Krzysztof Wodiczko(by Heidi)

Wodiczko was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1943 and today lives in New York and Cambridge making art. Over the coarse of Wodiczko's life he has created more than 70 large scale slide and video projections of politically charged images. He projects these images on architectural facades and monuments all around the world. He projects these images on buildings to show the connection of architecture with that of collective memory and history. Around the time of 1966 Wodiczko worked with communities to pick chosen projection sites. Wodiczko wanted to give the silent citizen a chance to stand in the projection sites shadow and bring forward emotion. Because of this it brought sound and motion to Wodiczko's projections. This made an argument against the typical use of public spaces. They were now being used for projections of citizen's testimonies. He challenges the typical silent aspect of a building to represent verbal issues in our society today. He focuses on the notions of democracy, human rights and alienation that are in our present day society. Wodiczko also focused on ways of survival and healing for homeless people. He designed and made a cart for the homeless. A cart that homeless people could not only sleep in but also use. Wodiczko envisions his therapeutic devices as technological tools for empowering emotional trauma, distress, human abilities and economic hardships. Wodiczko in a sense uses sculpture as a type of therapy. Releasing one's emotions in a testimony is a form of therapy. But he makes his sculptures therapeutic by projecting them on architectural structures.
(I found this image on the Art 21 website www.pbs.org/art21, also from information I attained from watching the Art 21 segment on Wodiczko.)

Surrealism (Sean)

Surrealism was a movement and revolution of culture. It grew out of the Dada movement and reached its own in early 1920’s Paris. It quickly swept the globe. Among its members is its leader, Andre Breton, Max Ernst, Joan Miro, Marcel Duchamp, Yves Tanguy, and the most recognizable surrealist painter, Salvador Dali. The 1930's saw Surrealism come into its own and this is considered to be the turning point, stylistically, for many of the Surrealists careers. Surrealism continued well into the 1940's and many art historians argue over the true end of the movement. Some relate it to the end of WWII, some to Andre Breton's death in 1966, others still attribute it to the loss of Salvador Dali in 1989.

The surrealist movement is most notable for its visual arts. These works express a dream-like state, often with expansive, stark landscapes and strange figures and shapes populating them. Juxtaposed with these alien forms are recognizable objects and familiar forms that seem to skirt any sort of effort to make them any more tangible to the mind. Often the meanings of these visual works are mysterious and change between viewers. Among the artists, the final works were not seen as the act of Surrealism, but the artifact of what Surrealism really is, the strange happenings of the human subconscious.

L'Ange du Foyeur - Max Ernst

The Persistence of Memory - Salvador Dali

Time Transfixed - Rene Magritte

Works Cited
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism

Cai Guo-Qiang (by Heidi)

Cai was born in Fujian Province, China in 1957. He studied at the Institute for Contemporary Art: The National and International Studio Program at P.S.1 in New York. Cai uses a variety of media including gun powder. He uses this to make a connection between viewers and the larger universe. His explosive events are not only visually pleasing to watch but also have an end result. That end result are his explosive drawings. He has a variety of forms represented in his drawings that also relate to some of his other work. Continually you will see a silhouette of a tiger in his explosion drawings that relate to his realistic stuffed looking tigers. In Cai's work he has a variety of symbols, narratives, mediums and traditions. The imagery he uses consist of things such as tigers, dragons, roller coasters and vending machines.
When asked why he makes his explosive drawings he will say something of the sort that it is a challenge to make something explosive and violent into something beautiful. He makes the explosive drawings to show beauty can come out of something usually used as a means of violence. In Cai's stuffed tiger exhibit he has many realistic looking tigers pierced with bows. He is trying to create a sense of sadness and emotion. The sad feeling you get when you see the pierced tigers is his ultimate goal.
I actually saw Cai's exhibit at the Gugenheim in New York last April. The show overall was incredible and definately worth the long trip to New York to see. There was an exhibit where he took an old sunken ship and filled around the ship broken ceramic pieces. Some of the pieces around the ship were manufactured ceramic religious icons. These icon's were rejections and were then considered garbage. Cai took the rejected pieces and spread them around the ship to show how the world of manufacturing is not necessarily a pleasant one. When I saw the tigers pierced with bows I really did get a feeling of pain and sorrow. His explosive drawings were amazing to see up close. The way the gun powder creates color and shapes is very visually interesting. Overall this artist explores new ways of making art and explores new mediums that most artists have never tried to use.
-I got this information from Cai's biography on the Art 421 website (www.pbs.org/art421) , I also got the information from my own viewpoint about the artist since I have seen his work in person.

Neoplasticism, By David.

Neoplasticism was a Dutch movement that emerged on the art scene in the form of sculpture and paintings in nineteen twenty and had a duration of around twenty years. (note that some contend that it emerged some what earlier)
It was founded by Theo van Doesburg. It dealt with the idea that art shouldn't simply replicate actual objects but should instead express the absolutes in life. Because of this the followers of this movement dealt only with planar elements such as horizontal and vertical lines and primary colors like yellow,blue and red.
Two of the artists that participated/developed this style are Ilya Bolotowsky and Pieter Cornelius Mondrain a Dutch native who helped the with the creation of Neoplasticism by founding De Stijl, a earlier movement that Neoplasticism was helped by. A good example of Neoplastism art by Mondrain is his “Composition with Red Blue Yellow” (second picture down)
Ilya Bolotowsky was another successful painter of this movment after moving from Russia to the Us and being inspired by Mondrian's work.
At the top of the page we see his “pale Yellow and Blue and Tondo”
Neoplasticism as a movement ended in nineteen thirty one after Theo van Doesburg brought fourth “Abstactio-Creation”
Work Cited
http://www.famouspainter.com/movements_&_artists.htm
http://wwar.world-arts-resources.com/masters/movements/neoplasticism.html
http://www.abstractart.20m.com/Neoplasticism.html

Abstract Expressionism (abi)

ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM (Abi)

Abstract Expressionism began in the early 1900’s, post WWII. Within the movement, artists express themselves mainly through color and form. The paintings that were created were most commonly non-representational, and lacking geometric shape, although Abstract Expressionist have roots from the Surrealists and Cubists movements. This caused viewers to be hostile and unappreciative at first, but like several other prior art movements, Abstract Expressionism and the artists involved eventually became successful . There were considered to be two groups from the Abstract Expressionism movement- the Color Field painters (Marc Rothko) and the Action painters (Jackson Pollock).

The styles of the movement usually consist of the look of “accidental chance”, which seems as if the artists were unconscious of where they were applying the paint. Through this style, the artists usually applied the paint with haste and spontaneity to their over-sized canvases to avoid any sort of representation. They sometimes used large brushes, and sometimes did not use brushes at all.

An example of this would be Jackson Pollock, who believed that the paint should never leave the quality of form that it is. Pollock would pour, drip, and throw his paint onto his canvases that were laying on the floor of his studio.




Other artists that were involved in the Abstract Expressionism movement included Marc Rothko, Hans Hoffman, Franz Kline, as well as many others.

Marc Rothko.

Hans Hoffman.

Franz Kline.

Bibliography:
http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/a/abstractexpr.html
Gardner's Art Through The Ages Twelfth Edition, Fred S. Kleiner, Christin J. Mamiya, 2005 Wadsworth

Laylah Ali

Laylah Ali born in Buffalo New York now works in Williamstown, Massachusetts. At Williams College she received a BA and then went on to receive a MFA at Washington University in St. Louis. Due to Ali's small and precise subject matter it takes her long amounts of time to complete a work. Ali uses a comic- book style while at the same time references to stylistic traditions of American folk-art. Ali pays close attention to her color palette while planning out her subject matter.
Most do not know that Ali has an interest in socio political issues because her end results do not always depict such issues. She does however achieve a level of emotional tension because she uses juxtaposition by using bright colors with violent subject matter. Recently Ali has been using abstract biomorphic images but she is most well known for her paintings of gender-neutral brown skinned greenheads. She often depicts everyday things by using subjects like doge balls, sneakers and band-aids. Ali thinks of her drawings as more playful than her paintings, because of this she often looks back to her drawings when she is painting.
When I first Laylah Ali on Art 21 I did not like her work. But when I looked deeper into her work I could get a sense of her interest in social relationships and political resistance. The weird creatures she invents are not just random. She has a well thought out plan for every one of her paintings and the subjects in them have a deeper meaning than what you eye first sees.

Cubism

Cubism!!!!

Cubism came about in the early 1900's due to Pablo Picasso trying very hard to depict form in a new way. Picasso was influenced by by ancient Iberian sculpture, paintings done by Cezanne and African sculpture. He looked to these to find inspiration for a new way of painting. Les Demoiselles d'Avingnon (the young ladies of Avignon) a painting done by Picasso was the first painting he did that could be considered cubist. Instead of representing the five women realistically, he flattened them out, reduced them to shapes and gave them jagged edges. This gave tension of abstraction and representation.



One of the first people to view this work of art was Georges Braque who at the time was a Fauve painter. He was so agitated and challenged by it that he started to rethink his own work. Together, Picasso and Braque formed cubism in 1908.


Analytic Cubism- First stage of Cubism started by Picasso and Braques that rejects naturalistic depiction and preffered a composition of shapes and forms abstracted from the conventionally percieved world.

Synthetic Cubism- The second stage of cubism used objects and shapes cut out of paper and other materials to construct paintings.

Analytic

Synthetic

Bibliography

Gardner's Art Through The Ages Twelfth Edition, Fred S. Kleiner, Christin J. Mamiya, 2005 Wadsworth

Michael Ray Charles

Michael Ray Charles was born in 1967 in a town called Lafayette in Louisiana. He started out by studying advertising design and illustration at the McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana where he graduated in 1985. At McNeese State University Charles started to realize his love for painting and it eventually became his medium of choice. Charles then moved forward to get a MFA degree in 1993 from the University of Houston.
Charles bases his paintings around racial stereotypes that are always constant in the American subconscious. He concentrates on how mass-media looks at black youth, athletes and celebrities and makes caricature like paintings. His paintings have a deeper meaning looking into black culture from past era's as well as today. He concentrated on Aunt Jemima and how she is not a real person but to most she becomes a real person because of the story behind Aunt Jemima. Because of his context of past and present stereotypes there is an emergence of ugliness and beauty that cannot escape our minds because of how we are portrayed as human beings now and in the past.