Creative Impulse: Response to Jerry Saltz on the Outsider Art Fair

It is clear that the only visible meaning of what artists can consider to be "outsider art" is based upon the fact that they may not meet the discriminative requisites such as Color of skin, ethnicity, or gender. In the article on Outsider Art Fairs Jerry Saltz criticizes the Art realm, stating that the actual production should be judged, not the person who made it. In all the history of art, it is clearly seen who was or was not accepted in the art world and even today, it is clear that some underlying prejudices may create more Western ideologies of who is accepted as an artist. For example, if a woman creates art that may have small analogies or tones deriving gender or social justice, society concieves her reputation to fall as a "feminist artist", rather than an artist. Historically, women and other minorities were not allowed the access to art or the rights to make art. But what about today? What are we still doing wrong?

In all of History, males took the rights from women, and other non- caucasian males to pursue education. The idea that male dominated art was the one and only view of "correct" art only limits our education to art that may further strengthen our knowledge. Art in more recent times, aside from being historically relevant, has also become an outlet for social justice, truth, and non-western male dominated art-- but using art in this manner may result in the labeling of who the artist is. For example, Photographer Cindy Sherman has been labeled a feminist artist for dressing up like men and other historically Euro-centric figures in art history as she replicates HIStory portraits. She herself disregards the label because she finds it limits her abilities to grow as an artist. It is more difficult for the media to portray her as just "photographer Cindy Sherman" because of the conceived motion that anything underlying social or controversial contexts may result in seeing the art piece as rebellion rather than being able to see it the way someone views classical, European art. This label only justifies what outsider art is, and it is constantly being fought in the art community because we are supposed to view art as an outlet to expression, communication, and inspiration. Salon des Refusés still exists today, but maybe not as out loud as before. In a globally communicating world where technology brings places miles away to the fingertips of our internet, Society still views the materials used as a combination of "rich or poor", "indigenous or creative", the context represented is seen as either "rebellion", "feminist", or "activist" rather than expressive or emotional, and the background of the artist as the outlier to judge if  that person is an actual artist or just an outsider who may or may not meet the requisites of the institution. 

Topic: Creative Impulse- Folding Paper Exercise

First day of class. Simple paper folding warm up that led to a discussion about Art vs. Craft.

Creative Impulse: Response to "The White Bird"

Christine Cortes
Warp TR-AM
The White Bird

John Berger uses the White Wooden Bird as a visual, tangible example of a "reference to the surrounding world of nature" by describing the bird as a symbol for hope after the existence of evil has been encountered by humans. The idea that humans experience life and the need for survival, the truth may actually be different from their perceptions. With this idea, Berger draws a conclusion that humans solve the problem of "not being able to talk about aesthetics without talking about the principle of hope and the existence of evil" can be solved by simply finding ways throughout history (with different materials, symbols, evils, beliefs, and ideologies) to  make the instantaneous into the permanant

Berger associates aesthetic qualities to nature as a way to help humans survive the natural, unpredictable, "evil" disasters that appear in every society. For example, Berger uses "Modern Class Society" or The Eurocentric ideological society to explain that while the sights of the sea are not seen as beautiful because of their given association or historical analogies that may be evil or naturally disastrous, a silhouette of a mountain can be associated with "the home of the dead or a challenge to the initiative of the living similar to the White Bird being a symbol of hope to other societies who too, have experienced some perceptually "evil" experiences. The examples of two different meanings simply proves that while cultures expose their perceptions of life differently, they sometimes use similar meanings, descriptions, and symbols to relay the same "beautiful, aesthetic, transcendental art".

WARP-SampleBlog FIRST POST

Labels Help You Organize

All blog posts must be labeled with two keywords, which blogger calls Labels. When faculty visits your blog for evaluation purposes, we will use the labels to quickly find your work. If you do not use the keywords properly, we will not be able to find your work. Proper set-up and maintenance of your blog falls under the Research and Participation part of your grade which counts for 30% of the overall semester grade. 

Topical Keywords

The first set of keywords correspond to the module we are working in. We will refer to these as topical keywords since they correspond to the topic we are exploring over the two-week periods. Your first group of posts will be labeled under Topic: Creative Impulse since this is the first topic (Topic #1). Here are the topical keywords you will use through out the semester:

Topic: Creative Impulse

Topic: Pattern and Ornament

Topic: Rhinoceros

Topic: Narrative

Topic: Landscape

Topic: Zine

Categorical Keywords

The second set of keywords will organize your posts according to kind. Here are the Keywords you will use for Labels:

Exercises - tag for posts documenting all assigned exercises. The first one will be the paper folding exercise from the first class. 

Readings - tag for posts containing your two paragraph responses to the assigned readings. The first ones will be for "The White Bird" and the Jerry Saltz article from Vulture.com. 

Small Works - tag for posts documenting all assigned small works. The first blog post labeled Small Works will contain images and accompanying descriptions of the three small works you complete for the Creative Impulse Module (Topic #1). 

In-Depth Projects - tag for posts documenting all assigned In-Depth projects. The first blog post labeled In-Depth Projects will contain images (or video if appropriate) and accompanying descriptions of the more robust work you produce in response to the Creative Impulse Module (Topic #1).

Outside Visits - tag for posts containing your two paragraph responses to all required visits outside of the classroom. These include visits we do together as a class [during class time] or individually outside of class time. 

Please be sure to use both a topical and categorical keyword when labeling your posts.