Menil Collection Project

Menil Basic Info/Visual Analysis/Meaning: When I visited the Menil, I was blown away by how the building has so much space compared to other museams. As I researched more into the infrustructure of the building I found out that Renzo Piano designed the building the way he did because the collector Dominique de Menil was thinking not only of a place to display her growing collection, but also a center for music, literature, theatre and cultural educational activities. De Menil thought that it would attract more attention and visitors if the Menil was built in an area surrounded by low residential housing. She intended that the building be flexible, open, and above all be illuminated with light. In order to accomplish the wishes of de Menil, Piano designed the roof made out of leaves of thin ferro-cement which would give both the free areas as well as the display rooms of the flat building light, to which additional lights could be easily attached. The building of the Menil itself is a long, flat, rectangular building that is in the center of urban homes. The building has numerous glass windows that has almost a sunroof-like covering above it. 

Artist Name: Renzo Piano
Date: 1982

Work of Art: Glider
Artist Name: Robert Rauschenburg
Date: 1962
Materials: Oil, Canvas, and Silkscreen inks
Size: 96 1/8 x 59 7/8
Visual Analysis: This piece is very large and seems to be, at least to me, visually appealing. Rauschenburg used materials such as oil, canvas, and some silkscreen inks to create this huge work of art. The colors that are incorporated into this piece are different shades of grey, black, white, and almost a grey-blue sort of color. In the painting there is a glider in the top right portion of the painting and an outlined 3D rectangular box at the bottom center. In my personal opinion the rest of the painting serves as a background that seems to be faded to allow the viewers to more easlisy locate the glider as well as the oulined box.

Meaning: This piece is called Glider and as shown in the top right portion of the painting one can see a glider which would make this painting abtract. The Cultural origin of Glider by Robert Rauschenburg was Ileana Sonnabend, New York.

Artist that draw

      Robert Dennis Crumb                          Keep on Truckin'  1968


                   The initial image for the famous Zap Comix in which Crumb became enormously famous through ought the whole nation. The image it self was so popular Crumb had a difficult controlling the 'hype' and maintaining patient because of the vast usage of his image in clothing, posters and even ads. Crumb even became annoyed due to the massive movement he had created through the image in a comic book. Crumb stated: "I became acutely self-conscious about what I was doing. Was I now a "spokesman" for the hippies or what? I had no idea how to handle my new position in society! ... Take Keep on Truckin'... for example. Keep on Truckin'... is the curse of my life. This stupid little cartoon caught on hugely. There was a D.J. on the radio in the seventies who would yell out every ten minutes: "And don't forget to KEEP ON TR-R-RUCKIN'!" Boy, was that obnoxious! Big feet equals collective optimism. You're a walkin' boy! You're movin' on down the line! It's proletarian. It's populist. I was thrown off track! I didn't want to turn into a greeting card artist for the counter-culture! I didn't want to do 'shtick'—the thing Lenny Bruce warned against. That's when I started to let out all of my perverse sex fantasies. It was the only way out of being "America's Best Loved Hippy Cartoonist"

The Menil Collection Assignment

                                                                The Menil Collection
                                                                      Renzo Piano
                                                                            1982

The first thing I noticed about the Menil Collection when I walked up on its property was the size. This seemed to be a fairly small building. Walking up and around the building I did notice several things. First things people notice are the outdoor sculptures. There are several attractive pieces distributed throughout the property. As far as the building itself, I noticed a lot of symmetry and repetativeness. The building is painted is a grey tone that matches other small businesses accross the street. The white steel and roof add an elegance to it, along with its large windows. My wife and I walked around the main building before entering and wondered about the outdoor ceiling. The ceiling was angled exactly the same throught the outside, but depending on what side you were on, you experience a different view. At first I thought it was the designers way to demonstrated how something can be seen differently depending on the angle one is looking at it from. I also thought it was made this way because of the way the sun rises. I thought with the angles that it could produce shade throughout the day along with an artistic design and feel to it. I also noticed the large windows and how they had some type of object covering everything but the small edges around it. It made me believe that some sunlight could get through there. The inside of the Menil resembles a very large museum. These walls were probably 20 ft tall, and there is an enormous amount of space in there. It has beautiful floors and is a beautiful museum. I later read the phamplets and the online website and realized I was pretty close to the real reason about the ceiling. Apparently it was made this way with the skylights to filter the sunlight, so it wouldn't directly hit the paintings and cause damage to them. Piano also got the design from his sailboat which was a "leaf" type design for the ceiling. The last thing I read, also stated that he wanted to have the museum look small on the outside, but big on the inside. The man has clearly succeeded in doing this.

                                                                     Rene Marquerite
                                                                    Le Viol (The Rape)
                                                                           1934
                                                                      Oil on Canvas

There were several pieces that caught my eye at the Menil, but this one here blew me away. As soon as I laid my eyes on this pieces my mind just ran wild. This is a picture of a head, it could be a manikin's head or maybe a person's head. The actual face of the manikin is the body of a woman. Here she uses the breast as a set of eyes, the belly button as the nose and the woman's pubic area as the head's mouth. I noticed how the sky starts off dark from top to bottom then gradually fades off in the distance. The same is done with the ground starting off in a darker shade of brown and fading as it meets in the center of the drawing. She is using the horizon in the background to demonstrate atmospheric perspective. The hair on this head really resembles a glossy, wavy like hair that is seen in women more than it is seen in men. The title of this painting helped me interpret it as an abstract painting. "The Rape" also helped my mind wonder, with questions and comments. I grasped several things from this painting. I believe with the title and the painting she is referring to men's sexual affection with a womens body. This shows how a lot of men see women more as sexual objects than individuals. A man can be stairing a woman directly in the face, but the only thing his mind is capturing is an image of her nude body. The title makes me believe that she feels men "rape women" with their eyes, because men generally focus on the sexual aspect of a relationship and will do anything possible to succumb a women into allowing them to what they feel is the prized possesion. Something else that came to mind was that the background, both the sky and the ground are empty and plain. No clouds, birds, trees, etc. I believe she did this because when a man stares and studies a women he indulges himself in her beauty, beauty here being her body, and does not see anything else that can be going on in the surrounding areas. Men just enter a trance and forget about the outside world. This was a very beautiful piece both my wife and I really enjoyed discussing. The Menil is a great place to visit and I intend to go back, since I hear they like to switch their art work continuously so people can enjoy a lot of different art.

Menil Collection

 Renzo Piano

Houston, Texas

1982 to 1986

The Menil Collection opened in 1986 in Houston, TX. During some research I found out that  Dominique de Menil,and her husband, John de Menil, became a power couple in the Houston art scene beginning in the 1970s. Their combined wealth and love for art left them with the inevitable goal of creating a place for Houstonians to come together and enjoy all that art had to given them. The Menil building has so much space to give and i love how the sun light goes in the the building as you are admiring the art. Renzo Piano designed the building the way he did because Dominique wanted to built the building were residential homes were located and wantedto have educational activities for the people. She wanted it to be open iluminated with natural light.This is the most interesting museum I've ever visited. It has the feel of a normal gallery, but there are some rooms that will blow you away. The art combined with the unique space can evoke a very visceral response. A few rooms were set up with the art in such a way that I wanted to leave and wanted to stay at the same time. There are other sites in the Menil Collection besides the gallery. I especially liked the Rothko Chapel. It is very beautiful.

Richard Serra

Out of Round X

Paintstick on handmade Hiromi Paper

79 1/2 x 79 inches

To me this painting is just a round whole painted in black and white or grey, but still a black hole. To me this piece of art is representational because it represents something to me and may to other people it is .This makes me feel sad when I look at it. It makes me realize that I feel empty inside, that I am not happy with myself nor the family I constructed with my husband even though we have a little girl, but Im not happy with him. It is just a picture of a hole a black one but it brings out so many feelings.

Julie Mehretu

I chose Julie Mehretu piece called the Dispersion. I like Julie's art because her style is very different. She combines symbols, maps and grids in her drawings. Drawing is important in her work because it is necessary for her to present a picture within the layering of all of the different objects used to build the picture. 

Final Art projects and presentations

Part of your final grade will be to create a work of art that has been inspired by any of the works of art or artists that you have seen or learned about in this class. You can choose any media (painting, drawing, photo, performance, etc) that you would like. You will be presenting the artwork to the class as along with a short (400-600 word) paper about your inspiration (the artist or artwork), elements/principles  of design present, your choice of materials, and the process by which you made it. The artwork and the papers will be due on Mon 4/30.

Menil Collection Visit Due Mon 4/23

Instructions: Visit the Menil Collection, take as much time as you can to look at the building itself (designed by Renzo Piano) and around the museum until you find a work of art that you are drawn to or are most interested in to write about. It is extremely important that you complete this writing at the museum, DO NOT rely on your memory! First write about the building then a work of art. Then post the info on the blog by Monday4/23.

Ps. You can also read up on the building and its history here

Menil Collection building Basic info:

Artist’s Name (if available): Renzo Piano

Date: 1982

Formal (Visual) Analysis –Describe the building visually and be as descriptive and detailed as possible. What are the size, colors, materials, etc?

Finding Meaning- Why do you think Renzo Piano designed the Menil building in the way that he did? What  effect does it have on you looking at it from the outdoors and experiencing it from the inside?

Work of Art

Artist’s Name (if available):

Title:

Date:

Materials:

Size:

Formal (Visual) Analysis –Describe the piece visually and be as descriptive and detailed as possible. What are the size, colors, materials, or sounds?   

Finding Meaning- Use titles, text, symbols, how the subject matter represented (abstract, representational, nonrepresentational), role of the art, the cultural origin, or any other info you can to try to find the meaning of the work.