Resources to reflect and review for our SGO to The Wexner Center for the Arts

 We will be seeing paintings by Jack Whitten, an African-American artist who has been producing art for over 50 years.

Jack Whitten

Biography

Jack Whitten (b.1939) began his earliest experiments in painting during the 1960s by creating dynamic works inspired by Abstract Expressionism. Born and raised in Bessemer, Alabama, he moved to New York City in 1960 to attend The Cooper Union. Noted for raucous colors and density of gesture combined with topical content, his artwork of this period manifests emotionally complex meditations on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War.

A painting by Whitten called "Obama Apps"

Here's a local review of the exhibition:

http://www.columbusunderground.com/art-review-jack-whitten-five-decades-of-painting-nk1

Catherine Opie

Catherine Opie was born in Sandusky, Ohio in 1961. Opie investigates the ways in which photographs both document and give voice to social phenomena in America today, registering people’s attitudes and relationships to themselves and others, and the ways in which they occupy the landscape. At the core of her investigations are perplexing questions about relationships to community, which she explores on multiple levels across all her bodies of work. Working between conceptual and documentary approaches to image making, Opie examines familiar genres—portraiture, landscape, and studio photography—in surprising uses of serial images, unexpected compositions, and the pursuit of radically different subject matters in parallel. Many of her works capture the expression of individual identity through groups (couples, teams, crowds) and reveal an undercurrent of her own biography vis-à-vis her subjects. Whether documenting political movements, queer subcultures, or urban transformation, Opie’s images of contemporary life comprise a portrait of our time in America, which she often considers in relation to a discourse of opposition.

Here is a local review of her show and exhibit:

http://starr-review.blogspot.com/2015/05/catherine-opie-portraits-and-landscapes.html

A photo by Catherine Opie

Now it's one thing to get other opinions and viewpoints on art, but really, we need to make our own observations.

Writing and Thinking Reflection Prompts for the Wexner Center SGO

(Students may use one, or two, or all of these questions to help you write , think and talk about your experience)

1. What do we see?  What do we notice?  Pick a painting or photo and take time to write a description of everything you see or notice in this piece of art.  
2. How does it make you feel?  What is the mood of the art?  Or you?  Why?
3. What is the purpose of this art? 
4. What is your favorite art form, and why?  
5. Compare that art to the art you see in the Wexner Center?
6. How does the biography of an artist or their race or gender affect the way we view the art?  Does it?
7. Read the reviews by local writers.  What do we learn and what do these writers use as evidence to support the review?  Do you agree with them?  Why or why not?