Dorthy & Herb

The story of Dorthy and Herb was a very touching one.  They are an adorable couple who have simply become famous for their art collection.  Not one where they buy individual pieces for millions of dollars, but one they have gathered over a life time and bought just purely for their love of modern art.
Over the years they have managed to build a collection of 4,782 works mostly focusing on conceptual and minimalist art.  They kept all these pieces in their small NYC apartment until 1992 when they decided to transfer the works to the National Gallery of Art. Dorthy and Herb were offered millions and millions of the dollars but they two did not sell their collection.  This shows how truly genuine their love of art it.  They were not collecting with the hopes of getting rich, but were collecting purely for the love of it. 

Sun Flower Seeds

I really loved Ai Weiwei's piece at the Tate Modern.  His exhibit for the sunflower seeds was so different.  It was so interesting to watch him go through the process of making the seeds from clay to having each one individually hand painted.  I was not only captured by the art but also his moral consideration.  He is having the hand painting done by people in a small poverty stricken town.  He is bringing work to people that typically would not be making money.  I am not sure how well they are being paid, but they seem very welcoming to him and the jobs he has brought to the area.  However, it is unfortunate that his art is causing health concerns at the museum.  This leads one to question whether or not there should be health concerns for the workers who are handling these seeds daily. 

Installation Art

This photo is from Song Dong's exhibit titled "Waste Not."  This work contains various stuff spanning over 50 years belonging to Dong's mother.  Items range from pots and basins to blankets, oil flasks, and legless dolls, form a miniature cityscape that viewers can navigate around and through.  Even empty toothpaste containers, bottle caps, soda bottles, and much more.  This exhibit amazed me because of all the material Dong included.  There are items here that I would never think to save.  I like this exhibit because it allowed guests to walk through, look, and get involved in the layout.

Performance Art

Performance art does not use scripts.  It will often include some form of action or spoken word which is a form of direct communication between the artist and audience .  Performance art will often entail a dramatic performer.  Marina Abramovic, a well-known performance artist, was born on November 30th, 1946 in Serbia.  She describes herself as the "grandmother of performance art," creating approximately 50 works over four decades.  Although she initially studied painting in an art school, in the late 1960s she began experimenting with performance. For a 1973 piece called “Rhythm 10,” she turned on a tape recorder, splayed out her hand on the gallery floor, then quickly and repeatedly stabbed at the spaces between her fingers with one of ten knives, changing knives each time she cut herself. After she’d gone through all the knives, she replayed the tape and repeated the performance, blow by blow as recorded, on the bloody floor.  The photo above refers her to work "The Artist is Present" where Ms. Abramovic sat silently at a table in the museum’s atrium, facing an empty chair. She was scheduled to sit there all day, every day, during museum hours, for the run of her show. The museum estimated that, if she stuck to the plan, she will sit for 716 hours and 30 minutes, earning her a record for endurance in the performance art sweepstakes.

Installation Art

Song Dongs Installation Art, Waste Not, is a creative piece that allows viewers to get an insight into Chinese culture.  I found the piece to be fascinating because Song Dongs mother collected and saved a variety of  objects, things that we would consider garbage.  They help explain both the Chinese culture and mentality of not wasting anything but also see how culture developed over 50 years.   It is unbelievable to see how many objects people can accumulate in their life.  In our society we would consider a person that keeps such a collection as a hoarder.  Their accumulations would not be considered historic or artistic. 

Appropriation of Art

The appropriation of art has become a huge issues among many of today's modern artists.  As we become more technologically advanced, artists are able to do much more than ever before.  Today, many artists find images in everyday life and use them in their work, but slightly alter the art so that it is left with a unique look they have designed.  Now more than ever, the U.S. is starting to crack down on copyright laws when it comes to appropriation.  It is seen as copying and many countries are starting to follow the U.S.'s lead on toughening the laws.  The more strict the laws, the more difficult it will become to practice this type of art.  Eventually it seems like it will just become all together illegal.  However, artists see these copyright laws as a restriction of their creativity and expression.  A piece of art that was somewhat recently in the news for appropriation was Sherard Fairey's Obama Hope piece.  Although the picture is somewhat altered, the original image comes from a photographer who workers for the Assosiated Press.  The photographer saw his image and sued Fairey, forcing him to pay for using his work.  I think that appropriation can lead to some very creative and unique pieces, but copyright laws do need to be obeyed. 

Contemporary Art

This painting, by Jennifer Barlett, is entitled "Houses" and was created in 2005.  Bartlett is known for her paintings and her prints of mundane objects, especially houses.  She studied at the Yale School of Art and Architecture.  This painting is an example of contemporary art.  I enjoy this painting because it is  has a very different look and texture to it.  Bartlett brought liveliness to something as simple as a house.  It also looks as if the choice of colors and the spots in which the colors are took a lot of thought and time to reach the final product.

Contemporay Art - Frank Stella

The piece of contemporary artwork that I found is titled Harran II is by Frank Stella. Frank Stella is an American painters and printmaker who was born on May 12, 1936.  Stella went to Princeton and is regarded as one of the most well known postwar American painters.  This particular piece is a very colorful piece that is just made up of circles and squares.  The work of art was completed in 1967.  It is a made from polymer and fluorescent polymer paint on a canvas.  The painting does not seem like it would be very complex to make, it reminds me almost of a doodle I would draw in the margin of my notebook.  The piece of artwork is part of the beginning of Stella's Protractor series.  The artist really seemed to put a lot of thought into his piece as it is made up of defined pairs of horizontal and vertical lines that intersect at right angles.  He is said to have brought abstract and decorative painting together in a way that goes against traditions.  Harran II follows a motif that is present throughout most of the series.  The title of this piece and most of the other paintings in the series come from ancient cities in Asia Minor.   Although at first I found it to be rather simple, I realize that there is actually more to it.  The overlapping circles and squares make the design unique.  The colors are very bright and vibrant, grabbing my attention and giving it a retro look.

Michael Craig-Martin

I found Michael Craig-Martin's work to be very different from the art we have seen in previous classes.  I like that Martin uses very bright colors, but I dont understand what the meaning is of the random objects.  Also, Martin is known for using big, jumbled letters and words.  The neon colors remind me of the 70's, but I'm still unsure as to what makes him decide what objects are going to be included in his work.

Vija Celmins

I found Vija Celmin's paintings to be very intriguing.  This painting, entitled Comet, is probably one of my favorite paintings I have seen so far in class.  I also enjoy the spider webs.  Vija's paintings are mostly of nature, and some are just of objects.  I found her paintings to be very deep and thought out.  She was very particular about certain things and always had confident in her work.  The spider web, which was probably a very difficult painting, came out to look exactly like a spider web would, like it was photographed.  Also, the use of different colors and contrast in her ocean photos gave a relaxed tone.