Parable of the Garden: Paradise

Muratbek Djoumaliev and Gulnara Kasmalieva's "Paradise" is a three-channel video installation with a circular field of bright green grass in front of it. The first video depicts a landscape, full of mud and without much vegetation. We watch as the camera passes over dead snakes and tire marks. The second video shows a man reaching for a bluish sky. Interestingly, on top of that television is a small plate of grass. It's as if the man is not just reaching for the sky; he's reaching for the life and paradise above the blue sky. Finally, the third video shows a camera passing through blades of green grass that resemble the grass in front of the screens.

Since Djoumaliev and Kasmalieva are from Kyrgyzstan, viewers interpret this piece of art as political commentary. It is the story of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which controlled Kyrgyzstan, and the resulting devastation of Kyrgyzstan's economy and society. So they reach for a better life, like the man reaching for the sky, and hope for the paradise in the last scene. The grass in front is a symbol of the fruits of their labor.

Though this is a valid interpretation of the art, I believe it has more wide-spread significance to people around the world. Snakes, such as those in the first streaming video, are often a sign of evil; they disgust us and we fear them. The first video is also filled with images of the woes of the world. In the second video, man desperately reaches for heaven, for an escape from evil and the world. The third shows his hope in something better. The grass in front represents that this paradise, man's hope, is a reality, not just something in the movies and our imaginations. It is a circular plot, which could represent the circle of life. Also significantly, our eyes are draw in by the grass before viewing the videos, then we read the videos left to right, and then our eyes stop on the grass again. It is as if we began in this paradise and then end up in it at the end of life. Thus "Paradise," in addition to commenting on Kyrgyzstan's political situation, relates to all people and their search for paradise.

Collaborative Presentation

Title of exhibit: Inside out: works of captured consciousness
Artists: Bruce Nauman and Charles Cohen
Theme: A moment or idea is captured in time, creating some type of conscious or subconscious meaning. The two artists' works are visually appealing to draw in the viewers, and then address things largely ignored, considered unimportant, or left unspoken. Cohen’s “that” series, for example, includes photographed billboards from the side, so that the advertisements are out of view. The viewer only sees the side of the sign, as if seeing it as he drives by on a highway. Few people would consider this moment important, but easily recognize it. Nauman’s “The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths,” on the other hand, seems to capture a random thought that entered the artist’s mind while reflecting on his profession. A thought is an internal entity, often ignored by the general public. Nauman, however, captured his idea and transformed it into light and words. The piece was then exhibited in his studio window for the appraisal of the general public. Essentially, it was a thought on display, an element of captured consciousness. These everyday worldly subjects take the viewer to a moment or place him somewhere that is otherwise unappreciated.

Links to artists' sites:

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/nauman

http://www.promulgator.com/

http://rhizome.org/discuss/view/23105

http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/majorprojects/nauman/work_2.htm

Project 2

Wordogram

Pictogram

Andy Warhol at Dia:Beacon

At Dia:Beacon in New York, Andy Warhol's Shadows (1978-79) is about 60 paintings, each about 3 feet by 4 feet, lining the perimeter of a large room. Each individual painting has the same basic structure, featuring a tall thin black shadow on a colored background, or a colored shadow on a black background.

Warhol, who was born in Pittsburg in 1928 to Czechoslovakian parents, drew on ideas from his previous works and the works of contemporary artists for Shadows. He created two series afterwards, Reversals and Retrospectives, that looked back on his previous works. Shadows likewise looked back on Warhol's past. The shadows can be seen as the shapeless forms of his previous works against the colorful environments that inspired him. He was also influenced by other artists' ideas. Blinky Palermo, Donald Judd, and Carl Andre made large-scale repetitive or serial works around the same time period. Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, in the 1920s, experimented with making shadows and reflections the subject of their works.

For me, the vastness of the project contrasts with the emptiness of the room. I feel I should be the only one standing there, and these are all the different shadows I leave behind when I proceed to the next room. Or else I have only left one of these colored shadows. I have walked into an environment colored by the diverse shadows of all who have passed through before me.