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Wednesday 28 August 2013

Shepard Fairey

Shepard Fairey is a graphic designer and illustrator who is most well known for his 'Hope' posters which were featured in Barack Obama's presidential campaign during the 2008 elections. Also for his 'OBEY' work which originated in1992 but is now park of a clothing brand.  

January 2008, Fairey began to distribute the Hope images of Obama and allegedly was working with campaign officials but they then denied working with Fairey at the time. The original 'Hope' posters had the word 'progress' on but Obama campaign officials requested that the word be changed to 'Hope' and one the image was edited they then began to use the posters as part the campaign for Obamas presidential campaign. Further posters were printed reading the words 'Vote' and 'Change'.
Shepard Fairey's success has now put him in the middle of a political and artistic debate on who owns what when it comes to images in the public. 


Barbara Kruger

Born in 1945 Barbara Kruger is an American artist from New Jersey renowned for her aggressive and controversial pieces that often question various subjects such as feminism, classism, consumerism and individual anatomy and desire.

Her background of work is evident in her art, previously working as head designer for Mademoiselle Magazine and then moving on to be a graphic designer, art director and picture editor. Being a subversive artist Kruger often challenges the mainstream magazines by using the images from the very magazines that are trying to sell the image.


This is one of my favourite subversive artists, I think that Kruger has managed to highlight the social stigma about how magazines have portrayed women and almost set a standard of how women should look.
















I think that by using the very images that sell the concepts she is disputing and adding the subversive text to the images, she is highlighting the obvious about the images and I think that it really works.


Joseph Beuys

 Born 1921 - 86
This German artist was also a sculpture, draughtsman, creator of action-performances and a political leader and teacher.

As an artist his interests in Christianity, zoology and mythology helped Beuys to develop the unique symbolized taste within his work.
When the second world war broke out he was sent almost straight from school and into the German air force where he served as a dive-bomber pilot until he crashed in Crimea where tales were told about how he was looked after by Tartars who used fat and felt to keep him warm. Such materials were later used by Beuys in his sculptures.
From 1962 he was a part of the Fluxus movement; a group of artists, composers and designers who they blended different artistic medias and disciplines to open up the definition of just what art could be. It then followed in 1963 that Beuys started to give action-performances using dead hares , fat and felt.


With this artist, he's used materials that represent and help recreate his past and the tales of his life in his sculptures/installations. I think that by linking the materials that you use in your art to the subject matter of it will only strengthen your piece and I think that I will take inspiration from this  and try to incorporate it into my work.

Examples of Beuys work...
 
 
'I like America and America likes me'
 
 
This piece by Joseph Beuys was a performance piece. It consisted of Beuys going to America and spending eight hours in a room alone with a coyote over a period of three days. However even though Beuys flew to America he didn't want to see any of America or even set foot on American soil and so from the plain Beuys was transported in an ambulance and then carried on a stretcher to the room in a block of flats where only then did he get up, and only to see the coyote. Again he used the felt material from his past in this piece when he wrapped him self in it at times to protect himself from the wild coyote. By the end of the three days Beuys was able to hug the coyote who had grown familiar with him and he then returned to Germany again without setting a foot on American soil.  
Beuys wanted to isolate himself and see nothing but the coyote, I don't fully understand this piece but the idea of going to another country and not even stepping on its ground and isolating yourself from the country I find intriguing.


Adbusters

Figure or Context? Surface or Depth?
 
Looking at one of Adbusters magazines issues, I came across this article witch caught my attention. The article is about how people see an image dependant on where they originate from. For example when you see the image for the first time; do you see the figure?, in the article's case, the plain or the different surrounding it is displayed in the different images? It explores the differences in people from the West and East- Asia in areas such as Art and Culture. It presents scientific research results where 37 old and young Westerners and 37 old and young East Asians took part in an experiment to see how their brain reacted to the images and if their brain fluctuations corresponded to the changes in context of the images.
 
 

The results in the article say that the people from East-Asia although when asked to focus on the figure in the image they initially saw the 'background' first which Westerners saw last. I think that the this small experiment shows a possible way in how art can be perceived differently dependant on where a person originates from because of the make up of their genes which I would like to look more into further down the line in my process of producing a piece. The concept of making a singular piece of art that can be seen in different ways I like and would consider using in the near future.
 
 

Technoslave
'It Seems the more 'connected we are, the more detached we become.'


How people can become consumed by the technology that surrounds the modern day is what this article consists of. It raises  the point that although the new technology is revolutionary, and seen as a good thing this tech can be at the same time cause for other problems including social detachment and cases of insomnia. It highlights how even now young children can now be potty trained via 'ipotty' an app... making people ask how far will technology go? and whether or not the next generation will become solely dependant on technology for simple things like 'caring for their children' and even finding 'inner piece'.

   
With this article I think I agree with it to a certain extent and think that people are becoming increasingly dependant and engrossed in their mobiles for example you can see how they are useful for everyday things with the new 'app stores' and the smart phones which can be used for much more than just a phone now, but its when that use spills over into more social times of the day and people become addicted. I think this is something that should be made a point of and I think it would be interesting to try and portray the anti social behaviour  that can be sometimes caused by the use of mobile phones via art.

Tuesday 27 August 2013

Ai Weiwei

Born in Beijing in 1978, Ai Weiwei is a well known contemporary artist in china. Within his work, he has explored and practiced different mediums including photography, curating, film, architecture, installation and sculpture. This making him not only an artist but an architectural designer, curator and social activist because of his beliefs. Ai Weiwei's farther was Ai Qing who was one of China's famous modernist poets, his farther was claimed a rightist and exiled to western china where Ai Weiwei was brought up as a child. It was this experience and upbringing that has led Ai Weiwei to grow to become a social activist and spokesperson for freedom of speech which is incorporated into some of his pieces of work. 

Examples of his work include Circle of Animals- Zodiac Heads, Sunflower Seeds, Remembering and Straight.


 
Zodiac Heads
 
 
Sunflower Seeds
 
 
 
 
Remembering
 
This particular piece by Ai Weiwei was made up of 9000 school backpacks which were all placed on the face of the Haus der Kunst museum in Munich and were part of Ai Weiwei's 'So Sorry' show on at the museum.



 
 
By using the different coloured backpacks Ai Weiwei spells out a sentence in Mandarin which reads; 'She lived happily for seven years in this world'. This sentence is in fact a quote from the mother of one of the many victims from the Sichuan earthquake in 2008. Ai Weiwei created this piece in response to the government who underreported the deaths of the victims in the earthquake in 2008 and so the piece documents and remembers the people that perished in the earthquake. The backpacks were used because many amongst the victims were young children and students that had fell victim to the earthquake whilst at school. This was due to poorly designed architecture which caused the collapse of many schools, this could be blamed on the government that had failed to provide the schools with essential materials to reinforce the schools from earthquakes or better architectural designers. Now the piece is a haunting reminder of the 5000 students that lost their lives in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. 
 
Such a bold statement like this attracted the attention of the Chinese government which I believe that was Ai Weiwei's intention to do so. I think that this piece shows how Weiwei has tried to breakdown the Chinese governments image and tried to show how that government have done wrong for example this piece shows up the Chinese government because of how they underreported the deaths of the young victims of the Sichuan earthquake which could have been partially the governments fault to begin with. And so this piece 'Remembering' by Ai Weiwei shows his own attempt of subversion on the Chinese government and what the people think of it.  
 
 
 
Straight

Straight is another piece by Ai Weiwei which shows and reminds all about the Sichuan earthquake that killed over 5000 school children in 2008. For this piece he found and straighten out 150 tones of steel rebar from the wreckage of the schools destroyed by the Sichuan earthquake. He has straighten all of the steel bars out as if knew and the act of straightening them out represents the act of making things right.

 
 
 
 
Again I think that this piece, like his 'Remembering' piece is to show and uncover the missing facts that the Chinese government hid from the people of China about the Sichuan earthquake. Again linking it to Ai Weiwei's personal attempt to make things right and attempt the subversion of the Chinese government.
 
 
 
Other Works