NEWSgrist - where spin is art

Cai Guo-Qiang's Explosive Olympic Remix

Cai Guo-Qiang
Footprints of History: Fireworks Project for the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing OlympicGames 2008. Photo by Hiro Ihara, courtesy Cai Studio.

via Artnet magazine, 8/19/08:

REPLY TO THE OLYMPICS CONTROVERSY

by Cai Guo-Qiang

Some 34.2 million viewers watched the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Beijing on Aug. 8, 2008. However, following the spectacular show, Western news reports charged that organizers of the event had deceived the audience by using trickery to augment the proceedings, including having a little girl lip-synch a patriotic song and representing contingents of ethnic minorities with actors. Critics claim as well that the ceremony’s spectacular fireworks show, which was conceived by Chinese art star Cai Guo-Qiang, wasn’t all it seemed to be.

The impressive fireworks display included a series of 29 giant footprints, made of white starbursts, that seemed to traverse the sky from Tiananmen Square to the Olympic Stadium. But the TV presentation of the fireworks, broadcast to the world as well as shown on the giant screens within the Olympic Stadium, included not the actual event but rather a 55-second digital film of the 29 footprints, complete with simulated camera jitter and haze, seamlessly inserted into the broadcast.

Representatives of the Beijing Games have stated that the digital trickery was necessary because the actual effect would not have been clearly visible in the prevailing atmospheric conditions, while filming it from the air would have endangered the helicopter pilot. Here, the artist himself responds to the controversy:

The explosion event Footprints of History: Fireworks Project for the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games consisted of a series of 29 giant footprint fireworks -- one for each Olympiad -- over the Beijing skyline, leading to the National Olympic Stadium. The 29 footprints were fired in succession, traveling a total distance of 15 kilometers, or 9.3 miles, within a period of 63 seconds.

It is quite customary to prepare a backup reel for major televised events of this scale, and this has been true of the opening and closing ceremonies of previous Olympic Games. We were aware of this and thus created our own reel from dress rehearsal footage of the footprint fireworks. The sequence was then created using computer graphics.

From my own perspective as an artist, there are two separate realms in which this artwork exists, as two very different mediums have been utilized. First, there is the artwork that exists in the material realm: the ephemeral sculpture. This was viewed by people attending the ceremonies inside the stadium and standing outside on the streets of Beijing. This artwork was documented from various vantage points on video, which has been broadcast by many international media outlets.

Second, there is a creative digital rendering of the artwork in the medium of video. It is a single version of the event viewed by a large broadcast audience. Such a conceptual work can exist simultaneously in these two separate realms. And perhaps to also take Footprints of History into this second realm was necessary because in many of my explosion events, such as Project to Extend the Great Wall of China by 10,000 Meters, the very best vantage point is not the human one.

CAI GUO-QIANG was director of visual and special effects at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Back to the Futura!

via Crooked Timber:

 

Back to the Futura

by John Holbo on July 26, 2008

So, about that Obama-in-Berlin poster.

No, I'm not going to make fun of the small handful of right-wing blogs that got fake-alarmist about it, hinting that it kinda sorta looked Fascist. My question is related, however. Being a sensible and knowledgeable sort of person, as opposed to some sort of crazed wingnut, when I look at the poster I see not Fascist art but an homage to German modernist styles of the 1910's and 20's. Being the sort of person who futzes with fonts, I also see an example of art that would have been actually illegal under the Nazis. Quoting from German Modern, by Steven Heller and Louise Fili [amazon]:

After the Nazi's rise to power in 1933, however, when the Dessau Bauhaus was closed (the school had moved from its original home in Weimar in 1925), it was forbidden to use modern design or sans-serif typefaces such as Futura, which Goebbels called a "Jewish invention." Rigid, central balanced composition returned and traditional (and often illegible) Fraktur type was touted as symbolic of the glories of the nation. (17)

The Bauhaus was birthplace to New Typography, by Jan Tschichold, father of Futura. [UPDATE: No, sorry, it was Paul Renner. But the font was associated with the Bauhaus.] I've long been curious about how this whole 'forbidden to use modern design or sans-serif typefaces such a Futura' was enforced in practice. (I like the idea that maybe the Germans lost the war because of a font gap. They were all going blind, trying to read the Führer's orders in Fraktur.) But I've never actually read a full discussion of this, and I’ve read inconsistent brief mentions.

Example: the wikipedia entry for Art of the Third Reich has this to say. "The poster became an important medium for propaganda during this period. Combining text and bold graphics, posters were extensively deployed both in Germany and in the areas occupied. Their typography reflected the Nazis' preference for Fraktur over modern sans-serif typefaces, which were condemned as cultural Bolshevism (although Futura continued to be used owing to its practicality). The use of Fraktur was prevalent in advertising--which was a state monopoly--and books published during the Third Reich."

So were they allowed to use Futura or weren't they? Obviously they wouldn't have been allowed to use Gotham, which is the Futura-resembling but definitely American typeface Obama uses. It doesn't look German. But exactly how did the Nazis set about stamping out serifs? "Lost Serifs Sink Ships!" I'd be curious to read about the minor craziness that must have ensued.

The source for this section of the wikipedia article is Graphic Design: A Concise History, by Richard Hollis [amazon]. Which I've not seen. But I can't imagine such a title has much room for extended discussion. It makes sense, on reflection, that advertising would be a state monopoly, because it’s such a potential source of subversion. Sticking big letters on everything. It also makes sense that you can't oblige everyone to advertise using Fraktur. You can’t read that stuff on a moving bus or train. The wikipedia article also discusses the rather well-known fact that there was a serious schism in Nazi art promotion/censorship circles between those who that wanted to champion suitably Nazi-fied aspects of expressionism as dynamic and modern (Goebbels was one of these, until the Führer put his foot down) and the rest. So it isn't wrong to think that some Nazi art looks like German expressionism. Although it is certainly wrong to think that all German modernism looks like Nazi art.

I found a review by Heller of Art of the Third Reich, by Peter Adam:

Disappointingly, Adam gives short shrift given to graphic design. The Nazis are often credited with the most successful national "identity," ever designed; and its visual propaganda was among the most effective in the modern world. Adam allows that the ideals behind the other arts were manifest in applied art, but does not give the same exacting detail into creation of, say, posters and advertisements as he does the other arts. Given the totality of Nazi control, it would have been fascinating to know why Goebbels brought back German Fraktur to replace sans-serif, which he was reputed to have called a Jewish invention. Or why some years later the more legible sans-serifs do make their way back into German typefoundries replacing Fraktur as a dominant typeface.

Maybe the typeface wars of the Nazi era are unwritten history. I'll just conclude with a few final thoughts.

The art for the cover of the Adam book is interesting because it looks – to me, anyway – like more tasteful 20's-style expressionism/Russian constructivism than the Nazis actually produced for their war posters. I can understand why book designers would do this. It's a way of saying: don't worry, this isn't actually a Nazi book. It's a book about the Nazis. But eventually the effect of this sort of thing is to make 20's-style expressionism look more Fascist, to our eyes.

And here are a couple of relevant images from the Heller book. First, a poster that looks sorta like the Obama poster, compositionally:

It's from 1919.

Then, a couple of examples of how expressionism really has trouble not looking irrelevantly sinister, in light of subsequent developments. The evil Jew is going to steal our awesome magnet! No, I take it you are supposed to identify with the sinister, hook-nosed devil-motorist. I want more power!

Here's another weird one. Our metal package fasterers are so great that you could use them to handcuff someone to a cement block and, presumably, throw him in the river to drown? (You’ll sleep easier, knowing your customers are sleeping with the fishes?) Is it supposed to be a joke? Is it just a somewhat badly designed ad, because it’s too morbid? I dunno.

These posters are from 1915 and 1919, respectively.

{ 61 comments… read them below or add one }

Just launched: portabledocument

Check out artist David Dodge's beautifully conceived new online interface for artist books (etc.): http://www.portabledocument.org

The project is a curated online resource for artist books, documents and projects. PDF versions of these books and pamphlets are available on the site for free download. Though viewing a book on the computer can be a challenging experience, the site does offer a chance to see work that otherwise would not surface to very many people. Eventually, the project will also take on a real world manifestation through lectures, book signings and, as of yet, other undecided gatherings.

(image above):

Our first cookbook, a visual smorgasbord by Katie Grinnan and Tom Holmes, is online and ready to accompany you on your kitchen adventures. Mix & Mingle & Mangle and happy cooking! [...]

Appropriation, Decontextualization, History and Public Domain

[Image source]

There's been a discussion raging on several blogs regarding Shepard Fairey, his self-serving entrepreneurship, and his "plagiarism" of anonymous protest images from the Public Domain. The main complaint is here, while perhaps a more thorough and thoughtful discussion is at a blog called Just Seeds, a self described "Visual Resistance Artists' Collective" -- [more info]. These are activists who take it upon themselves to "educate" the rest of us through their art, while perhaps eking out a small income from the sale of posters, prints, etc. Someone like Shepard Fairey who brands himself and who is in essence his own cause, is clearly their natural enemy.

Of course, much of the gut sentiment expressed here, both in the main post and by commentators, rubs me the wrong way, as it privileges certain viewpoints (not to mention certain specific forms of expression) over others; one of the ideas I find particularly noxious is the insistence that art must "benefit society" through spreading the anti-capitalist, anti-culture industry message etc. etc. In the case with Fairey, as activists they are mostly concerned with the dilution or loss of the "original" historical readings of protest images, powerful symbols that reverberate with their own political positions and causes and concerns. Only the author of the main post pauses to consider what it means to try to circumscribe or contain the meanings of images in this way. In other words, there is no sense here of the problems inherent to being didactic, and agitprop trumps other forms of visual expression without ever being identified as propaganda.

In any case, the main concerns on the Just Seeds post are worth thinking about, regardless of what side of the copyfight or political fence you're on: the "loss of history" via Fairey's decontextualization and re-use of these images, and his supposed closing off of public domain works via their newly minted status through incorporation as central images in his own, copyrighted works is an interesting discussion unto itself. And since my name and my "molotov" affair with Susan Meiselas was cited by two commentators, presumably as an example of why appropriation and decontextualization is a bad thing, I decided it might be time for me to chime in, if briefly. Here's an excerpt the post (long, worth reading in full) and my comment:

[Image source]

A Response to OBEY Plagiarist
Posted December 14, 2007 by jmacphee

It's taken me a long time to get this together, but I wanted to throw my ideas into the discussion around the artwork/plagiarism of Shepard Fairey that has been spinning around the web. For those that might not know, Shepard Fairey is the creator of the "Andre the Giant has a Posse" sticker campaign, which became a long running series of "Obey Giant" posters. Mark Vallen, a Los Angeles-based artist (who created some of my favorite street posters from the early LA punk scene), recently published a long critique of Fairey on his blog, Art For A Change. What I'm writing here directly relates to Mark's piece, so if you haven't read it, give it a look here.

Mark's write-up came out of a long discussion that has been going on between a number of politically-motivated artists and archivists about Fairey's work. Throughout the whole process of discussion it has seemed clear that we have been coming from parallel but divergent positions, with different parts of the larger issues at hand being more or less important to each of us. Mark is clearly concerned with social and political potentials of ART, and believes Fairey's wholesale "theft" of historical images cheapens the potential for art to make change in the world. Lincoln Cushing, an artist, archivist and author who has been involved in the discussions, is very concerned with how plagiarism hurts efforts to empower our communities with their own revolutionary art history. However, he also supports strategic use of existing copyright law, and recently got Fairey to pay retroactive royalties on a t-shirt with Cuban artwork appropriated without credit. Favianna Rodriguez, also involved, has been particularly frustrated with Fairey's use of and profiting off of the art of people of color, and the images of the struggles of people of color, while he has had to pay none of the costs for having to live as a person of color in this society or world. People are already rallying to Fairey's defense, claiming his appropriations are legitimate ways to create art, or simply attacking his critics, namely Mark Vallen. I'm not really interested in attacking Fairey, I simply want to make transparent the politics and economics his work uses and depends on. [read full post + comments]

Here's my brief comment that doesn't nearly address all of these concerns (so far no responses...):

this is a great, thought-provoking post that brings all the difficult issues to the fore, and then some. For me the following is the "money quote" if you'll excuse the expression:

One thing Mark, Lincoln, Favianna and others are deeply concerned about with Fairey's work is the using of social movement imagery, as I understand it because he has no "right" to it. But this confuses me. I want to know who DOES have the right to it? Are some people more authentic leftists, so they have more of a right to authentic leftist graphics? For example, the Russian Revolution was real, it happened, it changed peoples lives, there is no question about that, but the public construction of the revolution, i.e. how all the posters, photos, books, etc. build up to a coherent whole in the social imagination, is that "real"? Authentic? Does any one group have the right to claim it? To claim authenticity? Does Fairey have less right to the social imaginary of revolution than the rest of us? Have we made a revolution and he hasn't?

This, imho, is more at the crux of this issue than some of the concerns voiced here about the "loss of history". If you think it through again, you may find yourself to be on the wrong side of a Free Speech issue (ironically), just as Meiselas did re: the molotov cerfuffle, which was why it behooved her to quickly articulate a rationale to her own otherwise censorious actions -- a rationale that would speak to her posse on the Left. I believe that while Fairey obviously has his own interests in mind, there are many subtle and important uses for decontextualization in art. Also: there is a difference between agitprop and other kinds of visual discourse; it's absurd to assume that these various forms of expression can't co-exist, that one would -- should -- cancel the other out.

cheers,
joy

Posted by: joy     at     January 14, 2008 11:30 AM

Consider this an invitation to an open thread. Discussion in the comments section only please (long email rants will be deleted). please try not to hurl invective.

JG

Only Re-connect

Thomas Hannich. Crocheted laptop by Joana Vasconcelos.

via NYTimes:

Handmade 2.0
By ROB WALKER (AKA murketing )
Published: December 16, 2007

The declaration from something called the Handmade Consortium materialized on a Web site called buyhandmade.org in late October. "I pledge to buy handmade this holiday season, and request that others do the same for me," it said, and you could type in your name to "sign" on; within a few weeks, more than 6,500 people had done so. "Buying handmade is better for people," a statement on the site read in part, and "better for the environment," because mass production is a "major cause" of global warming, among other things. There were links to an anti-sweatshop site and a Wal-Mart watchdog site.

The pledge echoed the idealistic language of a tree-hugger activist group, but actually the consortium's most prominent member was the online shopping bazaar Etsy, a very much for-profit entity that bills itself as "your place to buy & sell all things handmade." Etsy does not fulfill orders from an inventory; it's a place where sellers set up virtual storefronts, giving the site a cut of sales. While eBay rose to prominence nearly a decade ago as an endless garage sale for the auctioning of collectibles and bric-a-brac, Etsy is more of an online craft fair, or art show, where the idea is that individuals can sell things that they have made. How many such people can there be? At last count, more than 70,000 — about 90 percent of whom were women — were using Etsy to peddle their jewelry, art, toys, clothes, dishware, stationery, zines and a variety of objects from the mundane to the highly idiosyncratic. Each seller has a profile page telling shoppers a bit about themselves, and maybe offering a link to a blog or a MySpace page or a mailing list; most have devised some clever store or brand name for whatever they’re selling.

Maybe you're interested in a "random music generator" called the Orb of Sound ($80), built by an Australian tinkerer calling himself RareBeasts. Or a whistle made out of a tin can and bottle caps ($12), by loranscruggs, near Seattle. Or the "hand-painted antique ceramic doll-head planters" sold under the name Clayflower22 by a retired schoolteacher near Las Cruces, N.M. Or the "Kaleidoscope Pearberry Soapsicle" ($5), made by a woman in Daytona Beach, Fla., who calls her shop Simply Soaps. Or a porcelain bowl with an image of a skull on it, from a Chicago couple who call themselves Circa Ceramics. Or an original painting from an artist in Athens, Ga., who goes by the moniker the Black Apple.

Browsing Etsy is both exhilarating and exhausting. There is enough here to mount an astonishing museum exhibition. There is also plenty of junk. Most of all there is a dizzying amount of stuff, and it is similarly difficult to figure out how to characterize what it all represents: an art movement, a craft phenomenon or shopping trend. Whatever this is, it’s not something that Etsy created but rather something that it is trying to make bigger, more visible and more accessible — partly by mixing high-minded ideas about consumer responsibility with the unsentimental notion of the profit motive.

On July 29, Etsy registered its one-millionth sale and is expecting to hit two million items sold by mid-December. Shoppers spent $4.3 million buying 300,000 items from the site’s sellers in November alone — a 43 percent increase over the previous month. Thus far in December, the site has had record-breaking sales every day. Only about two years old, the company is not currently profitable but is somewhat unusual among Internet-based start-ups of the so-called Web 2.0 era in having a model that does not depend on advertising revenue. It depends on people buying things, in a manner that the founders position as a throwback to the way consumption ought to be: individuals buying from other individuals. "Our ties to the local and human sources of our goods have been lost," the Handmade Pledge site asserts. "Buying handmade helps us reconnect." The idea is a digital-age version of artisanal culture — that the future of shopping is all about the past. [read on...]

See also (via murketing):

Handmade 2.0: Links of interest