Can We Learn to See How Artists See?

We all dream of mastering a skill like a pro—to skate like an Olympian, sing like an Idol, or go to the hoop “like Mike.” What if we could learn to see how an artist sees? “It’s so important to move through the world with this kind of wonder,” artist Bo Bartlett says of putting on an artist’s eyes in SEE: An Art Road Trip. “It all passes so fast.” Directed by Bartlett with his wife and fellow artist Betsy Eby and filmmaker Glenn Holsten, SEE challenges and inspires us to see the world through an artist’s eyes not necessarily in hopes of making art but, more importantly, in hopes of our appreciating the beauty that rushes past us and our high-speed everyday lives. Part road trip, part art history lesson, and part existential drama, SEE at all times conveys a vision of a more aware, more visually activated life that most of us only dream of but can finally experience, if only fleetingly, through these pros’ eyes. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Can We Learn to See How Artists See?"

Is Walter De Maria’s Death His Final Artwork?

Walter, we hardly knew you. When I saw that American artist Walter De Maria had died at the age of 77 on July 25^th, my mind’s eye immediate pictured The Lightning Field (shown above), the landmark 1977 installation piece that most art lovers know only through pictures thanks to its out-of-the-way location and strict visitation policy. De Maria brought a minimalist’s mind to the world of large-scale art, imposing a powerful will for precision on the natural landscape as a means of ordering it in a way for contemplation. De Maria, who shunned photography not only of his artworks but also of himself, may remain as enigmatic as his art now that he’s gone, but is his bodily passing his final artwork? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Is Walter De Maria’s Death His Final Artwork?"

How Public Art Exists More in Our Minds than in Some Place

In the wake of the Dr. King Memorial kerfuffle, I’ve been thinking more and more of how public art is a state of mind as much as a physical thing in a physical place. In an article in the inaugural issue of Public Art Dialogue, Joshua Fisher argues that Gutzon Borglum’s Mount Rushmore National Memorial and Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty exemplify this dual nature of public art, specifically in their relationship to the idea of American “Manifest Destiny.” By examining what Borglum said in his sculpture versus what his “antithesis” Smithson said in his earth art, Fisher sheds new light on each work and provides a template for analyzing the MLK monument and those that will follow. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "How Public Art Exists More in Our Minds than in Some Place."

Rainbow Connection: Rock Music Illuminated by Andi Watson

“It never phased him that we’d call out different tunes from the stage and change the set around endlessly to stop from being bored,” Radiohead front man Thom Yorke says of the group’s lighting and stage designer Andi Watson. “It meant that it became less of a show of self aggrandizement for the artist, impressing an audience for its own sake and filling a huge space, and more a response to what was really happening musically night by night.” In Bullet Proof... I Wish I Was: The Lighting and Stage Design of Andi Watson, Christopher Scoates and others examine just how Watson sculpts light to help audience connect with the music of acts such as Lenny Kravitz, Oasis, Counting Crows, and especially Radiohead, with whom Watson’s worked since meeting them in 1993 up to and including their last tour in support of In Rainbows. Using the whole spectrum of aesthetics and technology, Watson’s “rainbow connection” with audiences not only draws heavily from artistic influences of the past, but also spotlights a brighter, greener future for the field of lighting and stage design. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Rainbow Connection."

[Many thanks to Chronicle Books for providing me with the image above and a review copy of Bullet Proof... I Wish I Was: The Lighting and Stage Design of Andi Watson by Christopher Scoates, with a foreword by Thom Yorke and essays by Dick Hebdige and J. Fiona Ragheb.]

[All apologies to Kermit the Frog for borrowing the title of his hit song for the title of this post.]