Bertie Gilbert has been one of my inspirations for years. He is a 19 year old filmmaker who posts his work on YouTube. When I was younger, I made a lot of short films with friends. I loved editing it and making everything perfectly the way I wanted it to be. Bertie's films are honestly incredible. He is not that much older than I am so he makes me feel like I can do great things even though I'm young. All of his films are beautifully artistic and the meanings behind all of them are so personal and touching. His favorite film of mine is one called "Tick Where It Hurts" which is about a teenager trying to cope with the death of his older brother. He just recently came out with a short film called "Playground" which is what inspired me to write my awareness post about him. The style of this film is very different from his others because it has a lot of silly and playful elements in it but the mood is still quite serious. Most of his sad short films make me cry because he is incredible at making the viewer feel connected with the characters. In a way, Bertie's work has inspired me to test out filmmaking which is why I'm taking the digital video seminar next year.
Here are some posters for his films: *Disclaimer: Weebly deleted this post so I had to rewrite it last minute and it's not as good I'm sorry
Social practice art is not my favorite type of art. I think there is a fine line between doing things for your community and social practice art. This leads to the ultimate question of "What is art?". In the end, art is art if the creator of the work makes it with the intention of being art. When I first heard about the row house project, I thought it was dumb. I didn't know why someone was restoring houses and calling it art. In my mind, I felt as though the artist wanted his name to be known for doing something nice and calling it art. After I read this article, I realized that it pertained more to art than I thought. The artist was restoring these houses and turning them into artistic and cultural hubs. I liked this piece more than others, like Mel Chin's work that addressed the issue of lead poisoning. Although I do think something needs to be done about lead poisoning, I'm not sure if his attempt at finding a solution is really art. Why does it have to be an art project? Why can't he just do this without making it art? I guess it confuses me why this needs to be art and what the purpose behind it being art is. I am open to other opinions but as of right now, social practice art is a little strange to me. Lee is one of my friend's favorite artists. My friend wrote about her for an anthology entry and I asked her who Lee was. She informed me that Lee is the artist that made this weird holey fabric piece that is at the VMFA. This piece has honestly always creeped me out for some reason but I decided to look at some of her other work. A lot of her work has the same theme of big holes made out of fabric and presumably wire. It has a very industrial feel to it and even makes me think of space for some reason. I really appreciate her work because I think it is incredibly creative. I've personally never seen any art like it before, especially pieces that hang on the wall like most of Lee's. The theme throughout all of her work remains the same and you can immediately tell which pieces are her's. She has also made giant mobiles and even porcelain fish. Although her work is not my favorite, I think she is a fantastic artist. I hope to one day have a body of work that is as cohesive as her's.
In November, I went on a trip to Philadelphia for college tours. Since I had some free time, I decided to go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I had been once before on last year's art spring break trip but this time they had a special exhibit on Mexican Modernism. I was instantly super excited to see this exhibit because I usually don't see foreign art trends very often. The collection of works was huge- it had everything from photographs to paintings and prints. I thought it was really interesting seeing how Mexican modernism is different from American modernism. There was so much variation even within the exhibit and it was fantastic. A lot of the art portrayed a lot of Mexican culture. I personally think Mexican modernist art does a better portrayal of this culture than American modernist art does of American culture. Either way, the works were beautiful and I'm really glad I got to see such a cool exhibition.
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AuthorGrace Barron Archives
June 2018
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