Sonia Pentz
Advisor: Cesare Pietrouisti
Residency
#1
Residency Summary
January 2013
My first
residency experience inspired me to try new things, experiment with different
mediums, and above all to be open to suggestions. The enormous amount of
information received during those ten days was extremely hard to digest; but as
I now ponder and listen to the recordings of the different critics and artists'
talks I realized they all connect in a single intention: to find my own place
in contemporary art. I discovered that
being an artist includes more than the act of making art I have to be instructed
and be familiar with a diverse, but well established group of contemporary
artists. The thought then came to me that they too went through the same
placement problems emerging artists are facing today and I felt a little better
in my new endeavor. Furthermore, the input offered by the Critical Theory I
classes opened my mind to a new way of making art, Stuart mentioned a few times
the impossibility of inventing something, he said: we can remix, by mixing and
sampling and talk about how other artists do it.
As an entering
student I brought to the program my two recent projects Proyecto Mariposa and an unfinished project both related to my
interest in politics. I had a great opportunity to hear a wide variety of
comments and suggestions by a knowledgeable audience and even though they were very
different in certain aspects they gave me the tools that I needed to start my Masters
Degree. Some of the words and phrases used to describe my work were: colorful,
symbolic, religious, social symbolism, culturally charged, mysterious subjects,
iconography, subversive, etc. Ben Sloat encouraged me to work more on my Proyecto Mariposa telling me he loved the size, scale, altar, gold, of the
triptych. He also mentioned that he enjoyed the portraits of the Mirabal
sisters, even though he did not know who they were. The project was a visual
complex way of representing something and inspired him to want to know more
about the sisters.
A number of concerns were addressed as well, here
are some of them:
Ø My floor pieces may not be suitable to walk on
since they look to much like finished paint. Ben Sloat and Beth Campbell
suggested as a possible solution to make the floor piece more interactive with
the viewer and perhaps of a different material.
Ø The floor pieces with the peace sign, the eye,
etc were symbols too straight forward and easy to read. One of the advisors
mentioned as a possible solution to make it as a continuation of the checkers.
Ø The majority of the advisors agreed that the
idea behind my two recent works were too general and some of the possible
solutions were to introduce more of my personal life or to be more specific
specially in the unfinished project. Adding
paintings related uniquely to each of the countries mentioned on the two main
paintings were recommended as a possible solution.
Ø The projects were lacking my personal story and
my own opinions on our foreign policies ; some suggested text, others suggested
to add information about the dictatorship in my own country, Uruguay. I mentioned
my idea of adding an audio installation with the list of
"desaparecidos" (missing people) and the possible addition of
paintings related to torture done to people that I knew during the military
repression.
Ø My advisor suggested to go even further and
express my personal contradictions by working and reworking my personal
experience. Finding the good of growing up unaware of what was going on during
the dictatorship and the contradictions of being in a country that was involved
in the military regime. He also suggested to work on very short personal
questions like: why, who, what.
Some of the materials recommended by advisors
and graduate students to guide me in my future work were:
Books,
shows and articles:
·
Patterns that Connect, Social Symbolism by Edmund Carter
·
Signs and Symbols in Christian Art: With
Illustrations from Paintings from the Renaissance by George Ferguson
·
Mixed Blessings, New Art in Multicultural
America by Lucy R. Lippard
·
"Tropicalia"
·
"The
Decade show"
·
"Tropicalismo"
·
The Disasters of War by Francisco Goya
·
"Non
Monumental" 2008 or 2009
·
Brutality Garden: Tropicalia and the Brazilian
Counterculture by Christopher
Dunn
·
Cut with the Kitchen Knife: The Weimar
Photomontages of Hanna Hoch by
Maud Lavin
·
Let There Be Light: The Rwanda Project
1994-1998 by Alfredo Jaar
Movies:
·
The Fog of
War
Artist
to research:
·
Alfredo Jaar
·
Hanna Hoch
·
Fabio
Mauri
·
Marcel
Broodthaeres
·
Michael
Fullerton
·
Juan
Sanchez
·
Eugenio
Dittborn
·
Ai Weiwei
·
Lynn
Foulkes
·
Maurizio
Cattellan
·
Tomas
Hirschhorn
·
Teresa
Margoles
·
Frida Kahlo
·
Liselott
Johnson
·
Carlos Basualdo
(curator)
·
Argelio
Oiticica
·
Lygia Pape
·
William
Kentridge
·
Kara
Walker
·
Jimmie
Durham
·
Tania
Bruguera
·
Anibal Lopez
·
Zurbaran
·
Goya
·
Philip
Guston
·
Anselm
Kiefer
·
Leon Golub
·
Joel
Rubuscus
·
Damian
Hirst
·
Luis
Camminster
·
Larry
Pittman
·
John
Currin
·
Kerry
James Marshal
·
David Morinovich
·
Susan Lacy
·
Sharon
Hayes
Themes
to research inspired and suggested by the residency:
·
Use of
text in art
·
Issues of
belonging in art
·
Symbolism
of Wizard of Oz
·
Symbolism
of number nine
·
Use of
iconography
·
Social
symbolism
·
Political
art
·
Liberation
Theological
In conclusion I can honestly say that I'm
excited to start working and use the valuable information and experience of
those ten days in Boston to better my work. I acknowledge that it will progress
with time and with plenty of experimentation. Even though I still believe my
art has to be meaningful for at least one person (the person maybe just me at
the end ) I am left with an urgency of exploring new materials, new themes and
not limit myself at this time. I decided to work in multiple projects simultaneously
and as was suggested by several advisors I will include more of me in my art.
