Andrew Fishman's art

This is going to take some explanation—bear with me. 

Last year, I got the opportunity to do a collaborative performance with a professional musician named Lansing McLoskey.  He had composed a piece for a violin and piano that was designed to be played live with a visual artist creating in front of the audience in real time as a reaction to the piece.  It’s not a particularly dynamic or well-done piece, but it was interesting in context, I think. 

I ended up scrapping the piece for wood for this new painting.  I divided up the painting into 54 two-inch squares.  For each one, I assigned a number, starting at 54 at the top left, and counting down until I got to 1 at the bottom right.  I then used a random number generator online to assign each one a random number, 1-54.  If the random number was higher than the previous number, I painted that square black. I was going to paint the other squares white, but I liked the leftover painting showing through some. 

I then put painter’s tape haphazardly across the top and painted a chess pawn on top.  When I’m done with the top painting, I’m going to remove the tape! 

Two stills from the Hunger Games in One Minute.  The first is Clove throwing a knife, and the second is an injured Katniss limping away from the fire. 

I might need to change the title of the piece, because I’m already up to 42 seconds and I have a lot more to cover…

A sneak behind-the-scenes picture from my upcoming Lego Hunger Games in One Minute.  This is Katniss waking up in the tree during the first night.  She’s about to smell smoke…you can see it starting to rise behind her.  Will she survive the fire?! 

A sneak behind-the-scenes picture from my upcoming Lego Hunger Games in One Minute.  This is Katniss waking up in the tree during the first night.  She’s about to smell smoke…you can see it starting to rise behind her.  Will she survive the fire?! 

I feel as though if I were to look at these two pieces as a set, I’d be annoyed as a feminist.  The problem is with the “male gaze.”  Throughout history (particularly art history), females have been something to be looked AT, rather than something with agency, as something that can LOOK.  Men, on the other hand, are presented upright, looking, strong, and as though they have the power to make their own decisions. 

Here’s my favorite example of this. 

Here’s Titian’s “Venus of Urbino”:

http://www.shafe.co.uk/crystal/images/lshafe/Titian_Venus.jpg

An absolutely beautiful painting (one of my favorites), but problematic because of this.  Even though she’s making eye contact with the viewer (which is unusual for the time period), she’s laying back, inviting you to join her with her facial expression and the position of her left hand.  The dog also symbolizes loyalty and obedience here. 

Here’s Manet’s “Olympia” for comparison, painted about 330 years later:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Manet,_Edouard_-_Olympia,_1863.jpg

Clearly this makes conscious reference to the Titian painting, in both composition and content.  But this painting was shocking for viewers, and the painting quickly became extremely controversial.  This was primarily due to the changes Manet made to subvert the idea of females as something to be looked at.  Olympia is sitting up, with her left hand pointed out, rather than in.  This indicates her agency over her own body, as well as her facial expression.  A cat replaces the dog, further changing the painting from one of obedience, to one of independence. This woman is in the state of making a choice whether or not to allow you to approach her.  Another of my favorite paintings. 

In any case, the feminist art historian in me is annoyed with myself having painted these two paintings back to back, but I didn’t have much choice.  The instructor decided to have the female model reclining because that model isn’t very good at holding still when she’s sitting up. 

The result of a second four-hour session with another model.  I’m more pleased with this one than the last, but I feel they go together well. 

The result of a second four-hour session with another model.  I’m more pleased with this one than the last, but I feel they go together well. 

The result of two 2-hour sessions with a figure model.  I had a lot of difficulty with this during hour 3—I lost most of the value differences that made it interesting and effective.  The last hour was spent bumping up and editing the contrast again. 

The result of two 2-hour sessions with a figure model.  I had a lot of difficulty with this during hour 3—I lost most of the value differences that made it interesting and effective.  The last hour was spent bumping up and editing the contrast again. 

For Stop Motion, I’m doing a one minute version of The Hunger Games out of Legos.  I have fifteen seconds done so far, but not in order, because I don’t have all of the necessary pieces yet to do some of the early scenes.  This is Katniss! 

For Stop Motion, I’m doing a one minute version of The Hunger Games out of Legos.  I have fifteen seconds done so far, but not in order, because I don’t have all of the necessary pieces yet to do some of the early scenes. 

This is Katniss! 

My recent self portrait, with the saturation and contrast fixed.  The picture on the right is much more accurate to the original. 

The finished product of a self portrait from 2011.  I decided to depict myself in the act of visually measuring something, like I do when I’m drawing.  Most of the people I talked to advised against including the paintbrush in my hand, but I decided to keep it; I wanted it more obvious that I’m carefully measuring how many heads tall someone is or something like it, rather than just giving an awkward half thumb’s up with a scowl on my face.  I realized the foreshortening would be ridiculous for this picture, so I ended up taking a very odd video of myself carefully measuring an imaginary thing in front of the camera, so that I could find a still frame from the video I liked to draw from.

The finished product of a self portrait from 2011.  I decided to depict myself in the act of visually measuring something, like I do when I’m drawing.  Most of the people I talked to advised against including the paintbrush in my hand, but I decided to keep it; I wanted it more obvious that I’m carefully measuring how many heads tall someone is or something like it, rather than just giving an awkward half thumb’s up with a scowl on my face. 

I realized the foreshortening would be ridiculous for this picture, so I ended up taking a very odd video of myself carefully measuring an imaginary thing in front of the camera, so that I could find a still frame from the video I liked to draw from.

The final collaboration with Jennifer Ng and Sami Kreeger.  This was a lot of fun to do—the first try the day before ended up crashing an hour into it (which was miserable), so this is take number two.  We decided to symbolically start by wiping off what was left on the board from the day before. 

We decided to each play with the visual image of a bottle (selected somewhat arbitrarily, because I was drinking from a glass bottle when we were discussing it). 

Chalk was RAINING down on us the whole time.  We were covered, the floor was covered, and I’m sure it’s in all of our lungs. The chalk was also very squeaky, which might be visible if you play this frame by frame—I’d bet you can catch us wincing occasionally.