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.