Critical Summaries

Meet the Curator: JoAnne Northrup on Leo Villareal: Animating Light

JoAnne Northrup's lecture was an informative and personal account of the evolution of Leo Villareal's art exhibition.  Originally inspired by Burning Man, Villareal created his first light sculpture as a simple tool to help him navigate back to his camp during the night.  His conceptual and technical process would continue to progress, but not after giving much thought to his educational history.  A Yale grad, Villareal loved studying computer technology and medieval art.  While interning at the Guggenheim Museum in Italy, Villareal discovered light as art for the first time.  These experiences combined with Burning Man inspired Villareal and he quickly began creating with the comfort of receiving little acknowledgement.  Burning Man became an experimental laboratory for Villareal, and although he did not consider his first creations art, after time his intent behind his pieces evolved and the art within the sculptures became obvious.

Villareal’s initial pieces were very basic in that they were simple turn off and on pieces.  Eventually, Villareal began playing with dimming and then layering.  The core of his work is about codes and sequencing manifested through light.  The end surface result is a very painterly and immersive creation that seems to envelop the body.  As a consequence of manipulating light, comes a manipulation of emotion.   It is impossible to not feel the atmospheric and personal quality in any of his pieces, especially those with emotional intent.  In his piece, Primordial, Villareal is expressing his and his wife’s personal experience with in vitro fertilization.  This instillation is about having a relationship to the body, imagining cells and the beginning of life.  In another example, Amanecer, presents the illusion of moving clouds while a sunset peers in to brighten the space and claim the viewer, much like the sun.  In conclusion, Northrup's lecture was eloquent and timely as she revealed the mystery behind the captivating art.

        

Ben Hoffman: The Cartesian Medium

            Ben Hoffman’s exhibition at the Nevada Museum of Art was both a striking portrayal of nature as well as the end result of a lengthy and technical conceptual process.  The perfection that Hoffman was able to reach with his art through mathematics and digital software was stunning.  The pure symmetry found within every detail was soothing to the eye while the vibrancy of saturated color was seducing and captivating.  His use of mathematical equations layered within the composition added texture and rhythm increasing the interest for the viewer. 

With his art, Hoffman was able to accomplish a reintroduction to some of the most common and simple objects found within nature.  His approach journeyed deep within the mathematical DNA exposing the structural building blocks. The digital recreation enabled the given objects to shine in all of their glory.  The choice of scale for the pieces was of utmost importance.  Prior to his exhibition at the NMA, Hoffman exhibited these same pieces on a smaller scale at a local pub.  While the concept is enough to grab ones attention, the scale did not do justice to the imagery.  Showing them on a large scale really allows the pieces to demand respect and attention. 

            One of the most handsome pieces in the exhibition was the portrait of a pine cone called Cathedral.  This piece stood out as being very peaceful, grandiose, and enchanting.  Hoffman's choice of use for the color black as the negative space added to the complexity of the piece creating an infinite illusion within the depths of the pine cone.  The mathematical equations were placed next to the image in the same golden brown tones of the cone reading like a poem.  The use of light created soft movement across the composition seeming to disappear off the page.  Overall, this exhibition was smart and sophisticated, establishing Hoffman's place in the art world.

Ben Hoffman's work can be found at http://cartesianmedium.com/CM/Home.html

maria elena buszek

"Personal, Political, Popular: Contemporary Feminist Art, Music, and Scholarship"

 

tracy and the plastics (2004) 

  

The lecture given by Dr. Maria Elena Buzek was an entertaining but sometimes incomprehensible depiction of feminism within art history.  For the entirety of the lecture, Buzek chose to read from an essay she wrote specifically for the lecture.  Although she read with enthusiasm, the fast pace and wordy account of her research was only sporadically interrupted by coherent summarizations and examples by video.   If she had only chosen to speak to the audience, her message would have been clarified beyond the following summarization:  

            Buzek prides herself on experiencing art through the eyes of the artist rather than through the words of a page, discovering new layers of significance to popular feminist art.  Her initial inspiration came from music history, working as a young woman in a record store.  It was there that she discovered the written work of Lester Bangs who brought to light new parallels between cultural movements and the arts as well as a unique critical style of writing.   Discovering her voice, Buzek was able to begin verbalizing her observations of pop culture being a young persons game, temporary and oversexed.  Women's liberation was meant to unify and yet there was an obvious dissection between the selectively picked and airbrushed women rejecting feminism vs. artists like Tracy and the Plastics, Peaches and Le Tigre, to name a few. 

 These women are feminist artists whose technologically advanced works of digital art are layered with captivating, thoughtful and sometimes humorous messages.  Tracy and the Plastics for instance, chooses a hierarchy destroying approach, leaving the audience to consider if they are the audience or a part of the show and whether or not the person on stage is more real than the video behind her.  This technique of breaking down structure occurs with such charm that the realization of disintegration is an after thought.  Furthermore, the technicalities of the show push contemporary art to the next level, making a clear statement about the capabilities of women. 

The work of Buzek is important, interesting and complex.  Her research highlights the best of what is happening today while re-emphasizing the work of yesterday.  If only her lecture style was appropriated to the audience would the message have that much more of an impact, leaving the afterthought, that her books must be great.