Artifact #8 Art and Human Values
Objective:
- Learn about public funding for the Arts.
- Examine public art’s role in capturing history and place-making.
- Explore the relationship of cultural values to civic dialogue, beautification and identity.
My first impression of these paintaing is little scary. I don’t know why but somehow I just feel it is really strange especially their facial expression and the body postures. Before I came to United States, I could say I no very vew knowledge about western history and art; even now, I still don’t even think I truly understand the history behind them or the reasoning but it challenged me to dig deep into them. Thus, I spent a lot of time doing research, at least trying my best to understand civic improvement and civic Bbeautification. Now it becomes enjoyable.
In terms of civic improvement, I assume that the Runquist murals are somthing that improves public space which is already exsists. Civic improvement also goes along with the idea of civic beatutification. The murals in Runquist make an urbrainzed space more pleasant and leasing. The spaces are utilizing their public space in ways they never thought before. This is the typical example of how public space is combined with public art.
Other than these two criteria, I also did some research about the civic identity. This is another trait that the Runquist murals added to U of O. They are depicitive of what our school stand for by showing the value through painting. Thus, these murals are more well rounded and higher educated as human being (since we are no.1 college in OR). The Runquist morals also issues the diversity in both murals because there are the lack of gender and race in the pictures with both male and femle, and people in different colors.
Reflection:
In general, it is my firts time to closely “attach” this kind of form of art and I thought it is really interesting and worthy to dig more. Right now, the role of public art in today’s cities are to add pleasure and aesthetics to an ordinarily dull and boring space. For example,dancing in the street is definately a form of public art and is one of the more innovative ways that city planners and artists can come together and express their creativity.
Learning Goals in the future:
Western civilation is still a “stranger” for me. However, while I am learning them through this course, I realize why it is so power for that almost all of the other countries (especially Asia) are trying to study and learn from them, usually combining with western history. It is not only about the art itself, but also the spirit of human, the nature of human; the soceity we build, the world we live. Its effect also built the basic framework and their idiosyncrasy culturally for most of western countries. I hope I will have more opportunities to find out more
Doss, E. (2006, October). Public art controversy: Cultural expression and civic debate. Retrieved from http://www.americansforthearts.org/pdf/networks/pan/doss_controversy.pdf
Maruska, B. (2013). A response to the runquist murals. Retrieved from http://blogs.uoregon.edu/runquistmurals/
>Artifact #4: The Art of Personal Adornment<
>Artifact #5: The Aesthetics of Horror<
>Artifact #6: Creative Spirituality<
>Artifact #7: Art, Technology, Game<