Currently at the Contemporary Art Museum there is a show for the Graduating students of USF. The students involved are also teachers and I have had the pleasure of having one of them as a teacher. The artists had to work on their thesis for the last year they are here. The works included different media such as: sculpture, drawings, paintings, and electronic media. This final assignment had to be a great one for they have to be judged by a panel of museum critics. Along with the artists projects, we were given a tour of the C.A.M.’s museum collection and studio where famous traveling artists come and work on future exhibits. Visiting the museum gave me a better idea of what is needed for the masters degree, a behind the scenes tour of the museum, and viewing future great artists.
First, we came in contact with the artist Stead Thomas. He did sculpture, video, and comic books for his project. The Sculpture that was very interesting was “I won’t starve bitches.” They were gold blocks to symbolize American money from the federal reserve. I like the juxtaposition of his idea about the American economy and the way we hold the value of money in our hands. His video combined mirror image techniques and showed him climbing a tree. Of course I am not familiar with this method, so I cannot explain more but I think he wanted it to look photographic. The comic books were not as good as they could have been, he should have made one nice comic book instead of five unfinished books.
Next, we saw Victoria Lee Skelly’s sculpture. She is involved with community art projects and used her emails back in forth to sponsors to form her thesis and end project. It contains a box with a picture of nature inside with grass on the bottom. It creates an affect that makes you think that you are outside. For the outside of the box she uses all emails that she received with negative responses to paste on the box. The emails are all declines for funds to build community art projects. I liked the way she used the technological world vs. nature.
Ariel Baron-Robbins accomplished her thesis by using paintings and video. Her idea is well thought out and visually interesting in both. The paintings are layered with contrasting black and whites along with gesture like figures. The video that she did is just like her paintings but living. She wears all black and moves her body in different gestures. This grad student definitely put thought into her concept.
One of my favorites is Carmen Tiffany. She did the movie about childhood dolls with real world talk. The idea of the modern world is changing the future for the children. Sickening at the same time cartoon like figures are being distorted. She takes lisa frank images and makes them almost annoying. She takes child pornography and gives it a twist. I loved the fact that it was almost like a Jerry Springer show for kids.
Another favorite of mine is Andy Nigon. I am a sculpture major and really loved seeing this piece in progress. He was my teacher last year and I saw him working on this project. He used different recycled material to create a huge elephant. All the methods he used were well thought out and organized. The material was used to look like the elephant skin wrinkles. On the ears he used old blankets and foam for most of the body. The frame is welded metal and the way he calculated the weight to the hind legs is amazing. The piece is very colorful, and makes you want to look all around. The piece never ends you always find something new to look at.
Toni Danette Billick reminds me of the artist that went here named Kaliup Lindsey. She brings about the ideas of Drag queen stars and the psychosexual philosophies in her work. The best one is the vagina sculpture in which you look into it and see a human dressed as a lamb. It is very odd and makes you think of fairytales. The vagina is very realistic and makes you feel like a voyeurist. The idea is to bring into light of what goes on in the everyday life of a drag queen star.
Last, but not least is Maxim Maximovitch. He did an electronic video of a 3-d world. It was cool that you could travel by using a mouse into each room. It looks like he put a lot of effort into making this fantasy world. The contrasts were great using light and dark shadows to form the spaces. I feel like he could’ve made it more interactive though by adding a search for an item or place.
Collectively these pieces of work are the end projects for these artists and I hope they continue to do work even with the judges outcomes. This show was mentally and visually stimulating. For once, it is nice to see what our school is accomplishing rather than another famous artist exhibit. All of these artists put a great deal of work in to this show and I am glad to have seen it.
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