Art History/Reflections/Emma

Emma's Reflections

August 23-29 2007

-First, I visited the Andy Warhol Museum website to take a look around and get a feel for the various pieces it posses already.

-Then I linked over to ARTstor and began to filter through Warhol’s various works to better narrow down which piece I am going to acquire. I began by selecting the various works that I enjoyed or found interesting, and I then learned what museums own the works and what the works truly symbolized for Warhol.

-I have since reduced my selections to two works: “Deborah Harry”, a print of the “Blondie” front-woman, and “The Velvet Underground and Nico”, a screenprint of a banana on a record cover.

-I later found a fantastic painting by Warhol called "Knives" it is really great and I'm trying to learn whether or not this painting is already in the Warhol Museum.

-Well I couldn't find any more information about "Knives" and ARTstor doesn't have it in their collection, so I have begun to question whether or not it even exists. Also, because I was unable to copy the "Deborah Harry" work, I have decided to aqquire "The Velvet Underground and Nico" which I believe will be a fabulous acquisition for the Warhol Musuem.

-I have created my flier for my acquisition using a similar color scheme and font from my work which I believe will create a more visually appealing advertisement. I also wrote a short explanation as to why the acquisition would be important and beneficial to the museum.

September 7

-I am trying to view the Richard Serra online exhibit but the computer is being obnoxious and won't let me download Flash Player 8. So I'm going to have to find another way to view this exhibit.

-I know that this is a travelling exhibit so I am going to try to find another museum website with a similar online exhibit, so that I can view some of Serra's pieces.

-Well pretty much all of the online exhibits require Flash, so I went to ARTstor and viewed some of Serra's pieces. The only problem with doing this is that I don't know what pieces are in the exhibit at MOMA.

September 9

-I added the "Tate Modern" link to the wiki. I really enjoy this museum and all of the Tate museums and I think this will be a valuable resource for the class.

-I also looked at the list of resources and noticed that "Jimi Hendrix" is spelled wrong!!! I am going to go in and fix that because I can hear a whole generation of people cringing.

September 13

-I think our recent class discussions on Serra's work have been very beneficial to forming my review and opinion of Serra's work. I find the other students views and ideas to be incredibly constructive and I am pleased to find that their are many different and new opinions on Serra's work and art in general.

-I finished my review of Serra's exhibit and I am very happy with the final product.

September 17

-I thought the review we read today in class was fantastic. I really loved the author's style and syntax. He mixed anecdotes with his opinion incredibly well, creating an enjoyable piece of writing.

September 20 "Podcast Reflections"

-I listened to two podcasts, one with the Fratellis and the other with Kanye West. I really like these artists so I chose to listened to their respective interviews. I don't think I'm really supposed to reflect so much on the content of the podcasts, but more of the structure, but they we're both really informative about the musicians. One thing I noticed about the interviewers was that they both had really solid "follow-up" questions prepared. This is really important because it keeps the whole interview flowing well. Also they both made it more of a conversation than just a Q&A session. I think if I incorporate both of these skills into my interview then I will be successful.

September 21

-We finished our questions for William Anderson. I think these questions will obtain very valuable information towards better understanding William Anderson and his work.

September 27

-I was really blown away by Mr. Anderson. His explanation hugely expanded my understanding and respect for him and his work. He was so forthcoming about his life, he really held nothing back and it made the interview truly worthwhile. Mr. Anderson is obviously very opinionated and his sharing of those opinions gave me much greater understanding of his work and its purpose.

-Now, eventhough I was very impressed by Mr. Anderson's responses, I was rather dissapointed with the our questions. I found that they really only scratched the surface of this fantastic artist and his work. I am also dissapointed in myself because I realize that if I wanted better questions I should have taken the initiative to ask them. Ugggg hindsight is 20/20.

October 8

Today we really started working on the final project. I am working with Yeshwanth and our theme is "Power, Politics and Glory". I really like his theme because it encompasses such a vast amount of art. I have noticed that we have very different ideas of what the theme means, and though I think both of our ideas our valid, I get a great sense of negativity from yeswanth pertaining to my opinions on which artwork to choose. One such instance is an Annie Lebowitz photograph, which I rather enjoyed, of Fmr. Texas Gov. Ann Richards hunting. This photograph, in my opinion, defined power and politics in America, but also mirrored the tradition of medival kings going on large hunts. Ann Richards was hunting in her "kingdom", a true Gov. of Texas. This was my opinion, however Yeshwanth disagreed completely. He said he did not understand how this photograph depicted Power, Politics, or Glory. He instead suggested socialist artwork as an alternative to my suggestion. In the end we comprimised to place both pieces in our original 5 choices.

October 22

We have already found about 30 images on ARTstor, akthough I am somewhat dissapointed with the selection so far. However, I think that as we finish finding the "surface" material and start having to dig a little deeper we will find more meaningful material.