performance and installation

Performance
Laurie Anderson
Stories from the Nerve Bible




Installation

Cai Guo-Qiang

Dream

Modigliani

Modigliani is an amazing movie that describes the late life of the talented Italian artist Modigliani. Modigliani has a terrible childhood when his family gets bankrupt, and he drinks and has drugs during most of his lifetime. Moreover, Mody is a genius in art, but he has a bad temper. He never sells his paintings in good price so that he lives a poor life throughout his life. He only has a one-man show during his life, but it is shut down by the local police because of nudity in the paintings. The majority of his paintings are portraits, most of which are naked woman, and the strangest thing in his portraits is that the figures are always closing their eyes. Furthermore, the movie focuses on the competition between Mody and Picasso. Unlike Mody, Picasso is already a well-known artist at that time, but Mody tries his best to mock at Picasso. Meanwhile, the movie also describes the love of Mody and Jeanne. Jeanne’s father doesn’t want Jeanne to be with Mody, and he sends their daughter away. Mody signs up for the art competition in order to get the prize money and get his daughter back, and Picasso accepts Mody’s challenge and signs up for the competition too. At last, Mody wins the competition with a masterpiece, Jeanne’s portrait with beautiful eyes, but he is beaten to death because he doesn’t pay for the drinks in the bar. The other day, Jeanne jumps out of the window and kills herself and her unborn baby.
The movie significantly shows the personality of Modigliani and the style of his artworks. Modigliani is always alone despite that he has few friends and some women. He drinks to get rid of his terrible memory of his childhood, and he has drugs to relieve the pain from his screwed life. He is talented, but he is poor. Most of his paintings are naked women lying on couches, and most figures in his portraits are closing their eyes. It seems that the figures are looking into their souls and are reviewing their lives. Moreover, the figures are usually long; for example, some figures have long faces and long necks. Even though the movie exaggerates the conflict between Mody and Picasso and changes the history a little bit, it is still good for those who want to know about Modigliani and his life.

Reflection on AIC Visit

The Art Institute of Chicago is an amazing place, because everything inside is associated with art. From the design of the building to the presence of famous artworks, AIC strikes my heart and soul.
My first impression of AIC is gorgeous. Not only the material of the building is fancy, but the computers in the front desk are expensive. I don’t know whether the fancy material or high-tech computers have anything to do with art, but I am sure every visitor can feel comfortable inside the institute. When we step into the first room of Van Gogh’s paintings, I am excited to see so many original versions of paintings. The differences between the original artworks and the photos of artwork in the textbook are obvious. From the textbook, I only can look at the artworks in one fixed angle and direction, whereas here I can view the artworks from different directions. I can tell how the artists construct their paintings, how the figures arrange, and how the paintings look like from different angles. By analyzing the artworks in this deep ways, I have a better understanding of the artworks.
After seeing the fantastic paintings, we have to analyze one artwork in groups. For the presentation, I didn’t do a great job in working with my partner. The reason is that we both are crazy about the artworks in the building so that we go on our tour separately. However, we did great in expressing our feelings about the chosen artwork, and I liked the collaboration very much.
The only setback of this tour is the limiting time. I don’t have enough time to enjoy the amazing artworks, not to mention to take pictures. I am hoping that we can visit AIC for more time.