The first artist we discussed this week was Jeff Coons. I don't want to talk about his work that much, I am not a fan. I don't really have much to say. He is famous for making larger than life versions of regular objects, and tends to use metallic or sparkly materials. I will say his work is definitely involving fantasy; the bright and reflective materials evoke memories of the circus, childhood toys, and those old creepy "Eye Spy" books.
Next we looked at Cao Fei. Cao's art uses video and photography to directly document and study the idea of fantasy worlds. She has always been into anime and cos-playing, but eventually developed an interest in the secret lives of those people when they aren't "supposed to be" in character. She also did a lot of work involving the online game "Second Life". While I find most of the work visually unappealing, I do find this topic interesting. My favorite piece of hers we looked at was Whose Utopia. I feel this video successfully asked questions and posed ideas about the oppression and restrictions placed on people in "real life", and did it in a beautiful and interesting way.
Nick cave was my favorite artist this week. Nick Cave, having a background in both dance and fibers, creates large, wild costumes that usually involve the creation of noise. While Nick thought he was originally just making sculptures, this interest grew until he began making many suits, and putting on mass performances. The suits are magical, colorful, fun, exciting, and most importantly, they let the wearer escape into a fantasy. The wearers create jesters and sounds based on how the suit makes them feel, which allows for a huge amount of self expression. Some of his pieces are shown below. Seriously, his work is mad cool.
Reading; Lorna Simpson
Lorna Simpson is an African American photographer and artist. She grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and in the 1980's and 1990's developed a name for herself by studying racial divisions in her work. Often times her work features a simple photograph, and then overlying controversial text, as in her piece The Water Bearer. I find her work pleasant to look at. It feels historical, and very documentary like. The photos appear to be in good quality, and while the use of text and its ability to put an idea in the viewers mind can be dangerous, I feel her use of text only makes the viewer think more about the picture. In many cases, a great picture is ruined by text because the text will tell the viewer what to think about, unintentionally of course. I think Lorna avoids this by using both vague imagery and vague text. The final product is almost like stylized poetry, giving the viewer just enough direction so that the artist makes her point, but then also leaving the piece open for interpretation and debate.
Class Notes
One thing we did this week was that we went outside and did some exorcises to give us ideas on movement for our fantasy project. I feel like this helped me understand the project better, especially with the example gestures we did with Rothrock. I also enjoyed "loosening up" with the class; I feel it helped us get used to performing in front of each other, especially since much of the class has never done performance art.
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