The Art of the 1970's

by Jasmine Rippy

6-9-09

Photographed the Documenta series from 1970 – finding out how much I like work from the1960’s-late 70’s….There is a quality to early contemporary work that resonates just as strong today as it must have then. I find that many modern day contemporary artists are regurgitating that which our predecessors had been doing years before and it is not exactly any better. Something very bad happened to art in the 80’s and I’d very much like to see it shaken off already.

6-10-09

Got through most of the objects today but hit some bumps with hanging work so will finish up the rest of what we pulled from the vault tomorrow

6-11-09

Nothing spectacular about the day; we are doing the same thing we do everyday. Got to photograph a Robyn Denny piece that was pretty neat. His work is more about the object than it was of the old school institutional idea of that pretty picture on the wall. It consists of multiple shallow plexi cubes and pigment coated metallic panels inside. Each piece has a subtle colour change from panel to panel ranging from orange to green. It will be nice to look at all the images together later on in the term to get an idea of these in their full context.

6-16-09

New week and new works to document – Eduardo Paolozzi Unit I: Secret of Life, The Human Machine and How it Works was my favorite of the day. (Again from 1970) I had to look him up after we were done today to check out some of his other work. I much prefer learning about art / artists this way much more than reading about it in a book or trying to stay awake in a lecture. Educators take note*

6-17-09

Lots of interns here today so we are sharpening our skills of teamwork, communication and sharing. Pulled some amazing photographs to do – Minor White (no, its not Ian MacKaye’s new band.) Again, I had to look him up… apparently one of the greatest American photographers.

6-18-09

Mostly prints today – Had some nice work by Donald Staff from his Sonnets Suit. It has become a lot of: pull, hang, shoot, put back – the repetition becomes monotonous and it makes me feel like I am disrespecting art somehow by failing to take the time to appreciate it.

6-23-09

Wrapping up of photographing framed works today and I can’t help but to have mixed feelings of it. Glad to be moving on to dealing with something new but there are still so many more pieces in the framed collection I would love to see and learn from. I will have to come back after the term....

6-24-09

Reconfigured lighting and camera set up for working with works on paper. Also got a chance to hang about in the fabrications and repairs shop with the cool rats as they tricked out our new transport cart for the flat works. Bam! Whut!?

6-25-09

Finalized new set up for flat paper works: tweaked the lighting, created clean steady surfaces for transporting and prepping artwork, cleaned and tidied up accumulations from past few weeks (putting away tools and the like that we will no longer need etc.) and then started to shoot works on paper! We started out with two portfolios of photographic work. The art handler’s dance has changed rhythm and the work is so much more vulnerable.