Abstract/Modern art appreciation: HELP?
Check out Italian Futurism, especially Boccioni, Carra, & Severini. Also read the Futurist Manifesto by F.T. Marinetti. The Italian Futurists are interesting as an art phenomenon for several reasons. Reading Marinetti's manifesto, you see their concerns, namely the reproduction of the speed of changes at the turn of the century; their work captures the sense of movement, the feeling of the breathlessness of the modern pace of life. An even more interesting facet of their work is its sinister political implications: The Futurists were instrumental in providing support for Mussolini and his burgeoning Fascist movement. It is one of the few times in history--perhaps the only time--when art has anticipated, influenced, and catalyzed a political movement. This is not to lay responsibility for Fascism at the Futurists' feet, but their anticipation of it and support for it cannot be denied. A similar movement, also right-wing in flavour, was the English Vorticist movement of Wyndham Lewis. Reading the Futurist manifesto, one sees in embryo the ides that would later crystallize into Fascism. A German modern artist, George Grosz, correctly gauged the relationship between the two movements. Grosz is another modern artist worth checking out, his corrosive canvasses a document of the Weimar Republic, a "society without a soul."
What influenced surrealism?
This is a flippant answer, but…everything.Surrealist art references just about everything you could possibly imagine: love, sex, religion, war, food, murder, industry, dreams, reality, everything and nothing at all. That’s the entire point of surrealism. It’s not like Realism, that is supposed to imitate real life. Surrealism draws both from real life and the imagination, which leaves it literally limitless. If you extend Surrealism to its sister movement, Dada, it even goes beyond the limits of what art is even defined as. Each surrealist artist created art about whatever they wanted. A few examples:Salvador Dali, The Temptation of Saint Anthony: a religious themeMax Ernst, Oedipus Rex: a psychosexual theme which also includes autobiographical elementsRene Magritte, Not to be Reproduced: a statement on identity and actually a commissioned portraitFrida Kahlo, The Wounded Deer: an autobiographical and mythological self-portrait. Kahlo was considered to be a surrealist by the European Surrealist movement, but never declared herself as one.The thing with Surrealism and Dada was that, unlike earlier artistic movements, there was no one style or medium that defined it. It could be, and was, everything and anything at all.
Why did you choose to be an artist?
For me it was less of a choice, but more like an "inner drive" that "once discovered" couldn't be stopped... ...I'm not exactly sure how it started in my case, but I think it was playing lincoln logs, building blocks, drawing with chalk on a "blackboard" (after getting in trouble for drawing with crayons on the wall). Then I got a blob of "Play Dough" modeling clay... ...I could keep myself occupied for hours with that....but it wasn't until I watched my mother painting a small Autumn scene with water colors on a scrap of poster board that I was hooked... ...(oddly, I never saw my mother paint anything else in her life before or after that, not sure why)... ...My older sister had learned enough "drawing" skills in an art class to teach me how to break-up images into basic shapes that were easy to replicate, then refine the shapes into the same things by adding details... ....After that I couldn't stop, I guess I could have gotten discouraged many times looking at the work of more accomplished artists, but considering I wasn't "born knowing how to draw anything" I figured it was like anything else... .. we "learn from observation, trial and error, and practice"... ...none of us ever "stop learning" anything... ...I'm 57 now, I had a long career as a "technical Illustrator" and at age 40 decided to go back to college and learn computer graphics... ...I rediscovered my love for sculpture and learned 3D modeling and animation.... ...today I'm using "Blender" (it's free from Blender.org), to create 3D illustrations and animated shorts.... ....When I was a teen I remember wishing I had an unlimited supply of art materials... ...Now I have a whole Art Supply store in a box called a personal computer... ...imagine that!!
What is the purpose of performance art?
The foremost purpose of performance art has almost always been to challenge the conventions of traditional forms of visual art such as painting and sculpture. When these modes no longer seem to answer artists' needs - when they seem too conservative, or too enmeshed in the traditional art world and too distant from ordinary people - artists have often turned to performance in order to find new audiences and test new ideas.Performance art borrows styles and ideas from other forms of art, or sometimes from other forms of activity not associated with art, like ritual, or work-like tasks. If cabaret and vaudeville inspired aspects of Dada performance, this reflects Dada's desire to embrace popular art forms and mass cultural modes of address. More recently, performance artists have borrowed from dance, and even sport.The focus on the body in so much Performance art has sometimes been seen as a consequence of the abandonment of conventional mediums. Some saw this as a liberation, part of the period's expansion of materials and media. Others wondered if it reflected a more fundamental crisis in the institution of art itself, a sign that art was exhausting its resources.Colleges which are doing good in performing arts:Loyola College, ChennaiChrist University, BangaloreLovely Professional University, PunjabSt. Teresa's College, Kochi