- Description of the project
When you walk around New York City, you are often bombarded by density of buildings, people, sounds, and histories. There are neighborhoods, cafes, hotels, and parks where artists, musicians, writers, and creatives have gathered to flourish their ideas and movements throughout decades. We will visit a few locations near campus where artists used to have their studios in the 1960s – 1970s. Some artists like Teching Hsieh, Barbara Kruger, and Felix Gonzalex- Torres in their early careers in the 60s – 70s did not have studios, and we will research and examine how they made artwork and where they exchanged cultural ideas. As we travel back to that time with each artist’s work and studio and non-studio, you will create an imagined 3D model re-making your assigned artist’s studio or apartment in your group. Through this process of research, reflection, and imagination, you will be encouraged to consider how shift in time impacts biography of artist, legacy of artist works, neighborhoods, and more.
For the studio component of Bridge 3, you will create a 3D model of your assigned artist’s studio or non-studio as a group. During this process, you will research your assigned artist’s body of work, biographies, articles, archives, and studio or non-studio documents. You then each create a neighboring artist or designer studio, imagining yourself as a part of this community of artists and designers in the 1970s in New York City.
- Reflection
The reason our group chose Edward Hopper’s studio to make was because we searched his works online and found that we liked his art style. Besides, his studio is fairly close to the campus, so it would be more efficient to collect information about the studio. However, after emailing NYU’s department to apply for a visit, we received their reply saying the studio is only open in summer. Therefore, we tried rebuilding the interior by seeing online pictures of different angles of the studio. We made our model more realistic than imaginative, for the original studio is existing and well-preserved.
After watching the presentations of other groups’ studios, I realized that “making a studio” can not only means building the physical, visible model of the room or building, but also including the emotional aspects or the atmosphere of the studio. For example, Emily’s group imagined what music their artist usually listened while painting, and played the music while showing us the model. They also made a dirty and stinky roadside drain in front of their studio’s door. This displayed the contrast between the messy New York City with little quality of life in the last century, and the colorful, delightful studio environment the artist might have had.
If we could refine Hopper’s studio model, I would add some trees in front of the studio’s big windows, and play the sound the wind blows through the leaves with the phone. This would give the audience a sense of what the whole environment the studio located, 3 Washington North facing the trees in the square, experienced like. Also, we could make the outside of the window look like it was at night by setting a piece of dark paper or fabric there with bright yellow spots on it, which represented the lights in the city. So when the audience looked out from the room and saw the night view, they could imagine Hopper focusly painting until late night, which is normally a thing most artists do.
