Adilene Leon, Landscapes with a Corpse, Spring ’16
Go Beach!
This is the week we get to go to the beach and make Plaster Casts of our hands or feet. A few of you might hate the beach (and you can do it at home if you use a bucket full of sand) but for most of you, going to the beach is one of the better things in life. Actually that’s why I created this Activity! It occurred to me one day that we go to a school called The Beach but we never actually go to the beach! 😛 I used to host an arts interview show on our campus radio station KBeach, and former CSULB President Robert Maxson told me that someone once told him that we were the only university in America with the word “Beach” in it’s name, and that was what inspired him to coin our famous phrase, Go Beach! Anyway, this week you get to go to the beach for class credit!
- Full details on the Plaster Casting Activity Page!
Irony
I guess it’s a bit ironic that last week so many of you depicted yourselves falling down stairs… and unfortunately, my mom did it for real on Sunday. Well, not “stairs”, just one big step.
Mom goes to St. Thomas Aquinas church in Monterey Park. During Mass on Sunday the pastor put a map on the altar and asked everyone to put a pin in the map for where they were born. My mom was born in the small town of Lamar, Colorado. She was sort of pleased that she was the first person to put a pin in the state of Colorado. Then walking back from the altar she didn’t realize there was a step down – if you’ve ever walked off a curb but didn’t realize it was a curb and your foot crashed down to the street 9 or so inches below – you know this is kind of jarring. In my mom’s case she fell hard and wound up breaking her hip and shoulder.
Some of you commented that the hardest part of the photo was not laughing, and as you can imagine, my mom’s experience was kind of the opposite of that. 5 hours in one hospital that her insurance didn’t cover, then moved to another hospital, then just a lot of pain and waiting. In the end, from her fall at 8am on Sunday to when the orthopedic surgeon finally came to see her at 1pm on Monday was 29 hours. I broke both my elbows once, and I can tell you, it was the longest day of my life. So much pain. So much waiting. Just sitting in a bed in pain forever. Sadly, my mom’s breaks were even worse.
Irony.
If you haven’t figured it out by now, in addition to sharing a sad and ironic story with you, this is actually an overglorified “I didn’t do my homework” note. My hope is to try to grade all your work every Monday so you can see points on BeachBoard by classtime on Tuesday. There are usually a couple of weeks during the semester where that isn’t possible and you have to wait a bit longer. But most weeks you’ll have points on Tuesday. And I’ve never missed the 1st week before. I guess sometimes life happens. Ironically, even.
Good News
On the bright side, 128 out of 128 of you actually got on the roster in Week 1! I don’t think we’ve ever had 100% before! Even though you have to wait a bit longer for your points, you guys really rocked it this week – Awesome, Thank You, and Congratulations!
Cool Videos
On Thursday I showed this video at the beginning of class:
Morgan Moore liked it enough to email me and suggest that it might also be cool to show this video at the beginning of class sometime:
Discussion Groups
Week 2
26-31 Jan
- Discussion: Mass: Mona Hatoum & Anish Kapoor
- Art Experience: Sculpture: Plaster Casting
Tuesday Discussion Groups
Group 1
Group 2
Group 3
Group 4
Group 5
- Cheryl Peng
- Christian Aguirre
- Christine Kim
- Christopher “Morgan” Moore
- Christopher Chadwick
- Christopher Williams
Group 6
Group 7
Group 8
- Dorothyrose McMahon
- Eduardo (Eddie) Castillo
- Eli Yee
- Elidia Ramirez
- Elizabeth Moledo
- Enrique Plascencia
Group 9
Group 10
Group 11
Group 12
Group 13
Group 14
Group 15
Group 16
Group 17
Group 18
Group 19
Group 20
- Sam Tan
- Shannon McGuinness
- Shayenne Prasad
- Steven Costanti
- Symone Pallett
- Tareena Woods
- Tiffany Tran
Mona Hatoum shows repetitive objects indoor, while Anish Kapoor emphasized larger, reflective, and curved objects that are set outdoors. An example of Kapoor’s outdoor, reflective pieces is the cloud gate in Chicago, IL. Mona expresses psychological emotion. Anish Kapoor uses simple materials like stainless steel, marble, plaster, and others. Mona uses household items to create her work. These include metal, glass, and plastic.
Group 21:
Tiffany Van Gilder
Tyler Kedis
Valentina Ramirez
Valerie Laslo
Vanessa Betancourt
William Luna
Xiomara Brenes
Mona Hatoum is considered a significant figure in contemporary art. Her work ranges from sculptures, to video, and performance art. Using philosophical ideas, she hits home and depicts issues with the physical body, feminist issues, and political conflict. Her work is quite intriguing with the way she would take house hold objects to provide a new view on everyday objects. The way that she displays theses everyday objects is remarkable. She takes everyday household items that would usually be familiar and changes them into something foreign and even threatening. She transforms the human body into an object that one would find unfamiliar and alarming.
Anish Kapoor was born in Bombay, India and underwent many different career ideas. One of which being electrical engineering but struggled with math which led him to pursue art and attend the Hornsey College of Art and Chelsea School of Art and Design in Britain. Kapoor received a Knighthood in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to visual arts. He was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Oxford in 2014. His works are capturing to human eye, which may be to his incorporation of geometric shapes he applies in his work. They also incorporate the usage of metals on a large scale, hiding any signs of welding.
Carlos Marvin Madrigal: itsonlymemarvin.wordpress.com
Catherine Chin: nekohy.wordpress.com
Charles Watson: charleswatsonsite.wordpress.com
Carlos Nava: closnava.wordpress.com
Carlos Cucufate: carloscucufate.wordpress.com
After viewing both artists work, we have accumulated many thoughts and ideas. Anish Kapoor has made very amazing geometric pieces of art. We found it very fascinating that his sculptures are relatively simple but have large curves and a good color scheme to make the sculptures very appealing. Multiple members in the group recognized the “Bean” and to finally learn and read up on the artist was very interesting and rewarding. On the other hand, Mona Hatoum uses metal for most of her pieces and they appear to have a more rigid and stiff appearance. Her pieces were all thought provoking, and we think she manipulated the scale of every day objects in a powerful way. The best example we found was her sculpture of a large cheese grater, which goes against the societal norm of a cheese grater being a common kitchen item not a huge piece of art. Both artists used a large scale in their sculptures and we came to the conclusion that scale offers viewers a different perspective and made us think of these objects in a different way.
GROUP 15:
Leah Perez, Leslie Echiveste, Lorena Rubakcava, Madison Braverman, Maison Chiu
Anish Kapoor uses more geometric shapes and bright colors, while Mona Hatoum uses domestic objects such as chairs, cots, and kitchen utensils. Hatoum makes us think differently about the the conventional objects that we see and use everyday. Overall, Hatoum’s works reflected a sense of interior design as many of her works could be possible decor pieces in indoor spaces. Kapoor on the other hand, made grand scale sculptures that were outdoors and often reflective; he used a lot of red to reflect war to make the audience consider the bloodshed of war. Both of these artists are not from here, Kapoor is from India and Hatoum originates from Lebanon. Although these artists specialize in making sculptures, they each have their own distinct styles which make them both unique.
-Group 10-
Gina Householder
Glenda Castillo
Greg Plantenga
Haley Anderson
Hannah Mandias
Helen Lee
Some interesting things we came up with was that that they both use the aspect of space, for example Mona stated that in her artwork she tries not to make herself the main subject but rather make the viewer them self the main aspect of the art piece which we thought was pretty cool. She tends to have a more negative vibe and a sense of isolation in her artwork. Anish has more of a positive aura as his pieces demonstrate imagination and highlight human accomplishments while distorting reality. Both artists use the viewer and their body as their main subject using aspects of space imagination.
Group 20:
Shayenne Prasad
Sam Tan
Shannon McGuinness
Tiffany Tran
Symone Pallett
Tareena Woods
For Mona Hatoum, she likes to change ordinary objects into weapons. She uses a lot of different things to do art by using rugs, photography, objects, and etc. For Anish Kapoor, he likes to use colors and shapes. His artwork seemed to have a lot to do with reflections. Many of his artworks has to do with metals. Mona’s artwork is how she sees herself while Anish is how he sees the world. Anish is more well known than Mona because of “the bean” in Chicago. They’re both still alive.
Group 17:
Meng Chu
Mia Miller
Molly Poyer
Nancy Tran
Natalie Guevara
Ngozi Ekwedike
Post on behalf of: Ciprian Robielos, Colleen Siongco, Crysta Tim, Cynthia L. Esquivias, Daniel J. Bursch, Daniel Mendoza
These two artists create very different work, but at their roots there are a few similarities between their works. Both Hatoum and Kapoor display comparisons within their work. The most similar comparison to draw between the two is the comparison of male and females- while Hatoum compares men and women through challenging sexism, Kapoor literally compares the two sexes within his work. Another similarity between the works of these two artists is that both of them use materials that represent their goals. Hatoum uses materials that are directly relatable to real, tangible ideas such as the ones she makes statements about whereas Kapoor uses reflective, malleable materials that are representative of his otherworldly or warped ideas.
There are also vast differences between Hatoum and Kapoor. First of all, Hatoum uses recycled household items as her main material and Kapoor uses fresh materials that he warps far beyond their original state to create his sculptures. While Kapoor’s works are more of an inner-reflection of himself and things of opposite natures, Hatoum’s sculptures are used to fight for or against social justice topics and make political statements. While Hatoum creates one-of-a-kind pieces, Kapoor will occasionally create multiples of his works in a variety of colors. Related to that, Kapoor tends to use bright, vibrant colors when he is not using reflective materials whereas Hatoum tends to stick to darker, washed out colors within her body of work. The final difference that stands out to us is that Hatoum’s work is mainly presentable within a museum or empty room while Kapoor’s work is catered to fit into outdoor landscapes for the most part.
Upon viewing the works of both artists, we came to the idea that they attempt to give life to inanimate objects. Both artists are from countries that have experienced some hardship; Kapoor being born in India (a former British colony) and later moving to Britain, and Hatoum growing up in Lebanon, an area of seemingly constant danger. Kapoor created a lot of his works based on reflection, creating large pieces that would become part of landscapes. Hatoum, on the other hand, primarily used domestic items as somewhat of a commentary on the social expectations of women in modern society.
Our group was particularly intrigued by the materials used and the simplicity of both artist’s works. We believe that they are both attempting to invoke emotion through a 3-dimensional experience.
Group 5
Cheryl Peng
Christian Aguirre
Christine Kim
Christopher “Morgan” Moore
Christopher Chadwick
Christopher Williams
The sculptures of Mona Hatoum and Anish Kapoor are similar in ways that it attracts audiences through unconventional ways. Mona Hatoum’s art is more reflective of her own past and ideals whether it’s political or personal. She is able to utilize everyday objects in her art in order to convey deeper meanings regarding war and feminism. Similar to Mona Hatoum’s minimalist style, Anish Kapoor focuses on geometric shapes for his art. However, contrasting the simple installation pieces he creates, he also creates statement pieces which are more though provoking rather than art to be looked at as an architectural piece.
Group 11:
Hilario Saucedo
Hunter Mervosh
Jamie Filosa
Jayson Fields
Jazlyn Tabar
Jennifer Garcia
Group 13 thoughts and comments:
Both artists we discussed about today were sculptors. On the one hand Anish had a lot of pieces involving mirrors. He could be saying something about being more introspective. how we should look at ourselves and our society and to question it. Anish also had some more recognizable pieces such as ‘The Bean’ in Chicago and Sky Mirror in the Rockefeller Center. Anish seems to have a medium of using the elements and curvatures in his sculptures. On the other hand, Mona was pretty self reflecting on society since she made many sculptures and it kind of pertained to the way society works and makes you think about what’s really going on in the world. The two artists are both conceptual artists, while Mona focuses on minimalism and Anish makes sculptures at a bigger scale. Anish also uses organic shapes when making his art. For example, a lot of his art is has a circular shape. Mona on the other hand uses ordinary household objects for her art.
John Stouras
Jonathan Behzadian
Joshua Hyun
Julio Garcia
Justin Marquez
Katherine Pantoja
Our Group found that..
Anish Kapoor had interesting works that could mostly be found as more abstract shapes. Most of his works explored how the skylines can be self-reflective. His art work was most common in an outdoor setting. His art is “nice” to look at and serve as monuments to that people tend to want to take pictures with/of, like the “bean” in Chicago and the Sky mirror.
Mona Hatoum used more metal pieces which had a more industrial feel to them using objects that could commonly be found at home or locally; like her use of a cheese grater, pots, spatulas, and swings. Her art was mostly seen in exhibits. Her video “Measures of Distance” explored family and female sexuality in a touching way which expressed her grief at being separated from her family.
Group 3
Anthony Sanchez
Ashley Batres
Bianca Dominguez
Brandon Nhem
Brianna “Breezy” Hastie
Sean Hernandez
Bez Middleton
Mona Hatoum’s art seemed to vary at different parts of her life. Her early art consisted of performance art while her later works consisted of different types of sculptures. Her sculptures seemed to try and give a different “feeling” to everyday objects such as a massive cheese grater and even human hair. By enlarging the average kitchen object, she transformed it into a looming object that could intimidate a person who experienced the art piece in real life. Mona also used hair to create art pieces such as a necklace and even used it to create a sewing pattern on a piece of cloth. Anish Kapoor used a lot of geometry in his sculptures. He created large scale pieces and a lot of them are on public display such as the Cloud Gate. We found it interesting that Anish Kapoor’s reflective sculptures always distorted the reflective image. He played with concave and convex geometry to create these unnatural reflective images of its environment.
Members:
Katherine Shinno
Kimberly Gutierrez
Kordell Tan
Kyle Shishido
Kyu Lee
Lainie Le
Mona Hatoum used everyday objects such as kitchen tools but in a different sense where she ran electrical current through them while Anish Kapoor focused an a larger aspect where perspective and reflection added another dimension to his pieces such as the bean. Mona kept her art contained inside a room, while Anish made giant sculptures. There size varied while Mona stayed complacent to a household scale and Amish work is huge. Amish work where it looked like pigment of skin was in a different category where Mona would probably not venture into.
Group 9
Erick Diaz
Enrique Vega
Florenz Baltazar
Francesca Butler
Francisco Miranda
Gabriel Hernandez
Mona Hatoum shows more industrialized work with her sculptures while Amish Kapoor’s displays are more modernized. While Hatoum’s works is shown to be showcased in an indoor environment, most of Kapoor’s works is seen outdoors for the public’s eye. Hatoum’s purpose is to deliver a form of political message; and Kapoor tries to shown a literal & figurative reflection of society.
What’s interesting about these sculptors is the fact that their pieces are symmetrical. This pattern is apparent when viewing various of their works such as ” Turning the World Upside Down” (Kapoor) and “Impenetrable” (Hatoum). Their similarities also suggest a lack of “privacy” within human culture. For instance, many of Hatoum’s pieces are intentionally open with openings. As for Kapoor, his public displays are mirrored reflections which infers a mirror for the public. While both artists’ messages might be different, the way the present it is similar.
Group 1:
Aaron Dela Rosa
Aaron Satterfield
Aaron Valenzuela
Adilene Leon
Alanna Godinez
Alexander Lucero
GROUP 19 – We thought that the works of Anish Kapoor were less about meaning and symbolism than they were just about creating a massive structure of awe and differing vantage point, as seen in ‘Sky Mirrors’ and ‘Cloud Gate.’ These works often used reflective material to present a piece of the earth to those of us on the ground in a different way from how we usually perceive it.
‘The Grater Divide’ piece of Mona Hatoum particularly stood out to us. The piece is rather alienating and discomforting due to the enlargement of a cheese grater. It’s opened into a room divider which women usually changed behind, which parallels the fact that it’s a device used in the kitchen–a place in which women are also associated–but the holes in it means it doesn’t do it’s job as a divider. This caused us to believe it spoke about how a woman is looked at in pieces, as just her hair, her waist, her grades, her husband, etc, and not as the product of an entire entity. The alienation and discomfort one feels when looking at the piece reflects the affects on women of society piecing them apart.
Regan Shaver
Reuben Dyce
Rebekah Johnson
Regan Kate Cameron
Francesca Butler
Rosa Velazquez
Rejina Hernandez
Group 8:
Dorothyrose McMahon
Eduardo (Eddie) Castillo
Eli Yee
Elidia Ramirez
Elizabeth Moledo
Enrique Plascencia
Anish Kapoor’s artwork is all mostly shapes that do not exist in nature, are mirrored, and have smooth surfaces. One of his most famous pieces is the big bean. He created this art piece outdoors and made it with material that gave off the effect of a mirror. Mainly all of Anish’s artwork are displayed outdoors whereas Hatoum’s artwork is all shown indoors.
Mona Hatoum’s artwork is made out of household appliances and random objects. We noticed most of Hatoum’s artwork is made of metal and most of her “cage” artwork has a red blob in it, which we think is a piece of blown glass that is indicated as a heart in a cage. Some of Hatoum’s sculptures are displayed as one thing but supposed to be used as another. For example, one of her pieces is a large flat cheese grater and could be used as a room divider. Both of their work is typically red or silver.
Group 18- Mona Hatoum’s artwork shows her hardships in life, she has artwork that shows pain like her prayer mat made of nails or also the art made of cheese grater. These pieces made us think about how religious views differ in different societies. Her art compared to Anish Kapoor’s art is small but still packs a punch when it comes to the meaning of it. Kapoor seems to have a “go big or go home” attitude, his art is made for everyone to see and not missed at all by anyone who passes by.
Nicole Chovit
Oscar Alvarez
Patrick Dong
Peter Bay
Ramtin Yousefi
RaVen Montgomery
When viewing these two artist we noticed that both Mona Hatoum and Anish Kapoor liked to work with the scale of objects. Both artist like to utilize the color red heavily in their sculptures.
In contrast Mona’s work seemed to be very solemn while Anish’s work seemed very invititing and facinating to look upon. Kapor work seemed much more difficult to create architecturally then Mona’s.
Group 7:
David Brown
Destiny Farihi
Danielle Garcia
Daniella Galindo
Dominique Gomez
Devon Carus
Group 12.
Jesus V.
Jerry P.
Jenifer L.
Jessica A.
Jhonatan R.
Jing Huan Ooi.
Mona is focused on portraying her body in her works by including pieces of her hair. She likes to use materials from house holds into her projects to convey a average duty in the house hold. She is also depicts a lot of emotions into her project to connect more with individuals. She was focused on bringing herself as individual through her art.
For Anish, his reflection in his art were designed to have the individual reflect on themselves. He wanted people to look at themselves and critique what kind of person they are. He wanted to let people know who you are, and dimisnhed the illusions created by the individual of a perfect being. Anish was focused on involving the individual into the art piece. He wanted to show that the audience was the art.
So sorry to hear about your mom, my best wishes and prayers to her Xx
Group 16
Margarita Reyna
Maria Barreda
Marlon Fernandes
Martin Diaz
Marylin Try
Megan Stevens
We discussed that both artists had a similar color scheme in their sculptures which was clearly red in some ways that were either hidden or shown as the whole piece. Mona Hatoum had more of an industrial feel to her sculptures and it had mainly objects from everyday that we use like kitchen cookware. Anish Kapoor on the other hand had a greater scale to his pieces because they were bigger and used up way more space. We also said that Mona Hatoum was more confined and Anish Kapoor was more all over the place with the creations.
Mona Hatoum uses objects that are painful like the cheese grater or the prayer mat. Her work is very simple, but shows a feeling of pain. In some of her artwork, she also made a necklace out of her hair. The necklace was very detailed and looked real, but it was really made of hair. Anish Kapoor artwork is very simple with convex concave and reflective mirrors. One of his famous artwork like the Cloud Gate has a reflective mirror viewing the city or the people. Both of the artists have simple work that focuses on one object or sculpture. Their work is also complex in their own ways and how they express their artwork.
Katherine Shinno
Kimberly Gutierrez
Kordell Tan
Kyle Shishido
Kyu Lee
Lainie Le
Mona Hatoum works used simple material, something that we can easy find our house, create the slimier while look at Mona Hatoum ‘s project. She connect herself to the art by using some of her hair.
Anish’s works are more open, he not rely on using household objective to create his work. Anish’s arts make each individual view have a slight difference angle of view and understanding on his art depend on who you are.
They both have somewhat identical taste of color. The material both using maybe depend on what they are in the society. As a woman Mona Hatoum use “indoor” objective which want to represent is the one who stay back and the care the family, Anish in the other handuse “outdoor” objective, maybe he want to give a hidden message what men meant to go and see and understand the world.
Group 15 (the member that came late)
Leon A Phung