Sleeping in the Gallery

A while back I read about a contemporary Chinese artist Chu Yun, who created what he calls a human sculpture by inducing sleep. The work is titled, "Sleeping beauties in the New Museum," and was featured at New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, "The Generational: Younger Than Jesus” exhibition of emerging artists from April 7 to June 28 in 2009. . He set up a recruitment to look for females between the ages 18 and 40, interested in just sleeping in the gallery for $10/hr. Over 170 women responded to the ad and about 50 were asked to audition at the museum.

Yun also had staged the work in London in 2006 at the Frieze Art Fair, an exhibition that also featured a woman with Down syndrome sitting in a chair. Italian gallery owner who saw Yun's piece bought the rights to reproduce it for £12,000(That's about $18,432 U.S. Dollar's!)

Basically in this "human sculpture" all these women have to do is sleep in the gallery from noon to 6 p.m. as noisy visitors, unrestrained by any sort of barrier or rope, look on and try not to touch them. A sleeping pill was encouraged, but not necessarily required for legal reasons. The women are legitimately sleeping but not pretending. It's not a performance, just pure sleep.

Not bad getting paid $10/hour just to sleep in a gallery!

Links to the articles

http://cjarchives.jrn.columbia.edu/article.asp?subj=arts_culture&course=arts_culture_seminar&id=2426

http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2009/02/sleep-and-be-art-chinese-artist-chu-yun/

Cetonia B.

toothpick art- BG

This guy's work is crazy! He has been building architecture replicas out of toothpicks since the 4th grade! He was even offered $40,000 for his work, but refused because he said it is apart of his life, talk about having the love for art!...sorry sir, give me the money!

http://www.lostateminor.com/2010/07/15/san-francisco-made-from-toothpicks/

Brooke Gluszek

Work of Art: The Next Great Artist

Recently I've been watching this show on Bravo, called "Work of Art: The Next Great Artist." The show is basically an art reality competition in which 14 up-and-coming artists compete through challenges for a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum and a cash prize of $100,000. The skill range of each artist varies as well as the area of art they are focused on (painting, sculpture, performance art, printmaking).

It's interesting to see how the artists/contestants handle the challenges thrown at them with the small time frame they are given to finish their pieces and the judges interpretation of their art in the critiques.

If anyone's interested, a new episode airs every Wednesday night at 9pm on the Bravo channel.

There is a new episode coming up tomorrow!

You can find more info at http://www.bravotv.com/work-of-art

Cetonia B.

World Cup Final

Today is the World Cup Final! The Netherlands vs. Spain in South Africa. I’m cheering for Spain from behind my laptop while I do homework. The World Cup is a month long sporting-extravaganza that brings together 32 teams from around the globe and they play for the honor of winning the World Cup. (I’m getting to art, promise). It would be amazing to get to go to at least one of these games, especially in the semi-finals or the final game but I’ll take what I can get if anyone is offering. Art, right!

I’m most interested in Graphic Design and in particular web design, advertisement and logos. (Don’t ask.) Anyway! In 2014 the World Cup games will be held in Brazil and the logo for this championship was recently reveled. There’s been a lot of talk, some people like it, some people don’t. I personally really like it. I think it’s simple but it conveys a lot. It’s basically the World Cup Trophy being formed by hands coming together. The trophy is in the colors of the Brazilian flag. I also see the fingers on the hands as trees and when I think of Brazil I think of rainforests so I feel like that adds to the logo and really shows a little more about Brazil. The logo seems bright and happy, which is something I associate with Brazil also because of Carnival. But that’s just my opinion.

Here is the website:
http://abduzeedo.com/logo-discussion-2014-fifa-world-cup-brazil

It shows a short video over how the logo was introduced. I think the last 20 seconds of the video are pretty cool because they show how the design came together. Below the video is the final design. Below that are some opinions, mostly negative about the log and if you scroll a little further you’ll see designs for past World Cup logos.

Happy World Cup!

Nancy Méndez

Donating Art

Last week while I was setting up for my art show at Melange, Leslie, the owner,told me that due unforseen circumstances that she must move by the end of the month. I was shocked to hear this and how her land lord has treated her. Leslie has always supported me, gave me a place to show my art, and always brightned my day every time that I saw her.
So to help with moving cost and whatnot, we are having an art auction and party at the Garage Bar at 579 West Douglas in the Delano District. The auction will be on July 18. Art will be available to preview from 1-5 and then music and auction from 5-8pm. If you're interested in donating, please stop by Melange Jewerly store at 617 West Douglas. You can also friend Leslie or me on Facebook or view the Moving Melange Event on there as well.

Supporting Local Arts and Local Businesses

Heather Powell

Miller High Life Redesigned: BG

So in this article it has photos of the new design of the packaging of Miller High Life. In the article it states how people generally percieve Miller High Life as "below premium." So they came up with a new design to grab peoples attention and make them think differently. Most of the bloggers on the website only had good things to say about the new design. However, I do not feel as if the new design helps it. To me it screams old and outdated, not something you would want to drink!To me it is not a modern look, but I suppose they are not trying to grasp the attention of 21 year old girls like me, I mean...I definatly wouldn't pull out a Miller High Life out of my fridge for a beverage of choice... Any thoughts on this?



http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2010/06/miller-high-life-redesigned.html

Brooke Gluszek

Cleveland Public Art

Hi everyone. How's the 50 drawings going? Last night I refined my drawings from the week, and overworked one...today I'm starting the new project. I'm excited to see what all will come out when I start playing with the form.

I'm sharing a link found in notcot.org, at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Mark Reigelman was selected by the Musuem to construct a temporary work for the outside entrance of the greco style museum. According to the gallery statement, this was a "risky" piece.

The piece - called 'White Cloud' - is close to a hundred 8 foot weather balloons, tied to steel poles, situated on either side of the grand entrance.

I'm not sure if the museum calls it risky simply because it has dynamic elements or because it is not classical and condescending enough to stand alongside the outer walls of the building...

Whatever the case, the piece was installed a week prior to the Summer Solstice event being held at the museum. Those involved in the project were dismayed by strong winds that, er...unsettled the balloons and even bent one of the steel poles. Apparently, thunderstorms and wind got so bad the night before the solstice that it was decided to have the project dismantled the morning of the event. No one that attended the actual solstice party on Saturday saw Reigelman's piece.

The museum is calling this decision one that inspires artists to take creative risks, even if the work can only be experienced for a short time. This is a nice, tidy way of concluding what sounds like must have been a challenging installation to keep up.

Still, I'm more interested in why the balloons were not allowed to stay where they were. Aesthetics beat performance in this case. If two or three of the balloons were missing, another stuck in a tree, a different idea would be reached.

let the work be...

The curators chose a dynamic piece for display, so they must have wanted something to break up the symmetry and static building front. But the choice to dismantle the piece was made before it could become TOO dynamic.

http://www.clevelandpublicart.org/projects/completed/white-cloud


-Seth