Sustainability (Task 1)
David Maisel- Photographs of Open Pit Mines (2013)
Maisel’s aerial photography at first glace draw interest from the idea of another worldly beauty although, the rich blue swirls of colour and contours of red have a sinister and hidden beauty. The images reveal the surreal and hidden truth behind the contentious territories of once stunning nature that have been impacted by water logging, reclamation, military tests and chemical “disposal”. His works have been instrumental in redefining the terms of landscape imagery and brining awareness to the lack of sustainable means taken by some of the most powerful and influential figures in the American west. One of the biggest issues of our times is that we are built upon a history and hierarchy of lies, we have been fed them for so long, they have worn us down and convinced us that they are doing their best for the longevity of our planet yet it is the photographic horrors of Maisel and many others that bring the ignorance of the blind to a higher consciousness regarding sustainable issues. When the system is too rigid, too impenetrable and narcissistic to instigate the immediate action we need to survive as a species; we turn to real people to make a force and voice for the most concerning challenges that we face at present. It can be commended that artistic vision in many realms of creation and the collaborative efforts of contemporary artists bring the issues of sustainability into the forefront of modern day awareness through creative outlets of tragic expression.
Identity (task2)
Samuel Fosso- (African Photographer)
Fosso’s work includes using self portraiture and adopting a diverse range of personas and identities to comment on his life and experiences growing up in Africa. He is particularly fascinated by the history of his country and expressing himself in a versatile manner to convey a strong and spiritual meaning. He is recognized as one of Central-Africa’s leading contemporary artists. In 1975, at the age of thirteen, Samuel Fosso opened his own photography studio in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. During the day, he made pictures for paying clients, but at night, to use up unfinished rolls of film, he turned the camera on himself and began creating expressive self-portraits. Fosso’s work from the 1970s, in which he references popular West African musicians and the latest youth fashions, addressing variations in African identity is still among some of his most prominent and notable work. He made a large effort to create images opposed to the ethnographic visions of Africa and also to the commercial imperatives of studio portraiture, thus challenging the identities of himself, African culture and portraiture in general. With his “African Spirits” project he focused on honoring the most influential figures in the black civil rights movement, often with an uncanny resemblance, he recreated images of Martin Luther King Jr and Muhammad Ali, once again challenging his own identity and that of black civil rights as a whole Fosso in reference to his “African spirits” project states that it is a “homage to the leaders who have tried to liberate us, to give us back our identity as Africans and as blacks.”
Task 3- Innovation
“Before I Die”- Candy Chang (2011)
Before I Die reimagines how the walls of our cities can help us grapple with mortality and the significance of life before so. After the death of a loved one, Chang painted an abandoned house in her New Orleans neighborhood with chalkboard paint and stenciled the prompt, “Before I die I want to ___,” to restore perspective and find consolation with her neighbors. Anyone walking by could pick up a piece of chalk, reflect on death and life, and share their personal aspirations before such times. After receiving requests from people around the world who wanted to make a wall with their community, Chang made over 5000 Before I Die walls have now been created by communities in over 75 countries. The installation reimagines our relationship with death and with one another in the public realm. Perhaps its success was due to this anonymous prompt offering a rare space to share honestly and vulnerably in public without fear of judgment. and allowing the most private and contemplated feeling of your inner psyche reflected and that of other can be incredibly reassuring on an individual level… it is also an amazing way to connect with the vulnerabilities of others on a mutual level. Anxiety is on the rise and distractions are bombarding us; Society feels increasingly polarized. These are alarming trends, but I believe our shared spaces can play a vital role in our emotional health. Perhaps seeing the inner workings of others in public installations such as this could be an aid to trying to decipher our own inner demons and the things that we truly wish to get out of the short time that we have on Earth.
The simplicity of taking something that we all know, a blackboard and making something so powerful from it really just shows the true innovation of art as a whole and how it can be made so readily available and useable by others amazes me. It is the work of Cheng that shows the sheer strength of art and how she took an ordinary and overlooked object and turned it into an innovative tool for public piece of mind and self expression.
Task 4- Communication
Hot Topic is a retail chain specializing in counterculture-related clothing and accessories as well as licensed music. The stores are aimed towards an audience interested in rock music and video gaming, and most of their audience ranges from teens to young adults. The first Hot Topic store was opened in November 1989 by Orv Madden, who specialized in the retail of children and teen goods. I really enjoy the metal band style font that they used in the logo, I think that it makes for an instant insight as to what kind of products that they sell and draws in the target demographic. I think that the red on black is also a competent choice for the target audience as it looks strikingly similar to band logos such as slipknot which would have been a popular band at the times of it rising success as a part of the “mall goth” style.
For my own logo I wanted to create something that would be an alternative clothing brand much like that of Hot Topic, However I wanted to take a lot of inspiration from that of death metal bands logos in order to create both a recognizable name and an image that would be striking and very unique. I chose the image of the cross and the skulls along with the stylized lettering to tie together the whole alternative theme. I decided to use pink and black tones as a contrast to the traditional white and black logos that most high street brands use, in this way it would show the diversity of the clothing in the shop just from the logo. I wanted the logo to provoke in a way, much like that of the fashion movements in the alternative sub cultures in the UK. I am really pleased with the way that this logo turned out I think that it achieved the look that I intended. The name Coven of Strangers has a witchy and inviting tone and makes for a safe family of unknown people who are all connected by a love of alternative fashion, I think that this is something that our high streets need, to meet the increase in demand for alternative fashion.
Task 5- Gender
Elly Smallwood- 2020-2016
Smallwood draws the viewer into a world where the human body and uninhibited sexuality are only the entryway. Her large-scale oil paintings capture the human body, oftentimes aggressively: some of the figures have no face, and bodies appear slashed through with deep wounds and their skeletal features show through. Her gestural style accompanied by a drippy, lively composition gives each piece an ecstatic energy. She is often seen to be provoking the long soiled image of female anatomy in art and reimagining it in a way that strips it of all lust and appeal, perhaps in a stance of disgust over the hypertextualization of women in art on a large scale. Smallwood can acknowledge that her decision to paint the bodies of women isn’t revolutionary in of itself. Instead, it’s her chosen perspective that sets her apart from the predominantly male art cognoscenti that have fetishized it for centuries. The female form has been a battlefield in art history. Male painters painted it for their own pleasure; female painters painted it to reclaim its autonomy and give it agency. It is this that makes Feminist and female artists so paramount in the world of contemporary painting, the negative ties that the female body has to art is being challenged by the anti-misogyny standpoint of women who want to bask in the beauty of naturality and female sexuality as a whole.
Task 6- Place
Sir Anish Kapoor- Cloud Gate (Chicago 2006)
Cloud Gate is British artist Anish Kapoor’s first public outdoor work installed in the United States. The 110-ton elliptical sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates, which reflect Chicago’s famous skyline and the clouds above. The “bean” shaped sculpture also serves as an entrance to Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago, hence the name ‘Cloud Gate’. The city of Chicago is the right place for Cloud Gate, with a very simple surrounding geography. On one side is the Midwest, the flat American plain over seemingly infinite distances, you can drive for hours and nothing will change. On the other side of Cloud Gate is Lake Michigan, Water goes to the horizon on one side and endless cornfields are on the other. This is a juxtaposition of location reflections in of itself which makes this placement perfect to accomplish a brief insight to the diversity of this city, however the natural elements of the water and cornfields are also opposed by the industrialization of modern times with the lengthy skyscraper buildings that adorn a prominent portion of the sculpture. Cloud Gate truly shows the viewer all that there is to see of this city from floor to sky in a matter of seconds which makes this sculpture not only the perfect shape to accomplish this but also the perfect location. Chicago, with its elementary geography of an immense plain, lake and magnificent man-made landscape, is made for Cloud Gate. The sculpture in direct communication with the skyscrapers that create verticality in this otherwise flat landscape, is an instrument that allows everyone to play with light and distortions, in this flat plain. It is a fresh perspective , which, by distortion and dilatation, changes how we see us in the world. This sculpture alters the elements of its surroundings around the viewer, and changes their very perception. This is why this sculpture in my opinion is in the perfect place it is a true representation of how place is an overwhelmingly paramount idea in any type of artistic process or outcome.
Aesthetics-
William de Kooning
De Kooning made a seamless bridge between abstraction and figuration through painting, also working with drawing, print media, and sculpture. One portion of his work often informed the next, and he was widely known for his keen sense of exploration and experimentation within painting. Within the 1940s, de Kooning often made use of the female form as his common subject, However, within the next decade he focused on a hypersexualized presentation of women in his works for example he experimented on deliberate and harsh brushwork, and focused on greater emphasizing large breasts, dramatically unrealistic extremities and played into the predominantly male art cognoscenti of male sexual inhibitions. These paintings had broader brushstrokes and sexual appeal that gave his works a more intense appeal. Within this period, the practice and expressive style of Van Gogh is clear to see which explains the appearance of his work as part of the abstract style of the 40’s and 50’s. As for the style of his works during his later years, he was able to display a diverse body of work which shows the influence of time with his style and how the period itself sculpted his body of works greatly.
Author- Amy Schichtel Title- Willem de Kooning and his paintings Year- 2014 City- New York Publisher- Artists Rights Society (ARS)
Collaboration-
Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray:
Rrose Selavy was a dada pin-up icon and a so called “lucky charm” for many artists, shockingly though she was a He! However not just any man she just so happened to be the alter ego or one of many of famous visual artist Marcel Duchamp’s “pseudonyms”. His distaste for conventional aesthetic standards led him to devise his famous ready-mades, self-described as disrupting centuries of thinking about the artist’s role as a skilled creator of original handmade objects. Instead, Duchamp argued, “An ordinary object elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist.” Photographer Man Ray had a large part in capturing Rrose Selavy and was made responsible for the documentation of this alter ego, perhaps due to his background in rhetorical illusions. After the series of collaborative work with this character they established a strong collaborative friendship that would spread across many other art mediums and they together would make a collaborative impact on the limitations of studio based photography as a whole.
References: Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray: 50 Years of Collaboration Nadja Bozovic Agora Gallery 27th April 2017 New York
Audience-
Les Voyageurs: The Travellers
Les Voyageurs is a series of symbolic surreal sculptures erected by Bruno Catalino. The bronze sculptures depict everyday people often with a strong van Gogh influence displayed around Marseille. The obvious and gravity defying gaps in the body may seem like an impressive aesthetic composition at first glance however with further thought the sculptures are directly appealing to travellers. The suitcases that are displayed in the sculptures clearly depict a traveller slowly leaving parts of themselves behind with their travels. This is a noticeably clear example of targeting a specific audience and allowing a deep connection between the viewer and the sculpt. It is evident that this connection through empathy and a shared feeling of leaving important parts of yourself behind was choreographed by Catalino. Some of the sculptures have an “ethereal” appearance due to the little support, in this way it makes them much more impressive and achieve the desired surreal appearance. Bruno has erected 10 of these sculptures since 2013. These sculptures are a clear example of how paramount thought into your audience is in the creation of public art.
Beautifully Imperfect Sculptures Showing Travelers what they Leave Behind Aleksandar Mishkov 2018 Poker news