Art Notes

Page 1

MIKE PARR

- Uses the body as both site + content

- Mike Parr is a late 1970’s performative artist, heavily influenced Fluxist.

- Parr’s self portaits, subverts the traditional notions of physical beauty and accuracy within his works.

- through his use of intuitive ,loose linear mark making,

- creating a rich visual language depicting his raw process through aggressive mark making.

- VISUAL LANGUAGE

- Grotesque

- Distortion

- Physical deformity

- Psychology

- Honest depiction of a physical state

- Subverting the traditional notion of beauty

- Visceral

- Vulnerability

- Autobiographical

- Experience of artist

- Energy, life force, physical presence

- Confident, confrontational

- Relationship to viewer

- Artist is exposed

- Direct + imposing= viewer

- Intimidated

- Narrative for the viewer

- Unsettled because of personal content

- LINE:

- Intuitive, loose, linear mark making

- Raw process evident in his aggressive markings

- Kinetic= drawing in motion

- Line: sketchy, gestural,(physical process)

- Aggressive, expressive, violent, semi-abstract, spontaneous, passionate

- Directional use of line

Damien Hirst: Objects

-

English

sculptor, installation artist, painter and printmaker.

-

leading

figure in the group of ‘Young British Artists’ (YBA's) who emerged,

predominantly in London, in the 1990s.

-

The works typically make use of media that

challenge conventional notions of high art and aesthetic value and

subject-matter that critiques the values of late 20th-century culture.

-

THEMES: human existence, the fragility of

life, society’s reluctance to confront death, and the nature of love and

desire, the naive and the disingenuous

-

MATERIALS:

Dead animals, cast iron, formaldehyde, glass, live animals

-

Primarily

commissioned works by the artist

-

Majority

of his works were owned by Charles Saatchi

-

SCALE:

instillations

-

The exhibition stood as a challenge to the

art connoisseur who sees art history as a series of collectable masterpieces,

proposing instead that works of art are occasional manifestations of a

continuous culture.

-

“just a

statement that I had used to describe the idea of death to myself”. “just a

statement that I had used to describe the idea of death to myself”.- ‘The

Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living’

-

By

isolating the shark from its natural habitat, with the formaldehyde providing

an illusion of life, the work explores our greatest fears, and the difficulty

involved in adequately trying to express them.

-

“You

try and avoid [death], but it’s such a big thing that you can’t. That’s the

frightening thing isn’t it?”

-

Hirst

also discusses the commercialism of art as a commodity

-

Influenced

by Duchamps fountain and the creation of the ReadyMade

Duchamp:

Objects

-

Dadaist

-

Lived in New York from 1915

-

“ An ordinary object (could be) elevated to the

dignity of a work of art merely by the choice of an artist.”- Duchamp

-

Was one of the central figures of the Dada Group

-

Dada: a movement that questioned long-held

assumptions about what art should be, and how it should be made

-

Dada Movement: a cultural revolt by artists

following WWI, “ We destroyed, we insulted, we despised and we laughed”- Hans

Richter

-

Duchamp presented objects as art

-

Mass- produced, commercially available, utilitarian

objects, designating them as art and titling them “Readymades”

-

Disrupted centuries of thinking about the artist’s

role as a skilled creator of original handmade objects

-

“Readymades” defied the notion that art had to be

beautiful

-

Through the creation of “Readymades” Duchamp

reinvented the meaning of art and paved the way for Conceptual Art.

-

The majority of Duchamp’s “Readymades” were

individual objects that he repositioned or signed and called art

-

Bicycle Wheel: called “assisted readymade” made by

combining more than one utilitarian item to form a work of art

-

Critics called Duchamp’s “Readymades” immoral,

vulgar and plagiaristic

-

Readymade: represented a mockery of the solemn and

strict approach of art making and exhibited works, as well as a positive step

for removing the art world’s inhibited attitude towards fine art and exhibited

works in museums

-

The creation of a “Readymade” involved no artistic

creativity or meaning

-

The idea and gesture was honored instead of the

artistic skill

-

The viewer of Duchamp’s works is forced to look at

the individual object in an emphasized way, causing him to see the aesthetic

qualities for the first time, reinterpreting a practical object and viewing it

as a piece of art.

-

Anti-art establishment

-

Considered the most influential piece of art in

history

-

Redefined the definition of art and liberated the

art world

New Page

New Page

New Page