M8-Journal Prompts

Module 8 - Three Dimensional Media

JOURNAL PROMPTS

Directions: Choose one or more of the following prompts and update your class journal by responding to the question or questions in the prompt. Try to write roughly a page on each prompt you select. Refer back to your journal as the course progresses to see if you are experiencing progress in meeting your goals.

Journal Prompt #1: Form & Content
For thousands of years sculpture has (literally) been the bedrock of three-dimensional art. Carved from stone or wood, or cast in bronze, so often figurative in nature and, from a western cultural perspective, in a realistic style. The advent of modern art in the first half of the twentieth century has radically changed the formal characteristics of sculpture and, in some cases, the content.

View the three sculptures from the links provided below and comment on the issues of form and content in each one.

Egyptian Sculpture
Links to an external site.Picasso’s Woman in the Garden
Links to an external site.Louise Bourgeois: Cell: Eyes and Mirrors Links to an external site.

Journal Prompt #2: The Expansion of Time & Space
Since the 1960’s installation and performance art have taken their place alongside traditional sculpture – and in some ways eclipsed it as the most significant contemporary three-dimensional art form.

View the installation Cold Dark Matter Links to an external site. by Cornelia Parker and read an interview Links to an external site. with the artist. In addition, view and read about Ann Hamilton’s installation Corpus Links to an external site.. Finally, view and read about Marina Abramovic’s retrospective performance The Artist is Present Links to an external site. (the MoMA website provides access to images and a video about the works).

Write your responses to their work, both objective and subjective, keeping in mind the context of the medium itself. How does performance and installation art expand our experience about what art is? Whether you like or dislike the works here, write about what makes these art forms unique.