"Remapping paradigms of Modern and Contemporary Art"

 



    At Sacramento State University's Mariposa Hall, the art history symposium and artist lecture celebrated its twentieth anniversary. Professor Elaine O'Brien launched the symposium twenty years ago when she was a new faculty member at Sacramento State University. Thus, this 20th anniversary was a celebration of Professor O'Brien's retirement as well as an opportunity to discuss art history and the ideas and theories behind contemporary art.  I had the privilege of taking two of O'Brien's classes, and I was pleased to learn that she was receiving the recognition she deserved which was one of my original motivations for attending the symposium.

    The keynote speaker, Maryrose Cobarrubias Mendoza, was the one who most impressed me out of the two lecturers I saw. She is an associate Professor at Pasadena City College with an artistic focus in assemblage, sculpture, and drawings. The artist began talking about her Filipino heritage and how her parents were the first of her family to move to America. She says in the lecture that there is a strong link between her works, her race, and her family. One piece that demonstrates this connection was one she created in 2004 named "Brown." It consisted of five crayons that were all the same shade of brown but had different labels. Crayon names included "shit," "tree," "chocolate," "dirt," and "Filipino."  I found this humorous yet systematically tragic play on colorism and discrimination to be rather intriguing and delightful. I found comfort in the piece due to my own background of dealing with colorism through out my life as a person of color as well. Fortunately this work of art did not make me feel ashamed or depressed but rather it was incredibly moving to learn that someone who comes from an entirely different background than me has experienced the same things. 

    As time was running out for the speakers's presentation, she began to quickly go through more of her assemblage and large scale sculptures as well as breaking down the journey of information she gathered about her Filipino culture. Mendoza's work is not only powerful but whimsical and is a beautiful example of artists using their platform to educate and reform unjust ideals. This talk definitely gave me some ideas for how to use Mendoza's conceptual work in my own art in the future. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fresno Sleezo

Image
        Who is that man? What's in the wheel barrel? Where did she come from? All these questions were flowing in my head only 5 minutes into Vicki Hall's reenactment of her 1970's presentation of Fresno Sleezo. On Thursday March 7, my Art 112 class gathered in the University Library Gallery at Sacramento State to watch what will go down in history as my first ever performance art show. After reading the pamphlet it was of my understanding that this show had only been performed once before. Vicki Hall stated in the Q&A portion of the show, that she did performances for specific audiences and that is one of the reasons she did not want to perform it again. Although we may have not been her intended audience, I think we all appreciated and gained something from this one-of-a-kind performance piece.       Before the performance began there were two older women in blonde wigs dressed up like flight attendants who silently ushered me into a sp...
Read more

"The Visitors" By Ragnar Kjartansson

Image
   My Mother in front ot the exhibition.      "The Visitors," an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art by Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson, is among the most profoundly touching displays I have ever seen. The installation is set up with nine enormous screens, each featuring a different musician performing an instrument, in an a dark room similar to a movie theater. They are all performing the same song, each contributing an individual component to the symphony from a different room or space than the other.  Completely immersed in this hour-long performance, the audience gathered in the main room, either sitting on the bench or lying down on the floor.        Instead of reading the name of the exhibition and artist statement before going into the experience, I decided to read it after.  While reading the sign and doing my research, I soon discovered that this piece was created from nine separate rooms in a sing...
Read more

A Time for Teaching

Image
       This artist's conversation with curator Francesca Wilmott and artist Stephen Kaltenbach delves into Kaltenbach's most well-known and important works while also providing some background information on his significant personal life. Giving a brief overview of Kaltenbach's life from the 1960s to the 1980s, Francesca opened the discussion. The artist wrote for "Artforum," a publication dedicated to art, back in 1968. He once sent brief, motivational notes in anonymous messages. The artist's profound thought came forth mostly from the words "Teach Art." In a 1970 interview for Artforum magazine, Kaltenbach says, “My teachings is one of my most important conceptual art involvements now.” He desired to move away from instructing students and other artists directly on how to make art, preferring to let them observe and gain knowledge from his methods, mistakes, and answers. The students can now reflect on what they have observed and learned via this ...
Read more