Karthik Pandian- Before the Sun

Karthik Pandian, installation artist, held his solo exhibition at the Midway Contemporary Art Gallery in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Pandian is a graduate from Brown University, where he obtained his BA, and also from MCAD, where he obtained his MFA. In his installation exhibit, Pandian produced a 16mm film piece that addressed the prevalent relationship between architecture and archeology. Through field research held in Chicago, Pandian designed a four-sided plaza with steps. The plaza was created from earthly materials such as mud and a small portion of water. Erupting from the surface of the plaza is the 16mm film projectors that are placed inside twin mirropane glass columns. Project looped films of the sunrise and sunset are seen from the apex of the landmark known as Monk's Mound, which is located near Collinsville, Illinois. The sunrise and sunset that is shown through Pandian's 16mm film show, was shot during the vernal equinox. The shots of the sunrise and sunset are displayed on the western and eastern corners of the gallery. Technical aspects of the film include the supports of the filmstrips, which is a suspended grid of magenta twine. This sort of twine is commonly used in archeological digs. The use of the twine is symbolically placed in the installation to the make the viewer feel as if they are in an excavation. An excavation not only of one that is disappearing, but also of one that is of the connective tissue that binds our modernity to the ancient people with the histories and the modernity of the sun. The atmosphere, in which the installation is created in, creates a heavy mood that invokes curiosity. The main gallery room is darkened and the vieProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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r's eyes must adjust to the light change before they can analyze the installation as a whole. The sunrise and the sunset shown through the film remain vibrant against the dark and earthly installation. This brings the viewers attention to the film, and then their eyes wander to examine the rest of the installation.

http://www.midwayart.org/exhibitions/10_05_karthik_pandian/

Before the Sun by Karthik Paindian - Sean Guidera

Upon walking into the Midway Contemporary Art building, i was struck with confusion. A platform in the center of the room, turned to intersect the walls that made it difficult to navigate around. Two stands on the platform with a projector on each one, each showing to us the progress through a day; sun rise, people, cars, animals, sun set, and ending with a BANG! (literally). But after listening to the art center employee, and watching the videos again and again, (they only lasted a couple of minutes), you could start to understand the piece more. It is filmed from atop an Indian Mound, and that is what the platform and camera stands were made from as well: dirt. This piece was about the earth, and the life it holds. One intriguing thing about the piece was the film looping, and how they had it set up. Since the film was so short, it was put on a loop, so it continued to replay for a long period of time. But if you were to look up, you would see this red string stretching all over the room, forming a checker-board look, which the film traveled on. This set up was apparently used a long time ago when people would go digging for things, and it also helps understand the alignment of the platform below, where each corner of the platform faced either North, South, East, or West. This piece was very interesting to see, and I would encourage any and all to go see it.

Chuck Close Self Portrait - Sean Guidera

http://www.genereviewer.com/yag/chuck-close-self-portrait.html

The piece that I have seen and will discuss is Chuck Close's Self Portrait. I have seen this piece at the Walker Art Center and it really stood out to me, (I thought it was a photograph at first, but then realized i was wrong! It is actually an acrylic painting). Its cool because this piece is in so much more detail than the majority of the portraits he does, and once you know that it is actually a very intricately detailed painting and not a photograph, and then see that the piece is actually very large, you just kind if have to stare in awe at the amount of work you know had to go into it. I love how the glasses stand out at the being the darkest object in this piece, almost as if to do some advertising for them, but nothing else is quite as dark or light in the rest of the painting, it is mostly some shade of grey which I think is interesting. The purpose behind this work, I think is to try to catch something in the moment. To try to show himself as he was, and with nothing else disrupting that.

Chuck Close, Self Portrait. 1968. Acrylic on canvas.
Walker Art Museum.
Image from Genereviewer.com

Contemporary Artist, Will Cummings

Francesco Clemente

This is a movie poster for the 1998 film "Great Expectations" starring Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow. The artwork for the film was done by Francesco Clemente, a famous contemporary artist who has collaborated with Andy Warhol and Jean Michel Basquiat. Clemente was born in Italy in 1952 and is a self taught artist, he also attended the University of Rome and studied architecture in the early 1970's. Clemente's work is often times very colorful and shows surrealist and expressionist references. After his studies in Rome, Clemente spent sometime in India taking psychedelic drugs in order to better understand his psyche. His work is abstract and sometimes "trippy", as well as romantic and childlike. I find his work to be incredibly captivating and full of emotion. He paints allot of portraits and never fails to capture the essence of whom ever he is painting.

James Welling, Glass House

One of the newer collections at MIA is called 'Glass House' by James Welling. This piece consists of several photographs of Philip Johnson's ionic glass house. The house was built in 1949 in New Canaan, Connecticut. The photos were taken over a course of three years (2006-2009). They were made by using a digital camera, the images capture the architectural features of the 47 acre compound. The pictures have a luminous effect that was achieved by places a variety of colored filters between the lens and the subject, this introduces an intense field of colors transforming the image at the moment of exposure. I really like the way that Welling used the color filters to change the image. It changes the pictures from being realistic, to making you question what is real. The colors really make you think about how those colors came to be. The brighter colors definitely bring out a more cheerful emotion, most of the images have more warmer colors than cool colors. The artist takes something normal and turns it into something out of the ordinary making it exciting just but adding different colors.

Greetings fellow bloggers!  From the looks of your blogs, it seems that many of you enjoyed our wonderful tour of Midway Contemporary Art and the Karthik Pandian installation last week...

prettymaps (nyc)  Interactive map by Aaron Straup Cope 2010
courtesy Jen Bekman 20 x 200

This week we will be looking at visual information communication, or idea mapping.  This is the mapping of ideas and subjects with a diagrams used to represent word,ideas, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea.  This form of information visualization can be very helpful. For example, take a peak at the Flowchart to Lifelong Happiness from Flowing Data, a site that 'explores how designers, statisticians, and computer scientists are using data to understand ourselves better...through data visualization'.  You might enjoy the Strange Maps website, where you can find anything from a photo of the world's largest map (1964 World's Fair) to a map directing you to your next Happy Meal fix anywhere in the US.  

MTV Music Awards Twitter Tracker by Stamen Design
photo courtesy www.infosthetics.com

And don't forget to check out Information Aesthetics, a resource clearinghouse for information mapping where you will find the MTV Music Awards Twitter Tracker, among other pretty amazing visualization projects.

Remember to come to class prepared with your Foundation kits, laptops,  and an open mind, ready to dive into an info-mapping project.  Oh yes, and don't forget to tell me where this globe is located if you want to try and race Fillup to win this week's art junk prize...