This week we took a trip to the gallery on the SUNY Albany campus. The gallery was surprisingly large and diverse in the artwork that it contained. The dates of the artwork had a wide range which I thought was interesting because we were able to compare the decades one right next to the other in some cases.
This first image is by Robert Creeley and it is titled "The Boy". I really enjoyed it because underneath the title the viewer gets a description of why it is titled "The Boy", once we get this little back story about the piece it makes it much more personal and interesting. It is a picture of the artist as a young boy but because of his disposition even as an adult he is thought of as a boy to his friends. Most of his friends are older which also makes them feel that he is childish. Normally in artwork we do not see as much text, whether it be on the piece or in the description. In this one we are shown both and I really appreciated how much information the artist gives because normally it is all up to the viewer to interpret the meaning but in some cases it is nice to know exactly what it is about.
This piece is a lithograph by John L. Doyle titled "Cowboys/Sunshine Bandit". The picture itself is very large, yet it contains a great amount of detail. I think that the title really adds to the feel of the piece. The stars and light colors made feel like this cowboy was less dangerous and then after reading that this is a "sunshine bandit" I found it very humorous and fitting. The proportions of the gun compared to the body are also very dramatic but I think that since it is not as serious of a piece it works well.
Above is a piece by Andy Warhol titled "Sitting Bull" and it is a screen print, which Andy is well known for doing. I was very excited to see that the gallery had work that was donated by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts included in the galleries collection.
I thought that the above piece by Robert Rauschenberg was interesting too. The title is "Support" and going along with it is a poem called "Ode to RR" which I think changes the way this can be perceived. Depending on how you view this piece, it will bring out a different question or idea. From a far it seems like delicately drawn lines but as it comes in to closer view we are able to read between the lines in a way and see that on each one there is a word or a few words. Alone they would just be ordinary words that we might use or hear used throughout the day, but when they are put together it creates a story of the type of person that might need to do all of the things on each line. I also found that the differences in color of some of the lines was necessary and made me wonder why each was the color that it was, if there even was any reasoning.
"Flag Face" by Vito Acconci is unique because it is set up as three different framed images but the viewer realizes that even though they are not all physically connected, one would not make sense without the other two. The idea of portraying a face in such a simple way can be difficult to make look sophisticated but the movement and the way it is broken up complicates it in a great way. I also really enjoyed the commentary about this piece because it talks about the many great ways that this artist is described, so much so that it is hard to find a few words that could sum him up. The writer also says how the composition for this piece is so simple that they wish they had thought of it, yet the fact that it hasn't been done makes it special.
Alex Katz is the artist that make "Five Women". The short bit of writing that is under the title questions why women act a certain way in society and I believe that this picture does a good job of showing the emotions of some women as they interact with others.
This piece was created by the artist Lamar Peterson with acrylic paint on paper. I thought that this was a great contemporary piece that says a lot about our culture. It seems ridiculous and over the top but so many things around us have become that way, which makes me feel that this piece fits in perfectly with our time period.
This piece is also by Lamar Peterson, it is titled "Boat People" and was also made with acrylic paint on found poster. Although the style is different it is fairly easy to tell that the artist is the same in all of the pieces on the top level. Something about the sense of imagination and cartoon like creatures clues us in that they are Lamar's.
I thought that this piece was very emotional and powerful because although it was made with bright, happy colors, it is obviously showing a terrible event. It did not have a title but based on the image I think that it can be assumed that the feeling is not positive, nor was the idea that the artist had in their mind.
This piece is titled "Blind Girl" which I found to be a great title. It is an interesting way to think about a girl with butterflies over her eyes. We would probably assume that she is able to quickly and easily remove them but I think that the point of her being blind in this way shows that she probably only chooses to see the good things and is blind to the rest.
This piece is titled "The Circumscribers" which is very clever because the characters are literally in a circle of the things that are a part of their lives.
This piece was not titled but it is also by Lamar Peterson, as are the others.
This piece is called "Basquiat".
I really enjoyed this last piece because it took a while to take in every part of it because their was so much going on. It is titled "Yellow Brick Road".
