Natural WItness

                                                                                                 

Last month in April I attended the Natural Witness Exhibition curated by the artist Miyo Stevens, and Dalia Paola Mendez at Self Help Graphics in Boyle Heights.

My screen-printing teacher, Christian Ward at Long Beach City College also had his "Nueve Plantas" series of

 screen-printed plants on home-made paper.   

The atmosphere was refreshing and the air was filled with the aroma of burning shade. I have to thank, La Botanica Del Barrio for sharing her natural brewed tea. Most of the artists art is inspired by indigenous plants and ancient healing remedies.  

Poli Marichal
Kakau Codex
Woodcut, linocut, collargraph, chine colle,
 Stone Henge Paper
2016
$400$ Each, $2700 Set.

 Many of the Artists were friendly and down to Earth ready to teach us about the history of plant life< and agriculture.

If there is something that interested me the most, it had to be this quote I seen. "BIO-PIRACY"
After the exhibition, I went and told all my my friends about this word for more awareness in out history of indigenous culture.

Duchamp to Pop Exhibition @ The Norton Simon Museum

Hello everyone, it’s Ashlee! For my writing assignment I visited the ‘Duchamp to Pop ‘exhibition that is currently on display at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. The exhibit explores French, naturalized American painter Marcel Duchamp’s influence on Pop artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Jim Dine. About 40 works from the museum's permanent collection are on view as well as loans from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the collection of Jack and Joan Quinn. Like referential art itself, the exhibition nods to previous Duchamp exhibitions at the museum, back when it was called the Pasadena Art Museum in the 1960s.

 

Marcel Duchamp is an artist whose work is associated with Cubism, conceptual art and Dada. He was integral in the development in the plastic arts and paved a new way of thinking about art that expanded beyond the artist’s own intention and context. His goal was to create as "retinal" art, intended only to please the eye and transitioning everyday items into valid pieces of art that merited attention and respect.

 

The exhibition also has works of artists he inspired like American artist Andy Warhol who lead the pop art movement in the 1960s. They had several of his ‘Campbell Soup Cans’ on display as well as second addition of his ‘Brillo Boxes’. Both are screen-prints, but the first is used in a flat, two dimensional manner that we are most used to using in class, whereas the latter uses the technique on wood to create an almost sculptural piece.

 

I really liked the wide variety of techniques displayed and how different artist used screen-printing in unexpected ways. What unified the pieces thematically was to play with the social expectations of the time of what was considered “high” art and their willingness to have a tongue in cheek attitude regarding art.