Developments.

Continuing with development:

I liked how all the previous wall drawings looked together; my subconscious working up again.

May develop this later.These two pieces stemmed from the cel idea. They work by playing the character of the fountain against the recognisable mickey mouse. In the first, the fountain is given two ears, in the second the pipes of the urinals make a mickey mouse emblem.

Simply a small mickey mouse wall painting.

The above is a reaction to disney balloons. It is however not a reaction against, but merely a celebration of commercial success.

That is something that must be stressed in my work, it is not to put down anything, it is truthful and happy that disney has become such a huge prominence in society (thats worded poorly, but the jist is that I like disney, and my work is intended to celebrate and appreciate the hard work that the collective minds at disney have produce over the years). bracketed bit is far superior to normal sentence,

(i like the balloon) There’s a certain beauty to something as shiny and reflective as this. It reminds me of Koons work, an artist which I admire greatly and think is along the same lines in regards to opinion to commercialism. The balloon piece has to reference him as his work includes a variety of inflatables. My work is maybe saying that instead of deceiving people with fake inflatable objects, I choose to have the real thing. This maybe says something about me as a person as I trust people and expect people to trust me. I do not wish to play with people’s perceptions.

This piece was to emphasise the art as the celebrity, the moving away from the artist as the celebrity. Inside the book is a collection of Duchamp’s most famous works names scribed as signatures. The viewer is encouraged to imagine their own disneyland filled with Duchamp works instead of characters; duchampland.

here sit fountain, portrait of gustav calrod’s mother, jeune homme triste dans le train, fresh widow, and another window piece’s signatures.

 

 

 

L.H.O.O.Q. Mariee, nu descendant un escalier no 2, portrait of Dr R Dumachel’s signatures.

Also nadine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-wEmGqkYAI

keep on living everyone, I’ll post again soon.

Wall Drawings

Wall drawings are an interesting addition to art practice, they offer a different surface to work on.

The main reason I am choosing to use wall drawings as a way of conveying my art is to suggest it being impossible to sell them. Of course its not impossible, as we know with banksy, but it is very improbable.

This first piece is a cover version of damien hirst’s dot paintings. I have chosen to use the stereotypical art “sold” stickers in place of the dots to maybe suggest what is art truly is. This does not mean I don’t admire him though, as I was thinking that maybe he’s the reason I am an artist.

The drawing of Minnie Mouse on the wall makes it impossible for disney to sell it, a complete comparison to the cel.

The drawing of fountain on the wall makes it impossible for the item to be sold. Therefore making it art that is completely against the market.

The silkscreen prints direct onto the wall suggest several concepts. The first being of disney being unable to be sold on the wall. The second is a repetitive nature of commerciaism. The final being the oxymoron of silkscreen printing onto a wall; the point of silkscreen printing (according to warhol) to produce multiple prints which can then be sold for lots and lots of money seperately.

Maurizio Cattelan & more Freddy Fountain costume

So that is the costume pretty much made. Just need to get some red shorts and black tights and white gloves and yellow shoes. But thats’ll be EASY.

Was reminded of a piece by Maurizio Cattelan, who is brill, and he knew Ettore Sottsass!!! Who is a boma of mine

Its this piece by him called “inside Picasso’s head” he wanders around getting his photo taken with members of the public like in disneyland. I think its quite similar to my art ideas, but its maybe to do with the artist more than the art. My work is to do with the art being the celebrity that people want to meet.

There is also a piece by him who i quite like as well where the pope is hit by a meteorite.

Don’t know what it means but I don’t mind, and maybe dont even want to know.

So long farewell auf wiedresein goodbye

Freddy Fountain costume

Its only the beginning, but its going well.

and hopefully I never need to use plaster again.

Marcel Duchamp

Too many interpretations

I belive that the artist doesn’t know what he does. I attach even more importance to the spectator than to the artist

Simulation and wonderful combinations of pure triumph dedicated solely to the production of more constructions of future times

Sooooo

get that? its an interpretation of Hal Foster’s views on art, which I kinda agree with.

The (postmodern) artist becomes a manipulator of signs more than a producer ofart objects, and the viewer and active reader of messages rather than a passive contemplator of the aesthetic.

From that drawing I could go in a number of directions, which is why I went back to the smaller drawings.

I started combining disney and artworks, and artworks and other artworks to create art that was a culmination of efforts by me (the sign-manipulator) and the artists of yore.

Apologies for the photographs as I had already linked my camera to the computer and could not be bothered to unlink it so its done with photobooth.

From these I began to make different products:

With these drawings I’d taken a different step into both the commercialism of art, and the success of contemporary artists.

In the top one, “mickey koons” I morphed mickey into a work which although was a found-object piece before, had more symbolism to the Jeff Koons piece. Thus showing the power of contemporary painters compared to a great like walt disney whose company has become a major company of commercial success. Also brings back to the fact that artists are modern day heroes, in comparison with heroes I had when I was younger.

In the latter, “Minnie Hirst” I feel the success is even greater. Its all about success in this one. The famous business artist Hirst is draped over an unsuspecting Minnie Mouse. The tres chic polka dot dress is but one of Hirst’s most recognisable paintings. It is painted onto acetate in the same way my other cel objects where made. This represents the collector’s value of the artwork as well as the value of Hirst and Disney’s work. It raises questions of success and if the value of an art should be based entirely around its price-tag. I feel this second piece is more successful, mainly due to the simplicity and the cryptic nature. Even though the dots represent the over-success of Hirst, they can also be seen as what his work originally meant, faith in medicine (something that is completely unindulgent), and juxtaposed next to something that has become so much of an indulgence (disneyland) it becomes a battle for what is more important in life, indulgence of necessities. Tis also quite nice due to the fact that Minnie Mouse wears a polka dot dress already and its just a slight modification of a well-known image.

Am gonna start working with 3D things possibly next time, so stay tuned.

Till next time.

Large Glass

Bride stripped bear by her bachelors, even

So I realised the similarities between the cels and another important marcel duchamp piece, large glass. The piece is about a woman being sexually pleasured with a machine being run by nine men.

So with this in mind I started jotting down idea for an artwork which oded to this brilliant piece but with keeping in the ideas of commercialism, value, and money.

I can’t talk too much about the piece as of yet because its hard to even know what its a cover of.

Its lightly provocative in nature what with Minnie being naked and all. I replaced the bride with her, and obviously she has been stripped bare by her bachelors (a host of male disney villains). There is even a question mark as to whether the image is suitable, there is a kind of uneasiness in their smiles that make us think of the worst.

The sort of idea behind it was to have disney take over a piece of art, but I don’t actually know if its worked. Its certainly recognisable to me as a piece of art, and as a reference to Duchamp. There’s also the alluding to my heroes nowadays, vs the villains of my past. But I really don’t know.

I personally love the piece but I need to think more abput why it is art, and why it is so brilliant (in my most humble opinion)

hahaha

Cels

So here are some cels that I created with the idea of having them as valuable collector’s items from a cartoon that was never made.

So I quite like them, especially the first one. Freddy Fountain as a young character (based on steamboat willie/plane crazy mickey). This naivity tries to evoke nostalgia to the days where disney was not so commercialised. Or in the case of the fountain part, a nostalgia to when art was not so commercialised.

cartoon cartoon cartoon cartoon

So from the last work, which I have started to assemble poorly as I don’t have experience or the time and resources to work in plastic, I have started to work into the idea of creating characters.

Immediately I can jump into the idea of creating this fountain man. I may name him Freddy Fountain as a reference to the alliteration of cartoon characters everwhere. I can create a large mask to put over my head in order to make myself into a walking character like the disney ones of disneyland.

I could even go into making other characters Calum Can (Campbell’s soup, warhol), Peter Pipe (Magritte’s pipe), Billy Basketball (Koons equilibrium). I may choose to have all the actual names based on american names due to the amercianisation of disney.

Using the mask as a prop I could travel round the city centre wearing the mask and getting photographed with other people, strangers who want to have their photo taken with a “celebrity”

I then thought about those boards with holes instead of faces so that people could place there heads through and have there photo taken with Freddy fountain.

From this I decided to look into the combination of disney and cartoons. Maybe I could make my own cartoon, or plan it through a storyboard. Maybe I could make a comic strip? But I thought as to what purpose and relevance would a comic strip have to disney? Disney were primarily a moving image cartoon with a stem of comics starting in january 1930 with newspaper smalls. A moving image would be much more relevant.

A cartoon cel could be used to give the idea of the movement without having to make an entire cartoon.

Cels are also very prized collector’s items, this is interesting in making the piece of art seem valuable, a way of hanging it would have to portray this.