Contemporary Art...Help!

Let's face it, contemporary art can be intimidating.
There, I've said it.
I know I'm not the only person at gallery openings and museums who sometimes smiles and nods while secretly thinking, "I don't get it," or "I could do that" or "Is that even art?"
So I asked local artist and critic Mark Harris, Director of the Art Department at the University of Cincinnati School of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning (DAAP), to help me, and you, learn how to approach and appreciate contemporary art.  And guess what? It turns out to be really quite simple! I just need to remember three things:
IMAGE
MATERIAL
IDEA
Watch the video to learn how to appreciate contemporary art from Mark Harris.
The examples in the video are by two talented local artists, Terence Hammonds and Brian Joiner.  Both Hammonds and Joiner draw from African-American historical experience in these works, but with different results.  These works were both featured during a gallery opening at 424 Findlay on April 23, 2010 at Aisle Gallery and at the studio of Mary Barr Rhodes. I saw these works on the same night I saw Mark Patsfall's video installation Analog Requiem.  Which made me realize...Hammonds, Joiner, and Patsfall are all using American historical memory as inspiration for their work.  Pretty cool.
I guess this contemporary art thing can be pretty interesting once you get comfortable with it and realize that like all the arts, it is really about storytelling.
As a musician, one of the things I enjoy about making these video blogs is selecting the background music.  For the discussion of the Joiner, I used one of my own performances of Winter Spirits for solo flute by American composer Katherine Hoover.  The composer wrote this in describing the piece: "There is a picture by the marvelous artist Maria Buchfink of a Native American flute player; from his flute rises a cloud of kachinas and totem spirits. This piece has also risen from his notes, and it is indeed influenced by Native American music. The idea of the flute invoking beneficial spirits, be they kachinas or any others, is a very natural one. Such spirits are an accepted and valued part of life in most of the world, and the flute has been used to honor and invite their presence for countless ages." Although there is no direct connection between Joiner's painting and this musical composition, I felt that the evocation of spirits, the colorful and haunting quality, and the ethereal, almost supernatural tones of the flute made for a nice pairing.

Speaking of backgrounds, you have to be wondering about the work of art in the background of the video when Harris is discussing Joiner's painting, a larger than life work which looks strangely similar to George Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, but with the addition of athletic nudes running in ruby slippers. Yes, it is another work by Brian Joiner and you can get a better look at it on the Weston Gallery website featuring Joiner's show titled Forged Souls, Weathered Soles (scroll to the bottom of that page).

Here is some more information about the artists.

Terence Hammonds
Stand Up! Organize!- 2010 three color screen print on 18, 24" x 24" sheets of rives b.f.k. edition of 2.  
                                                                                                                 

A native Cincinnatian, Terence Hammonds grew up in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood and attended the School for Creative and Performing Arts before studying at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Hammonds's work is informed and inspired by the struggles and determination of African Americans seeking equality during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Fusing imagery from that era with 1970s soul and funk music, C'mon Everybody, Get Up! features a series of six wooden dance floors (Get Up on the Down Stroke) and a large grid of digital images with hand embossing (Playing the Wall) in the street-level exhibition space.C'mon Everybody, Get Up! extols the opportunities in everyday popular culture that break down barriers and overcome prejudice and inequality; allowing people of all racial backgrounds to enjoy music and dance together. 

Here are some more works by Hammonds

Brian Joiner (1962-2010)  Brian Joiner is a native Cincinnatian who began drawing before he could even walk. After graduating from Wyoming High School, Joiner attended the Cleveland Institute of Art where he became bored and considered dropping out, when he took a class from Holocaust survivor, Julian Stanczank. Stanczank, inspired Joiner to stay in school, earn his bachelor of fine arts degree and become a full-time artist.

Joiner has received many awards and much recognition, including a 2001 Individual Artist Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council. His long list of solo and group exhibitions includes shows throughout Greater Cincinnati and across the country. Joiner has participated in numerous exhibitions throughout the Midwest, including the 2002 COLOR Exhibition hosted by Oprah Winfrey and the Indiana Black Expo   In 2004, Brian was one of a select group of national and local artists commissioned by the National Underground Freedom Railroad Center for their permanent collection.  Joiner's Freedom Center 4’ x 5’, mixed media, multidimensional portraits, are painted in black and white to focus attention on the subjects' fight for freedom rather than the color of their skin, he says. Painted from color photographs, Joiner made them his own by exaggerating a feature, a line or a shape. A well-known figure in Cincinnati, Joiner has received an Individual Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council and was named "best portrait artist in the city" by Cincinnati Magazine His work is featured in the collections of Duke Energy, Cleveland Art Association, National African American Museum and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, among other corporations. Brian Joiner has received an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council and was the designated artist of the 2007 Governor’s Awards for the Arts.  In 2009, Brian was the Duncanson Artist-In-Residence,Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati, Ohio. 
Below are two works from Joiner's series "Drowning in the Sea."

Royal Family with Yellow Fish

Mother and Child with Red Fish

Mark Harris
Mark Harris is an artist, critic, and curator. His diverse approaches to making artwork are linked by an interest in the imagery of intoxication and its role as a form of utopian representation where it functions as an alternative to the strategies of the historical avant-garde. He uses different media including painting, installation, video, and photography. Harris's recent solo and collaborative exhibitions include Streets of London, a video installation, with Peter Lloyd Lewis, at 1 000 000 mph, London (2003); the Trans Hudson Gallery, New York (2001); the Economist Building, London, with Carmel Buckley (1999); and Wall of Sound, with Jem Finer, at the Trans Hudson Gallery, Jersey City (1996). In addition his work has appeared in exhibitions in London, Munich, Peterborough, Canada, New Zealand, and Vienna. Among his many publications are articles in Miser & Now, NY Arts, ARTicle Press, and MAKE Magazine, as well as articles and reviews in Art Monthly. Harris is currently a visiting artist in the Painting, Printmaking, and Sculpture departments at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia.


Here are some works by Mark Harris

Pencil drawing of photo of 70s hippie commune, 2010

Paper cutout (1 of 6 in a series) of Beijing band "Retros", 2008

"Psychedelic Universe–"Photo of installation of vintage textiles that maps a time/space diagram of the origin of the universe (Big Bang at top, earth at bottom), 2007