Art and art itself ---- Joseph Kosuth

The title might be a bit confusing, but this is what I feel when I see Joseph's art. I couldn't quite get what he wants to say until I read some related articles.

To me, he is more a philosopher then an artist, an art philosopher to be exact.

The reason why I couldn't get what he tries to tell is that I tend to search the inner meaning each time when I look at an art piece; since most of the art works are formed of different objects and colors within which the truth or idea lies. So that was what I did when I looked at this piece 'Five Words in Green Neon' made in 1965. Of course I was not successful, how could I find words within words? The piece itself is titled 'Five Words in Green Neon', it's written 'Five Words in Green Neon', and it shows itself 'Five Words in Green Neon'. It is simply a straight-forward statement the artist wants to show the viewers: 'art as an idea/a fact/or a sentence itself'.

His art is so confusing to me I found its very hard for my brain to analyze his logic. That is part of the reason I am not very into philosophy, because one tends to think too much and get trapped in his/her own brain and thinking pattern, and it's almost impossible to get oneself out of that illusionary world. The searching and questioning process is so tiring and to me useless and a waste of time because there is usually no 'correct' or 'standard' answer and most of the people pay little attention to what you are doing really and see little value in it.

To question art like this is like to ask 'what's the meaning of life?'. Why don't we just simply create art like our ancestors did in ancient times with forms and colors in order to create a visionary pleasantness, a simple idea or meaning just like how we should just enjoy our colorful life instead of spending time questioning, questioning, questioning on the existence of art and life itself.

On the other hand, his art philosophy art is part of the art itself, so there is nothing wrong in creating his own art. To him, it is a pleasure to question and to show his ideas. Though I usually find that no matter how much you think or question one thing, the simplest and happiest thing to do is to get out of yourself and your complex illusionary world and just live your life in reality and make your art in reality just like the rest of the world.

Chinese Landscape ---- Yao Lu 姚璐

I found a lot of Chinese artists share one common quality in their art, that is: the romantic and poetic element that is sometimes a little sentimental.

Like Yao Lu's photography series 'Chinese Landscape'. The romantic and poetic element is rooted deeply in Chinese literature and art since the ancient times, and the influence is still affecting us generation after generation. The inspiration of this series is derived from traditional Chinese ink painting. The square-like shape is one of the shapes of the hand fans ancient women use. Those fans usually had landscape or figural paintings on them as decoration. A red stamp shows the name of the artist who did the painting, usually with a year and date.

We can find all these elements in Yao's work. In Chinese, we literally call these kind of paintings 'water ink paintings' since we usually mix up water and ink together to draw, different ratios between water and ink create different layers and highlights in a painting, it's kind of like western water colors. The dissemination of the colors create a dreamy romantic feel in the art.

And here in this series, Yao added clouds and smoke to create the similar feeling. The draperies of the cover cloth on the mountains imitate the soft shades, lights and the gradation of layers on the mountains in a traditional Chinese landscape painting.

They are so beautifully done, I'm so impressed he did it with modern tools and techniques.

It's kind of sad to talk about the subject matter. Because it's related to the pollution of our land and the destruction of our beautiful past landscapes. It will be ironic to compare one of the ancient true landscape paintings with one of these. The beauty was gone, all we have is the imagination on a trash land.

One of the weirdest ---- Phyllis Galembo

I decided to walk out of my comfort zone and write something about the art I don't like and I'm very uncomfortable with.

I believe probably a lot of the Americans will like Phyllis's work; just think about how enthusiastically Americans celebrate Halloween! All those masks and costumes and ghostly stuff. I'm not against that, I actually think it's kind of fun. But Phyllis' work is usually way more frightening and scary than funny.

She is very obsessed with mystic rituals in Africa and some other tribes. I think it's fine to show those people's mystic masques and clothing style in her art, but somehow she always alters it a bit and creates a dark scary scene like a horror movie. I'm thinking, "is it really necessary to add disturbing elements in an art piece to draw people's attention and arouse strong reactions?!"

My answer is definitely 'NO'! Maybe I don't really have the right to judge it this way since I never considered myself as an artist or one who knows very much about art. But I tend to like things that's more humble, quiet and under-toned. Especially in an art piece that shows darkness, sadness and sorrow; I think it's more human and natural, since most of the people in the world do not like to broadcast or even show a sign of their dark side. Most of us keep silent about these feelings, keeping them to ourselves and at the bottom of our hearts. If an art piece 'acts' the same way, I think it will evoke more resonance.

I don't really think the people in those cultures do make up this way in real life. The rituals are not about creating horror scenes and feelings, they are more about mystic power and submission. Maybe there is power but I mostly feel so frightened that I don't want to look at them any more. Or is it possible she is trying to show the person's inner soul through the weirdness of clothing and mask? There is no way to know unless I visit all those tribes and get to know their culture.

No matter what, I just can't get myself very much into any mask and custom thing especially when it's weird and bizarre.

The abandoned ---- Mike Kelley

I'm not a big fan of stuffed animals. Probably because I didn't have the 'luxury' life of having lots of stuffed animals for childhood comfort and fun when I was little; just like most of the other Chinese children in the 80's. My only zoomorphic or anthropomorphic toy was a toddler size, plastic, blond western boy doll.

Because of this I am very picky about judging if a stuffed animal is cute or not; and so I found a lot of them are very ugly. That's probably one of the reasons I don't like Mike Kelley's work very much.

Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites, 1991-1999

I can't believe this installation was sold for 2.7 million dollars once! 'many viewers had a very empathic relationship with the stuffed animals' says the artist. I guess it makes sense if most of the viewers are westerners who generally grow up with lots of stuffed animals. It must be painful for them to see bunch of them are tangled together, abandoned, dirty, and without any identities.

More love hours than can ever be repaid, 1987

I read an article which the artist wrote, talking about his works. Seems he mostly talked about the viewers reactions towards his work and how he made the work. He didn't mention much what his original message is exactly. And he is even a bit surprised this second work caused people to think it's a 'cruel treatment'. I mean what do you expect when you put bunch of abandoned dolls so randomly with some of them facing inwards toward the wall? Apparently, He just wanted people to enjoy and appreciate the 'beautiful geometric form' he created with the dolls. I personally don't see a whole lot of beautiful geometric forms; maybe I'm just judging it too much with my own taste.

Frankenstein, 1989

To me, just making a work without any message is kind of a waste of time. It's like a beautiful person without soul. Perhaps I'm just being arrogant, there are lots of people living happily without souls, is it wrong? It's probably not wrong, it is just part of life. And that is just part of art.

The pen master ---- William E. Dennis

I was so surprised when I saw the pen art in Boise Art Museum on First Thursday last week because I always assumed that Americans care little about their handwriting, and certainly wouldn't ever spend time on pen calligraphy. Apparently I'm wrong! The pen art I saw was so delicate and intricate, its completely the opposite of the impression I had towards Americans in general.

William E. Dennis is considered by some as the finest pen artist of all times in history. I found this image on Internet, but it doesn't look as nearly as good as the original. There were other pen art from other pen artists on display in the museum, but I liked Dennis' the best; even though I didn't yet know about his fame.

I guess one of the reasons I like this kind of art is because I always like very detailed work, work that is complex but also neat and clean. Dennis' work definitely meets all those standards, but besides that, his work has something you cannot find in the others'. It might be the fluid of the lines, it might be the cheer from his pen, or it might be the elegance from his heart.

I wonder why American people are not doing this kind of art any more. Pen art or calligraphy has been popular in China since it started. Of course we don't draw flourishes, we mostly practice Chinese characters with different styles using the artist pen. Having good handwriting is considered a respectable thing; that's probably why both bush calligraphy and pen calligraphy are still popular in China. It is a good thing because this way the antique culture can keep growing and never disappear. It is interesting to see the old part of the American culture since the new part is so overwhelming that people, especially foreigners, forget or don't even realize that the USA actually had some good old cultural essences.

The haunted darkness ---- Christian Boltanski

I felt an instant connection with Christian's works the first time I saw them on Internet. When I was little I was extremely scared of death and darkness; I was haunted by the same couple of nightmares for a long time, they played alternately over and over in my mind during my sleep. The extreme loneliness and fear was far beyond a child's capability of adapting. The moment I saw Christian's work, those feelings came back; old memories of feelings were awakened. It must be painful for him to create so many art pieces out of the far, unreachable and untouchable darkness.

This scene is very similar to one of my nightmares, except for the lights and the metal shelves with drawers. In my dream, I was walking through an narrow aisle like this with wooden shelves with rectangular cells. Each cell has a wooden box containing the ashes of a dead person, and there is a picture of that person on the box (just like this art piece) in the middle; and other boxes with other pictures of the dead. Some natural light is searching through between the shelves, and there are a lot of darkness and shadows. Now you know why I had the connection with the artist. This piece is called 'dead swiss', which has nothing to do with my dream. I don't know what's the relationship between these dead people with the artist. It doesn't matter that much because I didn't know any of those dead people in my dream.

His work is like a haunted depression normal people cannot bear, at least not for too long. But I think there is an amount of darkness in every single human, at least at certain stage. The artist might have experienced more than normal people, that's why he magnified these feelings in his art.

This piece seems to show the fragility of life by displaying these dead children's pictures heads. Most of his works are black and while, a little blurred: a way to increase the haunted atmosphere.

His work would match Portishead's music really well. There is a deep, thoughtful soul in the artist, suspended in the process of dying. There is no sadness, there is no tears, just darkness, silent, endless depression.

Art of emotions ---- Karen Ryan

It is interesting that art is very often used as a tool to express hurtful or gloomy emotions. I think it's just natural because people are always somehow hiding the negative part of themselves, only wearing the happy, content, joyful mask to fool others. (Of course, not all the time and I'm not saying it's necessarily better that everybody just shows their bare depressing face instead). But for some highly emotional people, especially artists, it is a pain not able to express their true emotions. Emotions are a large part of who they are, and the desire for soulful communication is one of their prior needs.

Then I found Karen Ryan: an artist who can fit into that category. This work is called 'body', installation locally in Portsmouth. The body, actually a skeleton of a body, formed by loosely connected old chair pieces, piling together and somewhat supporting each other, is so vulnerable with its retreating posture. The bare skeleton, without even the protection of skin, looks so weak, insecure and broken. It's hiding at the foot of a filthy wall on a dark ground, headless, the loneliness is like a creeping net capturing the whole setting and the viewers heart.

Another scene of the same 'body'. If the first one is still trying to communicate with the viewer, or gain some emotional response, this one is not. It gives us a straight ending: giving up on the gray and gloomy way of life. Not necessarily death; more like indulging oneself in the darkness, a passive attitude.

Here is another psychic piece. It's custom made, so the artist didn't give an official artist name to it. It is a piece that's very easily to understand: a smaller one being well protected by the bigger one. The artist wants to show love in a relationship, maybe mostly parental love. It can also be man and women love I think, although it might make people uncomfortable.

She made a lot of these kind of chairs with same concept. You can find all the pictures on her Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bykarenryan/ .

She also made a lot of plate art, but I like them less than the 'body's, just because I normally don't like things that are too representative.