Statement of Purpose (ART315)

This electronic archive will contain images from various artists living in Newark, DE. Upon each post I will critique each image with hopes that the reader, the artist, and myself will gain insight on the current art scene among artists here in the town of Newark. Much of the topic of modern debate is that of "post-humanism" the removal of the human factor in society is a result of the categorization and generalization of peoples and cultures. These works below I feel illustrates that point or at least creates a commentary about post-humanism. A description of the principles of the relationships of the human/animal factor and that of the industrious "new morality" that man has imposed upon nature are represented in these works.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Post-Current Events


This piece was an installation piece created by Jan Dickey and Max Seckel. It began as a series of abstract paintings done by Jan relating to the current outbreak of the Swine-Flu. This piece was as passively active as the hysteria caused by the swine-flu itself.
To summarize the process of this painting the fickle nature of human society itself must be taken into consideration. This piece largely pertains to the principle as stated by Jan, "life is about jumping on bandwagons." This is evident in the time of conception of this piece. Before the final piece came into fruition it began as a series of abstract panting titled "swine-flu". These piece were rejected from the undergraduate show so the piece naturally was able to flourish. The piece once started out as a sub-conscious representation of the swine-flu into a literal rejection of the hysteria. This was done by contrasting the collection of muted, cooler tones with the presence of orange/yellow authority icons attributed by Max. This shift in pallet speaks directly of the nature of the University in conjunction with its students. What was once before a quiet introspective of the swine flu instantly became a national highlight by the exaggerated reactions by the university and the community. This is represented by the traffic cones and police officers hap-hazardly stuck everywhere and in great amounts on the piece.

This work is a wonderful illustration of how society works by giving everything some kind of personal celebrity, in this case the swine-flu, that everyone can love and hate and so on and so forth. The Hans Solo cut out was to highlight just that as he himself, a childhood icon to many of us, is also submitting to the "severity" of the disease, thus the bandwagon. It is only natural of a human populated, such as this one at UD, to have the urge to confide with each other as a population. With scarcer and scarcer amounts virtue it is much easier for someone to jump on this "band-wagon" in order to sustain a level of decency in society. Such aggressive tactics in exhibiting the swine-flu was merely a stone-cold attempt for the media to boast its own presence. Note the action hero, mask and hard-hat.
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