I chose to only watch female artists because art has been a male-dominated field. The first artist I watched was Diana Al-Hadid and it was really interesting to me how the video was narrated by a story that inspired her work. She talked about how much she loved stories but says: “There’s a part of me that kind of resists that kind of specificity.” That really stood out to me because I felt like it was key to her method of creating art. In other videos I watched I noted a connection between the artist and the material. Sculpture is a very physically connecting type of art. Though you create physical works in painting and drawing and printmaking, sculpture is the only one where you have such a deep connection to the piece. Since it is three-dimensional you’re really in touch with the materials therefore the final work.
Christina DeLuca – Art21
Within the contemporary artist videos I watched, I got to experience different techniques in which people go about their art. One person that I found interesting in particular was Ann Hamilton. She likes to take things that usually aren’t contemporary art material and turn them into them. She uses the written word and creates pieces. One piece was turning a 2D book page into a ball of “yarn” by taking the lines of words and entwining them into a ball. She wants to turn what’s visible into objects that people actually see which I found interesting. Another artist that caught my attention the most when I was watching was Mark Dion. One of his main goals is to go out in nature and find things and bring them back into their element. One piece was a giant tree that fell and he brought it into the center of the city where it originally would have been and began to make a garden of it for everyone to enjoy. I found this interesting because he puts a life long commitment into projects like these because they have to constantly be kept up with to stay alive rather than once a project is finished forgetting about it and moving onto something else.
ART21
Leonardo Drew:
Leonardo Drew is influenced by the concept of grids and how they are the foundation of many things. He says that they are a form of structure that allows you to expand systematically. He is inspired by Piet Mondrian, an artist who largely focused on grids. I thought it was interesting that Drew was inspired by Mondrian enough to go visit his grave and leave a printed out painting.
Drew also spent some of his life traveling the world. In doing so , he found that he did not miss creating and being in his studio as much as he thought he would because he claims that art was going on within him as he was traveling. I found this to be very interesting and can definitely relate having just traveled abroad last year. He said that traveling allowed various things to influence his whole body and how he created his sculptures from then on.
Maya Lin:
Maya Lin combines art and architecture to create sculptures about the environment. I found it was interesting how she was going to be a field zoologist, but decided to focus on a career more related to her days of activism in the 1960’s. She is interested in form making and wants her audience to know what people are doing to the world around us. She has created pieces in which she cut into stone and made a model of what is left of certain oceans, showing how these vast bodies of waters are being impacted by climate change. I found this to be striking and a powerful way to catch people’s attention about climate change.
Evelyn Pierce – Art21
Within one of the videos I watched, Louise Bourgeois stated that, “a work of art does not need to be explained.” This idea seemed to be a common theme throughout the videos I chose to watch. I decided to only watch videos of female artists seeing as the artistic industry is often male dominated. Diana Al-Hadid stood out to me because, while most other female artists focused on theme and intentions behind their work, she was material and process based, and wanted the viewer to interpret the piece based off of the materials it was created with. Other female artists that stood out to me were Louise Bourgeois and Doreen Garner. Bourgeois uses her own personal experiences to create her pieces, and does not explain their meanings, hoping that her audience is able to connect to them in their own personal way. Doreen Garner’s work leans more politically, and also gets the audience to make connections on their own in order to deepen their understanding of the subject matter. The constant theme I noticed between all the videos were the artists not spelling out the meaning, and instead letting the viewer figure it out for themselves.
Contemporary Sculpture Assignment – Mia Ranello
Weiwei said he enjoys putting work and craftsmanship into useless objects. And if people doubt his work, he responds saying he’s allowed to do what he does, because he’s an artist. He’s not pretentious in his self reassurance, he’s just confident in defending his work. The pieces of his that I find most remarkable are these wooden polyhedra made using no nails. He says it took his carpenters a year to figure out how to make them.
Artists seem to prefer defying expectations. Louise Bourgeois does so with pieces installed next to a skyscraper. She created small and discreet sculptures that do not rival the building’s stature which makes them very sensitive and personal in comparison. They are also very delicate which puts them at risk of vandalism, but she puts them in the open outdoor space as an experimental leap of faith.
Maya Lin was to become a zoologist before she fell into the art world. She has always been an environmental activist, and shares those beliefs now in her work. I like that she uses mapping technology to create some of her pieces; it seems pretty unique. Her pieces are made by a machine and then “hand-worn.”
Kate Zellers – Art 21
I tried to watch mostly videos from non-white people since many of the art industry is filled with white-men and when attempting to include women they are again, white. All of the artists were tackling issues, whether it be personal or societal. I watched Stephanie Syjuco who focused on colonialism. We see the bright green prairie dress which is interesting to think about fashion as sculpture. In my honest opinion, the work did not seem that moving, as it was a recreation of an historical item in a contemporary color. This contrasts with the work of Ann Hamilton which stuck out since the art was immersive, people playing on swings in “the event of a thread”. As the fabric swung with each individuals action, I really liked that the art was alive, never static. The work of Nick Cave was not as interactive as Hamilton, but the work was much more immersive due to its intricacy and uniqueness in comparison to Syjuco.
Ben Kaller Art21
I watched videos from around 12 artists total, all with vastly different approaches to art and varying styles. Some artists such as Hiwa K and Olafur Eliasson want viewers to make the meaning of their art themselves. Olafur’s works are large-scale and abstract, and often interactive. He knows everyone will see and feel something different and values that. Other artists such as Kerry James Marshall and Brian Jungen have a specific message they want to come across. Brian works with a variety of materials, such as newspaper and found objects, to create art that reveals discrimination against Native people in the US. I think one of the most interesting interviews was the one with Jeff Koons. He is one of the most well known sculptors in the world, and in the interview stated that he did not have any knowledge of art history before college. I think it is quite crazy that someone with little art background like Jeff Koons can overtake so many other lifelong artists in the public eye.
Angela Ziganshina – Talisman Sketches
Kaller Project 2 Sketches
Christina DeLuca – Talisman Sketches
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