The book indicates that conceptual art is a set of practices where the concept is the most important part of the work (Hacking 40). On www.visual-arts-cork.com, the site states conceptual art is a form of contemporary art that focuses on an idea. Plus it is focuses on ideas and meanings versus being art. Conceptual art as an art form began in the sixties and seventies (“Conceptual Art Meaning and Characteristics.”). What is contemporary art? Again, www.visual-arts-cork.com gives definition. The three main usages of the term “contemporary art” include “art produced after 1945 … art produced in our era or lifetimes,” and/or “art produced since the 1960s” (“Contemporary Art (1970-Present)”).
Barbara Kruger is considered a conceptual artist,
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She attempts to address such issues as feminism, social dynamics, and other critical issues. She uses black and white photos overlaid with red coloring for accents (“Barbara Kruger Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works.”). The photos are usually cropped, with only part of the photo in her work. For example, she may use a hand, or a face from a picture and then print carefully chosen words on top of it. Her work includes personal pronouns to question who is speaking. These works were further distributed on various material and media, such as T-shirts, posters, postcards, and more (“Barbara Kruger.” …show more content…
One of her most famous works is “Your Body is a Battleground,” produced in 1989. This work shows a women’s face which is divided down the middle vertically, with the right side in inverted shading, with the words “Your Body is a Battleground” on the work. This deals with abortion rights and issues (Caldwell). Similar works include “How come only the unborn have the right to life?” as well as “Who is free to choose?” (“Barbara Kruger.” Interview Magazine).
Another common work of her is “I shop therefore I am,” produced in 1987.This shows a hand, holding the words “I shop therefore I am.” According to noaozielart.weebly.com, this encourages the viewer to think about materialism (“I Shop Therefore I Am.”) In our textbook, as well as on internet sites, shows her work of “We won’t play nature to your culture” (Hacking 419). This work was produced in 1983. This shows a woman’s face, apparently lying down, with each eye covered with a small leaf. This work encourages the viewer to think about women and
Margaret Sanger, a well known feminist and women's reproductive right activist in USA history wrote the famous speech: The Children's Era. This speech focuses on the topic of women's reproductive freedom. Sanger uses rhetorical forms of communication to persuade and modify the perspectives of the audience through the use of analogy and pathos. She uses reason, thought and emotion to lead her speech.
Alice Neel’s painting Suzanne Moss was created in 1962 using oil paint on canvas. As the title suggests, the painting depicts a woman’s portrait. Now resigning in the Chazen Museum in Madison, WI, this portrait of a woman lunging is notable for the emotional intensity it provokes as well as her expressionistic use of brush strokes and color. The scene is set by a woman, presumably Suzanne Moss, dressed in dull back and blues lounging across a seat, staring off to the side, avoiding eye contact with the viewer. The unique style and technique of portraiture captures the woman’s piercing gaze and alludes to the interior emotions of the subject. In Suzanne Moss, Alice Neel uses desultory brush strokes combined with contrast of warm and cool shadows
Milbauer, Barbara. The Law Giveth: Legal Aspects of the Abortion Controversy. Atheneum, New York: 1983.
Art could be displayed in many different forms; through photography, zines, poetry, or even a scrapbook. There are many inspirational women artists throughout history, including famous women artists such Artemisia Gentileschi and Georgia O’Keeffe. When searching for famous female artists that stood out to me, I found Frida Kahlo, and Barbara Kruger. Two very contrasting type of artists, though both extremely artistic. Both of these artists are known to be feminists, and displayed their issues through painting and photography. Frida Kahlo and Barbara Kruger’s social and historical significance will be discussed.
Visceral. Raw. Controversial. Powerful. The works which Kara Walker creates have elicited strong and diametric responses from members of the art community. She manipulates the style of antebellum era silhouettes, intended to create simple, idealistic images, and instead creates commentaries on race, gender, and power within the specific history of the United States. She has also been accused of reconfirming the negative stereotypes of black people, especially black women, that the viewer and that the white, male dominated art world may hold. This perspective implies that both her subjects and her artworks are passive when confronted with their viewers. Personally, I believe that more than anything, Walker’s work deals in power -- specifically, the slim examples of power black individuals have over their
No other artist has ever made as extended or complex career of presenting herself to the camera as has Cindy Sherman. Yet, while all of her photographs are taken of Cindy Sherman, it is impossible to class call her works self-portraits. She has transformed and staged herself into as unnamed actresses in undefined B movies, make-believe television characters, pretend porn stars, undifferentiated young women in ambivalent emotional states, fashion mannequins, monsters form fairly tales and those which she has created, bodies with deformities, and numbers of grotesqueries. Her work as been praised and embraced by both feminist political groups and apolitical mainstream art. Essentially, Sherman’s photography is part of the culture and investigation of sexual and racial identity within the visual arts since the 1970’s. It has been said that, “The bulk of her work…has been constructed as a theater of femininity as it is formed and informed by mass culture…(her) pictures insist on the aporia of feminine identity tout court, represented in her pictures as a potentially limitless range of masquerades, roles, projections” (Sobieszek 229).
She perceives them in a modern and inventive way. She often uses reflection to enhance her artwork and add another level of depth. Nelson uses distinctive objects that imply a lot about the subject of the portrait. She also uses bold backgrounds with bright colours that contrast to the hyper realistic style of the figure. When painting people Nelson usually paints the whole torso. When discussing her work for the opening of the exhibition, ‘In the Flesh,’ she described her works as portraying vulnerability and defiance. She symbolises childhood in a different way and portrays many different ideas.
Though most works of art have some underlying, deeper meaning attached to them, our first impression of their significance comes through our initial visual interpretation. When we first view a painting or a statue or other piece of art, we notice first the visual details – its size, its medium, its color, and its condition, for example – before we begin to ponder its greater significance. Indeed, these visual clues are just as important as any other interpretation or meaning of a work, for they allow us to understand just what that deeper meaning is. The expression on a statue’s face tells us the emotion and message that the artist is trying to convey. Its color, too, can provide clues: darker or lighter colors can play a role in how we judge a piece of art. The type of lines used in a piece can send different messages. A sculpture, for example, may have been carved with hard, rough lines or it may have been carved with smoother, more flowing lines that portray a kind of gentleness.
Terror and mockery come together in the portraits of Cindy Sherman on display at the Crocker Art Museum. Walking into the large, dimly lit ballroom, one may begin to feel a slight sense of trepidation as the viewer looks around to find nine sets of beady eyes watching one’s every move. Sherman produced her History Portraits during the late eighties and early nineties, nine of which are displayed at the museum. In her portraits she uses lush fabrics, lavish jewelry, and false body parts to decorate herself in these self-portraits. Her portraits have been know to cause discomfort in the viewers who find the general stereotypes, depicted in her portraits, amusing, yet confusing and terrorizing.
Many associate the Berlin Dada movement with Raoul Hausmann, Johannes Baader, Hans Richter, George Grosz, John Heartfield and Weiland Herzfelde, and very few associate the art movement with Hannah Hoch. Although Hoch was overshadowed by her male contemporaries, she did not hesitate from being an active member of the Berlin Dada creating timeless and critical artworks. She is best known for being a pioneer in photomontage, a technique that was instrumental not just for Hoch, but for many Berlin Dadaists. Her most well-known photomontages are satirical and political commentaries on Weimar’s redefinition of the social roles of women, also known as the concept of the “new woman”. If during her early years she would create artworks that attempted to portray the concept of the “new woman”, in her later years she began creating artworks that responded to this new Weimarian
• AW was active in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. She has spoken for the women’s movement, the anti-apartheid movement, for the anti-nuclear movement and against female genital mutilation.
After reading a book on various feminist philosophies, I evaluated Annie Liebovitz's book and collection of photographs entitled Women according to my interpretation of feminist philosophy, then used this aesthetic impression to evaluate the efficacy of feminist theories as they apply toward evaluating and understanding art.
Throughout this essay I hope to illustrate how the development of Feminism was shown through art into Post Feminism and how feminism not only gave rights to women but to other 'Minorities ', I also plan on showing how strong Political influence is involved in art and feminism.
Conceptual art is a movement that prizes the ideas over the formal or visual components of art works(LeWitt).The idea is what fuels the art, without it, I couldn't be art( LeWitt). The art form is detached from the ability of the artist as a craftsman( LeWitt). It is the objective of the artist to make the art mentally interesting to the viewer, to make his point across and to evoke emotion , be it positive or negative. In fact most of the conceptual art actively sets out to be controversial. It seeks to challenge and probe viewers about what they tend to think as art(Schellekens). From that point it is considered a very controversial art form. There are people that find it refreshing and meaningful, while others believe that it is shocking, distasteful and lacking any form of
Art can be defined in many ways by an individual. One can say that any creative output by a person is considered art. Others contend that art must conform to a societal standard and the basis of the creation should be understood by most intellectual people. For example, some contend that computer-generated images, such as fractals, are not art due to the large role played by a computer. E.O. Wilson states “the exclusive role of the arts is to intensify aesthetic and emotional response. Works of art communicate feeling directly from mind to mind, with no intent to explain why the impact occurs” (218). A simple definition may be that art is the physical expression of the ideals formed by the mind.