Monday, June 28, 2010

The Cosmopolitan Interview

Your art work for this week is rather interesting....i read your article and what i would like us to start with is why you chose the name cosmopolitan for this work.
I was inspired really and the name invokes an aspect of city life that i didn't really highlight in my other art work of the same title i.e. city life.
And what other aspect is that?
City Life talked about how i city struggles against staying alive especially as it grows and all the vices of growth begins to set it. It is more or less an artwork depicting a loosing battle with the dirt and all show casing gradual systemic failure. But Cosmopolitan looks at the vibrant side of city life as it has to do with the mixing of peoples and cultures and development causes more people to troop in, dis-entangling and dis-engaging themselves from where they were coming from and integrating and engaging with the new environment they have adopted.
So while one talks about death as it were the other talks about life...like opposites...right?
Exactly.
But why didn't you depict both on the same artwork?
Good question, i believe the themes of death and life are just too massive to use one canvass or artwork to deal with. Again, since the themes have to do with the city, i felt as cities are a product of expansion and contraction that different artworks for both aspects is justified.
You still stuck to your primary colors...
In more ways than one.
The shapes didn't follow the traditional....
True but it had some traditional...in fact more of the traditional squares and all but it then included oblong curvatures and this was 'deliberate' because Cities normally develop from single homogeneous to multi-ethnic and then mixed cultures as the go along the cosmopolitan path.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Cosmopolitan (article)

Defining the word cosmopolitan from the artistic point of view could be a handful. This is my own attempt.
We already know that the world is getting more cosmopolitan by the day especially as the reality of the term global village comes to bear on us.
Cities are striving to be more cosmopolitan as they add on in years and as they expand. Now not every city is cosmopolitan but as they expand and people keep on trooping in from the nooks and crannies....they move towards cosmopolitanism.
That is the underlying current that defines the cosmopolitan city i.e. people. And it is not just people but a melting pot of diverseness. The more diverse they are, the more cosmopolitan that city tends to be.

                                                       cosmopolitan
                                                    
And looking at the art-work, cosmopolitanism is an embedding of two "extensialisms". The first extension we are going to call dis-engagement and the second we are going to call engagement.
These two distinct functions has to take place before cosmopolitanism within a city can be achieved. This is simply because cities are made up of individual entities. But these entities usually have roots outside of the city. So they first of all have to dis-engage from those roots before they can now engage into the new environment and culture of city life. The greater the degree of dis-engagement, the greater the degree of engagement. The two must work in pari pasu (sorry i got carried away...hand in hand).
The inter-play of  dis-engagement and engagement and it building up till it reaches a critical mass that births cosmopolitan cities.
An interesting point of note here is that the more cosmopolitan  a city become the less xenophobic that city (i.e. as a single organism) becomes. This is why the art work is an interplay of colors representing a mixture of various individualities within the context of their native roots and them letting go of issues that ties them down to those roots as the move on to fully engage in true cosmopolitanism.

NB There is still much to be said about this...may be we might just extend to next week.

Monday, June 21, 2010

New week - getting my groove on

Hi there, i'm still a bit groggy following the period i was temporarily 'laid off' but  we just have to knuckle down and get on with it.
This week we will hopefully have the full compliment of the interview, the new art work to be posted and one or two other write-ups.
Today we want to start by loading and posting the art work for the week. The title of this piece is cosmopolitan and maybe you should do me the service of telling me why i gave it such a title.

                                                   cosmopolitan


I am also looking forward to the day where i would feature a work that is not mine. The work will have to be with Microsoft Paint program and your specs should be manageable (go for the small and simple).

Thursday, June 17, 2010

The defense

I chose the drum to depict Life because the drum in itself paints a picture of latent energy. It is an energy that has been stored up and the thing with it is that once you strike it, it gives out that energy.
Now is that not what life with all its bustling energy is all about?

                                                                  The Standing Conga
                                                        
The standing conga(which i think is a better name for this work of art) implies that life is on its toes. That is, it is very ready to act. Now some might pick the guitar (because of it strings) to depict life but i think it is a trifle too romantic (except for the electric rock guitar).
And the keyboard too seems a bit too controlled for my liking. It is only the key you strike that will give you a definite sound.
Beyond this we must touch on how a title does the uncanny act of limiting the art and in a way boxing the viewer in to only look at it within the confines of the name. So even if the name is part of the art and indeed even more so than the canvass i.e. to some, it could be a real limiting factor as it concerns appreciating the art.
Life is beautiful and it is art.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Life's Drum

Life speaks. Life doesn't just speaks, it sings, it drums. And the art work for this week depicts life as an instrument. If life was an instrument what will it be to you?
                                                    
                                                        The Standing Conga
In my own case i used the conga drum to represent life as a musical instrument. Now this art work goes beyond my own nomenclature. Don't allow it to limit your own sense of perception. There is more to this than meets my own eye.
But still on the theme of using a musical instrument to depict life, there are various reasons why i chose the conga and hopefully in my next posting i will attempt to make a credible defense.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

The Interview

Hi?
hi.

It's been quite some time now?
Well, i've been here and there; doing this and that.

The art work you posted is very interesting indeed...
Yea.. i particularly like the name.

The Box?
Yes.

Why that name?
Because it looks like a...box.


                                   Box

But it also looks like other things..like a drum...
That is the beauty of art..it can be many things and that is why the name is so apt. You can get many things from a box. A box is meant to store things, at times they are practical or flimsy but they serve one purpose or the other...as it tickles our fancy.

So what does the work tell you?
Many things...but its not what it tells me but what it says to the person that looks at it. To that person it becomes art i.e. just saying what it means to you is art in itself...get it?

I...think so...let's continue another time..OK?

Monday, June 7, 2010

NHURU!!!! We are back!

At last gmail resolved my accessibility issue and i can now access my blogger account. I used my gmail password to create this account and they forgot to tell me that i won't be able to access it if anything untoward develops between me and gmail. I bet many don't know about this.
But the good news is that we are back on track and i miss my box, miart, my Paint and everything else. Can't wait to get started (which will hopefully be later this week).
We are still going to have our interview and a write up or two on art, just stay tuned and if you have started following this blog, feel free to contribute. Thanks