Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art

Finally I will talk about our own dear museum right here on campus. It has been an exciting year for the FJJMA. They've had world-renowned exhibitions and opened an entirely new wing, which doubled their exhibition space. They also hired a pretty cool new intern. :) That would be me, of course.

One of the biggest considerations in updating the old wing of the museum was that the new design must make the space more visitor friendly and architecturally match the current eastern wing of the museum.

To achieve the visual aspect of this goal, the museum looked at many architects before choosing Rand Elliot. He is an Oklahoma native and has designed many other buildings in Oklahoma. He was offered a job with Phillip Johnson in New York, but he decided to stay here in Oklahoma, where his roots lie. He expressed in an interview that "I have red dirt in my veins.” So Elliot decided to stay here and build beautiful buildings in Oklahoma. He now owns his own design company in Oklahoma City called Elliot + Associates Architects.

Elliot chose to keep the architecture of this building simple. The outside if the building is made using a natural almost yellow stone and incorporates many windows. Inside, he used many natural materials. The current wing has a rough, dark, grey slate floor. The new wing uses a lot of dark woods, in the floors and the staircases. The handrails, for the main stairway, are hand carved and look rough-hewn but are smooth on your hands. The natural dark woods are a stark contrast to the all white walls of the new wing.  Another important design tactic that the architect used was to add a third floor to the museum. It is now three and a half floors tall, instead of just two. (The half is the photography gallery about the offices.)

On the bottom, top and photography gallery floors, all of the walls are moveable. This give the curator flexibility when he designs the layout of each show. He can exhibit the art in the space that it deserves. He can design the layout to guide each visitor a certain way through the art and help tell the exhibition's story.

But, more than anything else, this gallery is a tool that the museum can use to have larger traveling exhibitions and better exhibit its own permanent collection. One of the reasons that President Boren supported this addition to the museum was because of the donation of multiple collections of Native American art to the museum. The FJJMA now owns one of the largest collections of Native American art in the United States. When Eugene B. Adkins decided to sell his collection, there were bids from around the world. President Boren knew that this collection would be a huge boost for our museum so he began negotiations. Eventually, the FJJMA and Philbrooke Museum in Tulsa came together and bought the collection. They were not the highest birders, but Adkins decided it was best for his collection to stay in Oklahoma. Soon after the FJJMA also gained the Strickland and Bialac collections. Bringing the total number of Native American works to approximately 4,000.

Through all of this handwork, our little campus museum has become one of the best public university museums in the country. And not only that, our collections are known around the world. It's a pretty amazing little place, I hope you all learned a little something and will come visit someday. Who knows, maybe you'll even like it.

           

The Museum of Modern Art in New York

During my trip to New York City, Saturday was one of my favorite days. In the morning my mom, my aunt and I got going pretty early so that we could miss some of the tourist traffic and head back towards Fifth Avenue. But this time we were not there to shop, we were there to admire. We jumped out of the cab and walked directly into the doors of the Museum of Modern Art. This is a place that I have never been before, and as an art history major, I felt compelled to go to at least one museum while I was in New York.

I have spent a lot of time in museums and visited sites all around America and Europe, but there is nothing that quite compares to the vast entryway of the MoMA when you come in on the first floor, the center of all the floors is open and you can see all the way up to the fifth floor. It is a breathtakingly simplistic architectural style, just white walls and flat planes. There's nothing to distract you, but also you can't stop looking at it. Inside the foyer of the museum there is very little to no art work. They hang advertising posters showing you what exhibitions are currently running, but there are no paintings hanging on the wall. I loved the simple no froo-froo walls. This museum is clearly all about the art. There's no fooling around with ground breaking architecture to distract the viewer from art education.

One reason that I think the MoMA chose such simple architecture was because their art collection can stand on its own. It needs no introduction. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Before we visited their permanent collection, we went all the way to the top floor and saw the new de Kooning exhibit. It was a very interesting exhibit because they had his art ranging from his early years of 1926 to right before his death in the late 1980s. The exhibit spanned almost 70 years of his career. We started in the space looking at some of his academic drawing, completed in Holland. He was clearly a trained artist. And then his work developed into the broken up style that we commonly think of as de Kooning. As much as he denied it, he was an abstract painter.

As we moved toward the middle of the exhibit, in the paintings, de Kooning began exploring the idea of distinction and blending of the background with this figures. He worked to make the perfect painting using this concept for almost two years. And out of that work came one of his most famous paintings, Woman I. The viewer can clearly see the female figure, especially her face, but the edges of her body seem almost smeared to meld into the background. The palette is typical of de Kooning, many muddy pink, reds for the mouth, some black to help define the edges, and splotches of seeming incongruous colors splashed here and there. Toward the end of the exhibit and of de Kooning's life, we could see the progression of his abstract conceptualization of his paintings and the deterioration of his mind. De Kooning suffered from Alzheimer's and this affected the way he painted. Some of his last paintings are his most brilliant and yet, there is a simplicity, almost as if something was missing. Instead of a canvas full of intriguing colors and broad lines, he had used two or three shades of the same color to paint lines that weave through the canvas, creating interesting geometric shapes inside the negative space. Each of these paintings was just as thought provoking as his earlier works.

The rest of the museum and its permanent collection need very little introduction. Inside the walls of MoMA are some of the most infamous and celebrated works of art. Just to name a few - Starry Night by Van Gogh, Les Desmoiselles D'Avignon by Picasso and the Persistence of Memory by Dali. (You all know it, it's the melting clocks.) You could walk into the rooms that held these paintings and have no trouble finding them, just look for the massive knot of people blocking the entire pathway. I do not intend to make fun that these are the only works the people knew, I am so glad that the observers were all there, even if they only looked at one piece of art. I was incredibly happy to see so many people, especially young kids and high school aged students. I think art education is vital, even if you only visit one museum in your lifetime and only ever see the Starry Night. There is just nothing quite like seeing a piece of art in person. No photograph will ever again be good enough.

Beyond these famous works there were dozens, possibly even hundreds, of other worthy artists. I left with my brain reeling. Thinking about Seurat, Hopper, Wyeth, Oppenheim, Ernst, Tanquy, Calder, Cezanne and O'Keeffe. It was one of the most incredible displays of modern art that I have ever seen. I do especially love my surrealists and here they had a room all to themselves.

We also spent a little bit of time on the contemporary art floor. I think that this could be a confusing term, so just for clarification, it was used here to describe art that had been made, primarily in New York, from 1980 to the present. I am a proudly professed lover of modern art, but sometimes even this kind of contemporary art goes over my head. Many of these pieces were "found object," which often creates a strange combination of things pulled from the trash. There was also one piece that looked like silver covered dinosaur poop. It was very strange, even to me. But two pieces of notice were installation pieces. Meaning that the artist came to the museum and built the piece, which is often intended to interact with the audience. One of these was similar to a installation piece that was at the Museum of Modern Art in Fort Worth. It had thousands of pieces of wrapped hard candy laid out on the floor to form what looks like carpet. But, the best part, visitors are encouraged to take a piece of candy with them. By my interpretation, this allows the viewers to control the art and for it to fluctuate according to their desires. The art changes with it's audience throughout time. The other installation piece that I thought was very interesting was what looked like a construction site. Bare wooden boards and planks had been put up to form the skeleton of a room. Inside, there were tables, chairs and self serve steamed veggies. The art is intended to house the audience. To allow them to come inside and sit down. It's a living, breathing and functional piece of art.

This was a pretty amazing experience for me as an art history major, but also for the people who knew nothing about art. It is a purely beautiful building that hold many infamous works of art. What do you guys think? Have you had a special experience with art that you liked? Didn't like? Ever been to a museum? I want to hear your stories!

Facebook Dilemma

While reading this story, I obviously made a decision about what I would do. I think that the reporters followed all of the ethical rules that they needed to. Bailey asked to be her friend, was accepted though Del Rocco did not know her and even after identifying herself as a reporter, was not de-friended by Del Rocco. If they continued to protect her identity, I think the paper had every right to print this new information. But, then I realized that I am thinking about this story in today’s day and age. Today, assuming that the subject is in her 20s, I would print the story. Because, Del Rocco is old enough and has been involved with Facebook long enough to know that not everything on there is private. And that she is now talking to a reporter who can access all this information because she is her Facebook friend.  Basically, I think most 20 somethings today are aware and educated in the ways if the Internet and Facebook.

            But, I think the fact that this took place in 2009 could make a difference. I think that every year that we have the Internet and it becomes more proliferate in our homes, we become better users and understanders. I’m not sure 2009 is quite far enough back, but it is something to consider.

1 – I think one if the biggest responsibilities that Bailey has to Rocco is to identify herself as a reporter. Maybe I am too educated in the ways of journalism, but I think that you can assume people known, once you identify yourself as a reporter, that you are probably looking for information. Just because she declined being interviewed does not mean that all information about her is private. Even before the Internet there would have been ways to get more or similar information.

2 – I think most of this was pointed out in the story, but Bass needs to weigh how much harm this will cause her. As long as she cannot be identified, by information released in the posts and because the police report has not been released, I think they are ok to print the posts. Another thing to try would be to Google some text from her posts and see if it came up in a general search. That could change if you should print it or not.

Part 2 - What is American Art?

             So now that you know a little bit about the history of American art and have been reminded of some famous American artists, lets talk about what is considered American art today and why it is not as well known as European art.

            In my last post I talked about the Advancing American Art exhibition and how it’s abstract style caused controversy throughout America. I think part of the reason that this show did not sit well with Americans is that the artists that were part of the show were cutting-edge artists. Not to mention that some were Communist-sympathizers during the time of McCarthyism. But, that is beside the point. I think this illustrates a big problem that often happens in the art world. Artists and the art world are often a few decades ahead of the people. It is the same old story. Van Gogh, one of the most renowned artists today, struggled to survive on an artist’s salary. It is rumored that he only sold one painting in his lifetime. This is a story that we hear over and over again.

            And now to the point. A definition for American art.

I think the first and most important aspect in American art is the representation of our history, where we come from and our fight to be where we are today. We are a nation of people who are proud of their heritage. I think this will vary regionally. For example, here in Oklahoma, Native American art is very prevalent. This is reflected in the types of museum’s that we have as well.

            Another aspect of American art is the exploration of the world around us. I think we are interested in our world and we want to capture what it looks like in a painting and preserve it forever.  I think that is why American landscapes are so common. An example of this is the group of American painters known as the Hudson River School. They loved to paint the wilds of the American landscape and the beauty that it held. America was a land that held opportunities and exploration. Even today we still have pride in our ancestors adventurism. That shows in our art work.

            I think these are just two aspects of many that define American art. But my goal was not just to create a definition but to get you thinking. So, what do you think of when you think of American art?

What is American art?

Even if you have never been to a museum in your life, you are not completely uneducated about art. At some point in your life you have received some formal or informal art education. Whether learned through the news, advertising or an art class during elementary school, everyone knows just a little bit about art.

Some of the most recognizable names in art are da Vinci, Picasso, Degas and Rembrandt. You’ve heard all those before, right? Each of those artists is either European or Spanish. Not one of them is American. So, here’s a little test, can you name one American artist? If you can, I bet you had to think pretty hard about it. And most likely, I’d guess that you can’t. Please keep in mind, I am not assuming that you, as my audience, are not educated. I’m saying that the world is generally uneducated about American art. Even here in America. Just to ease your pain, here are the names of a few American artists. Hopefully you will recognize at least one. Andy Warhol. Norman Rockwell. Alexander Calder. GeorgiaO’Keeffe. So maybe we all know a little bit about American art and artists, but they are not the first people who come to mind when we think of art.

In this post I want to explore a little bit about what is American art. There is a lot of amazing art that has come out of these United States and I would like you all to know about it. But, first, I want to tell you a short story. To illustrate my point, I have chosen two of the most recognizable and remarkable American artists and each has a painting located right here in our little museum on campus. The paintings are, House in Provincetown by Edward Hopper and Cos Cob by Georgia O’Keeffe. And you’ll be shocked to know how the museum acquired these paintings.

On to my story – These two paintings were once a part of a tour intended to go around the world and educate the public about American Art. It was called Advancing American Art. But, the abstract style of most of the paintings in the collection was immediately controversial. The show opened in New York and only made it to two other destinations before Secretary of State George C. Marshall recalled the exhibition. The media, public and Congress thought that the abstract style and communist-sympathetic artists were not a good representation of late 1940s America. After being taken off tour, all of the paintings from Advancing American Art were put in storage, waiting for auction as war surplus. The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art and Auburn University saw the worth in these paintings and each bought half of the collection. Many of the artists, including O’Keeffe and Hopper, have become some of the most famous artists from that time period.

In my next post I’ll discuss how we define American art. Obviously during the 40s American art was not abstract. Interesting how the public’s idea of art was a decade or so behind the artist’s.

Art Forgeries

One of the best ways to learn how to be a great artist is to copy the masters. How did Van Gogh do this? Or Matisse do that? Some of the best artists learned by copying the masters and then breaking off into their own styles. But, this practice of replicating style and ideas also opens up the world to a sinister and disliked practice. Forgery. 

When an artist becomes famous, it is obvious that people will want to replicate what he has done; not only to learn how he created that masterpiece but to also try to make a profit. Let’s start out with a little test. Which of these paintings is a real Modigliani and which is fake? It is tough to tell. Now, no cheating and looking it up on the Internet. 

So, how do we recognize forgeries? Usually a forgery is recognizable because the artist is often less experienced, and honestly, less talented than the true artist. Often, there just seems something not quite right in the painting’s composition. There are usually small stylistic errors that are obvious if you are familiar with the true artist. As well, looking at the linear composition of the painting can help you figure it out.

One other famous forger is Hans Van Meegeren. He created dozens of “Vermeer” paintings and sold them for profit. Which one of these is Van Meegeren and which is Vermeer?

Think about that and I will give you the answer to the first question. Both paintings are very similar; I could believe that they were made by the same painter. If you guessed the one on the right is real, you are correct. In addition, I will tell you how you can figure it out. On the left, look closely at the brush strokes. Especially in the background you can sense that they were planned and painstakingly done. There is not that hurried free form feeling which is present on the real painting. Also, look at the eyes. Neither woman is truly making eye contact, but on the right there is an intensity that is lacking on the left.

Lastly, I want to look at the linear composition. I will first talk about the fake, on the left. Follow the hand from the elbow up to the face and to the finger. The elbow leads your eye into the painting, the finger shoves you right back out. As well, look at the line from the left side of her face to her collar. Neither continues and this makes the painting seem awkward. Now look at the real painting. The lines are soft, they allow your eye to explore the painting without leading you away from the figure. The most important detail in this painting is the girl’s earring. Look at how it is tilted. There is a reason for that. The line of the earring leads the viewer’s eye to her shoulder which leads us down the painting, to her hand and then to her other arm, which leads us right back up again to her face. Brilliant, right? So now do you think you can tell a forgery from a real painting?

Take a look at the Vermeer paintings again. Take another guess. Ready? The real one is on the right. Vermeer was not only a master of lines, but of light as well. Look at how warm the light is in his painting. It highlights the girl’s face, the background and her torso. However, if you were not looking for it you probably would not have noticed it. The colors are warm brown and neutral tones, unlike the unpleasant cold blues that are used in the fake painting.

Lastly, the most important aspects of the Vermeer paintings are the lines. Look at the chair in the bottom left corner of the real painting. That is the anchor point for the viewer. The chair stops your eye from leaving the painting and brings you back up to the woman. (There is very subtle highlighting diagonally from the top of the chair to her face.) When you look at the true Vermeer painting, you cannot stop looking at the woman. She is obviously the focus of the painting and it is difficult to pull your eyes away from her. Compare this to the woman in the fake Meegeren painting. The blue tones on her face almost make her skin look dead. If you follow the line of her back and torso, they curve downward leading your eye directly out of the painting. There is nothing keeping you interested in looking at her, or anything else in the painting.

I hope you enjoyed the guessing game! How many of you got it right?

Art or Culture?

Both art and culture are important aspects of the lives of people and groups. These aspects of our lives also differ from country to country and culture to culture. But, does art influence the culture? Or does culture influence the art?

One of the most interesting trends that I want to postulate about in this post is the occurrence or increase of art as related to social stability. When a group of people feel secure in their way of life or have excess money, they’re more likely to produce art, possibly even great quantities of art, depending upon their needs and prosperity.

The beginnings of art did not coincide with the beginnings of intelligent beings. According to the hierarchy of needs, we must fulfill our basic needs before we can create luxury objects, such as art. During the time of hunting and gathering, very little art was created. Being a nomadic society, people had to spend time hunting for food and supplying it for their group. They were not creative thinkers. The few pieces of art that we have from pre-historic times and before groups of people settled in one place, are very small and easily transportable. An example of this is the Venus of Willendorf, which was a small stone fertility idol created in 24,000 BCE. 

Once people began to settle and live in a fixed location, they had the ability to create larger objects of importance. They could create items that were larger and heavier, because it would not be necessary to transport them when they moved to a new location. Another aspect of these people being able to create more art was the discovery of farming. Farming made it easier for these groups of people to collect and provide food for their entire group. The women could help harvest the food and then prepare it while the men hunted. This allowed for some people in the group to have free time. When a society begins to have free time, they also have the freedom to create objects of representative importance. So, for the people of pre-historic times, they were able to start creating art after they had a permanent location and the freedom of time. 

As to art’s creation in the modern world, it has a lot to do with economics and politics. The creation of art often coincides with societal prosperity and exploration of thought. Basically, when there is more money, there is more art. And, often, when there is less money, funding for the arts is the first thing to be cut. One good example of this, is in our current economic situation. There have been many cases across the country where federal and local funding is being cut from museums and schools. (Click here)  Politics can also increase funding cuts to the arts. As stated in the article below, conservative political groups sometimes do not approve of spending federal money on liberal artists.

Another example of when we see an increase in art production is when there is an increase in exploration of thoughts or controversial ideas. Prime examples of this is the Renaissance as well as the politically charged time when we saw the start of the –isms, such as impressionism, cubism and pointillism. All of these art styles were conceived to challenge a preconceived idea and explore a new perspective on art and culture.

So, I honestly don’t think I can answer whether art effects culture or culture effects art. All I know is that they are definitely and forever intertwined.