Newman Artist Comparioson Ali and Wodiczko

Laylah Ali and Krzyszto Wodiczko For these artists, you should make sure you have reviewed the DRAWING and INSTALLATION Powerpoints in the ART module on D2L (However, you do have to have completed the quiz).

Begin by reviewing the slides and watching all videos for the two artists. For each artist, please attend to the following when working on your written responses. • Visually describe the artwork(s) (consider all your senses) – refer to the PDF’s under ART to help you with

vocabulary. • Describe the artist’s process. What media (paint, paper, clay, etc.) do they work with. What kind of artist

(painter, sculptor, installation artist) are they? • Describe what inspires the artist. Why do they make art the way they do? • What is your overall impression of the work of the artist? What do you enjoy (and not enjoy) about this

artist, their work and process? Be specific and give examples and please be honest – there will be art & artworks you connect to more than others. But, remember, you don’t have to want to hang the art in your living room to appreciate it – or see its value in society.

• What does it make you think about/remind you of? What themes do you see running through the work? What ties the separate pieces together?

• What statement does the artist and/or their artwork say about society and other big ideas (race, gender, social equality for example).

• Does this remind you of anything from the history portion of the powerpoints? Is there a thread running from something in the past to this work? (For example, paintings of female figures could be traced back to the Renaissance and before). Give specific examples.

• See the next slide for information about the comparison portion of the essay.

Essay instructions continued… • In addition to writing about the artists individually, you need to compare the two. • Laylah Ali and Krzyszto Wodiczko, attend to the following: • Both artists deal with the idea of power and the political in their work. How do

you see this manifested in their work and what are the similarities and differences? • What could the two artists saying about the current culture/society with their

work? Name specific examples. • How would you define the key differences and similarities of the two artists? This

could be thematically or materially. • Your essay can be organized how ever you think is best to cover all of the

information. You cold address each artist individually and then compare them at the end. Or, the comparison/contrast could be worked throughout the entire essay. Regardless, you should have an introductory and conclusion paragraph statement. Let the reader know what they are about to read. If you need help with this, you can visit the writing center on campus or research the structure of the five-paragraph essay.

Laylah Ali

• Laylah Ali was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1968, and lives and works in Williamstown, Massachusetts. She received a BA from Williams College and an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. The precision with which Ali creates her small, figurative, gouache paintings on paper is such that it takes her many months to complete a single work. She meticulously plots out every aspect of her work in advance, from subject matter to choice of color and the brushes that she will use.

https://art21.org/artist/laylah-ali/

Laylah Ali

• In style, her paintings resemble comic-book serials, but they also contain stylistic references to hieroglyphics and American folk-art traditions. Ali often achieves a high level of emotional tension in her work as a result of juxtaposing brightly colored scenes with dark, often violent subject matter that speaks of political resistance, social relationships, and betrayal. Although Ali’s interest in representations of socio-political issues and current events drives her work, her finished paintings rarely reveal specific references.

https://art21.org/artist/laylah-ali/

Laylah ali

• Her most famous and longest-running series of paintings depicts the brown- skinned and gender-neutral Greenheads, while her most recent works include portraits as well as more abstract biomorphic images. Ali endows the characters and scenes in her paintings with everyday attributes like dodge balls, sneakers, and Band- aids, as well as historically- and culturally-loaded items such as nooses, hoods, robes, masks, and military-style uniforms. Her drawings, which she describes as “automatic,” are looser and more playful than the paintings and are often the source of material that she explores more deeply in her paintings.

https://art21.org/artist/laylah-ali/

• Laylah Ali made more than eighty paintings on paper involving strange green-headed beings of indeterminate age, gender, race, and meaning. Over forty of these exquisitely rendered gouache paintings are on view here [ Fall 2013 – Johnson Museum of Art – Cornell University], chronicling the series’ development. While the early paintings frequently focus on physically aggressive exchanges between groups of figures, these interactions are later replaced by individuals—alone or in small groups—who witness the prelude to, or aftermath of, a charged situation. As the series continues, more and more of the figures’ anatomy is pruned away, as if the artist is examining how much detail can be removed—such as arms, feet, skin color—while still communicating thought, emotion, and social status. “The enigmatic situations,” according to Ali, “represent the uncomfortable undertones of mistrust and conflict that often characterize social experience.”

https://museum.cornell.edu/exhibitions/laylah-ali-greenheads-series

Laylah Ali

Please watch the video, and take notes for your written response.

https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s3/laylah-ali-in- power-segment/

Working in extremely detailed paintings that take months to create, Laylah Ali combines cartoon and folkloric aesthetics to explore notions of ethnicity and

social violence. “I think when people say violence, oftentimes, we think of the violent act,” says Ali. “I’m more interested in what happens before and after.”

Krzysztof Wodiczko

• Krzysztof Wodiczko was born in 1943 in Warsaw, Poland, and lives and works in New York and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1980, he has created more than seventy large-scale slide and video projections of politically charged images on architectural façades and monuments worldwide.

• By appropriating public buildings and monuments as backdrops for projections, Wodiczko focuses attention on ways in which architecture and monuments reflect collective memory and history.

http://www.art21.org/artists/krzysztof-wodiczko

Krzysztof Wodiczko • In 1996, he added sound and motion to the projections, and began

to collaborate with communities around chosen projection sites— giving voice to the concerns of heretofore marginalized and silent citizens who live in the monuments’ shadows.

• Projecting images of community members’ hands, faces, or entire bodies onto architectural façades, and combining those images with voiced testimonies, Wodiczko disrupts our traditional understanding of the functions of public space and architecture.

• He challenges the silent, stark monumentality of buildings, activating them in an examination of notions of human rights, democracy, and truths about the violence, alienation, and inhumanity that underlie countless aspects of social interaction in present-day society.

http://www.art21.org/artists/krzysztof-wodiczko

Krzysztof Wodiczko

http://www.k-wodiczko.com/abraham-lincoln–war-veteran-projection

Abraham Lincoln: War Veteran Projection, 2012

• In preparation for Abraham Lincoln: War Veteran Projection, Wodiczko interviewed approximately thirty veterans and their family members over the course of several months, taping conversations about their war experiences and the toll of duty on their family life.

• It was these points of view, presented in each person’s own words, voice, and gestures, that were projected in sound and light onto the figure of Lincoln. This is a continuation of Wodiczko’s exploration of veterans’ issues.

• Please watch this video on the artists, take notes on what you see and hear. Afterwards you will use your notes to complete a writing on the artist. https://vimeo.com/55889439

• AND https://vimeo.com/51821413

• AND https://art21.org/watch/extended-play/krzysztof-wodiczko- designer-adam-whiton-short/

Krzyszto Wodiczko • Wodiczko sees the parallels between the experiences

of often estranged, neglected and traumatized US war veterans today and of those who survived the carnage of the Civil War, and the project draws a bold connection to Lincoln who, as president, presided over the nation’s bloodiest conflict, and who, as captain, (though not serving in combat) witnessed atrocities during the Black Hawk War.

• This striking work of contemporary art is a ‘happening,’ and it is his hope to reinvigorate interest and give new meaning to this historical civic monument, causing New Yorkers to stop and reflect on our history and its consequences.

Abraham Lincoln: War Veteran Projection, 2012

Central Library Projection, St Louis, 2004 A community art project regarding the effects of violence and the healing power of public discourse.

http://www.k-wodiczko.com/central-library-projection

Homeless projection • https://www.youtube.com/watc h?v=QSsXLHB9Pd8

Bunker Hill Monument Projection Boston, United States 1998 http://www.k-wodiczko.com/bunker-hill-monument-projection?lightbox=dataItem-il9snoz1

El Centro Cultural Projection (Part II) Tijuana, Mexico 2001 http://www.k-wodiczko.com/el-centro-cultural-projection–part-ii–

PBS Art21 Krzysztof Wodiczko

Please watch this video on the artists, take notes on what you see and hear.

Afterwards you will use your notes to complete a writing on the artist.

http://www.art21.org/videos/segment-krzysztof-wodiczko-in-power