Reading Response to Robert Smithson’s, A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic New Jersey.
The paper basically tells all that Robert Smithson’s journey to the Passaic, New Jersey was about. However, the primary objective of the trip was to take photographs of some of the monuments that were appealing to his eye. In my own opinion, I have reasonable evidence to believe that the essay was primarily intended to be a narrative; the very ways in which the paper describes the trip is more inclined towards a narration. Besides, Robert Smithson on his side chose to display only six of his works, in my own opinion, I think the six chosen works were his best, therefore, he decided to showcase them in order to earn a reputation.
Yet still, the element of a narrative comes in since the six chosen pictures were meant to help the reader understand his thoughts; that’s basically a narrative. Even though the pictures were taken from the same location, that is, Passaic, New Jersey, all the pictures were quite unique and singly symbolized something in particular. I think Robert Smithson chose these unique pictures to elaborate on some elements. Being narrative in nature, Robert Smithson’s works were to offer more information on what he thought about something, just like his pictures were uniquely attached to a particular view. Nonetheless, all the six pictures were all different and each possessed a unique concept or story.
Being choosy with his pictures clearly reveals his intentions. As it is seen, all the pictures should have the capacity to reveal something about the artist, his questions, imaginations or observation. A particular example to prove that this essay is a narrative, the artist used the fountain monument to bring about the idea of industrialization. I believe that all these images were symbolic in nature with the view of exonerating the concept of a narrative from the essay.
Reading Response to Kristine Stiles’, Eye Occulus
Before becoming an entertainment phenomenon, the film was viewed as a just a mere documentation. Before the discovery of its importance, people just used this film as an ordinary means of documentation. However, the film was very crucial, its qualities made it to be elevated to the status of an entertainment phenomenon. Unknown to its Author, Kristine Stiles, introduced the video to the Art World, coincidentally, her introduction happened during the Vietnamese civil war (Kristine 214). During that time, there was rapid transformation in the global politics and cultures; it was quite fortunate for Kristine Stiles to have introduced her video for the video took advantage of the ongoing situations to gain the reputation it had.
As a matter of fact, the coincidence makes one believe that Kristine was actually waiting for that time, however, that was not her intention; she was quite unaware. One of the most unique attributes of the video is its democratization and the subsequent reproductions. Kristine in her own opinion goes further to explain what she actually felt, she says that people had a feeling that videos were technologies meant for anti-establishment of images. This opinion makes one thinks that videos were meant to fight images and photography (Kristine 216).
Videos gained a lot of criticism, and acrimonious term evolved “a television tuned against itself.” However, as it was a new feature in the field of arts, it was not ordinary for people to accept it without having something to say about it. However, Kristine gave out several advantages that the development would possess over the common forms of arts like sculpture and imagery. One particular example she gave was that videos were intangible unlike the fragile paintings used before; furthermore it’s both audio and visual.
Pollock Reading Response
Pollock’s idea to arts is something that makes one to reverse his way of thinking pertaining to arts. His ideas as expressed in the article, “the art of Painting”, greatly capture reader’s attention (Allan 30). Furthermore, his ideas are heavily relied upon by art lovers and upcoming artists. Pollock’s gestures have been highly adopted in the field of arts; moreover, several artistic impressions are made in his honor. His expressive and iconic markings in the field have opened the minds of the world’s great painters, nonetheless, his ideas have been practically proven.
Pollock is referred to as the father of destruction painting due to his unique styles and materials used. A critical look at his works reveals that they were merely automatism, which is due to the fact they lacked proper planning. His paintings were nonrepresentational and quite chaotic in nature. Apparently, Pollock used weird materials for his paintings; it is reported that he used things like sand and other materials that had coarse textures. After the period, people thought that Pollock had destroyed painting; therefore, painters resorted to well-formulated experiments. This marked a new era in painting. From that time onwards, arts became more of gestures and forms of acceptable media.
Painters were compelled to focus their paintings on specificity unlike the past where they only used to mimic life through their works. From all these revolutions, one is made to think that Pollock ritualized the field of painting; from then, people began to rely on his ideas in the art-making process (Allan 30). After his ritualization of the art-making process, artists started making paintings on canvas and other media, his ideas made painters become more creative.
Works Cited.
Allan Kaprow. The Legacy of Jackson Pollock. Art News, 1985, Print.
Kristine Stiles. I/Eye/Oculus: Performance and Installation Video. New Haven and London.
Yale University Association Press, 2004, Print. P 213-229
