Week 1 Response

In the film, Robert Irwin’s art is a way of expressing Critical eyes on art. Contemporary art, Based on my own studies, contemporary art focuses on the artist's viewpoint and transforms it into an avant-garde art form. Irwin has shared his personal artistic journey, starting from a young age when he received comments acknowledging his exceptional talent in drawing. Irwin has shared his path of art experience, from a young age he received comments that pointed to his special talent in drawing. He went to art school and produced mostly traditional technical drawing and painting artworks. Relatively similar to my art experience so far, where I also discovered my strong interest in art at a young age and went to art lessons that focuses on managing foundational drawing and painting techniques. I must emphasize, that these techniques remain essential to all artists, art practices are also involved with conveying one’s thoughts and ideas into a live form. However, Irwin later realized that his paintings were not able to effectively convey his artistic vision in forms that can evoke questions from the audience. Similarly, during my early undergraduate art school journey, I struggle to transition from literal and superficial art into contemporary art. In a conversation with my first-year professor Jinme Yoon, she stated that “contemporary art is a reflection of who I am and what my underlying thoughts are”. This approach was once again sparked in the ‘The Beauty of Questions’ film. Irwin’s later artwork addresses response to a particular site, or to a set of conditions, switching his focus to energy and process rather than material and object (cube). Visual perspective with colour and lighting, their relations to observing our connections from independent experience to the exterior. Another idea that Irwin addressed was that the traditional art frame sets a structure which sets boundaries and limits Human senses from an independent world to maximum information receiving. Irwin Removing structures gives room to focus and feel holistic. While audiences delve into Irwin’s installations, questions were evoked as they connect to the light and space of Irwin’s work (Battaglia, 2020). Irwin wants his audience to walk out of the gallery with value on perspectives. One of his works Robert Irwin: All the Rules Will Change (Battaglia, 2020), sets his thought on removing the frame of a painting and traditional flat surfaces, audience expressions and experiences centers around questions regarding whether the work is a painting or a sculpture (Feinstein, 1997). Irwin ties connections and breaking structures may be in no man’s land but it opens a different perspective of seeing the world.

A couple of prompts that I hope to explore through dialogue would be: What is essential in traditional art structures that are often constrained? How can an artist recognize that they are being confined by established rules, particularly from traditional art forms? How can contemporary art remain abstract and avant-garde without being misunderstood by individuals without an art background?

Reference:

cube, W. (n.d.). Artists - Robert Irwin. White Cube. https://whitecube.com/artists/artist/robert_irwin

Battaglia, A. (2020, June 16). Robert Irwin’s 9 most invisible artworks, from dots that disappear to scrims that Veil secret worlds. ARTnews.com. https://www.artnews.com/feature/robert-irwin-scrim-veil-invisible-works-1202691052/

Feinstein, L. (Director). (1997). Robert Irwin: the beauty of questions [Film]. University of California Extension Center for Media Independent Learning.

Irwin, R., (with Simms, M). (2017). Notes toward a conditional art. J. Paul Getty Museum.