Art and Globalism: Alfredo jaar

Alfredo's Instillation 'Geography=war 1991' Jaar projects photos taken of a small village in Nigeria. the images depict children who play with barrels of toxic waste left around their village in the waste dumps by italian tankers. in this instillation Jaar explores the affect of global waste on the environment and people. and attempts to give a face to the impersonal global forces that create these horrible conditions. 

Adrian Piper :Art and Identity

Adrian Piper is an american artist who's work comments on race related issues. particularly the distinction of race in America. Piper believes that racial distinctions are learnt and that the discrimination of race is no longer a visual distinction but a distinction made by learnt biases. in her work 'Cornered 1988' Piper Lectures her audience about the differences between black and white people, talking from the stance of her african american heritage but having the appearance of a white female. 

Collaborative artists: Stelarc and Nina Sellars

This collaboration titled blender, was first on exhibit in 2005 at the melbourne meat market gallery. The work consists of a large 1.6 meter high blender with a dome industrial casing. 

inside the plastic dome is the conntents of both artists liposuction surgery which they both undertook specifically for the work. every few minutes blender churns the contents of the dome mizzing both artists fat blood and leftovers together. 

Self Directed work

Jenny Holzer. Art and politics

Jenny Holzer is an American artist famous for her use of pure text artwork. Her practice has been going since 1977 when she first began using text in a series that continues to influence her work today called Truisms.  Truisms is a List of sayings creates by Holzer. These short punchy lines are brief comments on the world that are put together to evoke thought from both sides of the argument. The audience must come to their own conclusions about what to choose to believe and what not to believe.

 “I think they are a representative sampling of opinion.  I didn’t want to make a didactic or dogmatic piece. . . I wanted to highlight those thoughts and topics that polarize people, but not choose sides.  I was trying to present a fairly accurate survey and not have it break down into left, right, center, or religious versus anarchist, or what have you.” Jenny Holzer.

 to begin with truisms were pasted on public areas such as bus stops and telephone booths. Until Holzer became more established and began to post her work on LED billboards. Giving her work a larger public audience.

 Holzer work Lustmord 1993-94. Was influenced by the violence against Muslim woman by Serbian soldiers in Bosnia. Holzer utilizes an anonymous voice to send her message across and makes no direct stance instead hoping that without a figure head the audience will come to the correct conclusion about the information they are given.  Three voices are allowed to speak, The victim of rape, the perpetrator and an observer. The words of all three people is played around the room in no particular order. It is here that the audience is faced with the pure, uncensored reality.

 Holzer’s Public work is taken to new levels with her Projections series an ongoing project that has been going around the world since its conception in 1996. In this work Holzer Projects phrases onto the side of public buildings such as gallery’s and churches often political in nature these phrases engulf the building turning it into a symbol of consideration for thought. Holzer’s name is again absent from the work and the anonymous truth spoken by the building takes on an authority of its own.

References

-John Minkowsky, “jenny holzer,avant garde shows Massachusetts”, Art house journal. 2008.p71

-Art & today, Elenor heartly "Art and Politics : the rhetoric of dissent"Phaidon press 2008.  366-389

-http://www.jennyholzer.com/

Andrew Mackenzie :Broken Homes

 Andrew Mackenzie's review of Callum Morton's Valhalla for the 2007 venice Biennale was a thorough reading into the layers of meaning that Valhalla holds. 

what i found most interesting was that Mackenzie although recognizing the obvious connection the work holds to the conflict in Afghanistan, Palestine and the world trade center. he attempted to see past the obvious reading in fear of "Political naivety."  clearly stating that he does not wish to see the world threw the eyes of the USA. 

discovering that the original house was torn down and only lived in by the family for a short period of time was really interesting. sold because of financial instability the home becomes a symbol of struggle for the everyday family. allowing us to read the work as a battlefield of the everyday opens up discussion about the nature of human living. privatizing ourselves and shutting ourselves away has been something that we have done for centuries, the subdivision and sale of land is evidence of this. This scale model of Morton's home opens up his home to the public to view, within the public domain of a park. however the work does not give away any details about his private family life. Remaining a symbol of the private struggle instead of a biographical story. 

i really enjoyed reading this review and thought that Mackenzie's interpretation of Valhalla was interesting. 

Li Wei - Art and spirituality

Li Wei is a chinese Artist who's performances and photographs are entrenched in spiritual roots. 

much of his work is based in Hong Kong and Rural China and explores his connections to his homeland. his work also touches on the the fragility of life, reincarnation and references to others religions. 

Art and the Body.

Last year i made a series of works all focusing on the body and its ability to cope with extreame trauma. while some focused on the power of the mind over the the body others focused on the raw images of the bodys healing process and the ability of modern medicine to enter the body in an intvasive and non-invasive way.

Review : Instillation Art-Essence and Existence

In this chapter Nicholas Zurbrugg describes instillation art as work which is installed in a space and created in "real time" in accordance with the artists reaction of the space. He states that installations use three dimensional space as a medium for interaction and extend beyond the frame of a picture. That use of and reaction to the space helps in defining the work and that the interaction and creation of the work is part of the performance of the piece through the kinesthetic actions of the work.

Zurbrugg touches on a number of movements that inspired and affect the creation and exploration of contemporary instillation practice. and touches on a number of works to explore his opinions such as Monholy-Nagys "light-space modulator", which he describes as a kinetic static work and Kurt schwitter's "merzbau" which continued to grow and expand into spaces.

Zurbrugg's statment that the most sucsessful installations are those which evoke Reaction, ether from the work or the audiences continued movement is able to be applied to all artwork. the was article also useful in gaining interesting points of reference from which i may continue to explore.