Rachel Chapman @ CSU Pueblo

  Edward Hopper, Morning  Sun, 1952 Source Movie magic is the thrill of seeing a movie and feeling as if the viewer was in the movie.    Action gives adrenaline rushes; dramas make the viewer’s heart sink and comedies make other’s eyes water. Movies invite people into a world they never knew and allow them to be someone else. But the only way movies allow  voyeurism is by playing with human instincts and emotions that are vital in the viewers. Laura Mulvey wrote “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” to throw a rock into the lens of the camera. Everyone takes pleasure in looking at something even more pleasure when the subject being looked at is sexual. The person is no longer looked at as a person but as something to possess. Cinema has captured this look and continue to leech off this mental behavior especially in white males. This possess can be seen in female roles. Not apart of the plot kept outside of the action yet still something to look at and forward t...

Over the course of finding out what is controversial in the artworld. A question popped into my head, when is artwork exploitative? Is it when artists are making a statement to combat an unfair treatment even though they may not be subjected to that treatment? Using sex workers to create art themselves and then documenting the process and getting all the credit for it? This is a question that plagues Ryder Ripps, “Art Whore”.   Or when an artist that is portraying living condition in poverty-stricken areas while living a famous lifestyle of their own?   There are many artists that have been accused of being exploitative.   One of the most famous for being exploitive is Paul Gauguin.   Him using culture tradition of South Pacific Islands for erotic energy in his portraits. Paul Gauguin took advantage and profited from a culture he had no relation to. He used the South Pacific’s erotic energy to create art that he had no rights to, he wasn’t original he merely exploite...

       So many images can pop into one’s mind when the word colonization is said. Violence that turned into wars with the native population. Thievery of one’s way of life if not just their lives. Reeducation of morals and beliefs to match the invaders way of thinking. With the changes of thinking it has shaped into one way of thinking. It has focused others into a perspective of not belonging or even existing narrowed the terms and movements of what things can mean and provided to one’s own life. This has all been done through colonization. It has harmed everyone in the process of being educated and empathetic. Decolonization of power, knowledge, being is the argument of Walter Mignolo in “Museums in the Colonial Horizon of Modernity: Fred Wilson’s Mining the Museums (1992).” Mignolo wants denial of the past and blissful ignorance to be removed formed the system of museums, but also, from everything else. Museums are experienced through the eyes of white Eurocentric ...

                Women never seem to be championed as great artist or authors, but only as muses. In, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” by Linda Nochlin proved that women are never seen to be genius in the arts. The essay was written in 1971 during the second wave of feminism. The paper takes a feminist view on the disadvantages of being a woman in art.   Nochlin, shows the oppression of institutions have limited women from being academically trained.   The neglect from art historians who refuse to acknowledge women’s art as equal or greater to their would-be male counter parts. In fact, artist biographies have led to women artist not being considered genius. It is in artists biographies that have labeled male artist as genius. “The mysterious inner call in early youth; the lack of any teacher but Nature herself” Nochlin, is saying that only male artist is born with intelligence and skills that pu...

  Museums are a reflection of their audience. The only problem is museums audience are mainly white and able-bodied people. This knowledge has made museums reevaluate their actions. But it also shows that museums are not safe for being criticized either. Over the course of three week the topic of audience has made me reevaluates the way I personally look at museums. I understood museum are known for being only for whites and not being welcoming to “others”. But the extent of the issue was new to me. While learning about the social injustices of museums it hit differently when I understood number of people are being affected by museum chosen ignorance.  I did not know some museums are purposely set up their museums to excluded the blind and people in wheelchairs. While reading my peers blogs, they wrote about the Denver Art Museum. The Denver Art Museum is one of those museums that have purpose built an extension limiting people that can see the art display on a staircase. ...

  Jeff Koons, Michael and Bubbles, 1988 Jeff Koons'  Michael Jackson and Bubbles 1988 is the purest form of kitsch art.  The artwork is tasteless, ugly and mocks true culture. Clement Greenberg gave the definition of kitsch as “popular, commercial art and literature with their chrometypes, magazine covers, illustration, ads, slick and pulp fiction, comics, tin Pan Alley music, tap dancing, Hollywood movies, etc...,etc..” (1) The symbols of Michael Jackson hit almost all of the check boxes of what kitsch art is.  Jackson is one of the most universally known artist to ever live and even in death is still recognized as one of the biggest stars. Which is why people need to pay more respect to this form of art and to the artist Jeff Koons. Koon prerogative is to push the edge of what tasteless art is. And shamelessly expressing the want to be famous and rich in doing so. Clement Greenberg essay “Avant-garde and Kitsch” explains why kitsch art such a low form of art. ...

No place on Earth is free form the destructive hand of colonization. The violent and dangerous taking from one culture by another culture. There is more to colonization then just the reaping of the land and the resources it provides. It also includes the massacre of the people there before the colonizers. The violent past impact is far reaching in the present time then something that is recognized as being over. Destruction of cultural expression of storytelling, painting, dance, scientific and mathematical advancements. Leaving the land with a new culture perspective that will continue to be the only way of seeing anything. A byproduct of colonization is the creation of museums. Museums are fueled by white supremacy and continue to perpetuate the oppression of indigenous and captive people. Museums are used to cataloging, presenting, and explaining what exhibitions and artifacts mean. Giving white culture an opinion on what those artifacts are even when they do not belong to the that ...

       In 1936 society seemed to be changing for the worse in the eyes of Clement Greenberg.  Traditions are being unmaintained or even thought of.   Artists  are no longer looking at their  predecessors  to  label  their  art  as  art .  Greenberg suggests that artists are no longer creating art in the traditional manner.  They  too  have rejected themselves from  society .  Greenberg condemns Alexandrianism for it being a form of manufactured art.  It  is   art  that is being made but does not produce anything relevant to the  culture .  While condemning Alexandrianism he  turns  his  attention  to avant-garde  art .  He proclaims this art is almost the same in not offering something new.  But gives avant-garde more praises because it moved society.  Avant-garde is art for art's sake because art is on its own terms. ...

  In Walter Benjamin’s essay, “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” examined how mass production was changing art. What was changing was the way art was being made and subsequently changed the way art is perceived. One of the critique Benjamin, wrote about how painting differs from film. Film has the motive to penetrate what reality is.   Film involves the viewer as if they are present, a voyager in the movie scene. They are one with the moment they are living in the time as it passes through the movie screen. Time and space are condensed into one. Whereas painting is a look into what is happened the moment, almost a snapshot.   With a painting a person knows that ther environment has not changed. The moment captured will forever be just that, a moment captured.   What is interesting about Benjamin’s perspective on film is based on the actors. Benjamin says, “the film actor lacks the opportunity of the stage actor to adjust to the audience during his performanc...

  Examination of structures and the way they have labeled what is acceptable and dismissed, such is the gift of insight.   Insight is vital for the exploration of the furture. What is offered when a structure like the museums look back and recognize what has happened, they give growth to the whole community.   When a structure that has limited it audience it’s repercussion is the loss of an audience that has never participated before. This can be seen better in the article, “Can Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s Video Change Perception of Who Belongs in Museums?” an opinion piece written by Lisa Ragbir.   As the title suggest is that two black icons like Beyoncé and Jay-Z influence the following they have which is mainly black dominate which is compelled to participate.   If that were the case it would be hard to persuade others because the black community is not made up people with the money like the Carters. Matter fact, the video is made of people that have an element of s...

In 1936, a German philosopher and cultural critic, named Walter Benjamin wrote an essay entitled, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”.  Benjamin is focused on how modernity’s main principle is about the masses. During that period mass production was a part of everyday life and it was something new. Mass communication, mass transportation, mass media and even mass warfare was taking place.  For mass production to happen it comes with the replication of every step a thousand time if needed. In the first opening paragraph, Benjamin said, “Mechanical reproduction of a work of art, however, represent something new.” Art was changing. It was changing by the way it was being made, also by how people were also seeing art. When art is reproduced it loses touch with what the original piece was trying to communicate. It no longer holds the vaule of time and space; the authenticity is lost. In better terms, “ One might subsume that eliminated element in the terms “aura...

  Social Injustice: Topic Proposal Decolonization of the museum’s establishment is the topic proposal I am interested in.   Museums are deep rooted in colonialism. Some museums where started from the profits of slave labor. While some museums excluded indigenous art because the hierarchy of European views on what art is and what art is not.   Decolonization of art museum is not the same as diversity. It is not about exhibitions that are displayed by people that may look different form you. It is about changing the perspective placed on indigenous people not through the eyes of colonizers but through the eyes of the people that the art is about. In addition to giving credit to people of color for their artwork not just labeling it as different. Emphasizing the creative process of colored people and how the art they created mimics their emotions and intellect. It is about de-rooting the white supremacy that haunts current exhibitions. Some examples of questions to ask is ...

     Museums are a public institution, where all should feel welcomed in participating in what is being provided. Museums have notoriety, there are many museums people have heard of but never been too. Such as the museum of modern art, the metropolitan, Smithsonian, and museums of science. However, museums have a glaring problem that needs to be addressed. Museums are not welcoming all people that are a part of the public forum. In articles like “Inclusion in Museums: A Matter of Social" Justice by Rose Kinsley and " Accountability and Disposal: Visual Impairment and the Museum" by Kevin Hetherington they expose this problem. Kinsley article gives data ,“ in 2008, the National Endowment for the Art reported that non-Hispanic whites were over- represented among American adults art museums visitors ( 78.9% of visitors, while just 68.7% of the US population) while Hispanic and African Americans were significantly underrepresented.” Kingsley sugguest it may be this way becau...

  In Norman Bryson article " Semiology and Visual Interpretation" he addresses the usage of signs and symbols in the art form of painting. Bryson argument is based off of perception. There are several different types of ways of perceiving, a scientific, a mathematical, and a linguistics method of trying to understand what signs are in front of a viewer. Artwork can be perceived using the ways listed in the previous sentence and several other ways. Essentially, the perspectives are endless. Bryson explains this notation by saying, "With mathematics, for example, I may have a vivid picture in my mind of a certain formula, but the criterion of my knowing that the picture was a formula, and not simply a tangle of numbers, would be my awareness of its mathematical application." This is where math and art can be viewed on the same common ground. Both math and art have symbols that are known to every person that engages with the world they live in. The recognition of what ...