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)
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.
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.
So I’m heading on down to the disney idea. I think its really quite a nice idea, with disney characters being my heroes at the time, as compared to now when artists are my heroes.
So I’m going to make an action figure. Probably using an existing disney characters body with the fountain as a head like my idea in sketchbook. Gonna have to think about a recognisable body for the character so disney is obviously seeen.
I think this is quite relevant.
It doesnt reference koons though, but in a small way it references Sherry Levine who did a copy version of fountain plating it in gold. I dont know which territory that takes this art into, referencing a referencer?
Here’s a link on how to make action figures which I’ll need to look back at soon and read it in depth.
So here is the continuation of the money/value/art hating piece haha
Is art an unnecessary indulgence? I was in complete awe of fountain by Marcel Duchamp and when looking at the picture it reminded me of pictures taken with disney characters at disneyland.
My act of taking this picture proved the point and potency of art. It answers the question of representation also. I believe the reputation and representations of the work are quite vital to the final piece, they increase popularity and the fame of the pieces.
Indulgence is the real question about art. Does art have an actual purpose in society. In my opinion right now, no it doesn’t. It seems like it only influences the art world and makes no impact outside it. I will have to think about it more though me tinks.
These pictures are some sketches from sketchbooks and some other wall based works.
They mainly deal with the idea that art is purely an indulgence that can be dipped into. It deals with the parallels between commercial success and art by creating a theme park where art is celebrated in a way but it also used completely for commercial success.
“Fountainhead” is an imaginary character in this land such as mickey or goofy would be in disneyland. The wall piece is a comparison between fountainhead and me as a young boy and young me and goofy at a trip to disneyland earlier in my life.
The final pieces here are a different take on this indulgence aspect. They look into the idea that art is similar in ways to sport. Art is a competition with the spectators being the bourgeouisie, the collectors, the art students, the people who want to be cultured.
I think these pieces are quite potent in the way they reference another artist Jeff Koons, I had to look into his equilibrium work to make sure it was the right thing to slot into my own artwork. I believe it is: it is a representation of how art is used by white middle-class kids for social mobility just how other ethnic groups in new york at the time used basketball for theirs. It is also about it being impossible to become the perfect person, equal in every way. Koons presents the balls in a water mixed with sodium something or other solution which makes them stay central, but gradually moving down to the bottom of the tank through a process which takes about six months. This shows that nothing can be kept completely central.
The idea presented in these two sketchbook images is one of combining art with sport, as I see sport being a completely useless part of society. Maybe if I get over my feelings about sport I will be able to overcome this hurdle in art.
So I think I’m going to look into this disney thing more. Alan made an interesting point about both the age of the Fountain and the age of mickey mouse being quite similar. It will be interesting to see the comparisons. However, the are slightly different ages, fountain was made in 1917 and mickey mouse was created in 1928 as my brooch does indeed say.
I may look into other art at the time of 1928 in order to draw direct comparisons.
An artist who was born the day before steamboat willie, mickey’s debut (18th November, 1928), was Armand Pierre Arman. Arman tended to deal in multiples of the same object as so:
He was also very interested in the deconstruction of objects such as this case in his violin. This kind of reminds me of Braque and the cubists but it may be completely irrelevant.
I believe maybe he was referencing Braque’s work? He liked to reference artists, even the way he signed was reminiscent of Van Gogh’s signature.
Arman signed with his first name as an ode to Vincent Van Gogh who also signed as his first name.
Mickey Mouse’s first appearance was actually in Plane Crazy, but this was a silent film with a soundtrack added in Decmber of that year. It aired on May 15th, 1928 almost six months after Steamboat Willie. Wladyslaw Hasior was born a day before. Supposedly he was a famous Polish sculptor but there isn’t much information on him on the web.
I would maybe research him more, but I really feel he is irrelevant to this project, and I also amn’t intregued by his works.
OH OH OH!! The treachery of images was made by Magritte in this time!! EXCITED
Its a series of paintings depicting several things, the most famous being “ceci n’est pas une pipe” One of Magritte’s most famous paintings:
Beautiful.
So this piece of work was being made around the time of Steamboat Willie and Plane Crazy.
Its also the same time as Salvador Dali. Maybe trip down to waxwork museum is necessary.
Yeah thats a nice picture too and it was done in the same time as well.
But what is the relation to money and art? What is the value?
If i take a trip to the modern art gallery and get a picture of me beside a piece of work done in 1928 then I can directly compare it to disney.
Steamboat Willie (notice the bit where mickey plays with the pigs nipples, that was cut out in disneyland.
Not only did we get to visit the largest mcdonalds in europe, we got to meet disney characters and go on rides and have quality family time and buy loads of disney crap and see the parades and get scared on the rollercoasters etcc.
So happy days there, here are some snaps of things.
This last photo I really like as it purely reminds me of spirited away with all the lights on in an abandoned train station.
Disneyland was useful for my art as it also made me think of the 2D cartoons being the real things while the actual real 3D walking around characters were representations. This is quite interesting for me as its usually the other way round. The 2D being more valuable than the actual physical being.
On our day trip to Paris me and my Mum visited the Pompidou centre, it was amazing. SO brilliant, definitely the equivalent of the tate but in paris. I did feel whilst looking through the collection that it was very feminist based, and as I think feminism is great, it is only great up to a certain point. I believe that woman are definitely not discrimated against in the art world, bad art is discriminated against. You will only be seen as a good artist if you have good art. I felt whilst looking through that the gallery felt very differently to my own beliefs.
above is a Jim Hodges exhibition at the Pompidou which I found most fascinating. I won’t begin to evaluate it, but it was all about love, which is such a lovely subject which I think is possibly overlooked at the moment maybe due to it being so clicheed. I just really loved the simplicity of the work, and the aesthetic values, possibly the documentation of every flower he’d seen for twenty days being my favourite. It was similar to a documentation piece I’d done for my graded unit so I identfied immediately with it without having to look at the title or description.
I feel the highlight of the trip into paris was the meeting of a lifetime, a firm answer to my question of art and doubt.
Definitely one of those moments you’ll remember the rest of your life. I was so completely surprised that it was in the pompidou centre, well a version of it at least.
It made me just so overwhelmed. I had been so used to taking pictures with disney characters it was kind of a huge comparison to that, and it totally says something about art and the power it has.
I also pay a lot of credit to my mum for taking this photo as it really captures something mysterious about the value of art, the fact that I was so in awe as to just being in its presence.
So yeah, the trip was a complete success and I have every intention of going again very soon
So I have doubts as to what’s happening right now. Have been feeling down for a long time now and I think its probably because of art.
Had a chat with Jenny and Alan and we discussed the “doubt.” It kind of is just a doubt in everything you do, not knowing whether anything is right. I have no idea whether my art is good or not so its hard to continue, but I’ve been encouraged to work through it. Need to stop thinking so much about things, but think where it counts, ie on the concepts of the art. I need to not think about whether my work is successful or not I just need to think how to make it successful. A halt to evaluation.
I hate art right now, but I know I just have to keep on making work. Both of my tutors have gone through the same thing and I suppose maybe Tracey Emins has when she took that five year break. Hopefully soon I’ll really enjoy it again, I need to stop thinking about the philosophy of art, but continue to research it for essay. HARDCORE. I know its not going to be over right away but
wow this sounds really emo-ey so am gonna stop now.
I’m really interested in Henri Rousseau, and I’ve heard he’s been called a naive painter. I’ m assuming it was because he wasn’t influenced by his contemporaries, or he was but he didn’t follow the trends.
I’ll look into it later but I just wanted to put the pictures up here because I find him really fascinating
Giorgio Morandi
I don’t know if Morandi counts as a naive painter, but I think he’s a very interesting one, he used the same bottles and jars in each of his paintings, and he was painting still-lifes long after it had become unfashionable.
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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.
I think this is quite relevant.
Is art an unnecessary indulgence? I was in complete awe of fountain by Marcel Duchamp and when looking at the picture it reminded me of pictures taken with disney characters at disneyland.
These pictures are some sketches from sketchbooks and some other wall based works.
I think these pieces are quite potent in the way they reference another artist Jeff Koons, I had to look into his equilibrium work to make sure it was the right thing to slot into my own artwork. I believe it is: it is a representation of how art is used by white middle-class kids for social mobility just how other ethnic groups in new york at the time used basketball for theirs. It is also about it being impossible to become the perfect person, equal in every way. Koons presents the balls in a water mixed with sodium something or other solution which makes them stay central, but gradually moving down to the bottom of the tank through a process which takes about six months. This shows that nothing can be kept completely central.
He was also very interested in the deconstruction of objects such as this case in his violin. This kind of reminds me of Braque and the cubists but it may be completely irrelevant.
I believe maybe he was referencing Braque’s work? He liked to reference artists, even the way he signed was reminiscent of Van Gogh’s signature.
I would maybe research him more, but I really feel he is irrelevant to this project, and I also amn’t intregued by his works.
Beautiful.
This last photo I really like as it purely reminds me of spirited away with all the lights on in an abandoned train station.
Definitely one of those moments you’ll remember the rest of your life. I was so completely surprised that it was in the pompidou centre, well a version of it at least.
