Art Event #2: Queen Califia's Magical Circle

Queen Califia’s Magical Circle

Queen Califia's Magical Circle is a public sculpture installation located in Kid Carson Park in Escondido, California. The French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle used a variety of rocks, color pebbles, glass, mirror, stones, ceramic, and other materials to create brilliant, unique mosaic ornamentation on all of her sculptures. “Queen Califia's Magical Circle is one of the most important site-specific art projects realized anywhere in the United States in recent years,” according to the Queen Califia’s Magical Circle website.

One of my favorite pieces is the sculpture of Queen Califia standing on the five-legged eagle. I walked under the eagle and it’s very impressive how the deep color blue naturally shines creating the effects of the clear night sky and the shinning starts. I really enjoyed that part- just contemplating at the shimmery blue night sky and the small details in the mosaic. 

Niki had traveled the world and knew many different people and places; she brought all different kinds of materials like stones and glasses to bring her ideas to life. I also learned that some ceramic in her art was printed to give the allusion of a specific material. I think that for Niki it was very important to get the right colors and textures that she wanted so that they could bring meaning to her sculpture.

Niki designed the Queen Califia’s Magical Circle with the help of technological tools and computer programs. After Niki’s death on 2002, friends and trained people that worked with her in previous art projects, finished the unfinished QCMC project and opened to the public on 2003.

I visited the place on Thursday, October 10. The garden is now closed for reconstruction of damaged materials. The gates were opened under special request of an art professor in CSUSM for students to visit the place. It is hoped that the garden could be open by January 2014.

I did not know about this place but I think that it is truly magical; I just couldn’t stop taking pictures and be amazed by the quality of detail in each sculpture, the walls, and the floor. I recommend that you visit in the future.

Visit: http://www.queencalifia.org/index.html

Read about the Queen Califia story that inspired Niki's art: http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/latinam/calafia/history.html

Chasing Ice (2012)

Chasing Ice is an incredible documentary that follows the project of National Geographic photographer James Balog. His goal is to capture changing glaciers in Iceland, Greenland, Alaska, and Montana. He sets designed cameras to capture the change in these glaciers in a long period of time. Balog believes that there is an existing interaction between humans and nature that is endangering the wiled life. As humans we are contributing to a drastic change in our environment and pushing it to move outside of its normal behavior.

What impacted me the most were the statements that Balog made about the physical change that is already existent and scientifically proven- our air is changing, our agriculture is changing, the biology of plans and animals are changing and we are very ignorant and/or indifferent about the subject. Balog is only one of the many messengers out there in the world who are fighting for an improvement and racing awareness about our environmental problems. 

Balog uses videos and beautiful pictures of nature to show how humans are affecting the natural behavior of our environment and I think that is a very powerful message.

Liquid Sky (1982)

I was very intrigued to watch Liquid Sky, my professor mentioned that it was a very graphic film and gave us permission to not watch it all if we felt uncomfortable watching it. That same day, I went home and watched the whole film. There were some points in the film in which it was uncomfortable to watch, but I just wanted to know how it was going to end. A combination of drugs, sex, and aliens is what makes this film very unique and unusual. The visuals are very colorful; the wardrobe, hair and makeup are very particular as well.

It’s a little difficult for me to take this film and connect it to “arts and world culture”; but I do appreciate the exposure to these types of films and artist like the director and writer of this film to try and see what it is in other people’s brain and how they express it.

Artist Research

 Matt Lipps

Matt Lipps is a Californian artist that has a very particular way to portray his art. His colorful photographs of cutout images bring a different appreciation of photographic art. Matt Lipps was born in northern California in 1975. He received his B.F.A. from California State University, Long Beach and his M.F.A.  in studio art from the University of California, Irvine, in 2004. The Horizon/s series is one of my favorite compilations of Lipps’ art.

For HORIZON/S, Lipps pulled from the first 10 years of Horizon Magazine, a bi-monthly hardback arts journal first published in September 1958. The magazine’s inaugural issue sets up a general invitation to the American people to join the editors of the magazine on a voyage towards an imagined “horizon” of high art and culture – examining artifacts, architecture, theater & film actors, and serving up what would be fine “taste” for those who weren’t in the know – a relatively antiquated way of thinking about art objects.

Lipps used Horizon magazine image cutouts; he arranged the images flat to the camera and photographed them. His work is ultimately exhibited as photography but the process is rich in various artistic aspects. 

The majority of Lipps’ work involves sculpture, collage, and theater staging on a small scale with a cast of paper dolls that he cuts out and props up with supports so that they may stand on their own.

The process starts with choosing the images, then it moves to sculpture because the 2D cutout become somewhat 3D because he makes them stand in a “set”, then Lipps uses shadows, lighting, colors, shapes and space to bring his work alive, and finally he uses theater tools to finalize his scenes.

I like how Lipps is able to bring 2D images into our space, they become vivid and they tell a story. His work brings an optical allusion and re-portraits objects, animals and people.

I’m excited to visit the MOPA this Saturday to see the Staking Claims exhibition and see some of Matt Lipps’ contributions to the exhibit.

Waste Land (2010)

 

Waste Land is an incredible documentary that follows Vik Muniz, an artist, to the wasteland in Brazil. Vik Muniz was able to work with adults and a couple of young people, their life after intervention were never the same. I really love the fact that this artist was very connected to, not only with the sociopolitical situation in the area and his art, but also to the people.

Vik was able to make a social change in a rather ignored community. I think that what brought success to Vik’s projects was the optimism and hope. I began to see and understand the difference in art and types of artists. Some artist, such as Frida Kahlo, did art to connect to herself; it was very personal. Other artists choose to just contemplate and record the aesthetics of the world, like Edward Burtynsky. Vik, on the other hand, is an artist that tried to connect to other people; and you can see that on his art.

Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)

This film is incredibly intense. It is the story of three little girls that live with an identity dilemma; they are half-caste aboriginal girls that are captured by Mr. Neville, “chief protector” of the aborigine in the State of Western Australia, to be culturalized. 

What I think spoke to me the most about this historical event, is the fact that the White settlers truly believed that they where doing good for those “half-cast” children; that it was a good thing to get rid of that half-cast “new race”. They would do this by culturalizing half-cast children and incorporate them into the White culture and eventually by the fourth generation, their heritage would be “White” and they would become a “clean” race. The film shows the struggle that they go through to go back home. The invasion of the aboriginal lands by White settlers was a very traumatic experience for the natives.