Harmony Hammond

Harmony Hammonds lecture gave me more insight of the conceptual meaning in a piece. I liked how she described her works which also described herself. I’m grateful I got an in depth meaning of Hammond’s feminist artworks. I glad she went into a discussion about the male interpretation of what’s considered “an art piece”.

Harmony Hammond. Floorpiece VI, 1973

I’m also glad she had this slide FloorpieceVI (?). In her discussion, she describes this earlier work as a radical representation of a painting. I recall she used fabric and twisted it like a braid. She then covered it in variety of acrylic colors. The pieces are layered thick with acrylic paint, but still have the texture of the fabric. I remember she wanted to use media that didn’t come from male artist like oil paints. She wanted to give viewers a thought that “crafts” (a   misogynist term) are comparable to artworks such as paintings. . She purposely placed the art piece in the floor void of other paintings in the gallery walls to show to the viewers that this painting should be considered art and not a rug. The fabric which would be considered a craft just like weaving baskets were considered only a female task or hobby by single minded men.

I liked how she described the early event when pottery was born. Hammond described a scene when a woman put clay or mud(?) inside her basket to hold water, later when the basket was not of any use anymore she and other women burned it and found that the soft clay had turned to this hard surface and pottery was born. It’s a very inspirational story for female artists. There is no denying that her lecture also made me resentful (not the first time) of men and the interpretation of art.

Harmony Hammond. Suture, 2002 acrylic, latex 

Harmony Hammond. Passage, 2006 acrylic

            

Harmony Hammond, Muffle acrylic

Three of her later works Suture, Passage, and Muffled have similar appearances of Mark Rothko pieces, but very different interpretation and media. While Rothko used oil in canvas and expressed his feelings in his chromatic compositions, Hammond uses again acrylic and latex, fabric, and various items holding the skin in place. If I had lots of money, I would buy Suture. I like the thick grainy texture of one side and the other side a yellow hue that is lightly painted latex(?) with a smooth surface.  I liked her interpretation of the piece as this us versus them concept or in this case homosexuality versus the heterosexuals who don’t like them. She puts this zipper like column in the middle so they can be connected. I think as a whole composition it really does connect these two sides. The other piece  Passage  has the same qualities of a thick acrylic texture, but like a large triptych (but without the panels) composition. She adds a deep blue as the primary layer in the whole composition and contrast it with a brick red hue in the left and right.  The last piece Muffled  is made of layers of paint with black as its final layer. The lines of the fabric and nails(?) can be easily seen through the compositions giving it geometric formation.  I like how it has this fabric like quality, but can also be seen like a dark door with rivets and metal. For me, it has this interpretation of trapped or smothered because of the cloth. It is a very dark piece.

 I learned a lot from this guest speaker. She was very funny especially about moving away from New York and being stupid for making large compositions and her complaints of the price of paint or shipping. She was very fascinating.   

Explosions and gunpowder

Cai Guo-Qiang Reviving the Ancient Signal Towers:
 Project for Extraterrestrials No. 8, 1991, 200 x 680 cm Gunpowder and ink on hemp paper, backed on wood panel

Cai Guo-Qiang Primeval Fireball: The Project for Projects
1991 Seven gunpowder drawings
(gunpowder on paper, mounted on board as folding screens)

Cai Guo-Qiang artworks are amazing. Like Kiki Smith his artwork varies though out his long career which spans from the 80s as a student for stage designing at the Shanghai Drama Institute in Beijing. His drawings and visual performances are unique and they bring attention to his Chinese heritage. I’ve never seen physics and art collaborating to create beautiful explosions. He is very skilled with explosives and fireworks. In addition, his medium of gun powder and the scientific skill with his fuse techniques make his 2-D compositions appears very close to the ancient traditional Chinese ink painting. He is known for this visual performance of using explosive materials such as the footprints and the Olympic rings he created in the Beijing sky with fireworks for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games opening ceremony.

Guo-Qiang process of drawing with gunpowder involves science and luck. He first cuts out templates of part of his drawing. He adds small amounts of gunpowder around template which he removes to reveal an outline. After this step is done for the whole drawing, he and his assistants cover the gunpowder drawings and firmly weigh it down with heavy objects. Guo-Qiang ignites this and after the explosion everyone puts out the small fires and removes the cardboard to reveal the artwork.

Cai Guo-Qiang

1997 Dragon Skeleton/

Suture of the Wall
Gunpowder fuse, gunpowder on wall

Cai Guo-Qiang 1997 Dragon Skeleton/Suture of the Wall
Gunpowder fuse, gunpowder on wall

                In his large gunpowder drawings The Primeval Fireball: The Project for Projects, he uses gunpowder to create landscape drawings, the universe, and a communication to extraterrestrials. All the projects use white paper as the background to contrast greatly with the various black, gray and burnt brown and orange in the seven large compositions. All seven drawings are mounted on folded boards to appear like folded screen walls. These screens are placed together in the shape of a star with a gap in the middle. Another drawing involved Chinese history and communication through fire with again extraterrestrials. The drawing Reviving the Ancient Signal Towers: Project for Extraterrestrials No. 8 is also visual project in which he and the help of others performed. Their medium was abandoned semaphores and gunpowder. They placed this visual performance along what was once known as the Silk Road in ancient China. The drawing is the blue plan for this project made of gunpowder, ink with a white hemp paper split into several wooden panels. Chinese characters are placed along the wavy ink line (to make it appear like hills) with spotted fires that go into the distance. The perspective goes far with the illusion of smaller dots of fire in the corner of panel which gradually becomes larger in the opposite side of the composition. The project was a reflection of a period when the fastest communication was with fire to signal someone. The same method can also apply for extraterrestrials. Even in our era, light can still be the fastest communication for extraterrestrials in another world. Dragon Skeleton/Suture of the Wall display the burning process of the gunpowder with short fuses and the result of a large black dragon skeleton that takes up most of a white wall. The dragon has this nightmare appearance with a blurry unrealistic quality because of the gradient like appearance of the black carbon changing into gray around the long skeleton. Flying Dragon in the Heavens: Project for Extraterrestrials No. 29 was a project done outside. It was a long (100 m) silk kite appearing like a white dragon. The project involved flying the kite at a museum in Denmark then igniting it with gunpowder, fuses 1500 meter in length and lighting it at night. His aim once again was to communicate with aliens. 

Cai Guo-Qiang  Flying Dragon in the Heavens
1997 Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark Gunpowder: 7 kg , gunpowder fuses: 1, 500 m, silk dragon kite and rope kite length 100 m

   Guo-Qiang does many firework displays for various centers and museums. Hopefully, he can do a grandeur display better than his finest fireworks performance from the Beijing Olympics. He does other installation, as well, that I will talk about in my next blog.