Core studies week 6

"Shop art" was the subject today - design, art, commerce and commodities. Another schematic diagram, with Capitalism in the middle, and in each corner: Production, commodities, exchange, consumption form the cycle. "We see this process as natural." How do these processes fit into art and design? Consider William Morris, heir to a mining fortune. Consider the Bauhaus, designing everyday objects for industrial production, and consider this quote from Walter Gropius: "To build is to shape the patterns of life."

The key concern for designers today is to look for what people value in objects. "Design is about solutions" said Milton Glaser, who originated the "I (heart) NY" logo. So much branding...

In the group exercise we considered Richard Hamilton's 1956 collage, Just What Is It That makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? under the headings form, context, meaning, effect/purpose - with some debate as to whether it was optimistic or ironic.
Other artists mentioned in regard to consumer culture were Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Michael Landy, Tomoko Takahashi, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, and Damien Hirst. Recommended watching: The Mona Lisa Curse by Robert Hughes (partly available on youtube).

And after all that - what is the purpose of art? Here's the list we came up with: expression, recording, create dialogue, relationship with things, encounter with materials, shed light on culture. Take your pick.

The afternoon session considered visual research - " a natural thing that all artists and designers do"- with the example of how American painter Eric Fischl paints on acetate to try out positions of subjects. This secquence of sketches was finally changed by using a different figure on the left, for the final painting:



Artists connected with Fischl are David Salle, Alex Katz, Manet, and Frans Hals. Recommended reading: TS Eliot's 1919 essay, Tradition and the Individual Talent.