Featured Artwork:

Wohnseifer's strategies of appropriation, logo scrambling, and abstraction extend logically to the history of art. One of Wohnseifer's submissions to FAX is a sparse black–on–white abstract composition with a cryptic caption that reads, "Razzle Dazzle Pattern Derived From Malevich Painting." The single page contains a dynamic array of black geometric forms–rectangles, trapezoids, and squares of various shapes and sizes–arranged across oblique, intersecting planes. The caption refers to the early twentieth–century Russian artist Kazimir Malevich, whose notorious painting Black Square of 1915 is a canonical work in the history of abstraction. According to Malevich, such stark, abstract compositions could function as mystical icons capable of providing cosmic enlightenment. Wohnseifer, working nearly a century later, encounters Malevich's paintings in the pages of art history textbooks, yet another image to appropriate. By fragmenting Malevich's black square, Wohnseifer reduces his predecessor's utopian aesthetic project into just another logo with enough commercial glitter, or "razzle dazzle," to attract our attention.

Discussion Ideas:

Classroom Activities:

ABSTRACTING ART HISTORY

Johannes Wohnseifer appropriates canonical images from art history and scrambles them into new ambiguous logos. Have your students research the history of abstract painting and gather images of paintings that appeal to them. They might print out images from the Internet, or find images to photocopy in the library. Discuss these images as a class, or have your students analyze them in small groups. Each student should select one image. Then, have them research their paintings using library and Internet resources. Why did the artist paint this particular painting? How is it related to the artist's other work? Consider having each student make a presentation in class. Using scissors and glue have the students appropriate and fragment their photocopies by creating new, collaged compositions derived from the original paintings. Students could make a series of abstractions based on their knowledge of the artwork, or they could combine fragments from multiple images. Finally, have students write in their journals about their new compositions. Given their knowledge of the originals, how do these new images re-write art history?

PERSONAL LOGOS

By fashioning new images out of existing logos and slogans, Wohnseifer challenges and explores our commercial culture. How are products branded? What connotations does branding confer on the objects and services that we purchase? Encourage your students to develop their own logos from existing images they experience in their lives. You might have students work individually or in small groups. Have them select some of the most pervasive logos they encounter everyday, and help them print large copies of them from the Internet. Then have students consider the brands that these logos represent. Have your students discuss whether or not they approve of the products and services these logos have been used to sell? Having them work in their sketchbooks, ask your students to formulate new logos from existing ones that critique an aspect of our commercial culture. They might consider, for example, repurposing fashion logos to question issues regarding body image. After working up some sketches, have your students use scissors and glue to abstract existing logos into their own new logos. Post them in the classroom and discuss each one collectively. How does each work critique or question a facet of commercial culture?