1.
Menil Collection
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Additionally the Menil receives public funds granted by the City of Houston, the State of Texas, and the federal government through the National Endowment for the Arts. The museums holdings are diverse, including early to mid-twentieth century works of Yves Tanguy, René Magritte, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, among others. The museum also maintains a collection of pop art and contemporary art from Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko, Robert Rauschenberg, Vija Celmins and Cy Twombly. Also included in the permanent collection are Antiquities and works of Byzantine. The Renzo Piano-designed museum opened to the public in June 1987, initially, the Foundation also pursued land banking to stabilize the neighborhood surrounding the museum, and structured the administration and operations of the collection. Dominique Menil ran the museum until her death in December 1997, two other buildings founded by the de Menils, but now operating as independent foundations, complete the campus, The Byzantine Fresco Chapel and the Rothko Chapel. The Menil Foundation began buying bungalow style homes in the area in the 1960s, when the museum building was constructed, it was painted what has become known as Menil gray to coordinate with the bungalows. Though subtle, the result is a neighborhood that feels aesthetically unified, in 2013, the landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh was appointed to enhance and expand the Menil Collection’s 30-acre campus. The master site plan, by David Chipperfield Architects, calls for the creation of green space and walkways, a cafe. The Menil Collection is open to the public, and admission is free, the Museum is open Wednesday through Sunday 11 am to 7 pm. It is located near the University of St. Thomas in the Neartown area of Houston, the Rothko Chapel, built in 1971, is an interfaith chapel commissioned by the de Menils. Each year, it more than 60,000 visitors from as many as 85 countries around the world. The entrance-way contains holy books from religious traditions that may be used in the chapel. The space is sky-lit, with kneeling mats, prayer benches, fourteen canvases by Russian-born American painter Mark Rothko hang in the interior. The Rothko Chapel is an independent, non-profit organization, in 2001 the Chapel was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It is also an entry in National Geographics book Sacred Places of a Lifetime,500 of the Worlds Most Peaceful and Powerful Destinations. South of the entrance is a pool with the sculpture Broken Obelisk by Barnett Newman, installed in memory of Martin Luther King. After having been removed from a church in Lysi in Turkish-occupied North Cyprus by the art trade
2.
Sculpture
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Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. It is one of the plastic arts, a wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or molded, or cast. However, most ancient sculpture was painted, and this has been lost. Those cultures whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, India and China, the Western tradition of sculpture began in ancient Greece, and Greece is widely seen as producing great masterpieces in the classical period. During the Middle Ages, Gothic sculpture represented the agonies and passions of the Christian faith, the revival of classical models in the Renaissance produced famous sculptures such as Michelangelos David. Relief is often classified by the degree of projection from the wall into low or bas-relief, high relief, sunk-relief is a technique restricted to ancient Egypt. Relief sculpture may also decorate steles, upright slabs, usually of stone, techniques such as casting, stamping and moulding use an intermediate matrix containing the design to produce the work, many of these allow the production of several copies. The term sculpture is used mainly to describe large works. The very large or colossal statue has had an enduring appeal since antiquity, another grand form of portrait sculpture is the equestrian statue of a rider on horse, which has become rare in recent decades. The smallest forms of life-size portrait sculpture are the head, showing just that, or the bust, small forms of sculpture include the figurine, normally a statue that is no more than 18 inches tall, and for reliefs the plaquette, medal or coin. Sculpture is an important form of public art, a collection of sculpture in a garden setting can be called a sculpture garden. One of the most common purposes of sculpture is in form of association with religion. Cult images are common in cultures, though they are often not the colossal statues of deities which characterized ancient Greek art. The actual cult images in the innermost sanctuaries of Egyptian temples, of which none have survived, were rather small. The same is true in Hinduism, where the very simple. Some undoubtedly advanced cultures, such as the Indus Valley civilization, appear to have had no monumental sculpture at all, though producing very sophisticated figurines, the Mississippian culture seems to have been progressing towards its use, with small stone figures, when it collapsed. Other cultures, such as ancient Egypt and the Easter Island culture, from the 20th century the relatively restricted range of subjects found in large sculpture expanded greatly, with abstract subjects and the use or representation of any type of subject now common. Today much sculpture is made for intermittent display in galleries and museums, small sculpted fittings for furniture and other objects go well back into antiquity, as in the Nimrud ivories, Begram ivories and finds from the tomb of Tutankhamun
3.
Work of art
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A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an aesthetic physical item or artistic creation. The term objet dart is reserved to describe works of art that are not paintings, prints, drawings or large or medium-sized sculptures, the term oeuvre is used to describe the complete body of work completed by an artist throughout a career. A work of art in the arts is a physical two- or three- dimensional object that is professionally determined or otherwise considered to fulfill a primarily independent aesthetic function. A singular art object is seen in the context of a larger art movement or artistic era, such as. It can also be seen as an item within a body of work or oeuvre. The term is used by, museum and cultural heritage curators, the interested public, the art patron-private art collector community. Physical objects that document immaterial or conceptual art works, but do not conform to artistic conventions can be redefined and reclassified as art objects, some Dada and Neo-Dada conceptual and readymade works have received later inclusion. Also, some architectural renderings and models of projects, such as by Vitruvius, Leonardo da Vinci, Frank Lloyd Wright. Legal definitions of work of art are used in copyright law, Marcel Duchamp critiqued the idea that the work of art should be a unique product of an artists labour, representational of their technical skill or artistic caprice. Artist Michael Craig-Martin, creator of An Oak Tree, said of his work - Its not a symbol, I have changed the physical substance of the glass of water into that of an oak tree. The actual oak tree is present, but in the form of a glass of water. Some art theorists and writers have made a distinction between the physical qualities of an art object and its identity-status as an artwork. For example, a painting by Rembrandt has an existence as an oil painting on canvas that is separate from its identity as a masterpiece work of art or the artists magnum opus. Many works of art are initially denied museum quality or artistic merit, works by the Impressionists and non-representational abstract artists are examples. Some, such as the Readymades of Marcel Duchamp including his infamous urinal Fountain, are reproduced as museum quality replicas. Contemporary and archeological indigenous art, industrial design items in limited or mass production, the term has been consistently available for debate, reconsideration, and redefinition. The classic philosophical enquiry into what a work of art is
4.
Stencil graffiti
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Stencil graffiti is a form of graffiti that makes use of stencils made out of paper, cardboard, or other media to create an image or text that is easily reproducible. The desired design is cut out of the medium and then the image is transferred to a surface through the use of spray paint or roll-on paint. The process of stenciling involves applying paint across a stencil to form an image on a surface below, sometimes multiple layers of stencils are used on the same image to add colours or create the illusion of depth. Those who make and apply stencils have many motivations, for some, it is an easy method to produce a political message. Many artists appreciate the publicity that their artwork can receive, and some just want their work to be seen. Stencil graffiti began in the 1960s, john Fekner was one of the first stencil artists to place his work outdoors, starting in 1968. Fekners stencil Wheels Over Indian Trails greeted motorists and international travelers arriving in New York City at the Pulaski Bridge Queens Midtown Tunnel from 1979-1990. The message remained untouched for 11 years, until Earth Day 1990 and he was influenced by the graffiti artists of New York City but wanted to create something of his own. Australian photographer Rennie Ellis documented some of the earliest examples of art to appear in Sydney. Unlike our subway-style graffiti, which is nothing more than a copy of a well-established New York tradition, over the years this form of graffiti has become a worldwide subculture. The members are linked through the Internet and the images spray-painted on the canvas they place throughout the world. Stencil graffiti is illegal in some jurisdictions, and many of the members of this subculture shroud their identities in aliases, above, Banksy, Blek le Rat, Vhils, and Shepard Fairey are some names that are synonymous with this subculture. Graffiti terminology List of stencil artists List of street artists Street art sculptures Street art Street installation Wheatpaste street art C215, ISBN 2-9525682-2-7 Louis Bou, Street Art. Instituto Monsa de ediciones, S. A.2005, ISBN 84-611-4752-9 Jinman, Richard, Street art moves to a posh new hang-out, The Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, Australia, April 9,2007. Norman, James, Graffiti goes upmarket, The Age, Melbourne, Australia, reiss, Jon, May 3,2008 Bello, Manuel,14 Aug.2007. Bello, Manuel Rogers, Michelle, Jef Aerosol, Gadabout Paris, Paris, C215 Community Service, Criteres ed.2011 Smallman, Jake, Nyman, Carl, Stencil Graffiti Capital, Melbourne, West New York, NJ, Mark Batty Publisher, October 1,2005
5.
Rock balancing
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Rock balancing is an art, discipline, or hobby in which rocks are naturally balanced on top of one another in various positions. Adhesives, wires, supports, or rings are not permitted, Rock balancing can be a performance art, a spectacle, or a devotion, depending upon the interpretation by its audience. The rock balancer may work for free or for pay, as an individual or in a group, and their intents, andy Goldsworthy, an influential artist working in the field, for whom rock balancing is a minor subset of his Collaborations With Nature. Michael Grab, balance artist + photographer, born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and presently based in Boulder, Colorado, the Rock Stacking World Championship is an annual event held in Llano, Texas. However, Disturbing or collecting natural features is prohibited in U. S. national parks, as these acts may harm the flora. In some areas, cairns, which are stacked rocks, are used to mark trails, a large section of the Chilkoot Trail in Skagway, Alaska, uses these exclusively. Rock Balancing is both art and advocacy, stuart Finch – Rock Balancing Act. OK, really, how does he do it, man sets em up, physics does the rest. Partners Beach Works Strike a Balance Between Art, Nature, gilles Charrot – Lhomme qui murmure a loreille des pierres Martine Schnoering. Rock Balancing in worldwide images – photos of all styles and practitioners, Rock Balancing promotes environmentalism – videos. Links + google map to a community of rock balancers – Explore more rock balancers around the world. Llano Earth Art Fest – Rock balancing event
6.
Athena Tacha
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Athena Tacha, is best known in the fields of environmental public sculpture and conceptual art, but has also worked extensively in photography, film and artists’ books. The best statement on her philosophy, Rhythms as Form, was first published in Landscape Architecture, May 1978. Tacha was born in 1936 in Greece. She received an M. A. in sculpture from the Athens School of Fine Arts in Greece, an M. A. in art history from Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, and a Doctorate in aesthetics from the Sorbonne in Paris. After her studies, she worked as Curator of Modern Art at the Allen Memorial Art Museum of Oberlin College, organized art exhibitions. Spear two books and various articles on Auguste Rodin, Brâncuși, Nadelman and other 20th-century sculptors and she married art historian Richard E. From 1973 to 2000, she was Professor of sculpture at Oberlin College, since 1998, she has been an Affiliate of the University of Maryland, College Park, and lives in Washington, DC. S. Including an entire city-block park in downtown Philadelphia, concurrently, she produced a body of textual and photographic conceptual works, many of which were published as artists books. In 1989, a retrospective of more than 100 of Tachas sculptures, drawings and it included large color photographs of her executed commissions and was accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, Athena Tacha, Public Works, 1970-88. Since Tacha moved to Washington, DC, she has had two exhibitions at the Marsha Mateyka Gallery. A 40-year retrospective, Athena Tacha, From the Public to the Private, opened at the Contemporary Art Center in Thessaloniki, Greece, Jan.16 - April 11,2010. It presents for the first time all aspects of Tachas art—from large outdoor commissions, to sculptures and photoworks, to conceptual art. It is scheduled travel to Larissa and Athens through 2010. Victory Plaza, 2000–02, a 40,000 sq ft plaza with fountains in front of the American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas STOP & GO, to Garrett Augustus Morgan, 2001–04, a plaza for Metrorails Morgan Blvd. Station, Washington, DC Hearts Beat, 2002–04, a 350-foot long ceiling of animated LEDs for a sky bridge between Grosvenor Metro station and the Strathmore Music Center, N. Bethesda, Maryland. Riding with Sarah and Wayne, 2004–06, a mile-long trackbed pavement for the Light Rail, Newark, waterlinks II, 2006–08, a 16x28 ft. granite water wall at the University of Wisconsin’s Business School, Madison, Wisconsin. An amphitheater and two fountains for the Muhammad Ali Center Plaza, 2002–09, in collaboration with EDAW, AGA and Color Kinetics, Louisville, CRJA and Art Display Co. -- for Wisconsin Place, a 5-acre development at Friendship Heights Metro station, Bethesda, Maryland. Books on Tachas work, Athena Tacha, Public Sculpture, with essays by Ellen H
7.
Minimalism
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In visual arts, music, and other mediums, minimalism is a style that uses pared-down design elements. Minimalism began in post–World War II Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s, prominent artists associated with minimalism include Donald Judd, John McCracken, Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris, Anne Truitt, and Frank Stella. It derives from the reductive aspects of modernism and is interpreted as a reaction against abstract expressionism. Minimalism in music often features repetition and iteration such as those of the compositions of La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, the term minimalist often colloquially refers to anything that is spare or stripped to its essentials. It has accordingly been used to describe the plays and novels of Samuel Beckett, the films of Robert Bresson, the stories of Raymond Carver, and the automobile designs of Colin Chapman. The word was first used in English in the early 20th century to describe a 1913 composition by the Russian painter Kasimir Malevich of a square on a white ground. Guggenheim Museum curated by Lawrence Alloway also in 1966 that showcased Geometric abstraction in the American art world via Shaped canvas, Color Field, in the wake of those exhibitions and a few others the art movement called minimal art emerged. Minimal art is inspired in part by the paintings of Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, Josef Albers, and the works of artists as diverse as Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Giorgio Morandi. Minimalism was also a reaction against the painterly subjectivity of Abstract Expressionism that had been dominant in the New York School during the 1940s and 1950s. The philosopher or art historian who can envision me—or anyone at all—arriving at aesthetic judgments in this way reads shockingly more into himself or herself than into my article. They very explicitly stated that their art was not about self-expression, in general, minimalisms features included geometric, often cubic forms purged of much metaphor, equality of parts, repetition, neutral surfaces, and industrial materials. Robert Morris, a theorist and artist, wrote a three part essay, Notes on Sculpture 1-3, originally published across three issues of Artforum in 1966. In these essays, Morris attempted to define a conceptual framework and formal elements for himself and these essays paid great attention to the idea of the gestalt - parts. Bound together in such a way that create a maximum resistance to perceptual separation. Morris later described an art represented by a marked lateral spread, the general shift in theory of which this essay is an expression suggests the transition into what would later be referred to as postminimalism. Stellas decisions about structures on the front surface of the canvas were therefore not entirely subjective, in the show catalog, Carl Andre noted, Art excludes the unnecessary. Frank Stella has found it necessary to paint stripes, there is nothing else in his painting. Because of a tendency in art to exclude the pictorial, illusionistic and fictive in favor of the literal, there was a movement away from painterly
8.
Modernism
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Among the factors that shaped modernism were the development of modern industrial societies and the rapid growth of cities, followed then by reactions of horror to World War I. Modernism also rejected the certainty of Enlightenment thinking, and many modernists rejected religious belief, the poet Ezra Pounds 1934 injunction to Make it new. Was the touchstone of the approach towards what it saw as the now obsolete culture of the past. In this spirit, its innovations, like the novel, atonal and twelve-tone music, divisionist painting and abstract art. Modernism explicitly rejected the ideology of realism and makes use of the works of the past by the employment of reprise, incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision, others focus on modernism as an aesthetic introspection. While J. M. W. Art critic Clement Greenberg describes the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as proto-Modernists, There the proto-Modernists were, of all people, the Pre-Raphaelites actually foreshadowed Manet, with whom Modernist painting most definitely begins. They acted on a dissatisfaction with painting as practiced in their time, rationalism has also had opponents in the philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and later Friedrich Nietzsche, both of whom had significant influence on existentialism. A major 19th-century engineering achievement was The Crystal Palace, the huge cast-iron, Glass and iron were used in a similar monumental style in the construction of major railway terminals in London, such as Paddington Station and Kings Cross Station. These technological advances led to the building of structures like the Brooklyn Bridge. The latter broke all previous limitations on how tall man-made objects could be and these engineering marvels radically altered the 19th-century urban environment and the daily lives of people. Arguments arose that the values of the artist and those of society were not merely different, but that Society was antithetical to Progress, the philosopher Schopenhauer called into question the previous optimism, and his ideas had an important influence on later thinkers, including Nietzsche. Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection undermined religious certainty and the idea of human uniqueness, in particular, the notion that human beings were driven by the same impulses as lower animals proved to be difficult to reconcile with the idea of an ennobling spirituality. Karl Marx argued that there were fundamental contradictions within the capitalist system, historians, and writers in different disciplines, have suggested various dates as starting points for modernism. Everdell also thinks modernism in painting began in 1885–86 with Seurats Divisionism, the poet Baudelaires Les Fleurs du mal, and Flauberts novel Madame Bovary were both published in 1857. In the arts and letters, two important approaches developed separately in France, the first was Impressionism, a school of painting that initially focused on work done, not in studios, but outdoors. Impressionist paintings demonstrated that human beings do not see objects, the school gathered adherents despite internal divisions among its leading practitioners, and became increasingly influential. A significant event of 1863 was the Salon des Refusés, created by Emperor Napoleon III to display all of the paintings rejected by the Paris Salon. While most were in standard styles, but by artists, the work of Manet attracted tremendous attention
9.
Jean-Max Albert
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Jean-Max Albert is a painter, sculptor, writer, and musician. He has published theory, artists books, a collection of poems, plays and he perpetuated a reflexion initiated by Paul Klee and Edgar Varèse on the transposition of musical structures into formal constructions. He created plant architectures which come close to art, environmental sculpture. Jean-Max Albert French, was born in 1942, in Loches and he studied at the Ecole Régionale des Beaux-Arts dAngers then at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Paris, with frequent visits to the Louvre, across the river. His student friends introduced him to the works of Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, Louis Kahn, Albert was also a trumpet player, joining Henri Texier’s quintet with Alain Tabarnouval in the beginnings of Free Jazz. The group performed in clubs, festivals and concerts, in 1975 he initiated the group show Serres in François Horticultural Greenhouses, Magny-in-Vexin. Sculptor Mark di Suvero invited him to New York City, the first of many visits to United States, in 1981 he met Sara Holt, whose sculpture and photographs were inspired by astronomy. They collaborated and carried out various public art projects, travels in Europe, North Africa, Middle East. In 1990, he was commissioned by the architects Wylde-Oubrerie as collaborating artist for the realisation of Miller House in Lexington, then invited to give lectures and workshops for the University of Architecture of Kentucky and then for the Art Center of Design in Pasadena. Edgar Varese, in his comments, often refers to solid geometry and his experience in the musical field enabled Jean-Max Albert to exchange on these subjects with musicians such as, György Ligeti, Steve Lacy, Barney Wilen, François Tusques. He creates monumental trellis-works, Iapetus which refers to the structure of Thelonious Monks ‘’Misterioso’’ », Ligeti, a book and exhibition followed, Thelonious Monk Architecte. A collaboration with pianist and composer François Tusques results in 80 short films, with Jean-Claude Mocik, he is coauthor of the project Midi-Pile started in 1994. Beside sculptures related to music, he conceived a project dedicated to the vegetation itself, the utopian Calmoduline Monument is based on the property of a protein, calmodulin, to bond selectively to calcium. Exterior physical constraints modify the potential of the cellular membranes of a plant. However, the controls the expression of the calmoduline gene. The plant can thus, when there is a stimulus, modify its « typical » growth pattern and this permanent show, installed in a public place, would suggest a level of fundamental biological activity. This idea that an artwork should be autonomous — epoch and even authors identity, taking second place — has provoked vigorous discussions with artists friends, notably with painter Joan Mitchell. Around 1973, a meeting with the architect Louis Kahn, led him to compare the relationship between paint and canvas with that of vegetation on trellis
10.
Parc de la Villette
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The Parc de la Villette is the third-largest park in Paris,55.5 hectares in area, located at the northeastern edge of the city in the 19th arrondissement. The park houses one of the largest concentration of cultural venues in Paris, including the Cité des Sciences et de lIndustrie, Parc de la Villette is served by Paris Métro stations Corentin Cariou on Line 7 and Porte de Pantin on Line 5. The slaughterhouses, built in 1867 on the instructions of Napoléon III, had cleared away. Tschumi won a design competition in 1982–83 for the park. The park houses museums, concert halls, live stages, and theatres, as well as playgrounds for children. An estimated 10 million people visit the park each year to take part in an array of cultural activities. With its collection of museums, theatres, architectural follies, themed gardens, and open spaces for exploration and activity, designed by Bernard Tschumi, the park is meant to be a place inspired by the post-modernist architectural ideas of deconstructivism. According to Tschumi, the intention of the park was to space for activity and interaction, rather than adopt the conventional park mantra of ordered relaxation. The vast expanse of the park allows for visitors to walk about the site with a sense of freedom and opportunity for exploration, the design of the park is organized into a series of points, lines, and surfaces. These categories of relation and formulation are used in Tschumi’s design to act as means of deconstructing the traditional views of how a park is conventionally meant to exist. The Parc de la Villette boasts activities that all people of all ages. The park is a melting pot of cultural expression where local artists and musicians produce exhibits. On the periphery of the lies the Cité des Sciences et de lIndustrie. There is a center and an I-MAX theatre. The park acts as a connection between these exterior functions, concerts are scheduled year round, hosting local and mainstream musicians. Dividing the park is the Canal de lOurcq, which has boat tours that transport visitors around the park, festivals are common in the park along with artist conventions and shows by performers. The Parc de la Villette hosts an annual film festival. In 2010 the festivals theme was To Be 20 and featured films about youth, in 2010 films were shown by American filmmakers Woody Allen and Sofia Coppola as well as French and international filmmakers
11.
Trellis (architecture)
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The rose trellis is especially common in Europe and other rose-growing areas, and many climbing rose varieties require a trellis to reach their potential as garden plants. Trellis can also be referred to as panels, usually made from interwoven wood pieces, a pergola usually refers to trellis-work that is laid horizontally above head height to provide a partial roof in a garden. The trellis was originally intended to support vine stock — which gives its name, though it is unknown when and where the trellis was invented, the trellis has been mentioned in literature and botanical works throughout history. Pliny the Younger, in the first and second centuries, wrote about trellises in some of his letters about gardens, in the 19th century, Walt Whitman also mentioned a trellis in his poem Give me the Splendid, Silent Sun. Trellis was used to support shrubs in espalier, also to separate roads from thickets and these sorts of fences were made by the gardeners. When the art of gardening was perfected by André Le Nôtre and Jules Hardouin-Mansart and they worked individually until 1769, when they joined the corporation of carpenters. The treillageur has to have at least some elementary notions and principles of architecture, could trellis be designed as a gallery, portico, room, and different element of architecture thus evolved into garden architecture linked to landscaping. Jean-Max Albert notes the trellis possibilities in visual art, « The trellis permits a visual contact of external and internal elements and it allows to observe together the inside and the outside of a construction. The semi-transparency of the plans permits a simultaneous reading of imbricated volumes »
Media related to Site-specific art at Wikimedia Commons
