Art:21

Art:21 provided insight into the minds of artists while they produced their works.  As we watched, each artist becomes more abstract.  The first and most conventional painter shared with us an example of her work that showed painstaking patience and time.  She was copying a photograph of the cosmos, taking her time with each star.  It took her a year to complete and at the end it was so layered that is looked as if you were looking into the sky.  Her attraction to nature must have drawn her to this subject, along with her love of developed a flat plane, but the patience it must have taken to develop such a tedious theme was admirable.  What is amazing is that she thought at first she could simply paint the ocean her entire life.  To show such dedication to something that captures, but not usually keeps, the interest of so many people is admirable.  Her works are natural and simple but still beautiful.

For Elizabeth Murray, inspiration come s not from nature but from cartoon images in her head.  She loves the use of color and line to, “make conflicting images live and work together”, as she says in the video.  She saw herself as a professional safe breaker.  She listened carefully to the images and colors until the right combinations clicked.  What interested me the most about this artist was how much she valued the opinion of her daughters.  They knew her better than anyone and were honest with her in a way not many people would be, and therefore they could make her a better artist.

Anne Hamilton focused her art on the textile, seeing beauty in the seams and lines of fabric.  She saw clothing as a social metaphor with the cloth and the stitches and how it was all held together, so she tried to bridge her interest in that with her love of words.  Her installation in the old factory was a successful bridge.  Her later work however with the fuchsia powder pouring from the walls onto Braille words bordered on the creepy with how bloody it appeared.  My favorite part of her work was her pinhole camera that she made with her mouth.  That and the participation of her family that she felt so close to seem the most real out of all the art she made.  It meant more because of its family ties. 

The last two artists we watched focused on the performing arts and were by far the most abstract.  I recently went to an exhibit at the Hirschhorn Museum.  Bruce Nauman had a piece there that showed him applying makeup or various colors continuously in front of a  video camera.  Not all of his works are this abstract though, his sculptures are meant to be both beautiful and functional, even if the function is just to figure out what the function is.  It is interesting that he sees anything that he wants to show someone as art.  Enjoyment for him comes from finding the most efficient way to do things.

The final artist was Matthew Barney, who has been working on a movie since 1994 that he calls The Cremaster.  He works with things that attract him, and through this he works with many different ideas.  His major influence was sculptor Richard Serra, whom he used in a part of his movie in order to incorporate his influences.  He also used his father and the support that he receives from his family is touching.  The most interesting part of the movie had to be the “dead” horses.  The spandex outfits constructed for them were unique and frightening.  His interests are repulsive, but since they attract him they inspire him.