Blog #3

        The artist who presented his work in class this week was Jack Ryan. Ryan is a multi media artist and during his presentation he did these exercises to show us how technology helps us test the way we perceive  things like high frequencies of sound for example. Out of all of Ryan's works that varied from all different mediums, I was most impressed with his drawings. To me, his drawings showed the Ryan's amazing artistic talent and the rest of his works proved his ability to think conceptually. One of the things I liked most about Ryan's work was how his gallery shows had the appearance of just random art scattered throughout the room but as you dive deeper  into the individual pieces it becomes clear that all the works are based from a single concept. I find Ryan's way of setting up his galleries has a lot to do with the idea of how we perceive reality. What might originally be perceived as random and scattered is actually a complicated and connected body of work for the viewer to dive into. Ryan also brought up the idea of the sublime, something that our modern society is claimed to never be able to recognize. The idea of the sublime in art reminds me of the impressionists, especially Monet. Monet's art focused on the light and color of a moment flashing by in time, attempting to capture that beauty. http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/monet/last/giverny/monet.giverny.jpg 

To me the attempt to capture the beauty of a moment is like an attempt to capture the sublime through art.

     "The artist is not a special kind of person, but every person is a special kind of artist"(Coomeraswamy), in the reading Suzi Gablik interviews Satish Kumar in Ten Thousand Artists, Not One Master. In this chapter, Kumar brings up the point of integration, the question of how to combine art and everyday life. Should we be able to live alongside art constantly? I cant help but think that maybe that form of integration would devalue the art that I have grown to adore. Another interesting point brought up by Kumar is his response to Gablik's question of what he thinks the role of the artist is in a civilization that is in decline. Kumar responses by emphasizing how important the role of the artist is and how if anyone will be able to "save the wold" it will be the artist because they can still recognize the unity between civilization and nature. This puts a lot of power and responsibility in the hands of the artists. Are the artist of western culture ready for that kind of cultural importance? Only time well tell and hopefully culturally we make the right steps towards a better civilization.