Visual Arts Publications

El Lissitzky's Study for "Proun" 8 Stellungen (1923)

John G. Hatch — Thu, 12 May 2011 17:38:32 PDT

Giacomo Balla's Linea di Velocita (1913)

John G. Hatch — Thu, 12 May 2011 17:38:31 PDT

Julian Haladyn: Portable Tea Ceremony performance at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, May 16, 2000

John G. Hatch — Thu, 12 May 2011 17:31:44 PDT

Futurism: Movement and the Structure of Reality

John G. Hatch — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:54:29 PDT

The Frescoes of Castelseprio

John G. Hatch — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:52:42 PDT

The Day the Universe Changed, So Did Art

John G. Hatch — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:49:05 PDT

Michelangelo's Last Judgment and 'Le Segrete Cose'

John G. Hatch et al. — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:45:35 PDT

Speculations on the Introduction and Role of Alexemata in Doric Temple Architecture

John G. Hatch — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:36:59 PDT

Robert Rauschenberg

John G. Hatch — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:32:01 PDT

Cindy Sherman

John G. Hatch — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:29:58 PDT

Nature's Laws and the Changing Image of Reality in Art and Physics: A Study of the Impact of Modern Physics on the Visual Arts, 1910-1940

John George Hatch — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:35:25 PDT

Desire, Heavenly Bodies, and a Surrealist's Fascination with the Celestial Theatre

John G. Hatch — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 16:03:58 PST

In 1922, the German Surrealist artist Max Ernst produced a montage work that included a woman's bare buttocks protruding out of the rings of Saturn. It is, to say the least, an unusual combination of images, but one that addresses some very basic human impulses. Largely, It expresses Ernst's understanding that inscribed upon the night sky are some of our deepest held fears and fantasies. Ernst sought to generate contemporary rephrasings of our mythologizing of the cosmos in a complex and often enigmatic way, drawing on such varied sources as Freudian psychology, late nineteenth-century symbolism, alchemy, and Surrealism. Ultimately, Ernst manages to weave an intricate, cryptically autobiographical, narrative through such astronomical bodies and groups of stars as Saturn, the Pleiades, Praesepe, Cygnus, to name but a few. This paper navigates some of the celestial imagery found in the work of Ernst between 1919 and 1934 in the hopes of demonstrating, in its own small way, Just how rich of a source astronomy has been for modern and contemporary art.

Machian Epistemology and its Part in František Kupka's Painterly Cognition of Reality

John G. Hatch — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:48:14 PDT

A consensus has emerged amongst art historians that portrays the work the Czech painter, František Kupka (1871-1957), as fluctuating between differing styles and never resolving itself into one straightforward and single-minded direction beyond abstraction. Visually this is true, but for Kupka the visual was secondary in that it plays a subsidiary role to the process involved in the creation of the work itself. A failure to properly understand this process has resulted in an inaccurate reading of Kupka's art, essentially missing the point that his paintings embody in their imagery the cognitive process involved in their creation. Significantly, as I argue, the major contributing factor in terms of Kupka's development toward this position was the scientific philosophy of the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach.

Dale Chihuly: The Chandeliers and Other Critical Insight into His Work

Matthew Ryan Smith — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:42:54 PST

Dale Chihuly is the enigmatic celebrity artist heralded as the saviour of the decorative and the rejuvenator of craft. As part of a lengthy stylistic process of investigation, experimentation, and exploration, beginning from the late 1960’s, Chihuly restored the ornamental, decorative, and the embellished in postmodern art. His perpetual reconfiguration and metamorphosis of style continually put to question the validity and sustenance of his work. He counteracts and justifies this with a process of extreme stylistic evolution; taking glass to where it has never been or where it was never perceived to be, as a means of being the first, the best, and the most important artist to ever do so. He is credited as the man who singularly recognized glass as a fine art moving it from the realm of craft to legitimacy and relevance.

Reconsidering the 'Obscene': The Massa Marittma Mural

Matthew Ryan Smith — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:36:53 PST

Located within Massa Marittima’s public fountain, the Fonte dell’Abbondanza, the mural of a tree featuring twenty-five large phalli suspended from its branches has puzzled scholars and citizens alike, both grasping to understand its ambiguous meaning and general significance. Dr. George Ferzoco, chair of the Centre for Tuscan Studies at the University of Leicester, is the first scholar to present and publish his research on the work. In response, scholars are sluggish to take critical issue with Ferzoco’s glossed explication of the Mural’s formal elements, disparate influences, and candid political spirit. The objective of this essay is to systematically deconstruct Ferzoco’s (previously) undisputed analysis of the Mural and its related elements in order to develop a deeper, more precise reading, while opening new lines of flight.

The Cut in Collage: Pollock, Fontana, Matta-Clark, Ono

Matthew Ryan Smith — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:32:08 PST

The methods of collage are full of meaning. In the years succeeding the ‘golden age’ of Cubist collage, the eminent twentieth century art critic Clement Greenberg wrote an essay that defined collage as cutting and pasting “a piece of extraneous material to the surface of [a] picture.” Greenberg and contemporary scholars have seemingly ignored a closer examination of the processes of collage and its larger consequences in artistic practice. Analysts overlook the fundamental question of ‘how’ an object is constructed, opting to endlessly scrutinize the completed product. The processes of collage may be as important, if not more important than the result. It is in the result that the collaging process is referenced; tearing, taping, and affixing are clearly detectable. To investigate the procedural gestures of collage expands and amplifies its narrow, formalist dimensions. The primordial cut is one neglected gesture, first employed in an artistic context over one-thousand years ago. A focus on the act of cutting unearths a fruitful dialogue of collage strategies while broadening and redefining our relatively limited definitions of collage.

Songs of the Self: Slightly Unbalanced

Matthew Ryan Smith — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:24:45 PST

Slightly Unbalanced explores psychological states of being and neurosis. Splintered into four categories including, “Progenitors,” “Performance Video,” “Inner Monologues,” and “The House as Metaphor for the Mind,” the aforementioned artists confront, challenge, and articulate the nuances of emotional disorder(s) through autobiographical, confessional, and diaristic modes of communication. Besides inflating the common presumption of the artist as a proverbially ‘tragic’ figure, one who compromises psychological stability for their work, the artists in this exhibition draw attention to the vulnerability of the artist’s psyche and neurotic tendencies that so readily accompany artistic production and creativity. A number of works in the exhibition tread a fragile path between narcissistic drivel and the acute honesty and emotional intensity that comprise the better side of the so-called ‘confessional’ genre. I intend to make a sound comparison between works which follow this fragile trajectory and those which engage the psyche without surrendering artistic integrity. Like the exhibition, my review shall consist of four fragments pertaining to the subject/themes prescribed by the curators to which I have listed above, while scrutinizing works which ‘hit or miss,’ so to speak. As my current research interests engage contemporary confessional/autobiographical art, specifically works laden with psychodrama, this review provides a perfect opportunity to tackle some of the issues I have been working through during my academic pursuits.

The Science behind Francesco Borromini's Divine Geometry

John G. Hatch — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:31:39 PST

Francis Alÿs: Fabiola

Stephanie Rogerson — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:52:01 PST

Revolutionizing Autobiography

Stephanie Rogerson — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:52:01 PST