What I've been working On

Well I've been home in the States for over two weeks now. And what have I been working on? Why what I'm best at Graphic Design. (I'll promise I'll post pics of my final book when I get a camera since mine broke).

Well before I left was volunteered to help a woman who has been in the business of German to English translation for 13 years. Her website lacked the ability to show her professional prowess. Current site: www.dstranslations.com

I worked for approximately 3-4 hours today on this design and I'm looking for a crtique. I sent it to the client to find out what she wants as well so all suggestions will pend on her thoughts. I'd especially love input on the banner.

I'm also going to start working on a logo for a go green take public transit site, but I just got asked about that one os it's still in the research phase.

Biennale: Arsenale

Arsenale was nice because it was very easy to navigate it was a long strip with very few seperate buildings to explore, but still had a few invididual countries representing along side the overall gallery of artist from everywhere. Though I have to admit I was wasn't nearly as impressed with the art at Arsenale as I was at the Biennale. My particular disappointment was with the United Arab Emirates. I had seen the tote bag around and thought they were really cool which was a motivator to go, but once I saw the exhibit I thought there is no way I would cough up 5 euro to these pretentious bastards. The whole exhibit was essentially "look at the money we have and all the cool shit we can do with it." They called it a exhibition in accomplishments in art, culture and architechture. There was a museum model of a museum they wish to build and by the looks of the scale it took up so much space I can't imagine anyone just havign the laying around. Eminent domain to the max. Plus the so-called video art seemed to be more series of interviews of rich person and influential religious and political figures of the country. Not much an art of the culture if you ask me. I was appalled. So the charming totes saying "It's not you it's me" in over lapping english and Arabic became a boasting symbol of a seemingly oppresive society.

Well Now that I got that off of my chest here's some art I did like: Unfortuantely here is about the time my camera broke. So I'll do what I can.

I'll start with an interesting piece that can't be discribed by photo. This exhibit actually existed at both parts of the biennale, but the lady's full exhibit was at the Arsenale itself. He most fun piece which I hope to use to the best of my ability. She made millions of postcards that say Venezia on them or Venice and any of the sort you'd see on postcards here, but the images themselves were never actually of Venice. As a way of saying we all are a part of Venice. And it's being the city of water and lights, mostly water, each picture depicted a scene totally not venitian, but still included water. These postcards were also free for the taking. So if you would like one comment or email me: abalog@umail(dot)iu(dot)edu. period go where the (dot) is.

This piece was kind of strange until I read the artist statement. It was a room full of broken mirrors, all borken differently. The pieces themselves are a series of self-portraiture since that is commonly what the artist does, but the mirror itself is an every existing portrait device, the breaks act as the portraiture and an expression of self-loathing.

I loved this paitnign when I first saw it in the room it's so simple in execution and charming in form, but what made this piece really special is how this is not the only one. At the exhibit there were three. All the same subject, all a little different, but stil lthe same subject matter. There are many more and I learned this from the video art made of these paintings. Each painting became a frame by frame animation of this little girl figiting in her chair.

This piece was very unusual in nature and I think I'm still deciding how I feel about it, but conceptually it's an interesting idea. The artist wanted to forcefully intigrate new customs into an existing culture. So the artist created this made up tradition of blimps that fly over San Marco. It was advertised and executed fooling some tourists into believing it. (how I'll never know) These pictured are the models as a representation of the whole project. There was also a video of the acutal event playing.

This was a great interaction piece and I really enjoyed seeing it play forth. It was a small room contructed for a "make your own composition piece" where you could step in and re-arrange the pieces how ever you see fit. Along with it was a bench for you to sit and view your creation where there clues on how to evaluate the work you made.

What I love about this piece is how the subconcious is made immediately apparent making it less subconcious. Sitting and pondering that as people interact with it really made this piece fun. Especially watching tourist pick pieces to pick up and get a photo with. What does it really say about them?

You know me and interactive pieces. I would have taken more pictures. There were many of these, all different, but as I said, my camer died so I did the best I could. The whole of this board said "This is not the first hole my finger has been in (hole) Nor will it be the last."

There was another piece in a shed full of what seems like gymnast rings of varying hieghts (some foot from the ground some 7 feet) and there was one objective if you choose to accept: travel from one side to the other without touching the ground. It's difficult I made it like 7/8 of the way.

The Biennale: Giardini

There was no use writing the day number. since it's the last night here. I leave tomorrow. And I will probably write a reflection of my time in Venice as I sit on the plane tomorrow. So until then the last of the art shows I went to:

The Biennale: Giardini

For those who don't know this is the large over all show held in two parts. The firstI went to was the Giardini. This was may favorite of the two (The other being Arsenale which I'll talk about later in this post). There was the over all exhibition first which was amazing. With some really cool installations that really redefine the space. Which is some of my favorite contemporary pieces because of how it mentally and physically affects the viewer and how they percieve the space. If art makes you look at something differently it gets a gold star in my book. Some of the high lights amungst the main pavilion:

Galaxy of Elastic - It was surreal that the lines built up so densely could still stand to be suspended above us and how lines set three-dimensionally create a two dimensional drawing in a white canvas room. But yet you could stand in all dimensions of it.

Plus it was fun to navigate

A Creepy sudo Eden a changed look at Paradise Paired with two strange yet meticulously detialed claymation videos where curruption and sex was a the be falling of all in the eden. And While being surrounded by the large flower you to were taken into this strange seemingly paradise like world.

This was a beautiful sculpture. Strips of Film were rollign through a series of wheels rotating up to create a double helix feeding to a project to play a movie on a screen . Amazing use of space and both the video medium along side the object that displays the art! All I have to say is way to think outside of the box! PResentation is always important.

I know I've trashed Yoko Ono beacuse I've always believed she was a crazy. I've heard some seriously biassed opinions and one good opinion. And now ThatI have seen some of her art all I can say is she is a great conceptual artist!

This piece in paritcular is my fav. She also has a series of bells hooked to a button that sad push me. If you pushed it aroudn the corner 10-15 bells would go off obnoxiously frightening the person who would otherwise not notice thier presence. Brava!

A light and shadow piece. So beautiful and playful and simple the ever changing composition was captivating I only wish I had thought of it.

There were a cou[ple of these painting/collage pieces. I loved this one, maybe the concept of marionettes captivates me but I just liked it no other justification.

A room of cameras the would project different words on different walls uniformly creating sentences of thoughts on the owlrd and art, but they flashed quickly which I didn't mid because I feel like thought do come and go quickly and to properly express them all clearly if difficult. The artist expressed them and showed and shared this struggle at the same time. Equally sharing how he sees the world with you.

Spain: Not bad... Interesting use of medium, but nothing wowing. The paintings were so tactile with e the way paper was added to create texture, negative, and positive space makign it almost sculptural. And the sculptures themselves were interesting, but seemed almsot arbitray they way it was concieved.

Russia: This exhibit was SUPER TIGHT! One of my favorites. Victory over future was the theme and every detial was thought out down to how the buildign was layed out (the victory half was literally over the future part and stood as seperate entities!) Each piece worked spereately and together. And evoked many emotions culminating to one result within the viewer depending on how they see the theme. IF that makes sense. Personally I love winning so enterign a room the simulate cheering and gradual excitement at your presence made me so excited and then when it all disappear in an instant I was kind of sad. The Future was weird and strange, but fun and exciting. In a way I see Sci-fi films and kind of hope the future will be even though I may never see it be.

Hungry: So powerful and moving. A great use of science, culture and history to culminate art. This show was about a very dark past in Hungry where in World War II the jews in the prison camps were examined to prove they were a lesser human. So By using video art to view the human profile and face mug shots and seemingly scientific raw data photos that were typical of these experiements became life like and re-humanized them.

America: Not a fav of mine though I figure since much of my audience is American you want to know. The artist that was representing America was Bruce Nauman. Someone I had previously not heard of, but a coupleo f the people on the trip were alrge fans up. So maybe I was disappointed due ot my high expectations, but really I felt like it was just crap thrown together or just overly simple humor. Not my style, but not every person is going to liek the same art so I will leave to say experience it for yourself. I have no photos this was the only pavilion photos were not allowed due to a deal the Philadelphia Museum the art is typically displayed. He is the current hot this so I say sieze the opportunity.

Belgium: This artist choose a couple streets in major cities in countries and drew seemingly scientific drawings of the plants along side photos of the street and dried pressed versions of the plants. There were also beautiuflly simple line drawings that combined sexuality fo the flower with female sexuality that I was simply in love with.

Eygpt: This was a medium one for me. The art was particularly provoking, but the simplicity of the sculptures against how difficult a task it would be to weave something that large was still beautiful. It also reminded me much of the papyrus tradition of Eygpt (possibly just my ignorance ot culture there is probably so much more I don't know) reminded me a lot of the culture. It was enjoyable all in all.

Not a country, but the cafeteria! ahah an artist was asked to design it so here it is. When I first entered I wasn't even sure if I was allowed to sit here before I realized just beyond the second set of doors was a snack bar with funky cool cafeteria style seating.

Day 21

Wow...Blogging has really fallen behind. I guess I've just been so busy, but don't worry I haven't forgotten about. Lately in class it's been work days so that's not that exciting, but I deffiantely have a plan for my final book down and am working on the plates for it!

Other than class I've tryign to visit as many biannale art shows as possible. So I will now talk of art shows....

The End - http://cia.is/venice/

This exhibit is by Iceland and was free along the way to school so I decided to drop in to give it a peek. The first room I entered had four screens of the painter and one other guy playing various instruments (depending on the screen) at varying distances from the camera. It also included a space along the canal where there were beer bottles left about a record player, a couch, lots of

canvases in the corner and the artist and his model (occasionally hanging with some other people). Along with other personal effects of the artist. The artist has been painting during his time here random pantings of the model in different places in the space. I liked how you as a view intruded on the artist space and became part of the piece, but the paintings I felt lacked something to be desired. Later I found out that the painter was on the cover of Modern Painter magazine. And I didn't find that out until later, go figure...

Life by Imitation -http://www.nac.gov.sg/

This exhibit was put on by the Nation of Singapore and was right upstairs in the same building as Iceland, and was paled in comparison a bit. Especially since it was easy to compare painting/video art combos. Nonetheless I was intrigued by it since I didn't know it was video art walkign into it. I had seen adds for the paintings and expecting nothing more. They were all based off of old movie posters in Singapore, but there was also a video portion of the poster. They were filmed multiple times and the roles were switched and played either by the same person or at different times different actors reading the same lines. There was a lot of play on race and gender roles which intrigued me.

Giraffe-Bottle-Gun - http://www.nzatvenice.com/

This is one of two exhibits hosted by New Zealand. This exhibit featured larger than life canvases shaped like a giraffe, a bottle, or a gun (depending on what you saw), thus the name. And were painted abstractly using high contrast colors. What I liked most about this exhibit was the pride in culture they had (and their lovely volunteer she was very friendly). They had a room in the back with lots of reading material. Some on the artists, but also on maori art and a video clip (which was given to you on disc) or preformance maori art they did through out Venice. They also gave us a free necklace of a shell!

Save Yourself - http://www.nzatvenice.com/

The Second Exhibit from New Zealand in a seperate building hidden in the back of an apartment complex near Ca'D'Oro contained different small sculptures of people (mostly men) painted in vibrant colors some solid colors some patterns. They reminded me a little of Maori art I had studied in Art of the South Pacific, but I feel if you hadn't studied the culture the beauty fo the pieces was lost. I had seen images of the pieces too and was expecting something larger, but nonetheless the fluidity of the figures and the personality portrayed theough motion was executed very well int he stylized figures. Plus I have to say thanks for the free bag!

Glasstress - http://www.istitutoveneto.it/

This show is a collection of art in the medium of glass made by well established artists. It's right by the academia bridge here in Venice. Sculpture isn't much of my thing and there were things I liked and didn't like, but over all what made this show so great was see all the possibilities glass has to offer. I've never worked with glass, but sometimes I was just like, "I didn't know glass could do that!" If that's not enough to convince you to see it the buildign itself was GORGEOUS! It's held in the Insitute of Science and Letters (well this but in Italia so it sounds much more offical). The institute was started by Naploeon when he occupied Venice, and so it's decorated super fancy for him.

Mapping the Studio - Link

This was another two part gallery, but it was not hosted by a country rather it's a colelction of Contempoary artists. The first one I went to I entered it and encountered an "nazi dancefloor"

Which as strange as that sounds was rather cool. It was a large dance floor you were allowed to walk on with pictures of people who have played nazis in movies. One of my favorite parts was the 101 things to make art which were done in different ways around the gallery. Including: Put

googley eyes on things. And googley eyes were literally put on to the stone statues that were already apart of the space. There was soem strange stuff, but alot of it was realyl cool and I liked this first oen the best of the two. The Second was at Salute and had the statue featured on the posters (a little naked boy holding out a frig by it's legs) on the ledge that sits out

on the canal. Some of the stuff in this one was a little much for me. My favorite pieces were "fucking hell" and "uterus" two seperate artist, and pieces you can only expiereince in person (that and you can't take photos though I tried). One thing I found funny were two particular. I had read about them online (thanks to a certain perverted friend) and these scupltures had sold for about 15 Million dollars a piece. And I walked in and just went "no...way." I couldn't believe there they were in person.

Marialuisa Tadei - www.marialuisatadei.com

Here is an exhibit that was fun because it really utilized the space as a whole. It was in a church and the first one I saw within a church so I was surprised. (you also were'nt allowed to take pictures of the church, but you were allowed to take pictures of the art discuss...) It was presents by the Republic of San Marino. Waterfall was the most iconic piece which was ribbons of platic in bright and metallic colors cascading from the ceiling, but there was also this grave yard piece that you walking into a black box with a grave yard setting while other worldly music played and you approached the other side of the box which had a key-hole looking into a white and sivler feathery world seeming heavenly. You could realyl feel the piece emotionalyl which I like because it wasn't in your face it just touched you in a way.

I also attended this book art show; though I wasn't aprticularlly impressed with a lot of the books. Except for two: