“Animated Painting,” curated by Betti-Sue Hertz. San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA. Through Jan. 13.
Is it animated painting…or painterly animation? You decide. SDMA presents 25 videos by 14 artists who have used traditional painting and drawing methods as the basis and inspiration for digital animations. While some artists maintain the practice of painted, drawn and handmade images , others work with live action sources and then digitally recode them into painterly language. Artists include the Barnstormers, Sadie Benning, Jeremy Blake, Sebasti�n D�az Morales, Kota Ezawa, Ruth G�mez, William Kentridge, Ann Lislegaard, Takeshi Murata, Serge Onnen, Julian Opie, Wit Pimkanchanapong, Qiu Anxiong, and Robin Rhode. I’ve linked the artists names to online videos and/or infomation about their projects. Check out the short preview at SDMA’s website. Note to artists: if there are better sites to view your work, send me an email with the info and I’ll update your link.
In the Union-Tribune, Robert L. Pincus reports: “Works of the kind seen in ‘Animated Painting’ will never replace paintings or drawing themselves any more than videos have. But they can give the picture a different life, with new possibilities for artist and audience. In a sense, these films are a fulfillment of the Renaissance model, which viewed advances in technology and rational knowledge as vital to art. You have to think Da Vinci would have embraced the fusion of film and drawing. But like Kentridge, Qiu and some of the other artists in this show, he would have wanted the fusion to embody the mysteries of existence, too.” Read more.
In the LA Times, Leah Ollman speaks with curator Betti-Sue Hertz. “Animation in the commercial industry and mainstream media is permeating everything, more and more.” Hertz said. “If you turn the TV on, pretty much every commercial is a combination of live action and animation. It’s in the mainstream culture on a daily basis, and artists are saying, ‘What can I do with these techniques, these technologies? How can I push them into a more subtle language?’ ” Read more.
