An Inspiration Across Cultures
Public art conquers so much more than the simple task of making the street a little easier to look at. It involves those who created it, those who supplied the means to create it, and those whose lives it continues to impact. Wall paintings in particular take an important role in working for a greater good. Judith F. Baca, a Hispanic-American woman and artist- activist has contributed an unaccountable amount to the mural movement in Los Angeles. She has accomplished this by giving individuals the chance to create art and develop a sense of pride, she has taught younger generations a respect for their ethnic identity, and from the many walks of life that continue to view her work in everyday places she has encouraged social change.
Judy Baca graduated from California State University, Northridge in 1969. This was a time when very few artists openly supported the Civil Rights Movement in their work and Mexican muralists were not considered to be of any importance to the fomalists that dominated the art world (Barlow 1999, 125). The mural scene began to grow in 1967 when Allan D’Arcangelo painted the first decorative mural on the side of an East Ninth street tenement in New York City. In 1968, the first photo-realist mural were painted in Venice, California. The collective youth murals done in Latin areas of Chicago and New York City in 1968 also had an impact on the moving forward of the mural movement (Cockcroft et al. 1977, 31).
The city began to take mural painting seriously and in 1974 the Inner City Mural Program was brought about by the efforts of the Cultural Arts Section of Los Angeles county Department of Parks and Recreation. The Department set out to accomplish six specific goals. The first was to fulfill the inherent need of those with low-income backgrounds to develop a sense of identity through public artistic expression. This goal became specifically important to enhancing the lives of the youth in certain areas. The second goal was to improve the community through fine art murals that express its culture and ethnic heritage. Third, to draw attention to and emphasize the difference between commercial and fine art. The program sought to stimulate a higher awareness of, and support for, the fine arts and also to showcase the w...
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...nner city kids that their ethnic history is something to be proud of and celebrated. She has even made an impact on the upper class of our society by asking them to understand her artwork and why it is so important to create art that invokes social change. Judith Baca’s determination for change and desire to teach the youth of the world has immensely contributed to the successfulness of the Los Angeles mural movement and its continuation today.
Bibliography
Barlow, Margaret. 1999. Women Artists. New York: Hugh Lauter Levin Assoscites.
Barnett, Alan. 1984. Community Murals: The People’s Art. New York: Cornwall Books.
Brown, Betty Ann. 1996. Expanding Circles: Women, Art and Community. New York: Midmarch Arts Press.
Cockcroft, E., Cockcroft J., Pitman J. W. 1977. Toward a People.s Art: The Contemporary Mural Movement. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Hooks, bell. 1981. Ain’t I a woman: Black women and feminism. Boston, Ma: South End Press.
Merken, Stefan.1987. Wall Art: Megamurals & Supergraphics. Philadelphia, Pa.:Running Press.
Piland, Sherry. 1994. Women artists: an historical, contemporary, and feminist bibliography. Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press.
Tuele, Nicholas. British Columbia women artists, 1885-1985: an exhibition. Victoria, B.C., Canada: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 1985. Print.
Work breakdown is an essential tool in project management. Project manager make very good use of the WBS. That is to say, it
Within the first two stanzas of Poe’s “Annabel Lee” the speaker emphasizes the fairy tale era of the speakers relationship with Annabel Lee. In stanza one Poe uses many poetic elements to differentiate between reality and the speakers view of his and Annabel Lee’s relationship, making the story seem very much like a fairy tale. “That a maiden there lived whom you may know/By the name of Annabel Lee.” Through the diction of the line “That a maiden there lived whom you may know” Poe helps the speaker show the reader that the speaker sees Annabel Lee as more than Annab...
Whitney Chadwick, Women, Art, and Society 3rd ed. (NY: Thames & Hudson world of art, 2002), 153-160.
A mutual understanding towards many of Poe’s works is that the loss of a lover brings about insanity, but the truth is that in Poe’s works the loss of a young lover leads to depression. This is a theme that is played out in more than one of Poe’s works, but it is most prevalent in the depressing poem Annabel Lee. The speaker is conflicted with losing what is his whole world and his childhood lover. While all is well with both him and the girl alive, an insurmountable depression takes hold once the winds blow out to carry her to the grave. This is a theme that plays out often in his works and has been observed as one of his main inspirations. Within Peter Coviello’s research, he comes to the conclusion that “Within [Poe’s] world, only very young girls, who are not yet encumbered by the revulsions of adult femininity, seem capable of providing a site for stable heterosexual male desire in Poe.” Rather than using a full fledged adult as his lover, he engineered a child into his poem so the lover does not harness the potential to mutate into a monstros...
Born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Cindy Sherman grew up in suburban Huntington Beach on Long Island, the youngest of five children and had a regular American childhood. She was very self-involved, found of costumes, and given to spending hours at the mirror, playing with makeup (Schjeldahl 7). Cindy Sherman attended the state University College at Buffalo, New York, where she first started to create art in the medium of painting. During her college years, she painted self-portraits and realistic copies of images that she saw in photographs and magazines. Yet, she became less, and less interested in painting and became increasingly interested in conceptual, minimal, performance, body art, and film alternatives (Sherman 5). Sherman’s very first introductory photography class in college was a complete failure for she had difficulties with the technological aspects of making a print. After her disastrous first attempt in photography, Sherman discovered Contemporary Art, which had a profound and lasting effect on the rest of her artistic career (Thames and Hudson 1). Sherman’s first assignment in her photography class was to photograph something which gave her a problem, thus, Sherman chose to photograph her self naked. While this was difficult, she learned that having an idea was the most important factor in creating her art, not so much the technique that she used.
Diego Rivera was deemed the finest Mexican painter of the twentieth century; he had a huge influence in art worldwide. Rivera wanted to form his own painting fashion. Although he encountered the works of great masters like Gauguin, Renoir, and Matisse, he was still in search of a new form of painting to call his own (Tibol, 1983). His desire was to be capable of reaching a wide audience and express the difficulties of his generation at the same time, and that is exactly what h...
This investigation will examine a few key works by the anonymous female artist group know in popular culture as the Guerrilla Girls. In this essay it will reveal several prominent themes within the groups works that uncover the racial and gender inequalities in politics, art and pop culture with the use of humor. These collaborating artists work and operate with a variety of mediums, their works display a strong message concerned with activism connected by humor allowing the Guerrilla Girls to communicate and resonate a more powerful message to the viewer. The ways in which this collaborating group has employed many questions and facts against the hierarchy and historical ideologies which have exploited women and their roles in art. This investigation will allow the reader to identify three areas in which the Guerrilla Girls apply a certain forms of humor to transform society’s view on the prominent issue of gender in the art world. These specific ploys that are performed by the Guerrilla Girls are in the way they dress, the masks they wear, pseudonymous names of dead women artists and the witty factual evidence in their works. These are all examples to evoke audiences in challenging not only the art society which dictates the value and worth of women in art but also to confront yourself and your own beliefs in a way that makes audiences rethink these growing issues.
In the time of war between the men of Athenian, Lysistrata calls upon all the women of Athenian to give up all acts of sex towards the men in combat. Empowered by her idea of celibacy, Lysistrata preaches to the women, “From now on, no more penises for you!” (Lysistrata 829). In unison, the women of Athenian chant a promise to stay abstinent until all chaos is resolved. Furthering into the strike, many women have tended to feel deprived of sex, as well as lust. Lysistrata massive persistence in staying true to the seldom promise veers the weak into a hopeful direction. In conclusion to the Greek mythology of “Lysistrata”, the abstain notions of interacting in sex, lead to the war ending. Lysistrata was praised as a heroic figure and respected by her district of
One can hardly deny that in Euripides’ plays women are often portrayed as weak, uncertain, and torn between what they must do and what they can bring themselves to do. Other women appear to be the root of grave evils, or simply perpetrators of heinous crimes. In a day when analysis of characters and plot had yet to be invented, it is easy to see why he might have been thought to be very much against women. However, when looking back with current understanding of what Euripides was doing at the time, armed with knowledge of plot devices and Socratic philosophy, this argument simply does not hold up. In fact, a very strong argument can be made to the opposite, that Euripides was in fact very much in support of women’s rights, and thought they were treated unfairly.
“Let’s quickly swear an oath, my friend, and set our concord up unbendable as bronze,” Lysistrata declared, when the other women of Athens and Sparta decided to ban together to with her (Puchner, Akbari, Denecke, and Fuchs 790). The Peloponnesian War had raged on for years and the women of Athens and Sparta were ready for their husbands to come home (Puchner, Akbari, Denecke, and Fuchs 788). Lysistrata assembled all the women to devise a duplicitous disposition to end the war. The women of Athens and Sparta barricaded their selves in a temple and refused to give in to their husbands’ sexual desires (Puchner, Akbari, Denecke, and Fuchs 788). Lysistrata and the women of Athens and Sparta used their sex appeal for to benefit both Athens and Sparta
“Lysistrata,” written following the trouncing of Athenian forces in Sicily in 413 BC, harkens back to this time of war. As is traditional in Athenian theater, males in drag played all of the female parts. This ritual increases the play’s absurdity. The play begins with the streets empty as the men are at war. The women speak to each other of both emotional and sexual starvation. They both
Banner, Lois W. Women in Modern America a Brief History. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974.
Imagine being born into a world where your social status is dependent on your gender, where women are considered inferior to men. This idea is exposed in two Ancient Greece plays “Antigone” by Sophocles and “Lysistrata” by Aristophanes. In both plays most women are considered inferior and do not go against rules established by men. However, there are some women who do not let men restrain them from expressing their feelings. Therefore, the women in Ancient Greece were considered inferior to men, however, they were gallant.
In the course of human events, women have been subjected to being seen as far less superior than men. Women through most of history have never been seen as equals to men and seen as pitiful and slave like, but women have tried to change the views of society and become equal. Feminist art was a major contributor in helping women fight these societal views during the feminist movement. Many talented women artist banded together during the 1960-1970s to be able fight the societal view as a woman. Their art was sometimes not accepted by society for exploring subjects that were not accepted for that time. They fought to make their topics they talked about socially accepted. Artists such as Judy Chicago, Barbara Kruger, and guerilla girls helped spark and shaped the feminist art movement by