Postcolonialism

An artist that I have discoverd was Kara Walker, who is a contemporary artist deals with physical,emotional,personal,racial,historical and sexual.And I think she is a prefect artist to relate to Post-colonialism.
She uses silhoutte illustration which is similar to the pre-mickey mouse cartoons. And the images in her works are mostly monotone(black with a simple white background) which could also relate to her African American heritage, because of the stereotype imagery that Post-colonial settlers used to provide visual stimulus for those in Britain and part of Europe.
For example in this work:



I can see that the little girl is in black who looks like shes crying is surrounded by a white colour.This could represent the Africian being slave in America.This work had made me realise that although she has no texts or words in her works,she could explain the message that she wants to deliver to the viewers clearly by some simple techniques and this is what successful about this artist.

In the last lecture on Tuesday,I actually enjoyed since I'm quite interested in advertising and also the images from the list attracted me so much ,especially the obey ones! Cause I actually like this brand and I was actually going to wear a shirt of Obey from that day! haha

Anyways,this week we are told to write about some advertisement, so I was thinking about some brands that I know and started to look at their ads. I have discovered nike, addias, puma,emerica,obey,famous stars and straps etc. And I think the most successful and the ones who last in my mind for the longest period of time are the ones from nike.
Before I actually look at ads from Nike I researched about Nike's origins and history in order to get a better understand of the works. From my researching, I realised that Nike was originally called Blue Ribbon Sports. After the first soccer shoes "Nike" was sold, it renamed itself to "Nike" which means the Greek goddess of victory.
After I knew about the meaning about this name, I think it was actually a really good start for them, because people sent millions and millions to get a good name for a brand and Nike actually got it, this was a really good start for them and their further development and advertising as well.



This is one of the favourtie Nike ads that I have discovered, the tick logo itself really fits the meaning of Nike, the Greek goddess of victory because tick has sucha positive meaning. The using of colors and the background was really really well.The tick is in a very bright color which stands out of the dark background, and its like saying it is the only sportwear that I could possibly found. Also, since the products of nike are all about sports, therefore the fire form of the tick really fits the products,cause sports and fire are all about energy and power as well.So I think that's a good ad in my opinion.



Another image that I discovered which is think is the most successful is this one. It might looks abit funny but when actually thought about whats going on is a whole different story.
The place that is in the image is sure in a really poor place.What the child was doing was doing was not good but it does really fits the slogan "Just Do It". And this is like sports as well, what sports do is to break the boundary,there is no tricks, you just got to practise, you JUST got to DO IT. Also the effect on the Nike logo looks really old and its like a part of the wall, its sort of like saying to me that Nike and sports are also possible to be appear in poor counrties which makes this ad more worldwide and kind of aims at everyone to me. This is a really good ad in my opinion

From the list of lots of artists from last lecture,there is an artist that I'm always interested in and who is from my favorite kind of art, who is Andy Warhol.The work from this artist are everywhere and popular, the colors of them catch my eyes a lot.But I don't know really well about him actually,eg. like his way of working,subject matter etc. Therefore, I would understand him more and in order to find an artist who related his his works.And I reckon in order to do so, is to start looking at his works.









The few images above were some more popular works of Warhols( in my opinion), I think they are amazing. The way that Warhol works was screen printing and uses of paint as well.In this way of working, he was able make lots of copy of one image and put different crazy combination of colors on them, and I think this encourge him to do so. Also, because of how easy to make an image on the work, you could often see his works are with like thousand of a same image repeating and repeating all over again. This also what pop art does, its like heaps of images coming to you. The subject matter of Warhols works are obvious,its about popular culture or like things around us eg. micky mouse,campbell soup etc. And the works of these images are so straight forward, the message is coming straight to you.

The artist that I could think about that could compare to Warhol is Rosenquist (I know I talked about him a lot already haha, but they are really related in my opinion).
Although their way of working are not too similar since Warhol was using more of screen printing and Rosenquist was more like a painter, their subject matter was really similar or even the same. They both use the subject matter of popular culture like people(artists,prisdent), objects(cars,food) and they both used Marilyn Monroe as a subject matter as well haha.
Also, the colours of their works are colourful which grab people attention really well. The method of repeating images is not often use in rosenquist works but i could find one?



but i think this is not as successful as Warhols works cause i reckon the unreal colors that had been used in his works are easier to get peoples' attention.
And these are the opinion of mine on how their works are related to each others.

Star Wars

First of all,i would like to say I'm a big fan of Star Wars and I watched most of the movies of it except the one that we watched yesterday and the one after it i guess. So it was the first time I saw "A New Hope" and it was really good.

The character I focus the most was actually the Lord Darth Vader. In my point of view, I reckon he is the whole point of the movie cause he was sucha important character. In the movie we saw yesterday,he didn't talk much. Every time he appears on the screen was about destroying and killing people. So he looked like fully bad person.

Well, I really could think of any characters from another movie to relate to him. But I just love this character so much,so I'm going to continue talking about him and how he had became Darth Vader.
Darth Vader was known as Anakin Skywalker who was a Jedi and the chosen one. But he started to listen to the Darth Sidious since he wanted to save Padmé who was his wife. Anakin fell to the dark side. Before he turned into Darth Vader, he had a final battle with his own master Obi-Wan.
This is also one of the favorite battles of mine in Star Wars.



As you can see from the video,Obi-Wan had cut his legs off and left him burn to die.But Darth Sidious had saved him and made him become Darth Vader, the scene that the mask put onto Anakin and he started breathing was so cool! haha
From what I have seen from the last movie of Star Wars, Anakin/Darth Vader saved his son Luke Skywalker from dangerous and killed Darth Silious. I could clearly see that even though he joined to the dark side, he was a good person by saving his son. And even when he follow Darth Sildious, he was trying to get him to save his wife Padmé.
And this is how this character attracts me and how important he was because he was the main character that links up the whole 7 movies together.

Auckland War Memorial Museum Visit

On the lecture today,we went to the Auckland War Memorial Museum.
The whole museum was seperated into parts,each section is introducing different cultural group,different things like animals,insects etc. They were all amazing and discussing each idea in details.But the most interesting section to me was the one about musical instruments.
Here is some photos I took in that section:








The reason why I'm into this section more is because I love instruments and especially the ones that are made of wood. So when I went to this section I was like oh my god haha.
The whole sections included many kinds of instruments,but the ones that I digged more were the chinese ones which are shown at the photos above.
They displayed quite a few of chinese instruments,they are included: trumpet, sanxian, yueqin, lo, sheng, sana, pili and yangqin. Most of them are made out of wood, copper , brass, bamboo. Some of them even made of snakeskin and gut.This makes them look really causal to me,unlike the instruments that are in golden or made by metal. And obviously people use them for making music and melody.

I found these objects really attractive because I'm a big fan of things which are made of wood and look old. In the old days, the people who could play these instruments (especially the last photo) are mostly girls and the ones who are well eduacted.It was because in the old china, familes who were poor, they made their son or daughter to work which means they had no time on instruments or any other hobbies, and they didnt have the right to do or say anything for themselves, they just had to do whatever their parents told them to.

The objects are displayed in a glass box and I reckon it's a really boring way to do it. The lighting of the whole room was pretty dark as well and it was silent. If I had a chance to organise this room again, I would at least put some music on because it is a section about instruments, how could it be without music! right?! Other then that, I reckon for each section should provide photos or videos of people playing them.For example, the chinese section should provide videos of chinese ladies playing either of the instruments, from that people not only understand how the instruments ,but how the chinese people from the old days dress and they could know about more about the cultural as well.

Visiting Auckland Art Gallery

On the short trip to Auckland Art Gallery on Tuesday,I have seen some pretty interesting artworks there and the one which impressed me the most was the big black cloud made with microphones. That was a massive work in a gallery and I reckon it looks scary to me. haha
But I think it isn't the best work that links to risk and adventure.
One of the artworks in the gallery that I found it fits to these two terms was the one that made of different parts of a car. The car was smashed into different pieces and lying down on the floor so it formed a nice shape. The reason why is because car is a transport which could brings you to anywhere you want, while you are in a car, its like taking an adventure and taking a risk as well,

The other one that I saw was the one called "Room with a Bird"
It fits the theme so much because it looks like there was a bird which was stuck in the room
and its trying to escape,the things that was hanging from the walls makes the bird like flying around the room. The artist left a window on the wall in order to make the viewers think that the bird is not at a closed room, and it had a chance to escape,to take risk and has its adventure.

These are what I think about the show and I know I might misunderstand the meaning of risk and adventure lol,but yeaaa

Further Response on Feminist Artist - Barbara Kruger

As we were going through the whole slide list today, the work "Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face" by the feminist artist Barbara Kruger immediately stood out to me from the rest of the works.



The reason why is because I found the way that the artist works on this piece of work is similar to the artist that I love-James Rosenquist(yea,Pop Art again haha)
I found that they both like to use really large scale of a part of an object on their work,
in this way of working,it makes the work catches peoples' eye and it's like bringing people the message straight away,because people don't need take ages to search for the important parts on the works,which also gives their works to have a great quality to be on billboards as well.

Although I can tell these both artists are similar,
I'm not meaning that Barbara Kruger doesn't have her own elements in her works.
I have found a couple works of her.....







As I mentioned before,her works are mostly structured by huge images,
but i think there are some more things which makes her works really strong images.
The texts on her works are bold, big and in red color,
and I think that is really effective since she had done that.
The using of color of the texts had made the statement on the works as the subjects on the works, and the statements are overlapped on the objects.
The using of color of the objects are in black and white,so that the statements really stands out from the background and this also makes the objects underneath are like supporting the messages that she wants to give us .

As some research that I have done...

"Kruger's words and pictures have been displayed in both galleries and public spaces, as well as framed and unframed photographs, posters, postcards, t-shirts, electronic signboards, billboards and on a train station platform in Strasbourg, France...." from Wikipedia

This also really helps when her works are put up on the billboards,because people could see what's the poster trying to tell them easily,clearly and quickly since the people nowadays are really busy and rushing all the time