Art 413: Contemporary Art Spring 2021

     On April 12, 2021, Valerie Green gave an artist lecture about her recent photographic work at Cal State Fullerton. Green recounted her reasoning for creating the series’ and showcased her favorite pieces. Green’s most recent work is a detailed look at places where most people would not normally expect to find beauty. Her work can be described as  conceptual, as well as situational, because it is abstract, and uses pure color and shape combined with a situation to become meaningful. It discusses many things that have to do with the human condition, and daily life in a very existential way; why we have what we have, the fact that we overlook so many things in our lives, and the nature of time and how it changes things. Green showed the series “Look Up,” (2014) in which she took the plastic screen protector from a phone, stuck it on her moonroof, and photographed it over time. Each photo shows a different sky, different pieces of moisture or debris on the gl...

                                        When thinking about what the biggest influence people’s life is, most would respond that is the type of entertainment they consume daily. These can be the tv shows we watch, the food we eat, and the clothes we buy. Video games are another type of media that people consume daily and that greatly influences their life, and sometimes even more than the ones listed above. What would if we used these daily forms of consumption to bring up social and global issues? Well, Mel Chin and Michael Ray Charles, two artists featured on the PBS show called Art21 made pieces based on this idea of critical consumption. Chin created a video game and installation called the “KNOWMAD” (2000). Chin’s artist website, melchin.org, described the work as, “… a game to play while paying homage to the tribal world and the forces of popular culture.”. The p...

Shaun Leonardo poses for 40 seconds before his lecture Shaun Leonardo: From Seeing to Witnessing | PLATFORM Event #4, February 11. 2021   He started his Zoom lecture at CSUF by going off-script, as good storytellers often do. Leonardo asked his audience to gather information from a pose he struck. He stressed that the pose should be observed, not interpreted. He crossed his arms and turned his gaze upwards as he leaned onto the table. Afterwards, he explained that there was value in his pose, but the meaning could be different for the actor compared to the observer. Regardless of the intended meaning of the gesture, the audience will attribute meaning to it according to their own lived experience. Our perception of things is never pure; we bring our personal past with us.  Leonardo at Assembly workshop https://www.recessart.org/assembly/      Shaun Leonardo structures his artwork around storytelling and what he calls “embodiment,” a way to process and communicat...

Nightmare - 2001     Mark Steven Greenfield (http://www.markstevengreenfield.com/) is a visual artist whose work is highly influenced by his experiences as a black man in America. In a recent lecture at CSU Fullerton (found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVlz9NGNXco), he provided some insights on his life and how his experiences with American culture have influenced the conversations he is provoking through his art. As a black man he is familiar with the unique hardships faced by African Americans, and growing up in LA during the height of the civil rights movement made him deeply politicized. He saw how the image of black people had been historically appropriated and twisted by American media into an ignorant and shameful stereotype.       His work is steeped in modern black culture while confronting head on the ways in which black people were historically belittled by US popular culture. One of his series appropriated vintage photographs of whi...

          Experimental photographer Valerie Green’s inspiration for her 2014 exhibition came from an act of love in the age of tech. Her boyfriend gave her the honor of peeling the protective film off his brand new iPhone 4s. It was when she idly stuck the film onto the moonroof of her car that she found the subject for her work, Look Up (2014).   This gesture, giving away the satisfying sensation of christening an expensive smartphone, led to Green’s creation of a photo series that addresses our physical relationship with technology.           Green shows the viewer scenes of the fickle Los Angeles sky through several filters:  her moonroof, the iPhone protective film, and her camera lens. She uses the protective film’s ghostly outline to gently juxtapose technology with nature. The image also reminds the viewer of the barrier that personal technology and mobile devices can create between us and the physical world. ...

  There is not material that is a match for Elisa Ortega Montilla, a Spanish multi-medium artist based in Santa Barbara. Initially working as a social worker, Montilla found herself becoming more and more invested in her art career and began exploring a variety of mediums. In her artist lecture at California State University, Fullerton, she explained her ethical approach to materials. This outlook is inspired by her mother and grandmother, who used repurposed materials to create costumes, clothes, and other everyday items. What we may simply see as 

            Shaun Leonardo, a Brooklyn-based artist from Queens, discusses societal expectations of manhood, particularly around minority groups, in his work. In his virtual presentation to the students of Sacramento State, San Diego University, and SJSU, he opens up about a program at the core of his practice: Assembly--a diversion program for court-involved youth. In this space, Leonardo became, “invested in the possibilities of storytelling that are embodied rather than told.” The artist believes that when stories are channelled and translated through the body, it offers “a different kind of truth.”  Shaun Leonardo’s “frozen silent gesture” Leonardo demonstrates this belief by starting off his presentation with a “frozen silent gesture.” He asks the audience to study his pose without “leak[ing] into interpretation of the image.” The audience should only describe what they saw. He ends this exercise by saying that the ways that we see are nev...