Ann Hamilton's Lineament(1994) - Art Critique

Ann Hamilton’s Lineament (1994) is about, how a three dimensional ball is being created from a flat page of a book. The installation consists of plywood walls, suspended seat and table, film projector light, seated figure lifting and winding cut text in continuous line from a prepared book. At the very first sight , we find it's simply is a change of shape, from 2 dimensional to three dimensional form. But there is no transformation from one form to the other since the plane of the book is three dimensional, only shape of the paper changes to a ball. Here, each line of text can be seen as a metaphor of time, and various such lines form a ball, metaphor for life.

Hamilton says the line of text where like thread; it’s touched and rolled to form a ball. When the line of text is cut and rolled, our hands run through each letter of the text. From a spiritualistic aspect, each letter, symbolizes each moment in life and is being felt, letters become words, words become line of text, as each word and line pass by, they roll up to form the circle of life. The words (time) that we already passed becomes our memory(Steven Wallace’s poem “Planet on the Table” is about the remembrance of time), an experience in life.

Ann Hamilton shows how time can be touched and felt, it’s made visible, by the help of words. In the installation, even though the three dimensional ball of text represents the circle of life, the ends of the line of text are not glued to form a perfect circle. Our life never ends; our body and soul are two different constituents existing together, like two sides of a coin, when we die, our life continues in the form of soul/spirit.

“Symbols give meaning to human thought, experience and action and it does not provide a clear statement of meaning or belief” (Langer, 25). As time progressed, people began to view the world objectively, where words and symbols took on shared meanings and with new knowledge comes new questions. The symbols used here are the letters, words and line of text from the book. Again, when we look closely, each letter in the text three dimensional (type), look alike but fundamentally one differs from the other (lines and shape). It’s the same case with our lives, born as humans; unique in behaviour, body and mind.

Everything is surrounded by the mists of significations which carry the mind in many directions, all according to knowledge, interest, and level of awareness brought to bear at any given moment when we happen to look around. Of course, all these perceptions involve signs and the mind in knowing may make comparisons among objects of which it is aware, and from these comparisons relations do indeed result. Langer points out, “Meaning has both a logical and a psychological aspect,” and both aspects are present at all times. The use of symbols to concentrate or intensify meaning makes the work more subjective than objective. Our thought becomes a power of source/knowledge, providing possibilities of meaning and of truth that lie outside empirical seizure or proof- the root-impulse of the human spirit. There are values and energies in the human person -- and an inner voice which cannot be revealed with analytical and empirical tools. Hamilton's installation provide access to such intimations, intimations which if inimical to reason are nonetheless instinctual to humanity-the sixth sense, spirituality.

Modern Islamic Art

Art is the mirror of a culture and its world view. There is no case to which this statement more directly applies than to the art of the Islamic world. Not only does its art reflect its cultural values, but even more importantly, the way in which its adherents, the Muslims, view the spiritual realm, the universe, life, and the relationship of the parts to the whole. Islamic art, to a Muslim is an expression of religion, of faith read in the assured and stately progress of writing across a page or in the calm austerity of the cloister of a mosque. To a non-Muslim it tends to evoke rich and mysterious decoration applied to objects which often have obviously practical purposes. To a tourist it may first present itself in the form of distinctive shapes, the noble swell of a dome hovering over a city skyline or the assertive silhouette of a minaret against a sunset. For the curators, collectors, specialists and students who have been gripped by the subject, Islamic art is a world of irresistible fascination in which they strive for a better understanding of the objects and of the people who made them.

The term 'Islamic art' not only describes the art created specifically in the service of the Muslim faith (for example, a mosque and its furnishings) but also characterizes the art and architecture historically produced in the lands ruled by Muslims, produced for Muslim patrons, or created by Muslim artists. As it is not only a religion but a way of life, Islam fostered the development of a distinctive culture with its own unique artistic language that is reflected in art and architecture throughout the Muslim world. Many different influences combine to form creations with fantasy and wisdom which far precedes other artistic genres. Islamic art can be seen as an influence far beyond constricts of its religious name.

The state of Islamic art today has, with few variations, changed little from the classical art of centuries past. Islamic calligraphies of wide range of styles are being reproduced and are most highly regarded and fundamental element of Islamic art. According to Umberto Eco, the ability for symbols, whether through texts or visual images(Islamic calligraphies), to be interpreted and understood by a reader or viewer is dependant on the audiences’ pre-existing knowledge and familiarity with the cultural memory out of which the sign evolved. An individual’s competency in understanding a sign is determined by the level of access the individual has with the cultural memory or cultural encyclopedia. Inherent in this theory is that the role of the audience in the interpretation of signs is active. The sign does not interpret or decode it, but rather relies on the viewer. (Eco, 44).

Despite the intent of the creator, works of art will be interpreted subjectively. It is significant that the Qur’an, the book of God's revelations to the Prophet Muhammad, was transmitted in Arabic, and that inherent within the Arabic script is the potential for developing a variety of ornamental forms. The employment of calligraphy as ornament had a definite aesthetic appeal but often also included an underlying talismanic component. Below are some of the works by modern Islamic artists who demonstrates Eco’s theory in practice and the use of calligraphies, as a symbol of the culture.

Shahzia Sikander and Nilima Sheikh are both of South Asian origin, but of different generations - Shahzia Sikander, in her 30s and Nilima Sheikh in her 50s. Sikander was born in Pakistan, which was carved out of India at the time India achieved its independence from Great Britain in 1947. Shahzia Sikander has embraced the tradition of miniature painting from her native Pakistan. She is pioneering a revival of the form by combining the traditional motifs and techniques with her own personal. visions, politics, and sexuality. The resulting hybrid uses as its main formal device a version of the Surrealist's collage/juxtaposition principal, while her concerns tend toward the role of women in Islamic society. The image of the woman is central to Sikander's work. Her work explores both her personal identity and broader cultural identity. She plays with cultural forms as they affect women's identity as in painting a Muslim veil over the face of a Hindu goddess. Her imaginative use of materials such as tea also refers to feminine issues. In Pakistan, making tea is an essential part of the woman's role. Painting the gallery wall with tea connects the work with strong memories of traditional family life in her native country.

Writing the Written (2000), the border of the installation below, the text becomes more-like horses, a suggestion of movement, and that aspect is Ms.Sikander’s experience of reading the Qur’an when she was a child and couldn’t understand the meaning, even though she could Arabic, it’s a visual memory where the beauty of the written word supersedes everything else, the ability of the text to take us to other level, even though there is exists a meaning for the text.

Ms. Sikander’s experience in Texas, while she was a fellow at Glassel School of Art in Houston, left an erasable mark on her and her art. Coming from Pakistan Ms. Sikander noticed a phenomenon of ‘exotification’ with the West’s perspective of Eastern cultures. In Texas, she found her exotic image of the West – cowboy boots. Through the re-appropriation of cowboy boots in her miniature paintings she raises questions about how and what we 'exotic-ize' in other cultures – both living and dead. Examples of her re-appropriation of cowboy boots can be seen in Riding the Ridden, Elusive Realities, 2000.

Much of Nilima Sheikh's work is comparable to the miniature paintings of the Mughal court. She expresses this as the derivation of her style- it's no coincidence that many of her pieces share the same originating pint in color, scale, and composition as the Mughal court works. Often using sumptuous colors to depict lithe human figures, lush landscapes and lively animals, Mughal miniature painting is primarily in the narrative style. Through the practice of this technique, historic tales, depictions of royal life, and religious fables are frequently explicated on the canvas. These meticulously detailed scenes are fashioned through precise, refined brushwork and execution similar to that of Western manuscript illumination.

Shamiana. This piece is formed from six canvas scrolls, adorned on both sides with intricate tempera paintings. Sheikh has attached the scrolls to a canvas canopy, effectively creating a freestanding tent-like structure. Shamiana, a word that designates a tent created for grand gatherings, is used here in an illusion to a royal Mughal symbol for marriage. Existing as a token for a blessed union, Shamiana itself resides as an amalgamation of various materials. A range of canvases, support poles and a canopy communally exist to fashion, an entity rife with elegant beauty.

Both the artists claim pre-modern Rajput and Mughal court (miniature) painting as their artistic lineage. At first glance, some of their works share this starting point in terms of scale, composition, and even the use of color. However, the two artists articulate differing relationships with both the pre-modern court painting traditions and contemporary art practices.

Magritte's The Return(1940)

The Return, is a 480 X 610 art print, has a blue sky, a cut out of clouds in the shape of a bird, and on the bottom is a nest with three eggs. The name of the artwork, make us think what does the artist mean by The Return?. The very simple interpretation is the return of the mother bird to its nest, as a protector. Applying semiotics (study of signs and symbols) theory, blue sky and white clouds is symbol of spirituality, as soul, a return of life after death. The eggs at the bottom on the floor, shows the seed/ beginning of life. The bird, in the shape of a dove, as a protector symbolizes the presence of god or holy spirit watching over a new beginning. The surrealistic artwork puts together two realms of existence: life and after-life(soul), (life as signifier and soul as the significant) and there is a connection between them. There is no end to life; our body and soul are two different constituents existing together, like two sides of a coin, when we die, our life continues in the form of soul/spirit. 

"Rene Magritte's surrealness is real, found in everyday things transplanted to another world until they have lost their everyday thingness."- Paul Page

Magritte, “makes the invisible, visible”- concept of spirituality. Complex and structured environments, they provoke both strong somatic responses and wide-ranging metaphorical associations that, together, weave a nexus of layered, non discursive meanings. Dewey insists that an aesthetic act is not complete until the viewer/reader/listener is able to "emulate the operation" undertaken by the artist. When the painter and the poet succeed in incorporating "medium" in the outcome, that is, in creating a work of art, the work in turn provides the viewer and the reader with a potentially rich aesthetic experience that becomes all the richer when they are able to perceive the way the medium itself is being "used structurally" to create an aesthetic whole that precedes any "idea" the work putatively conveys.

Recognition and recollection --a kind of understanding based in memory and past experience that bypasses or even precedes intellection -- are the principal tools for apprehending spiritualistic experience, which helps in enhancing creation of art work. Everything is surrounded by the mists of significations which carry the mind in many directions, all according to knowledge, interest, and level of awareness brought to bear at any given moment when we happen to look around. Of course, all these perceptions involve signs and the mind in knowing may make comparisons among objects of which it is aware, and from these comparisons relations do indeed result. Our thought becomes a power of source/knowledge, providing possibilities of meaning and of truth that lie outside empirical seizure or proof- the root-impulse of the human spirit. There are values and energies in the human person -- and an inner voice which cannot be revealed with analytical and empirical tools. Magritte’s artwork provide access to such intimations, intimations which if inimical to reason are nonetheless instinctual to humanity- the sixth sense –spirituality, proving the simple analogy,

Art is experience,

Experience is knowledge,

Knowledge is spiritual

Art is spiritual.

Devorah Sperber's After the Mona Lisa 7, 2008

The exhibition, Second Lives, Remixing The Ordinary at The Museum of Arts and Design, features artwork and installation of many international artists. The ground-breaking fact is that their installations are made from ordinary manufactured articles, which are originally made for another purpose. Some of them where Bluffs by Tara Donovan (shirt buttons glued resembling a rare form of coral or seaweed), My Back Pages by Paul Villinski(flock of black and polychrome butterflies cut from vintage vinyl records).

At the second floor, was Devorah Sperber’s After Mona Lisa 7, 2008, which is made out of 5,084 spools of thread hung from an apparatus using stainless-steel ball chain. Of all the installations in the gallery, this seemed to be a puzzle, because at first glance, the artwork appeared to be a random arrangement of threads in different colors. If we take a closer look, Devorah created an inverted pixilated abstraction of a famous painting using hundreds of spool of thread. The installation is an image of Mona Lisa with a digital camera held up by the arm of a tourist, directly in front of her face. 

I was fascinated with the idea of bringing science and concepts of digital technology along with art, because the real image of the installation can only be resolved by using a viewing sphere or the surface of a convex mirror, involving science- principles of convex mirror¹. The image is scanned to get the color pixel patterns and are correlated with the standard color-codes of Coat and Clark brand thread, there by combining both computer and craft art. Devorah, through her installation bring out the principle of visual perception versus reality as a subject experience, “what we see is not what exactly it is”. Visual perception takes place due to fixation, the first time we see the installation, it’s barely recognizable, entirely depends how the eye and brain sense the data. The color of the thread and the way they are pixelated, we do believe, what we are seeing is a recognizable portrait, that’s why I had a jolt when the actual image was revealed when viewed with a sphere right in the middle of the room.

Devorah’s work reminded me of Satoshi Kon's Japanese animated film “PAPRIKA”, in a very similar way when I saw the very first time, I had no clue what was happening. The movie was about illusions and reality. It started off with a scene from the circus show and it seemed the part of an investigation, but was really a illusion of an investigator. The Chief of the lab, Dr. Chiba, the lead role of the movie, had her alter-self named as PAPRIKA and she existed as an ideal girlfriend who makes the investigator happy, and the one who is always ready to help the head of the scientist, she is flexible and she is capable of doing anything according to their whims and fancies, but in real  she was just an illusion in everybody’s mind. There was a scene which was repeatedly shown too many dolls walking in the street( a procession) and one of the character said they are people who are caught up between illusion and reality. I felt too many dummies walking on the street, but for real, it resembles the common human being, who live in this world, who have their lives the same way as the dolls in the scene. One person’s illusion can be perceived by the other, which first seems to be as is but put a little more thought, is reality.

¹The reflective surface of the convex mirror bulges toward the light source. Convex mirrors reflect light outwards, therefore they are not used to focus light and forms a virtual image

Giorgione's Tempest

Paintings represent in more than one way, including the use of signs which are "read." But this is different from claiming that what is distinctively pictorial about how pictures represent is their status as sign. Salvatore Setti points out that, The “dissembling” of a painting to analyze how its message is conveyed is permissible when the various elements points facts of style: for the formal qualities of that message are the only ones worth gathering. (Setti, 11).

The Tempest (1506-1508) 82 x 73 cm (32 1/4 x 28 3 /4 in.) oil on canvas artwork, by Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco (familiar name Giorgione) painted in Academia, Venice. The painting has a man with a staff, dressed in a white shirt pauses in a darkening landscape to look in the direction of a nearly-naked woman seated at the further edge of a pool or stream which divides the foreground. Giorgione uses landscapes as an instrument of expression, blending nature and human nature into happy harmony. It heightens the pictorial effect,not merely by providing a picturesque background, but by enhancing the mood of serenity and solemn calm.Giorgione has used more blue and dark green shades. It appeals directly to our senses, like rare old stained glass, and seems to be of the very essence of the object itself, here it shows the Nature.

On the right hand corner, there is woman nursing a child, nude but a white garment draped discreetly around her shoulders, symbolizing purity and innocence. The round belly, full breast and act of nursing symbolize fertility. A young tree sprouts from the bank of the pool, screening her legs without concealing them.There is an air of modesty about this young woman and she neither looks nor towards the man, but in the direction of the beholder with an expression of mingled confidence and calm. We are notionally separated from them by the water in the immediate foreground, just as this same body of water isolates the two main figures from each other. Behind the man, a pair of broken columns appears, as a symbol of fortitude,along with a portion of wall with marble revetment. The fail of buildings also proves the instability of all things in nature, the predisposition of matter to always assume new forms. In the background is a fortified city, at one of the rooftops, there is a stork, which in Western culture symbolizes childbirth. The walls illuminated by an event which has given the painting its name--a flash of lightning signaling the onset of a tempest. Iser talks about blanks and negations, “when the reader bridges the gap, the communication begins, and structured blanks function as a kind of pivot on which the whole text-reader relationship revolves.” (Iser, 64).

Giorgione's rendering of this atmospheric density with blended layers is a product of a synthetic perspective on the natural world, where the visual field is composed not of objects and void, but as a totality of matter.Sky and air have been rendered with a plain texture, with a sense of their intermingled composition from moisture, and air. Iser also points out, that negations motivate the reader to think what has been left out,thereby changing his attitude towards the text hence forming a relation with the reading (65). Both the man and the woman in the painting see the storm not as an omen or as the raging of a deity,but as the indifferent motion of the elements. Using the color shades, dark and light, Giorgione seems to depict the four elements (the pool of water, the moist earth, and the dense clouds that of sky and the lighting bolt as that of fire).

Iser points out, “in Fielding’s Joseph Andrews where the actual hero is described by a set of virtues, is an example formed by negations, is paradigmatic axis of reading, there by allowing the reader to quest on what’s missing (66).Some have proposed the classification of The Tempest as a painted equivalent for a poem, or a work which produces "poetic" effects through painterly means. Giorgione presents the confrontation between mankind and an indifferent, but potentially violent, natural realm that is central to Lucretius' poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things). In the poem, the storm looms as a constant sign of that which keeps man in a state of benighted ignorance, Lucretius, writes "if at that time very many thunderbolts are made, and a turbulent tempest is stirred up in the sky; since all is confusion with well-matched warfare on both sides, on this part flames, and on that, winds and water commingled." It is interesting how these elements are brought by Giorgione in his painting. In this rich masterpiece, so impossible to reduce or summarize, Giorgione is surely suggesting the durability as well as the vulnerability of mankind.

Setti points out, “The search for beauty behind the meaning of an image thus involves, in the first place, attaching greater significance to form; secondly it means maintaining indifference to content for the purposes of aesthetic judgements (Setti,4).” For every individual, knowledge is gained from their experience and their explanation of what they perceive differs from the other. Reception theory places the reader in context, taking into account all of the various factors that might influence how she or he will read and create meaning from the text, explaining why different people have different opinions when the read a text.

Our imagination, which shares vision's bodily frame of reference, supplements perception by furnishing what is not given by the painting (at least not directly) - the absent viewer. Like perception, the imagination is highly permeable to thought. Only by drawing on the imagination do we genuinely achieve the full experience of depth presented by perspective's structure; it is through the imagination that we, as it were, "enter the picture." The picture is navigated through imagination, either as an internal spectator who enters the virtual space of painting, or as an external spectator, who, from her own perspective, imagines away the distinction between real and fictive.

Semiotic Analysis of Chagall's I and Village(1911-1914)

Signs and relations—these are two of the key notions of semiotic analysis. Art is subjective and created for different purposes. When viewing art, we can never understand its true intent. It may seem valuable to the beholder, aesthetically, but its deep, true symbolic meaning is only known to its creator. This personal symbolism has inner meaning to the creator and is something that is not accessible to everyone, regardless of how old they are or where they come from.

Chagall’s I and the Village (1911-1914) is a good example of the use of symbolism and he has arranged them in a certain fashion as to derive meaning and significance. He has blended his nostalgia for his homeland, a reflection of his dreams with the adopted style of Cubism. Langer says, “A subject which has emotional meaning for the artist may thereby rivet his attention and cause him to see its form with a discerning, active eye, and to keep that form present in his excited imagination until its heights reaches of significance are evident to him; then he will have, and will paint, a deep and original conception of it.” Chagall has used signs both ambiguous and self-focusing, colors, forms and shapes that show landscapes and folk stories of Russia. Russian folklore believes everything bad and sinister comes at the left side, which here is the goat. Right side has more positive connotations such as being auspicious, good, and sacred, here a man wearing the cross chain When we look at the painting, we see the rendering of Chagall’s hometown, a church and some houses. Secondly, a man facing the goat, sign of practical wisdom. There is a hand that offers a plant, which symbolizes that he is worshiping the goat, a symbol of the omnipresent, God, as Chagall has created in almost all of his paintings.Thirdly, on the goat’s face, we see a cow and a milkmaid, typically seen in villages, symbolizes what Nature does provide to the commoners. Cows are primary symbols of passivity, docility and general contentment with life. The cow is mostly a positive dream symbol of prosperity, contentment and happiness.

Culture demands delicate handling of everything in creation. In the Vedic symbolism, the cow stands for the creation and also for Earth. The planet and the creation offer innumerable wealth, pleasure experiences, happiness, joyfulness and bliss. The creation nourishes the beings in creation with its milk. In the background is a man holding a scythe, usually to cut or hack down anything, symbolizing the time of life and death. A farmer cuts down the weeds, depicting death and plant something, to bring into life. There is a lady and some of the houses in the background are drawn upside down, emphasizing a dreamlike quality of the work.

Every thought we entertain circles around us and it never dies, it might get weak in time and then if we continuously think about something it becomes a power of source. Langer says, “the artistic idea is always a deeper conception” (Langer,206). At first glance, one may not see the fine line between the man’s eye and that of the goat, a self-focusing message, an eye to eye interaction between cosmic and human or confrontation between man and beast. The artwork, is an iconic sign, since it reveals an idea-we believe and give our offerings to the omnipresent, we could always win the beast, face it without fear. Our life is nourished and enriched and then finally does come death, it’s inevitable, but that’s a beginning of something new.

Art Critique:Paul Kos's Installation at The Guggenheim,NY

The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860–1989 at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, offers a journey through the history of modern and contemporary American art shown through a new lens- a lens that focuses on the myriad ways in which American artists’ engagement with Asian art, literature, music, and philosophical concepts inspired them to forge an independent artistic identity that would define the modern age and the modern mind. These artists developed a new understanding of existence, nature, and consciousness through their prolonged engagement with Eastern religions (Hinduism, Tantric and Chan/Zen Buddhism, Taoism), classical Asian art forms, and living performance traditions. Some of the key artist in the exhibition includes John La Farge, Mary Cassatt, Isamu Noguchi, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Ann Hamilton.

On the ground floor is Paul Kos’ installation Sound of Melting Ice (1970) which comes under the Buddhism and Neo-Avant-Garde section. The installation consists of two twenty-five –pound block of ice, eight boom microphone stands, eight microphones, mixer, amplifier, two large speakers, and cables. The ice blocks are surrounded by eight boom microphones amplifying; literally the sound of melting ice there by the artist reveals to the audience that there is no such thing as silence. Even in the absolute moment of silence, there is something audible beyond the reach of the listener hence there is no emptiness.

Melting of ice need not be an important view for an audience, anyone who would see the artwork would actually think, what exactly is happening? The work first appeared to be funny, since the microphones looks resemble birdlike creatures craning to hear what the blockhead will say? But, the installation has a genuine touch of Zen--school of Buddhism, which values emptiness as something that can help the mind transcend the limitations of ordinary discourse and rational thought. In depth, the installation aims at the concept of life, the twenty-five pounds of ice can be a metaphor for a quarter of life. The melting of ice becomes time span of life and death. At each stage of life, we feel different; same would be the sound of ice. Hence, slowly from solid to liquid, and finally to vapor is a personification of our life, death and after- life, just like a never ending circle, which ultimately is the symbol of Zen.

A close similarity of this installation is Stephen Vitiello’s Tetrasomia who combined physical and natural sound pieces and organized then in accordance with four elements-Earth, Air, Wind and Fire. He recorded sound of fruit-fly courtship(Air), an underwater volcano(fire), poison frogs(water) and extracted fiery sounds of the Saturn 5 lift-off(earth). When each of the icons is clicked you hear these extra-ordinary sounds that are left unheard. Vitiello shows medium of art exists in silence; a concept created by audience, and does not exist.

When so much of the Western culture sees silence as emptiness which mean nothing or absence of thought, Paul Kos’s Sound of Melting Ice(1970) has taken the ideas from Eastern culture, where nothing and everything has a meaning and is valued. Just as the proverb says, “silence is golden”-silence is as valuable as gold is.