February 14th and 19th are the panels - grouped entry time WAHOO!

All the presenters were very good, as usual. I don't know how they do it - the whole public speaking thing is not my fave, I would much rather write an essay.

Some of the speakers talked about performance art - how the shock factor is important, but anything goes.

Here's a cool one I saw the other day by Klaus Obermaier!

We covered alot of material today... but I just love hearing about performance art and public art in all its different forms. Weirdly, it wasn't the performance art by Tagny Duff that stuck with me today, it was the mention that they are in the process of deciding what to do with the spiral jetty.

WHAT?

They are thinking of moving it? How is that even a thought that goes through peoples minds. You can't move something like that  - Robert Smithson chose that location for a reason, it's site specific.

Yea, maybe some years its underwater and maybe its starting to return to the earth - but you know what? That's the whole thing with earthworks art... They are made from the earth and they will eventually return to the earth. That's what is so beautiful about this type of work, it doesn't last forever. It's not the Mona Lisa, no one can (or should) put it in a bullet proof frame and force people to line up to see it, only to be disappointing by how much build up there was for something that isnt really all that astounding (no offense anyone).

Maybe i am getting a bit locked on to this, but I just can't understand how someone would think that it would be a good idea to try to relocate the spiral jetty. I mean sure, maybe you want your grandchildren to be able to see it. But you know what? If that is the case, then they can look at pictures of it just like most people do. It's not like it is the most accessible artwork, its not supposed to be easily seen by the whole world. I still respect and appreciate and enjoy it as an artwork without having ever seen it in person.

Why can't that be enough?

I have fallen in love with Diana Thorneycroft. Anyone who can make a child's toy look as sexualized as she does without adjusting it physically in anyway is definitely deserving of recognition.
Coming from Diana, it is so much more than just a dolll..
"It is the part of the body we use to feed ourselves, make love and express joy or rage. It is also where language exits. These are all things that relate to existence. But the mouth can also be violated and penetrated, sexually, medically, punitively..... so when one reads the visual language of an open mouth, all these layers and possibilities come into play."

But seriously.... who designed that first doll? UGH uncomfortable.
In class we looked mainly at the Group of Seven Awkward moments series, but my favorite series by Thorneycroft is her in progress "A People's History". It is so disturbing, but so much about who we as a society are. This class is constantly trying to frame what the Canadian artistic identity is... I think that if someone were to ask me what I learnt from this class and what the identity is in my opinion, I would point them towards this series of work. As Canadians we have a really dirty and cruel history that we don't advertise or even really talk about at all. I definitely never really heard about it when I was learning History in school.
"The horrors that took place in First Nations residential schools and orphanages like Mount St. Cashel, Newfoundland, speak of atrocities that eradicate all humour."

Today (January 31st) we started watching the film about Edward Burtynsky's "Manufacturing Landscapes".. We finished watching it on February 5th, so this entry is going to be for both of those classes.

My two favorite parts of the class:
1. " I could have marked your reading reports..... But instead I made you all cupcakes!" - Hannah, the best T.A.
2. I'm doing a double major in Art History and Geography, so it's very rare, but when it does happen and I get to mix the two together, it is the MOST exciting thing in the universe for me! I genuinely don't think you could make me more excited about life when things like that happen.

Something that was in the film that I don't even think I've heard about before was the yangtze river cities dam project, or the Three Gorges Dam Project. I can't imagine anything changing the landscape as drastically as that project - how is it possible to build something that literally, cities have to be taken apart and disassembled for?
There is a quote in the film,

"We are changing the nature of this planet"

How is that something that people just do so casually and that the media barely even takes note of?

 

Ed Burtynsky "Three Gorges Dam Project, Dam #4" 2002

Edward Burtynsky "Wushan #3"

Kowloon Walled City

The three gorges dam is the largest and most powerful dam in the world, and its completion means the creation of a 600km lake, which was never there before. 

It is absolutely insane to me that things like this happen all over the world. Then there are other places like Kowloon, where 50,000 people lived within just a few blocks. I've been planning on going into architecture but it's hard not to question it when there are cities like this which are either planned or destroyed out of no where with complete disregard...