POST 4

Adam Holly

POST 4

5 ARITSTS

Judy Chicago, born in Chicago, Illinois, is a well-known feminist artist that intertwines many famous paintings and illustrations that have moved many. Judy Chicago is the first women artist that I have decided to explain because I do really enjoy the way she creates her paintings. Judy Chicago is currently eighty years old and she is not only a great artists, but a great role model and an art educator. Her large art installation resembles many things, but it is mainly focused on the birth and creation imagery, which in fact is to give concentration based on women in history and culture.

Judy Chicago was famously known for her The Dinner Party which incorporated her focus of a nice pleasant decorative and utilitarian work. This famous work is now currently one of the most iconic creations and is located currently at the Brooklyn Museum. Judy creates not only drawings and prints, but she was very intertwined with sculpture. She has been the forefront of creating all kinds of art work including clothing and installation art, a type of art that has an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that often are site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space.

The Dinner Party was not only her sole artwork and creation, but it was assisted by numerous amounts of other volunteers, with the focus and end-goal to “end the ongoing cycle of omission in which women were written out of the historical record.” - This piece pays tribute to women's history by 39 custom place settings, and 999 other women are celebrated on the floor below the triangular table. Part of the inner triangular shape area symbolizes three things and those would happen to be strength, equality, and unity

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Judy Chicago was mainly focused on these three aspects because she knew that of those three will be the biggest symbolisms what women are. The materials that have been used had been all kinds but mainly focused with ceramics, and other popular crafts that you can find nowadays which also resembles the contemporary area.

Marina Abromovic, who was born on November 30^th in the year of 1946 located in Serbia had always faced difficulty. In the years of 1960s the Belgrade Spring erupted among the area of Yugoslavia, a new federal Constitution awarded greater powers to individual republics and provinces, which in fact had shifting it a confederation and many different laws started which impacted many of whom lived in that Eastern European area. Marina Abromovic struggled with her mother who constantly was abusing her. At one point her mother slapped her across the face because she had asked her for a nose job.

Marina Abromovic life had changed the moment she fell in love with a man when she was young. Marina then went to art school and later fell in love with another artist named Ulay.  The two had begun working together and that is where things had gone bad, she had mentioned and then the two had then broken up in the year of 1988, but she had continued to work in visual arts being an artist, writer and film writer. Her work dealt with body art, endurance art, and feminist art that observed the mentality of the brain and the work. In the year of 2010, she had her own exhibit at the MoMa, where she had sat in a chair for eight hours every single day and stared guests in the eyes which was called The Artist is Present. Surprisingly, at some point on of her old ex’s had been one of the guest and it was remarkable, because she showed no emotions and the moment Ulay had shown up in front of a whole audience and when she opened her eyes which was one of the most influential and heartwarming moment so when she opened her eyes she had begun to tear and reaching out to hold his hand. The audience had clapped and everyone was in tears and it was just beautiful. Below is the image of her and her past ex-lover, Ulray.

                            

Shirin Neshat, born in Iran, is another well-known feminist artist. Her medium of art includes multimedia production, photography, and installation art. Shirin is a contemporary Iranian visual artist that is best known for her work (such as 1999 film Rapture), which focuses and explores the relationships between women and the cultural value systems focused on her background of Islam. Her hopes as she mentioned is to have something that people and such viewers of her work can have an opinion and impression on the basis of emotional connect as opposed to something that is political. Shirin Neshat also attended the University of California at Berkley before her work which was called Iranian Revolution in 1979.  Her work focuses on a woman's role and oppression in Islamic society. Her collections of photographs called Woman of Allah are mostly photographs of herself in a chador or veil. The cultural implications of veiled women in Iran is part of culture as well. During class, the video that the shows the man singing and woman singing shows deep contrasts a man singing in front of an all-male audience, with a woman singing to an empty concert hall. This video essentially conveys the idea that one - women do not have an audience.

     As for the fourth artist I have decided to choose Yoyol Kusama, a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation. According to others many have mentioned she also is involved and exposed to fashion, painting, performances, poetry, and much more. I feel that Yoyol Kusama is extremely talented and is focused on conceptual art that is given and shared in the feminism community, minimalism, surrealism, and as well as Art Brut and pop art all of which as well is intertwined with an infusion of autobiographical, psychological and sexual as well. All very much well shown deep within the images that are created. Yoyol Kusama is known to be one of the most influential and most important living artists to come out of Japan.

                                 

Above in this image, it is known as the Infinity Room, this work shows that Kusuama has continued her series by installing complex infinity mirror installations, that contain scores of neon-colored balls, hanging at various heights above the viewer. Standing inside on a small

 platform, an observer sees and witnesses the light repeatedly reflected off the mirrored surfaces to create the illusions of a never-ending space. This shows how alone a person can be mentally, but at the same time it can stimulate parts of the brain that creates happiness at the same time. A creation of horror and love and curiosity all mixed in one.

     The final artist that I would like to disclose is Barbara Kruger who was born during WWII on the month of January 26 and she is an American conceptual artist and collagist. The notable work that she has done is I shop therefore I am (1987), Your body is a battleground (1985), You are not yourself (1981), Untitled (You Invest in the Divinity of the Masterpiece (1982), Face it (2007), Know nothing, Believe anything, Forget everything (2014), all these works have been part of a movement as well which would happen to be the Feminist movement. She was one of the artists that received the awards such as Leone D’ Oro and Venice Biennale. She received great education from Syracuse University Parsons School of Design, New York. As covered in class she was born right here in Newark, New Jersey. She focused on her work using imagery and text throughout magazines and she mentioned that she loved the idea of using “red” because it grabbed people’s attention and that’s how she became popularized extremely quickly. Below are some of the work that she has done.