6th lesson - Maria Olmstead

 It was the 6th lesson of Investigating Issues in Art. Me including my classmates watched a video of young girl name Maria Olmstead. Maria Olmstead is a girl who were interested in painting and she ended up as media attraction. Now she is an abstract artist and her works are marvelously amazing. However, there were controversy about her works. According to the research, in February 2005,  a report by CBS News' 60 Minutes II raised questions about whether Marla created the paintings on her own. 60 Minutes enlisted the help of Ellen Winner, a child psychologist who studies cognition in the arts and gifted children. Winner was impressed with Marla's work, and indicated that Marla was the first child prodigy she'd seen paint abstractly. The Olmsteads agreed to permit CBS crews to set up a hidden camera in their home to tape their daughter painting a single piece in five hours over the course of a month. When Winner reviewed the tapes, the psychologist said that she saw no evidence that Maria was a child prodigy in painting. She saw a normal, charming, adorable child painting the way preschool children paint, except that Maria had a coach who kept her going. Winner also indicated that the painting created before CBS's hidden camera looked less polished than some of Marla's previous works. So after this there were lot of controversy going around between Marla and her father. Then on the 2007 documentary My Kid Could Paint That, by director Amir Bar-Lev, examines Marla Olmstead, her family, and the controversy surrounding the art attributed to her. The film does not explicitly take a position on the question of her works' authenticity, but Bar-Lev is heard during his interviews of Marla's parents and in a piece included as an extra on the DVD expressing doubts about whether Marla created the paintings herself. It includes extracts from start-to-finish videos of two of Marla's works and questions whether the two works, the 60 Minutes painting (known as "Flowers") and "Ocean," are of the same quality as other works attributed to her. After Bar-Lev expressed these doubts and began filming Marla to capture her painting a work of similar quality to paintings previously sold in her name, she is seen repeatedly asking her father to help her paint a face on the painting or paint it himself - the exchange taking place during playful jest between Marla and her father.

 When lecturer asked us about her works which Marla painted or her father painted, many of my classmates thought that her father helped her or he did the painting, but for me although the way they were painted(previous works) are different than her works(Flowers and Ocean), still I could see the basic style of her painting. It is true that her works’ qualities are worse than the previous works, but what if the quality of painting got worse because of media attraction which made her somehow uncomfortable or pressure and these leaded her to bad condition (or could be slump)? Or what if she coincidentally painted those previous works (which mean randomness)? This might explained that her works’ qualities got worse due to the media attractions or it could be merely just a luck that she painted in those ways.

Museum Report

 It was the day I went to National Museum with lecturer and my classmates. I was excited because it was my first time to see the French paintings in front of my eyes. In museum, as I expected they were marvelous indeed. They were totally different than what we normally see in the internet or books. Especially, the painting which made me excited more was Van Gogh’s painting “The Starry Nights” but not the one we usually see in the internet or book, it was same title but different scenery. However, there were one more painting which caught my eye, and it was “War or the Cavalcade of Discord” by Henri Rousseau on 1894. Another interesting was this artist was not involved in any kind of revolution or movement in his life time. His painting was unique. Even though Gauguin’s paintings were also unique but this artist’s painting, hard to explain and analyzed what this trying to show exactly. In my analysis, the black horse can be represent as a death, but still the girl, wearing white dress ; this may be indicates as innocent, smiling as if she enjoys it, it looks she riding the black horse but she is not, and the dead corpses somehow placed dramatically not randomly. Still I really enjoyed the museum visit.

3rd Class - The Modern Art

 The 3rd class of Investigating Issues in Art, a lecture was about Modernism or Modern Art. The lecturer told us to make in to 2 groups then passed around the pictures of artists’ paintings and told us to choose which artwork is the Modern Art. First time what I considered about the Modern Art was which are different than normal art(what I mean is not just a painted work), so my group chose Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup. However, after the lecturer passed a pieces of paper which were article about the Modern Art. Its separated in different pieces into 6 and I got 6th reading. Reading was hard to understand. After the lecturer told us what it is about, somehow I understand it.

 According to the article in 6th reading, Modern Art; flatness of the surface that remained, but more fundamental or simpler than anything else to the processes. Flatness itself was unique and exclusive to pictorial art. Flatness was also the only condition painting shared with no other art. So basically the Modern Art is art which have a unique feature called “Flatness” which doesn’t share with other art.

2nd Class of Investigating Issues in Art

 The second day of investigating issues in art, the teacher talking about what is representation. She showed us few presentation which is related to this topic. For the first time, I saw Plato mentioned that Art is just an merely a copy or imitation of the original. So the artist are the imperfect and we are imperfect. What he said seems right. However, now these days, the point of view towards the Arts has changed.
 The lecturer gave us some article which found in book and made us in group and discuss about it. The article was bit hard to understand due to there are playing of the words which mean repeating same words in one sentence. But somehow I managed to understand the article and even I learned a new things from this. Representation doesn't mean copy of something, but it is a description of something.
 The class was bit tough this day, but at the same time I learned new information. I hope she bring new information for the next class.

Reflection of the 1st class of Investigating Issues in Art

 What is Art? What is the people's perspective of Art? How do they see the Art? Like these questions, many people had doubted themselves. So do I. Before I start the class, I was thinking what kinds of class the Investigating Issues in Art will be. Then during the class, after we discussed the artists' work, I realized people have there different perspective or the thoughts about the Art. So there were the issues went on. So this is the Investigating Issues Art is about. This was my realization towards this class.

 Frankly speaking, I didn't consider that the issues are not so important for the Arts. However, after the teacher's lecture and classmates discussion, I start realizing why the issues are significance for the Arts. We people have our different perspective towards the Arts. Some people support or accord the  someone's point of view, but at the same time there are people who are against or disaccord it. This is why the issues are important. Although I admired and inspired by the Arts, still I have a lack of knowledge about it.

I learned something new during the class. Eventhough I am like a empty shell of clamp, soon I will create a big beautiful pearl which people admire about it.