Alice Konitz Artwork

Last night I attended Alice Konitz's presentation. I had no previous knowledge of the artist and therefore I held no assumptions about her work and had no specific expectations for her. Most of the works she displayed in her sideshow were sculptures (although she did a few mixed media pieces involving images from magazines and paint). Her sculptures typically assumed structural and geometric forms. Many of them resembled man made constructions that served utilitarian functions.

For example, one of the sculptures she did resembled a table, yet was distinctly a new and altered form. The piece had uneven surface so although it may have looked like a table, it could not function as one. This particular work reminded me of the question we debated at the beginning of the semester: what are the differences between art and design? I thought that her work supports the idea that differentiating art from design involves discovering its function.


I was particularly fascinated by the fact that Konitz was so inspired by all that she observed in L.A. She created thought-provoking pieces based on highways, donut shops, food stands, and other undervalued attributes of our surroundings. Perhaps she derived inspiration from these things because she is not a native of California, and thus she may have a fresh perspective on the things many of us take for granted. I am accustomed to looking at and analyzing art created as a commentary on broad social issues. I am still unsure of whether or not I appreciate Konitz's focus on the minutia of everyday life. I felt conflicted about her work: I liked that she was imploring veiwers to think about things that they probably would have never noticed or contemplated (like her monument to the point on a mountain where radio signals change), but I also wondered why she was not making a more blatant argument though her pieces.

In general, I liked the appearance of her artwork. I thought that her choice of more everyday mediums mirrored her attention to the smaller aspects of life. I also really liked the costumes she used in her short film "Owl Society," although I could not discern their function or how they specifically contributed to the film because I was also unable to hear the dialogue. I'm happy I heard Konitz speak and I hope to see more of her work in the future.