end of the article the author talks about the process of how the church brings in art to display. I enjoyed reading about this because it gave me an idea of what kind of exhibit and church this was.

The author of this art review had to do a lot of background research about Damien Hirst, his artwork, the church, and the other art on display. This research helped a lot as it gave the review more depth and gave the reader more of an understanding of Hirst’s artwork and allowed for comparisons.