Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Intermediate Video Spring '07: Comment on Alison Knowles Lecture

Alison Knowles is a pioneer of the Fluxus movement, which is very near and dear to Rutgers/ MGSA.
For More info on her work go to http://www.aknowles.com/.
Please leave comments on this thread.

7 Comments:

Blogger bizlynch said...

It was interesting to hear her talk about her own work, especially the piece she showed near the end with the apples on the tennis court.
I didn't really understand, though, why she showed some of the slides of other artists' work. I wish she would have given more insight into that instead of just mentioning the artist and title.

4:16 PM  
Blogger theradius said...

It was quite an experience. I haven't really seen an artist do a performance such as this before. I really liked her newspaper performance. I thought it was cool how she made them speak at different volumes by moving her hands and pointing to them. Her hair-cut piece was cool too. I noticed that guy was using guitar pedals to get his sound effects. That was pretty cool.

7:30 PM  
Blogger M-Man-see-knee said...

I thought her most recent work was particularly interesting due to the fact that most contemporary work today is usually very large and complex. But I found her paper works and found objects very appealing because it seemed she took liking to the simple things, which is something that is over looked some times by many artist.
Oh and that hair cutting guitar pedal recording thing had to be the greatest thing ever.

8:52 AM  
Blogger damian said...

While I might be going against the artisitic spirit of Mason Gross, I must say that growing up in the 21st Century, it was interesting watching Allison Knowles, who did much of her work in the 60s-70s, go in detail with many of her ready mades and other art. While I find it fascinating to hear from such an inspirational artist to many, I am a product of the early 1990s and cannot really relate to her work. I guess I am more of a practical artist, if there is such thing. However, I've never been to a Visiting Artist lecture at Mason Gross, so it was an experience.

Lastly, Allison's performance with the students who all read the newspapers at the same time was unique and did say a lot about the crap that we read in newspapers on a daily basis. (dan kranz--moved by damian)

5:21 PM  
Blogger Christina said...

I really did not enjoy her presentation. I was sitting towards the back of the room and it was very difficult to hear her speak. Although I thought some of her pieces were interesting, I could barely understand what she was saying about them. Overall, it was not a pleasant experience.

11:48 PM  
Blogger csulley said...

In my fourth year at Mason Gross, Allison Knowles is the first visiting artist lecturer I have seen actively engage students with her work. Knowles conducted the students in their reading and noise-making using her arms as if they were were on a multi-directional, time-manipulated clock. In her lecture, she situated her work alongside other artists, like John Cage, which lended context to time in which their work was produced. Framing the art this way helped to illustrate her concept of "the present moment of realization". This describes the transformation of objects by removing their original intent, allowing them take on new form. While Knowles sculptures exemplified this, Cage's instruments also performed in this way.

12:36 PM  
Blogger Matthew Siti said...

While the presentation itself was interesting, I found great difficulting in understaning her explanations of the work. This was due in part to my location in the room. I was left with an almost purely visual presentation which in itself was interesting as I felt it helped to highlight the visual aspect of her her work.

2:18 PM  

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