Event 5: The Anatomy Lesson

Tonight I went to see the Joyce Cutler-Shaw exhibition in the ART|SCI Gallery in CNSI. The topic of display is "What Comes to Mind: Memory, Traces, Engrams"

Figure 1

Joyce's inspiration came from her quick encountering with a bird. A bird hit her window one day and fell to the ground as if it was dead. She went outside and touched the bird to check on it. However, after a while the bird stood up and simply flew away. By then, she had realize that the bird was in shock and once it recovered its sense, it flew away. That encountering led her into doing research on the bird, the place where the pain struck the bird and sent the bird into shock. She also explored the ancestry of birds, and went to Munich where the fossil of the "first bird"(half bird- half dinosaur) was discovered on limestone.

Figure 2

Her early research of birds led to her interest in pigeons. This photo of a pigeon is part of the slideshow on display.

Figure 3

After weeks of watching her podcast and learning the relationships between art and science, I was finally able to meet Professor Vesna in person. We took a photo in front of the artworks on exhibition. The art works are from the artist's earlier project The New York Odyssey. The project consists of images from her personal history and places she has been to when she lived in New York. 

Figure 4

This picture conveyed how fish and human are similar at the embryo stage, in which their gills are our limbs. Other pictures of the embryo of a human are also trying to convey the same idea. The center image is a face scan of her brain. The top row consists of photos of painting from the museum of natural history of Amsterdam. The photo of a man bending over and a man standing up straight is our typical evolution cycle. She added into this set of project because it relates how we have came to be and supports the idea that fish and human have similar attributes.


Figure 5

Her project of the anatomy lesson incorporates an investigation of the human life cycle from birth and the newborn to aging, dying and death. Her encountering for three death of the sudden death - Eddy, the slow death of Rose and her mother Lola's death all inspired her to better understand death in a clinical setting. She is current a Artist-in-residence at the University of California, San Diego. She is enabled to understand death in a scientific way aside from her three very different experience with death.

I had the pleasure to speaking to Joyce and really learned about how her experience had inspired her to produce her works. For example, the New York Project is a project of photos she took of the city she grew up in. The bird incident led her into research in the anatomy of the bird and what the bird went through while it was in shock. In addition, she also had a picture of dissection in Figure 5, middle of the top row, from the history museum of Amsterdam in the collage of 12 photos.

Event 3 : Getty Museum

I went to Getty Center last Friday and was fascinated by both the exterior design and the art works on display. The Getty Center is designed by Richard Meier. To get to the Getty Center, we had to take a tram. The tram moves the visitors 3/4 of a mile up to the hill. This 5-mins ride is 881 feet above sea level. The purpose of the design is to give visitors the feeling of "being elevated out of their day-to-day experience", says Meier. I really felt that way!

After we got off the tram, we came upon a flight of stairs with statues on the side, which already introduced the artistic theme of the Getty Center to us before actually entering the exhibition.
Inside the museum entrance hall, there were audio guides available and map guides in different languages.

Below is a picture of the landscape design of the upper part of the Getty Center. We can clearly see where each of the main buildings is.

As we exited the museum entrance hall and walked past the Exhibition pavilion, we saw the brilliant view to our right. It was a great experience to see how the architect combined nature in between the buildings. We decided to walk down and explore the central garden. The garden has a maze on water. The water pond is also surrounded by different plants. According to the Map Guide, "At the bottom of the Central Garden, water cascades over a stepped stone wall into a reflecting pool with a maze of 400 azalea plants." Surrounding the pool is a series of specialty gardens that exploit the interplay of light, color, and reflection. 

After visiting all the pavilion, I have decided to choose a few of the collections which I found really interesting. The first one is this big Vase in the South Pavilion. This monumental vase was first exhibited at the Exposition Universaille in Paris in 1889. The fantastic imagery was reminiscent of the art from the late 1890s, yet its overall shape and form was based on an ancient roman mixing vessel which the artist drew during a visit to the archaeological sites in Naples in 1877.

What is fascinating about the painting below is that the horse was painted with such care that one can discern the individual hairs of his flowing mane and tail. He cast a penetrating eye towards the viewer, illustrating his sense of dominion over humans and nature. According to the description, the stallion is probably the famed Lipizzan breed, known for their stocky Proportions and grayish-white color. 

This is a sculpture of Venus by Joseph Nollekens, depicting Venus and two other goddesses in a different stage of undress, with draperies and accessories that enhance their sensuality. The three figure were commissioned by Charles Watson-Wentworth in order to narrative group interacting with the shepherd Paris. According to Greek myth of the Judgement of Paris, the shepherd had to declare which of these three goddesses was the most beautiful. Venus won the contest. 

The picture below is a portrait of Louis XIV, the "Sun King", from Rigaud's workshop. Louis XIV's court adored Hyacinthe Rigaud, who helped to formulate what a state portrait should be. According to the description, "While Rigaud made a credible likeness of the king, his purpose was not to express Louis's character but to glorify the monarchy. Louis XIV's ceremonial robes, elegant stance, and haughty expression proclaim his exalted status"  Despite the size of the portrait, Rigaud still paid much attention to the details, for example, the details of the King's costume and his shoe buckles. The original Portrait of Louis XIV of 1701 was so popular that Rigaud had many copies made. 

I was really fascinated by the portrait of Louis XIV, because I had the opportunity to see the original copy at the Louvre previously. After looking the portrait, I entered a room filled with tapestries (like the photo below has portrayed). The tapestries were really detailed and full resemble the prominence of France during Louis XIV's era. In front of the tapestries, were statues and original French furnitures. 

After enjoying the South Villa, I went outside and was intrigued by the beautiful view of the city of Los Angeles. The photo below is a picture of me and the city which I have come to love after living here for three years. 

It was a very fruitful experience visiting the Getty Center. I not only had a chance to enjoy the beautiful view of the city but also was fascinated by many of the artworks in exhibition and from the collection. If I have time in the future, I will definitely visit again and refresh my mind from academic and social obligations with these beautiful collections of art and the view of LA.

Event 4: Hammer Museum

I took advantage of the thanksgiving break and visited the Hammer Museum of UCLA. Since my friend and I were UCLA students, we could get free admission. The courtyard level is very pleasant, it includes a dining service and provided space for casual meetings. As my friend and I went to the third floor, our adventure into the art world has begun.

The first exhibition we encountered was On Pleasure Bent by Mark Leckey. His art works combines sculpture, sound, film and animation in presenting ideas. Mr. Leckey speculates on objects and on the future. The arts on display show his interest in all types of objects – from prosthetic hands to Felix the Cat – and how these objects can influence us as humans. One of his works on display is an animation of a shadow of a dog barking to the left side of the artwork. He made use of the technology to show the dog’s constant motion and growling. In the end, I was able to understand why the artworks were produced that way. The description on the wall explains Mr. Leckey explores the potential of human imagination to appropriate and to animate a concept, an object, or an environment. (I was not allowed to take pictures of the animation.)

The next exhibition we saw was James Welling’s monograph. One of the artwork that intrigued me the most was his Glass House Project. He made use of color filters held in front of camera lens and took pictures of the architect Phillip Johnson’s legendary 1949 house. He later returned to the house twelve times over the next three years in all seasons and all weather conditions to create the final project. The purpose of the art was to blur the lines between a recognizable object and a visual hallucination.  As we can see in the picture below, the photo combined the tree branches on the top half with blurry texture and the interior of the house with an orange filter. This photo clearly blurs the lines between the exterior and the interior of the house and also creates a hallucination with the usage of blurry white color and the orange colors of the interior.

Another collection included Welling’s flowers project. He took pictures of the pressed flowers and feather in his great-great grandmother’s diary help insight him about pressed flowers and photograms. Historical connections were made between botanical specimen, natural prints and photograms.

Lastly, we went and saw the Armand Hammer Collection, which were gifts from the Armand Hammer Foundation. It contained major movements of 19^th century French art, including the work of Van Gogh and many other works from Dutch artists such as this art below by Rembrandt. I was really fascinated by the amount of artworks on display by European artists from the 19^th century and before. I was also able to understand the artworks better than the contemporary artworks produced by Welling and Leckey. (Since I was not allowed to take pictures of this display, I found one of the pictures on the internet).