Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Art21: Identity

Bruce Nauman is a strange man who apparently spent time growing up in Wisconsin. His studio is a mess but he claims that his mind is efficient. His work that stood out to me most was the uneven staircase. Each step was a different height and was not perfectly flat. He wanted to make people think about something that they don't usually think about, such as a staircase.

The main theme of Kerry James Marshall's work is his black figure. The people he paints are actually black and not brown. His latest project is a comic strip that incorporates traditional african figures as the heroes. He seemed to me to be the least eccentric of the four artists.

Maya Lin is best known for creating the Vietnam Memorial. The project she was shown working on was her renovation of a park in urban Grand Rapids, Michigan. She created an ice rink that had lights beneath it, so that it looked like a starry sky from above.

All of the works that we saw by Louise Burgeois somehow incorporated disembodied hands. She cast her own hands by submerging them in plaster. She was the oldest of the artists.

I think for the most part people try to hide their identity from people. I know a lot of times I put up facades in order to present a certain image of myself to others. Maybe that is why people resonate so strongly with art. Because we have forgotten who we are. So then a self portrait would be any and all artwork that a person creates. It's interesting to think about.

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