Art 413: Contemporary Art Spring 2021

  Meet Miwa! Animator. Designer. Performer. by Amber Taylor on May 13 Miwa Matreyek is an artist based in Los Angeles. She is known for her diverse background in art, acting as an animator, designer, and performer. While a student at the California Institute of the Arts she indulged herself into many art programs. She first studied art where she made collages, a medium which she would later incorporate into her work. Matreyek’s studies in  animation  led her to her first performance, a film called Ocean Flight produced in 2005. This film, which marks the beginning of her professional career in the field,  and combined pre-made elements with live performances from people acting throughout the show with animations playing in the background.The film used all sorts of illusions and was a theatrical experience. Matreyek’s work has been showcased in museums, film festivals and many universities. THIS WEEK’S TOP ARTIST          ...

  Through her work, Philadelphia-born artist Howardena Pindell brings awareness to racial injustice towards black women in America. Growing up, Pindell often experienced microaggressions and racism from white individuals. Pindell’s art expresses her political affiliation, while also bringing awareness to issues such as sexism, war, and homelessnes.  During a Zoom interview with Howardena Pindell, curator Valerie Cassel Oliver asks Pindell about her childhood, her artwork, and her legacy as a successful African American artist.  Oliver starts by asking Pindell, “What was the moment you decided you wanted to become an artist?” Pindell believes her artistic success developed over a series of events. Her parents had repeatedly told her how talented she was and put her in art school at 8 years old, where she was the only black student attending. Many of the white teachers, however, discouraged her from pursuing art. Some parents were so outraged by the idea of their children b...

  Maya Lin, Ecliptic, 2001, Concret  Maya Lin: More Than Just a Monument April 19, 2021, Anissa Quankep      Maya Lin participated in an Art21 documentary giving us a closer look into her work. Art21 allowed us to be part of the artistic process of Eliptical, an urban park in Grand Rapids Michigan. Eliptical was a made in 2 001 and is a refurbished ice rink made from the park. Lin is best known for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a project that she designed in her early twenties. Since then she has fallen into the category of a "monument artist," a label she dislikes. During her Art21 interview Identity , Lin states ". . .had I not done the Vietnam memorial. . .I would be called an artist five years sooner. But because I had done the Vietnam Memorial, it was like "Oh you make monuments," or whatever that means." Lin is a contemporary artist who practices art through architecture, making it harder for galleries and museums to showcase her work. Robert...

  Art 413 Taking Back the Power Works of Mark Steven Greenfield By Vince Velasco Untitled ,  2000. Serigraph  Mark Steven Greenfield is an American artist who focuses on the sensitive topic of black experience in the US. His work explores racial discrimination historically, through media and culture The artist sparks the important discussion of racial discrimination by using the provocative imagery of blackface. He appropriates this problematic part of American history and superimposes the black face imagery with an eye chart containing a witty phrase. The addition of the eye exam chart was a clever way of telling the audience to re-examine their views. Greenfield takes the power away from the racist image by spotlighting its original discriminatory meaning  in a way that its racist content may be discussed and forces the audience to reflect upon the history of discrimination in the US.   In his zoom lecture in CSUF , Greenfield mentioned that nowadays, th...

Why Does Howardena Pindell’s Artwork Speak so Loud?  by Seth Houston “Valerie Cassel Oliver in conversation with Howardena Pindell”: organized by the Platform Spring 2021 Speaker Series, Howardena Pindell describes her journey to becoming an accomplished and respected Black artist in a racist and sexist art world. She recalls the scene of the 60’s in which white male artists flooded the field: They were the rule, the exceptions being that “occasionally a white female artist who was the wife, child, or lover of a white male artist” would be shown.        The exclusion of people of color in the art world is far from the only reason that Pindell’s art is centered on her advocacy. She was the only admitted black student at Boston University in her year. Witnessing the prevailing racist environment within her school, and segregational norms in museums. The artist describes the institutional roadblocks that were placed in front of her, but because she ...

Wrestling trauma through “Dream Vessels,” aka photographs.   by Anna Silverstein April 1, 2021 Virtual Reality (2017) Leonard Suryajaya is an artist who lacks concern for performative elitism, winning me over with his authenticity during a live Zoom talk he led at CSUF. Due to the level of sophistication of his work, I was surprised by his approachability and down-to-earth demeanor. Although Suryajaya considers himself a photographer, his process could be seen as theatrical performance. Suryajaya’s theatre background not only gives him set design skills, allowing him to create amazing installations and photographs, but also, his Zoom presentation was inadvertently a captivating and moving performance of its own. The talk was marked with refreshing candor, and relatable trauma “over-sharing”.   The juxtaposition of Suryajaya’s incriminating honesty with the hyper sophistication of his work is one of the artist’s many dichotomies. As an eternal outsider on a quest to fit in, th...