Art blog

Who'd have thought that school would turn me into a blogger? I apologize to anyone hoping for travel updates - I will be back to write about the rest of my trip. But for now, I'm going to be writing about art! This must mean that I am a real artist now that I'm writing about it on the internet. Either that or my teacher made me do it.

This will be my record of work done for my Digital Printmaking class and hopefully it will be kind of exciting! Today's task is to write about manipulation and its use in art. Here goes:

Asked to define manipulation, my first thought is that it means changing something (or someone) to suit one's own purpose. This can range from the benign - like molding clay - to the sinister - as in mind-control (eek!). Manipulation is also the usage of an implement or tool, especially with one's hands (as evidenced by the "man" root). An artist can tie this all together by using a paintbrush to create an image that changes the appearance of an object or changes the way a viewer thinks of something. In a sense, all art is manipulation because it picks and chooses what to include or exclude in a composition. There is no way to replicate real life, so even the most "objective" photography is still changing what's actually there. Manipulation of photographs has taken place since the invention of the medium, whether it's unintentional (differences in development techniques) or not (Photoshopping digital pictures). Photography itself is the manipulation of light to create pictures. Another obvious example of manipulation is advertising. Graphic ads aim to draw the viewer's attention and manipulate them into thinking that they've just GOT to have the product pictured.

Here are the first two artists I thought of who are manipulators.
1. Elaine Bradford

Bradford combines two very different arts: taxidermy and crochet. She manipulates the original intents of both processes, as well as viewers' expectations. Her latest exhibition is called "The Museum of Unnatural History" and shows off fantastical, sweatered species in natural history museum sets. Her earlier work is mostly comprised of sweater-wearing logs... which gets repetitive after a while, but is a pretty cool idea anyway. Sorta like tree cozies.

2.Jill Greenberg

Using a combination of amazing lighting, digital manipulation, and probably magical powers, Jill Greenberg makes some amazing portraits. She manipulates her viewers' perception of her subjects - often celebrities or advertising models - by bringing out detail that no one can ever see in real life. Usually she makes people look "better" or more interesting, but she's also done some pretty controversial work too. People were upset about lack of ethics in creating a series of children crying, captioned with anti-Bush sentiments (she offered them candy, then took it away), and most recently she caused a stir with her portraits of John McCain for Atlantic Magazine. She intentionally lit him and eschewed her traditional Photoshop methods to make him look evil. She also posted out-takes from the shoot, including a picture with McCain's mouth replaced by a blood-rimmed shark mouth and captioned "I am a bloodthirsty war monger." Personally, I am more inspired by her work with animals and the way that she makes us think of them as having personalities.