Ana Mendieta

Ana Mendieta was born on November 18, 1948 and died on September 8, 1985. She was a Cuban-American artist. Mendieta’s work was comprised of performance art and “earth-body” sculptural, photographic, and video work. Her work is considered to be strongly feminist. Her work is also considered to be a bit autobiographical as well. At first her theme was violence against the female body. She later focused on spiritual and physical connections with the land.

            Mendieta is most known for her “Silueta Series.” This series exemplifies her fascination for the study of “ancient cultures, cross-cultural archetypes, and engagements with themes of gender and identity.” In these pieces she outlined the earth with her body and used leaves, twigs, blood, and other organic materials. I really like these pieces because she literally inscribed herself into nature.

Stelarc

            Stelarc is an Australian performance artist. This work mainly focuses on the capabilities of the human body. The major theme of his work is “the human body is obsolete.” His performance includes robotics and modern technology combined with his body. He practices flesh hook suspension, which is where his body would be raised solely by hooks.  He has also performed with a robotic arm and has let his body be controlled remotely by electronic muscle stimulators, which were connected to the internet.

            I really like Stelarc’s work because he pushes the limits of his body by using technology. In a way he is very similar to Marina Abramovic. She tested her body’s limits as well. However Stelarc uses technology and to me he is in a way cleverer than Abramovic when he tests the limits of his body. His flesh hook suspensions seemed really extreme to me. He literally would pierce his skin with hooks and suspend himself. I also thought it was interesting that he created a “third ear” by surgically putting it in his left arm.

James Turrell

James Turrell was born on May 6, 1943 in Los Angeles. He is an American land and earth artist who shows themes of light and space in his work. His work is meant to impact the eye, body, and mind with the force of a spiritual awakening. His work is meant to allow the audience see themselves “seeing.” Turrell stated he wants to use his eyes to penetrate space.

            One of Turrell’s pieces is called “Gather Light” 2006. He uses L.E.D. light, etched glass, and shallow space. By looking at his work I can clearly see his fascination with light. The majority of his work is with light and glass and it feels as if you are in a way looking towards the future. His work is meant to be related to his personal and inward search for mankind’s place in the universe. Knowing this, I can see it in his work. His work is simple but it makes his message just that much bolder.

Farmlab

Farmlab ended up being completely different from what I had expected. At first I was not even sure if I was in the right place until I called Farmlab and asked where they were specifically located. When I found it and walked in I was surprised that it wasn’t a museum at all. The art pieces inside could be best described as random. I was taking pictures at first however one of the people there told me I was not allowed to take pictures because the artists would need credit for their work. One of the pieces that I was actually able to take a picture of was a car filled with dirt and with plants growing inside it. I really liked the message this piece gave me. I thought of how cars are actually bad for the environment and it was just really thought provoking to see the car with plants inside it. Besides that I did not really see much else that interested me while I was there.

Vanessa Beecroft

Vanessa Beecroft was born on April 25, 1969. She is an Italian contemporary artist and currently lives in Los Angeles. Her work is mostly comprised of large-scale performance art. She usually uses live female models that are often nude. Her work can be described as close to a Renaissance painting and in between a performance and documentary. Her performances are made for specific locations and have references, which are political, historical, etc. The women in her performances were often nude and were similar to each other through details such as hair color or identical shoes. In her more recent works her models are clothed and take on a more theatrical approach in the performances.

One of Beecroft’s works that I was particularly interested in is VB61 Still Death! Darfur Still Deaf? This performance involved thirty Sudanese women and lasted three hours. Thirty Sudanese women lied facedown on a white canvas. They positioned their bodies to look as if they were dead bodies piled on top of one another. The bodies were darkened with make-up and the women’s bodies were covered with a red stroke of paint. The women stayed motionless and kept their eyes shut. This work was really thought provoking to me because Beecroft was showing the death that is going on in Darfur. I liked how she made the models look dark and then used a bold red color that emulated blood.

Earth Art Project

For my project I decided to choose land or earth art. I attempted to create a small scale version of the Spiral Jetty by using rocks. I was not able to add water because the dirt would turn into mud and the rocks would not show so I tried to make a small scale land version of the Spiral Jetty as opposed to the original which is under water.

Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy was born on July 26, 1956. He is a British sculptor, photographer, and environmentalist. He produces sculptures and land art in their original land settings. His work often includes brightly colored flowers, icicles, leaves, mud, pinecones, snow, stone, twigs and thorns. He also practices rock balancing which is an art in which the artist would take rocks and balance them on top of one another in different types of positions. For a lot of his work, Goldsworthy uses his bare hands, teeth, and found tools to create his art. For his permanent sculptures he uses machinery.

One of his works that I really found interesting was a sculpture he created out of ice. On a bright sunny morning Goldsworthy cut a slab of risen snow. He scraped away at it with a stick creating a circular design. The circular design carved in the snow was just short of breaking through meaning that if one were to touch it it would break. I really like how the majority of his work is really detailed and this piece demonstrates that. He scraped away at the ice carefully and he put in a lot of detail. I also really think it is interesting how he only creates sculptures with materials found in its original settings.

Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp was born on July 28, 1887. He was a French artist and his work was influenced by Dadaist and Surrealist movements. His early work showed post-impressionist styles. His work also showed Cubism and Fauvism He said a Symbolist painter, Odilon Redon, heavily influenced his work.

One of his first controversial works was Nude Descending a Staircase No.2. This was an abstract oil painting, which showed abstract movements. It also showed both Cubist and Futurist movements. This work was influenced by stop-motion photography. I think it’s really interesting how there have been many nude paintings however this nude abstract painting had resulted in a lot of controversy. I think it’s even more interesting that the reason it had resulted in so much controversy is because of the title. If the painting was not nude and the man was described as fully clothed then the painting would not have been such a scandal.

Marina Abramovic

Marina Abramovic was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1946. She is a performance artist and she calls herself the “grandmother of performance art.” Her work demonstrates an exploration between performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind. Her work is the epitome of the phrase “mind over matter.” She believes that once a person enters the performance state he or she could make his or her body do things that the person could never normally do. Her work is influenced by her rough childhood.

            Rhythm 0, which Abramovic created in 1974, is the piece that interests me the most. In this she shows the relationship between performer and audience. She made herself an “object” and had the public act on her. She placed 72 objects on a table, which the audience was allowed to use in any way they chose. They could choose to inflict pain or pleasure. At first the audience was careful with her. As time went on the audience started to inflict pain upon her. People tore her clothes, stuck rose thorns in her stomach and one person even aimed a gun at her head and luckily another person took it away. It really surprised me how people reacted so aggressively towards her as time went on. In her other works she tested the physical limits of her own body but in this work she tested other people’s mental limits as well.

Allan Kaprow

Allan Kaprow was born on August 23 1927. He was an American painter, assemblagist and a performance artist. Fluxus, performance art, and installation art influenced his work. In 1958, Kaprow created “Happenings.”  The style of the “Happenings” evolved overtime. At first he started it as “lightly scripted events.” The audience and performers would follow signals to participate in the art. He characterized a “Happening” as a game, adventures and activities in which participants played for the sake of playing. He said that the Happenings were “events that, put simply, happen.”

One of his works was “Eighteen Happenings in Six Parts.” This involved an audience to move together and do different activities such as play instruments, painting and etc. His work became less scripted and started to show more daily activities. Kaprow’s most famous happenings began around 1961.  He would take out students or friends to a location to perform an action. He created techniques that would draw out creative responses from the audience. I really like Kaprow’s work because he creates a combination of life and art. He basically turns daily things and events into bold art. He never recorded these “Happenings” so they would typically only be seen once. I think this made his work even stronger in the sense that it would only “happen” once.

Jamie Isenstein

Jamie Isenstein was born in Portland, Oregon in 1975 and she currently lives in New York. Her works include performance, installations, drawings, and sculptures. In many of her exhibitions, Isenstein often “becomes” inanimate objects. She actually pretends to be the object even though it may be uncomfortable and she has to stay in the same position for hours at a time whether it is standing, sitting, crouching, etc. Her most difficult performance was “Arm Chair” (2006). Isenstein had to sit perfectly still for hours for a whole month. She was only able to listen to recording of Moby Dick. She said, “when [she] emerged from the chair at the end of the day, [she] felt like [she] had sea legs, and [she] kept talking to [herself] in nineteenth-century sailor speak.”

Another one of Jamie Isenstein’s works is “Dancing Pop-Up Fishing Sculpture.” At first this sculpture just seems like a lump of patchwork fabric along with fake human limbs. Many people who view this work have no idea that there is a living person under the fabric.

Another work of Isenstein’s is “Rug Rug Rug Rug Rug” (2009). This piece consists of a bear rug, sheep rug, wolf rug, woman rug, and rug. I really like this piece because it shows the different animals killed to be made into a rug. The fact that she made herself into a rug brings to light how absurd it is to turn other animals into rugs.

Besides portraying herself as an inanimate object, Isenstein’s work also depicts her as other characters. In her “Performa 05 Biennial,” she wrote and also performed a radio program. The topic of the program was: “a recent book about plastic surgery’s effect on popular music, using Michael and Cher as examples.”

I really like Isenstein’s work because it makes her audience view the world in a different way. Her work gives importance to inanimate objects, which makes human’s lives much easier on a daily basis. I think that Isenstein’s work is really interesting because it is a hybrid of performance and sculpture. Her art is different from other artists because her art is a combination of different mediums.

Beall Center for Art and Technology

The Beall Center for Art and Technology was a lot smaller as compared to the other museums I have visited for this class. However, the pieces that were displayed were really interesting.  The sculptures are meant to represent living objects. The pieces use technology to create an illusion that the piece is alive. The art is powered by compressed air which make the pieces expand and contract. As you walk past the pieces, sensors detect you and the sculpture starts to inflate. After a while the sculpture deflates. I really liked how these pieces let the audience interact with them and actually be a part of them. The first sculpture I saw when I walked in was a sculpture of a human. It could not fully inflate because part of the sculpture was punctured.

The second sculpture I saw was a sculpture of birds. The wings slowly moved up and down and then after a while the motion died down.

The person working at the center gave us a tour of the pieces. He told us that he did not know what the last piece was. However, I really liked this piece because of how unique it looked. It was also the biggest piece in the room. I think this sculpture resembled a tunnel.