Brian Jungen

Variant I, 2002. Nike Air Jordans. 52"x45"


Prototype for New Understanding #16, 2004. Nike Air Jordans and human hair. 22 1/2" x 12" x 18"


Prototype for New Understanding #23. 2005. Nike Air Jordans. 18 1/2" x 20 1/2: x 5 7/8"


Prototype for New Understanding #14. 2003. Nike Air Jordans and human hair. 25"x14"x12"

Brian Jungen is a Canadian born artist (Vancouver) and based out of Montreal, Canada. Born in 170, he graduated college in 1992 from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. He is Swiss, Canadian, and Dunne-za First Nations (aboriginal Canadian). He draws much of his inspiration from his own cultural heritage. His work revolves around the ideas and concepts of "found art" and its manipulation into, but not complete transformations (i.e. not completely changing its meaning). He is most recognized for his work with Nike Air Jordan Shoes (Prototypes of New Understanding) and recreates the shoes into aboriginal masks that evoke certain cultural meanings and implying their corruptions as well. The color pallet that he chooses for these shoes in specific (Red and Black) are colors that are traditional colors of the First Nations people. While he creates these sculptures of capitalist artifacts, there's still a direct correlation with the ideals of the cultural artifact of his people. Jungen has been exhibited throughout Canada, has shown at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and the Tate Modern in London.

I have chosen to talk about Brian Jungen because of the influences of Heide in my studio practice. Although, I am uncertain about aspects of the work and the direction is could go in, I do feel she has a very valid point. She feels that my work throughout my graduate career has been good technically and visually, yet conceptually lacking and I've also been lacking on the vocal part of my presentation. She feels that it would be best to really figure out what it is that motivates me, and we found the top two, the first is Photography, I am wholeheartedly dedicated to this artistic medium and will continue to pursue it in all of my endeavors. And the second is sports. I have been a huge sports fan throughout my life and have extensive knowledge on many topics in the sports world both past and present. So I am experimenting with the ready made and ideas surrounding sports, the ready made, its idolization, and its cultural significance and repercussions in our society and its effects on people.

Quotes

"Jungen's masks don't really have that much in common with the sacred objects that they're riffing on. It's hard to imagine a Haida dancer, circa 1800, recognizing them as anything he could ever use. Instead, they seem only to satisfy crude Western cliches of what native art looks like and means." - Blake Copnik (Washington Post)

"The Nike mask sculptures seemed to articulate a paradoxical relationship between a consumerist artefact and an 'authentic' native artifact." - Brian Jungen

Gallery
Interview (audio)
Website (no official website)

6 Books

Works Cited

Augaitis, Daina. Brian Jungen. Berkeley, CA: Douglas & McIntyre, 2005. Print.

Brian Jungen's book is proving to be a very handing thing to be carrying around. I truly have been getting inspired by his Air Jordan mask work. The attention to detail, the awe inspiring forms and faces that he creates out of this ready made material has been helping my creative intuition return to normal after a slow uninspired start. I have been working with sculptural ideas with my studio practice, everything from dissecting a skateboard, to the breaking down of bicycle parts into geometric forms and removing the parts from its original context, to possibly creating football, hockey, and baseball inspired forms and photographs. The sculptural ideas are to be photographed of course and presented as a print.

Bedford, Christopher. Mixed signals artists consider masculinity in sports. New York: Independent Curators International, 2009. Print.

This is a book that explores the ideas and concepts of sports, masculinity, ritual male behavior, and there's even a feminist critique of the male dominated sports and iconography that goes hand in hand with our Western culture and its impacts on global sporting events. The book covers many artists that deal with these issues and goes in depth about them, which then reveal certain aspects of the male dominated sports world and the homophobic and even homosexual tendencies in which modern day sports thrive upon.

Chua, Lawrence. Paul Pfeiffer. Actar; 1st edition. 2009. Print.

Paul Pfeiffer, Photographer and Video artist, has just recently come to my attention due to his upcoming lecture here at VCU, in which I will be attending. I like how he explores the Sports world and arena as a form of public theatre. His series "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" are taken from the National Basketball Association archives, where he then removes all insignia, corporate branding, other players, and team affiliation and has raised one nondescript player onto this pedestal of greatness and stardom and celebrity. He removes the context and narrative from the image (a thing that a photojournalist covering sports would never do) and relies on the kinetic bodies of these athletes untethered to the context of the game.

Herrera, Arturo. Arturo Herrera. Birmingham: Ikon, Distributed by Cornerhouse Publications, 2007. Print.

Painters are always a harder artist to find in relation to my work, but I really enjoy the works of Arturo Herrera. He at times can be very minimal like in his painting "Lomo" (2006), but also and mainly it seems relies on a sort of gestural approach to his paintings and collages and uses old news paper clippings as a backdrop for the vivid color scheme that is implemented into his work. At times his work reminds me of a mix of calligraphy, drawing, and almost juvenile line work. The mixed media pieces are my favorites by far for their bright colors, graffiti-esque style and at times almost propaganda looking aesthetic. That combination seems to be drawing my attention as of now for its blatant DIY aesthetic.

Kingston, Maxine Hong. Woman warrior memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts. New York: Vintage International, 1989. Print.

I have selected this novel for a certain amount of reasons. First it has great attention to detail in its description of Kingston and Brave Orchid and their stories and tales of legend. I also enjoy the memory recall in this story, it's so vivid and passionate it really challenges me to delve into my past and my roots to try ad figure out what the common "vehicle" is in my art practice, which at times seems to allude me and my ability to expand on certain aspects of my work.

Marchand, Sandra Grant. Jerome Fortin. Geneva: Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal, 2007. Print.

Jerome Fortin is an artist I found on a whim, but his art is very interesting to me. He creates thousands of mini triangles from maps, graphic novels, comic books, and minimal color fields and spaces. The re-contextualizing of these images and creation of an entirely new and massive art piece. The scale, size, and detail of these images are motivating me to create and re-contextualize my own passions of sports in life, and I hopefully will.

Sports Related Art

Matthew Barney. Cremaster 4, 1994. Digital-image production still. 35mm film.

Sports Related Art

Ready-Made

"Football players are simple folk. Whatever complexities, whatever dark politics of the human mind, the heart -- there are noted only within the chalked borders of the playing field. At times strange visions ripple across that turf; madness leaks out. But wherever else he goes, the football player travels the straightest of lines. His thoughts are wholesomely commonplace, his actions uncomplicated by history, enigma, holocaust or dream." -Don Delillo

Delillo, Don. End Zone. New York: Penguin Books, 1986. Print.

"...variously re-presented athletic imagery, revealing that the male athlete is a far more ambiguous, polyvalent figure in our collective cultural imagination than may be commonly recognized." - Judith Olch Richards

Bedford, Christopher. Mixed signals artists consider masculinity in sports. New York: Independent Curators International, 2009. Print.

This book deals with the ideas of masculinity in sports and the gender roles our society present to athletes of all ages and the pressures and stigmas that go along with their right of passage through the hierarchy of sports and peer issues. The book deals with a number of topics and artists ranging from the homophobic and violent nature of sports and their cultural studies and identity politics that follow these topics.
My studio work this semester seems to be taking me on an odd journey investigating what it is I really truly understand and am passionate about, sports and photography. I am experimenting with the ready made of sports equipment, which can mean almost an unlimited amount of objects for the taking. My ideas involves either an installation of suspended sports equipment or the dissection of equipment separated and pinned on the wall suggesting an anthropological study of said object(s). I will also be exploring the ideas of iconography and idolization of sports stars and possibly professional stadiums.

Tim Hawkinson

Feather Bike. Feathers.




Emoter. 2002. Altered Ink-Jet Print, Monitor, Stepladder & Mechanical Components. h: 49 x w: 17 x d: 16 in / h: 124.5 x w: 43.2 x d: 40.6 cm


Überorgan. Constructed from cheap, disposable/recyclable materials, nylon net, carboard, plasic bottles, our woven polyethylene Super Poly greenhouse covering, and various mechanical components. Over 14,000 square feet of Super Poly was required to make the Überorgan.

Tim Hawkinson is an American Born artist from San Francisco. Born in 1960, he attended San Jose State University for his undergraduate degree and continued his studies at UCLA and earned his MFA in 1989. His work is primarily Sculptural and his use of scales can rival just about anyone. His works range from the minuscule to stadium sized (Überorgan). His work is often about a few topics in general. The recreation of the self (almost self portraits), music (sound), the persistence of time, and the full engagement of materiality and process. His work has been exhibited Nation and worldwide including the "Venice Biennale (1999), the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, (2000), the Power Plant in Toronto, Canada (2000), the Whitney Biennial (2002), and the 2003 Corcoran Biennial."

I am interested in Tim Hawkinson's work because I am feeling an artist urge to create a more interdisciplinary approach to my art/photography. My work in the past has been to find the perfect photograph, hunting with my eyes rather than my heart and head. By utilizing this ability to create with my own hands and creativity, I Feel that I can break through the artistic criticism of finding, rather than creating a photograph. With this approach and the ability to capitalize on this creative energy and willingness that I feel towards this idea, the conceptual growth of myself will be huge. That is my opinion on the matter.

Quotes

"As an object-maker, Hawkinson routinely employs a make-do-and-mend touch that, while not inherently unappealing, burdens his output with an arbitrary cuteness. His way with commonplace and organic materials is wide-ranging..." - Michael Wilson (Time Out New York)

"One after another of Mr. Hawkinson's sculptures either enlists his own body, or entails a machine that mimics what a human body could do, or is some cockeyed combination of the two." - MICHAEL KIMMELMAN (NY Times)

Read more: http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/art/75959/tim-hawkinson-at-pacewildenstein-art-review#ixzz0f2aIuX8n


Interview
Gallery
Website (no official website)

Alec Soth

What artwork/proposals did you present?

The artwork that I showed Alec Soth the the photographs from my Bike Scene Topographies from last semester. But I also showed him the work that I had been attempting to create where I took apart bicycles and photographed single parts on a black white wall> I also showed him a dissected anthropological look at a skate board, which it seemed he liked the most out of any of the ready made work presented.

What topics did you discuss? What was the nature of this discussion?

The topics discussed were where the photographs could go from where they are. I felt that the photographs should go into a slightly more journalistic way with the use of hand written materials on the photographs as an experiment and to go out and shoot more people, and keep shooting as much as possible.

What were the critical reactions/ suggestions to your ideas/artwork?

A great suggestion from Alec was to re create the aesthetic of photographs of the DIY signage of "Jenny" and "Dig or Die" and make it into a book. Recreate with the electrical tape look with the white bordered and that punk rock look. He also suggested that I shoot some raw video with some of these environments or on a bike ride through some of these spaces or just video of the people that I am focusing on.

What was a suggested plan of action?

The suggested plan was to pretty much continue to follow my instincts in my photography and continue to build the body of work up. Possibly look into other veins of action, like the video or the ready made

What insights / new questions / ideas did you take from the meeting?
How did this meeting affect how you will proceed with your project / proposal?

The insights were the use of the DIY aesthetic with my work, and figuring out ways to incorporate those ideas into a working art piece. He also wanted the use of raw video to create more movement within my imagery. Idea = use that black electrical tape aesthetic with a book or some sort of ready made sign. It makes me want to get into the more nitty gritty of the culture and to reveal it through the photography.

Robert Adams

Robert Adams is a photographer, who was born in 1937 in the industrial town of Orange, New Jersey. His photography came to prominence in the "New Topographics" photographic movement. He's received many fellowships and awards including the Guggenheim fellowship (x2), MacArthur fellowship, and Hasselblad Award.

He became interested in the New North American Landscape by looking at Timothy O'Sullivan and William Henery Jackson. He became included in the New Topographics in the 1970s and "Adams approach to photographing these landscapes was to take a stance of apparent neutrality, refraining from any obvious judgements of the subject matter. His images are titled as documents, to establish his neutral position."

I find that his work is very good to look at in relation to my work. His works are of the American West, primarily of landscapes and cityscapes. Much of his work deals with the progressively changing landscapes of these places and people's influence on land. Much of my work deals with this idea, of how the landscape can represent a type of people, without the use of people.


From the New Topographics












Galleries: Fraenkel Gallery and Matthew Marks Gallery
Review
No official website

The Future in Relation to Topographies and Art

Sarah Trigg, American, Lake Vostok with Two Olympias, 2007, Acrylic on panel, 60 x 40 inches

Future quote:

"Today, mostly what we see of the Earth's surface on a daily basis, and what we process subconsciously, is in the form of digitized imagery, not what we see in its true physical form. By pulling this disparate imagery of the Earth into one view, the paintings project the spiritual and physical tensions between technologized culture and the natural landscape." - Sarah Triggs

Article

What i got, and i feel was needed, was an outside curatorial perspective on work revolving around the notion of topographies and the contemporary landscape and the futures it forecasts for us. Although, my current work isn't as apocalyptic as what is described in this article, I feel that I have done work about this subject before, and since this curatorial review is critiquing the contemporary landscape as viewed by emerging artists my work seems to fit in with these artists. I do feel a lot of the same sentiments with this review of this show, and agree that a lot of emerging artists deal with this problem.

My work seems to deal with the landscape and its relatiship with the people that most frequent it. Although, it seems like i am tryig to define a subculture of people by their space and environs, I don't know if that is possible. I know that this work has been a narrative journey of myself and other people's tracks and residues through the culture and landscape that we inhabit, stumble upon, and share. The bike culture is just a device that allows for this project to exist, it's a common thread that envolopes my life and these topographies. Though, I do not know where I am heading, I know i'll get there and discover something amazing through this project and create something that is so unique and yet so common. Only time, engery, and money can tell where this contemporary landscpape eill take me.