overview
Lesson1 | Summary
Activity Pages
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lesson 1 | describing the
real
activity | image & text
The artist Raymond Pettibon is greatly
inspired by literature. In his paintings, text and imagery are equally
important but often his pairing of the two is not necessarily illustrative.
While the imagery is recognizable, the text presents surprising
and provocative combinations that are less direct, more abstract,
and invite multiple modes of interpretation. Pettibon describes
his process:
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“There’s
so many marks and gestures and accidents and starting
and stopping and starting over again. And all those can
affect the work in a lot of ways. And when that happens,
I tend to welcome it. One line can change the work. But
it tends to mirror the way I work overall quite a bit,
writing as well. You have some idea, some philosophy,
some story—narrative—whatever you want
to express, that you want to get down on paper, and whatever
literary devices or techniques you have at your command
with the intent to express that. But there is also writing
that is more open, more associational, and even accidental.
You don’t necessarily know where it’s going
to go while you’re doing it.” |
Combining finely crafted, handmade glass objects with photographs,
text, and museological display, Josiah McElheny
creates objects and installations that embody the investigative
search for meaning and memory. Influenced by the elliptical, bibliographic
“Ficciones” by the Argentinian
writer Jorges Luis Borges, McElheny’s
art often takes the form of “historical fictions”—a
mixture of historical fact, conjecture, and fantasy—all properly
annotated and presented to the viewer to decipher, unravel, and
choose to believe or not. Many of McElheny’s works, incorporate
texts with glass objects. These texts are drawn from historical
sources and seem to refer to real events and people but the viewer/reader
is often unsure whether the text is factual or fictional. McElheny
uses the visual language of museum display to juxtapose his contemporary
glass objects with seemingly factual texts about historical events.
The viewer is forced to decide why these images and texts are connected
and whether there is an actual or imaginary link between them.
Have students view each artists's Art:21 segment and explore the
following artworks by Pettibon: “No
title (There is a touch of poetry…)” and “No
title (Warning: our first woman president...);” and by
McElheny: “Recreating
a Miraculous Object” and “Studies
in the Search for Infinity.” Discuss how these artists
use text in different ways to complement and complicate the visual
images and objects they create. How do these artists combine elements
of realism and abstraction in the use pf found recontextualized
elements?
Ask students to create a collage withe image and text that incorporates
found or drawn images with an existing text, or random words with
an existing image to create a new context that juxtaposes or calls
into question the relationship between the two elements. Have students
use found text and cut up words and sentences at random or have
them select words out of a hat or at random to compose a new composition.
Ask students to visually organize their written narrative on a large
piece of paper. Add accompanying visual imagery by using collage
elements that combine textures, colors, people, and landscapes to
illustrate or reflect the written narrative. |
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