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DEPARTMENT OF ART AND ART PROFESSIONS
LINKS
SUNAIRI SUPER BLOG ARCHIVE
SUNAIRI SUPER LINK
- Aakash Nihalani
- aakash nihalani and his work site
- Aakash Nihalani projects
- Aakshi Nihalani Frost Free
- Ashley Martin
- Brent hallard
- center for urban pedagogy
- Emily Coxe in her own words
- Hrag Vartanian - A blog of art, culture, photography, writing and ideas.
- ISABELLE PHILIPPE and JULIA BURLINGHAM's films
- Lindsay Aikman
- Lindsay Aikman retouching portfolio
- Matthew Valia Photography
- ON EX-TIBET
- ON SATO SAN
- Pixel Pour (By Kelly Goeller)
- Pixel Pour by Kelly Goeller
- Pixel Pour by Kelly Goeller by 53TABS
- Re:Public, Masters of the Ephemeral - Aakash Nihalani
- Timur Civan Cinematography Reel 2008
22 comments:
Yeah...so this was about self sustenance and such. I grew up on milk because my grandparents had cows. Although I have never milked one I have seen it numerous of times.
this work seemed like it really broke you out of your shell, though you were still visibly self conscious of what you were doing - not fully ingrained in your performance. i guess that's my only real criticism - that i didn't see complete devotion to what was otherwise a really sick, but brilliant piece. i also have to question why you chose to do it in the back, where we could barely see what you were doing. perhaps this was intentional, but it mostly seemed like a need to create a sense of privacy for yourself, which didn't particularly add to the piece for me.
very prescient in light of all the problems farmers of the world are facing right now.
and a nice commentary.
fun to watch too.
the milk looks quite beautiful on the black floor.
I was also wondering if the milk dripped on the floor was intentional. If it was, and I think I should respect all accidents as the intention of the artist, so it poetically left slightly sexual and nostalgic drawing on the floor as we all experienced milk spill on the floor from our childhood.
Irina as she was slightly stubborn at believing art can only come from heavy training of skills, she has come a long way and even excited about breaking away from that conception. I remember she was one of the few insisting on getting more assignments and she was glowing as she was looking forward to doing something ambitiously naughty.
In a slight sense, I saw Irina's comfort in this new found medium of experimentation when she looked up from drinking the milk, as she was a little baby with milk drips around her mouth.
The material, milk is such a loaded and in some ways warming material. Since it comes from all of our childhood without conscious memory....meaning we do not remember sucking our mother's nipple, drinking, and enjoying the taste of our mother's milk, right?
So, the material of milk is a plateau of nostalgia without concrete vision.
But, Irina's giving milk at the same time drinking milk, what is that about? Is that a statement about self-sufficiency?
Hiroshi, it is about self sustenance. The spill was completely unintentional, in fact it was the reason why i presneted in the back, because i punctured one of the "teats" and it spilled everywhere. I still strongly believe in what I said in the beginning of the year. My project justified that belief because it takes a long time to make this udder. It wouldn't make sense if someone else made it.
what would the difference for the audience be if someone else made it? i would've had the same reponse to the piece regardless of the props maker, which is essentially wheat the "udder" was - a prop. it functioned to serve the idea of the piece, which is what you should take pride in as the artist, not the fabrication, unless the fabrication is what the piece is about. i've worked for many artists where i've helped to fabricate their work. that doesn't make the work mine. the idea is theirs and i simply helped carry that idea out to completion.
see I just find that completely unacceptable. I've worked for a woman, embroidering a life size door for her, and I realized that it was bullshit that she had someone else do it for her. An artist should put their own sweat into their work...otherwise anyone else would be able to do it.
donald judd had most of his works made by other people - are all his works bullshit then? i don't think it matters who made it either because it was a performance piece and it was the action that we were all interpreting, not the physicality of the udder. also i really hoped it wasn't behind that back wall because it was really hard to see anything - but since you had an accident i guess that's ok. but it would've been great if you came out to the open space with the broken udder spilling milk everywhere and started afterwards (probably not your intention, but performance piece can be always improvised, which is one of its advantages). but on the other hand it really did seem like you broke out of your shell, like quinn said, and i was happy to see that. it kind of made me feel like you have finally accepted contemporary art on some level (because in the beginning of the semester i got this feeling that you were really against it). and i think the best part was when milk kept splashing on hiroshi's pants. i also liked it when you drank it.
i also wished it wasn't performed in the back becauss i had a really hard time seeing the work. i think it must have been a very different type of work for her beacuse i remember she was very focused on artists' skill with drawing or painting(traditional art works).so i liked how she tried something different.i think this piece expressed her idea about self sustenance very well.
Irina I admire your stubbornness, I think that if you feel as if you need to produce and create every material of your presentation that should be considered an important quality of your work and its conception, however I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss others work for their enlistment of outside help/materials as that can be just as important or necessary for their work to be made.
Unfortunately I missed the bulk of the performance, not due to the location, which I didn’t mind (the cramped location created a tighter vacuum of space, which I thought played well with her concept of self-sustenance. I think control of the smaller area seemed much more manageable for her reserved and almost meek performance.) I thought the idea was weird, but I like weird. I love the red-face of relief she held on the fourth photo. With milk dripping off her chin and the puddle formed between her thighs its not hard to read the piece in the sexual light that Hiroshi pointed out earlier. Overall it felt as if things were pleasurably falling out of balance during the performance and that she came to enjoy wearing the spilled milk.
-Brenden
The first project you did with the needle point when we asked you to wear your mask, you were very timid and unable to have everyone look at you. However this piece you proved that it is much more interesting when you put yourself into the project. Much more successful... it was hilarious and poetic and your little outfit and performance enabled you to be one with nature and the cow. agreed with sam, the black floor as a contrast was a nice touch.
I missed this piece entirely because i was doing my performance at the time, but I really love the way it looks. If i had seen this, I think my favorite part would have been the spilled milk on the black floor. I also really love the simple message of self-sustenance, feeding yourself with yourself. Its sick and poetic simultaneously, almost purifying.
I feel think Irina likes to work with some kind of liquid medium? Anyways, I loved it!! The best part of this piece was when Irina drank the milk from the bucket!! It seemed like as you drink milk, the more milk came out from the rubber-made thing!!
Previous project, she also drank all the colored drinks and that was the best part of it too!!
Oh that's funny, I grew up on milk because I went to the store.
Irina's one of the old fashioned farts then, yeah? Well in that case, I'm going to have to say that the udder was pretty badly made; it doesn't matter if you made it or how long it took, it still sucked. And besides, as Quinn said, concentrating on 'who made what' would make this more about the props used, rather than the performance. In your case, I don't think your belief is in 'skills' (as evident in the udder that apparently took you a long time, and the.....mask....at the beginning of the semester), but in 'ownership'. We can go there if you want; then I demand that you actually make your own milk! Go get babies and start lactating; once you collect all that milk, try this project again.
See?
Anyway, I also think you shouldn't have hid in the back. Why were you there? Hiding again? I mean, the whole class was climbing the walls to see you, literally. (Sam towered over us -- as if he doesn't already -- by standing on the ledge with the lockers.) If you were worried about not being able to move once the udder started leaking milk, I think it was unnecessary; you had quite a lot of milk in it, and I think a few seconds of running to the front of the room wouldn't have destroyed your performance. But on the other hand, the tiny area might have been what you were aiming for. Cramped hall = stall in a barn? Maybe.
What did really affect your performance was your shyness and your inability to tune others out. You were too conscious of the others, and blushed something fierce during the whole thing. You also kept laughing self-deprecatingly and looking around at us. I'm really glad you took a giant step from the mask situation (where it took you about one class and an hour to work up the courage to wear a mask) to doing something so horrific/bold/AWESOME, but it was disappointing to see it be affected like that. I think this performance would have been a really great one if you weren't trying to hide the udder from us. Isn't that the whole point? For us to see you milk yourself and drink it?
Though kudos on pouring milk all over yourself in your eagerness to drink it (eagerness to drink it, or eagerness to get through this project quickly?).
Despite all my harsh words, I'm glad you chose to do this. It really surprised me to see you doing something so out there. The whole idea of self sustenance is great too; recycle that milk, man.
i was quite happy to see you perform. you seem to be very introverted and witnessing such a lighthearted yet bold performance piece made me really happy to see a change.
for those wondering, the udder was starting to break, and that's why irina had to complete the performance in the back. i understand that bc of the accidental leakage and breakage you had to panic and start milking yourself frantically. i enjoyed this quite a lot and don't mind that things hadn't gone as you'd expected.
the work is quite feminist too. there's a sort of cyclical gesture of nurturing and self-sustaining in this act that is quite female. it's definitely a gender-typed performance, especially since the act of milking was so empowering. and yet that act seemed quite sexual in ways that was highlighted by your giddiness throughout. milk became more than just milk. excuse my vulgarity, there's a sense of you controlling what "fluids" come out of you, and conversely what fluids you consumed. there's a reversal of male-female roles that's interesting. the udder is super sexual to me - for obvious reasons.
to keep on this discussion of the integrity of making your own work. if an artist doesn't physically fabricate every component of an artwork that's ok. BUT-that's a big but. But if this act takes away from the aesthetic voice of the artist, then this is BAD. if commissioning parts of your work will take away from the piece in ways that is detrimental to its value/meaning, then obviously this should be avoided by all means.
if you had taken a pre-made udder for the performance, our reading of the piece would not have been compromised. we can still read into it, and understand it. a hand-made udder doesn't make us appreciate it more necessarily. it can make the viewer appreciate your handicraft, but not necessarily the performance as an art piece.
i'd love to see you do more performance pieces. =)
annie cho.
annie cho.
The boldness of this project was a pleasant surprise as many have said before. The urgentness and frantic nature of the performance made it uncomfortable to watch, but I have to think that the whole performance is made to make the viewer uncomfortable. It was strangely intimate and grotesque, but also slightly sexual as some have said before. The idea of self-sustaining is really nice, and I think my favorite part of the piece
im really glad you did this performance. i like your concept and all the implications it has. i enjoyed the urgency you had when milking and chugging. found the milk on the black floor to be very pleasing.
I think that you are entitled to your strong feelings of art making. im fine with you applying your beliefs to your own work, however have problems with it when it negates the validity of the work of others that work more conceptually and think differently than you.
nevertheless, this is my favorite thing that you have done in this class and found the performance to be fun and full of rich content
For someone who doesn't like to perform, this was a pretty ballsey move. That is so great. I think this is much like Quinn's piece in that it glorifies the functions of our bodies. It is also interesting that you presented yourself as an animal. Because that is what we are, and we do the same things (with milk at least).
Definitely - for someone who doesn't (from what I understand) normally do performances, to jump right in and do something that involved the body in such a way, especially in light of your timidness with the embroidered mask (as has been pointed out), was a nice surprise. And I guess there's definitely something that links you doing a performance about self sustenance, where you make and consume your own milk and your ideas about artistic production
I think coneptually (even though you hate conceptual shit) the piece had a lot of interesting points/merit to it. The construction of the udders had a few faults (i.e. sylvia's remarks) if you are so into craft it shouldnt have broken in the first place?
but my main beef with the performance piece is that you have to remember that it is a PERFORMANCE. That means that although the thought and concept behind it maybe strong, the investment in actually carrying it out needs to be just as intense. This seems harsh but i really don't see that much of an improvement from the "mask" performance from earlier in the year. yes you did it without hesitation but that because you planned for this all along (as i remember you weren't "planning" to put on the mask) that aspect of it was still very weak and took away from the other aspects (concept, craft). It's like watching a movie, doesn't matter how good the script is, a movie will suck with bad acting (i.e. star wars II: attack of the clones)
I like a lot of other people, was really surprised by your performance. It had kind of a creepy/Mike Kelley-ish sort of feel. I know you have talked a little bit in class about what your idea of "good art" is and i feel like this work kind of strayed from that definition (and I think thats a good thing.)
The photographs contain an element of rawness and the idea of a natural being. The milk on the wood floor looks really beautiful and whilst the idea of acting like a cow is quite off-putting, the performance looks strong and very interesting.
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