Five Conceptual Artists - Coursework Example

FIVE ARTISTS GIORGIO DE CHIRICO Giogrio de Chirico was one of the great surrealist painters of the 20th century. He died in 1978. Dadists artists of the early 20th century were often influence by Sigmund Freud. Some of these Freudian ideas taken up by the Dadaists had been taken up earlier and presaged by de Chirico who began to exhibit his deeply enigmatic paintings in 1913, around the same time as the less obviously Freudian Duchamp. Indeed many of De Chirico’s paintings were called the Enigma of X—the Enigma of the Oracle, the Enigma of Arrival, etc—titles that would later be imitated by the powerfully proficient surrealist Salvador Dali. Many of De Chirico’s early, influential paintings featured a nameless Mediterranean town inspired in part by Turin, in part by the Greek town of Volos, where nameless travelers pass in a dreamlike setting. As the critic Robert Hughes writes,  For the past [ninety] years, de Chiricos city has been one of the capitals of the modernist imagination. It is a fantasy town, a state of mind, signifying alienation, dreaming and loss. Its elements are so well known by now that they fall into place as soon as they are named, like jigsaw pieces worn by being assembled over and over again: the arcades, the tower, the piazza, the shadows, the statue, the train, the mannequin (Hughes, 189).   It was the poet Guillaume Apollinaire who introduced his work to other nascent Dadaists and Surrealists. He himself was rewarded with a portrait by De Chirico. But like Duchamp, De Chirico only was influential in the early years, he was later phased out of the canon as Surrealism became more political. He made a big impact on the art world and is considered one of the most important artists of the 20th century. HIRST Conceptual art is very different than traditional art. Some even say it marks a leap forward. Where in the past art focused mostly on aesthetics—how beautiful or decorative something could be—the history of art in the 20th century shows that ideas and concepts began to have a bigger and bigger role in what art was (Tate Collection). A long time ago a beautiful rug might be considered art; these days unless there is an idea or concept behind it, many people might argue with that categorization. A famous painting like Picasso’s Les Demoiselles dAvignon is a good example of a work of art that combines aesthetics with concepts—it is colourful and strange and plays with perspective. But as we see art approaching the millennium, much of the aesthetic aspect of art gets thrown out or made to be very ironic, and the concept behind the piece becomes paramount. Nevertheless, conceptual art is something people either love or hate (Stanford). But no conceptual artist has been as controversial as the British artist Damien Hirst, who was born in 1965. He burst onto the scene in 1991 with the famous piece called The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (Vogel). This is an installation piece that features a tiger shark floating in an aquarium of formaldehyde. He also recently made headlines by creating a piece called For the Love of God—a human skull covered in expensive diamonds. Both of these pieces and many others have been very controversial. To his fans, Damien Hirst is one of the great artists of the age, coming up with amazing and terrifying pieces of conceptual art, usually on the theme of death. They snap up his artwork, paying huge amounts of money. A show a few years ago in New York also made critics angry. Many of the paintings in the exhibit were done by assistants, not even by Hirst himself. A critic in the Village Voice said, “Hirsts show merely brings us a step closer to the end of this profligate period. The paintings themselves are transparent; in effect they are only labels, carriers of the Hirst brand. Theyre like Prada or Gucci. You pay more but get the buzz of a brand” (Usbourne). Part of the reason for controversy over conceptual art and especially the work of Damien Hirst is that it is all about ideas and ideas are open to many different interpretations. But what makes Hirst more interesting than other similar artists is that he has begun to make his main idea all about the branding and selling of art. He doesn’t try to hide the fact that he uses lots of assistants to make his work and that he has studios that are more like factories, and only signs the work in the end (Cohen). He has changed the way art is done, breaking down the wall between art and business. The question is whether this is just too ironic, whether any concept can qualify as conceptual art. That is the question that critics and artist must continue to debate in the years to come. Many people will wonder if there is anything left of art when they look at Damien Hirst and his work, but if art has proven anything in the last one hundred years, it is that it can always renew itself and come up with great new ideas. CHRISTO and JEANNE-CLAUDE A famous example of conceptual artists are Christo and Jeanne-Claude. They are unlike any artist of the past in that they make amazing “environmental art.” In 1995, they wrapped a German building called the Reichstag in fabric so that it looked like a giant gift. It is very hard to imagine a more traditional artist such as Cezanne doing something like that. Part of the idea is to take art off the canvas and put it into the world where people can interact with it; part of the idea was also to celebrate the two Germanys coming together again. As the New York Times said about this piece, “‘Wrapped Reichstag,’" by Christo and his wife, Jean-Claude, is at once a work of art, a cultural event, a political happening and an ambitious piece of business.” (Goldberger). This is part of the idea behind one of their most recent projects called The Gates, which was a series of colourful gates people could pass under in New York City. According to the New York Times it had “one million square feet of nylon fabric. Five thousand tons of steel. Sixty miles of vinyl tubing. Lots of nuts and bolts” (McIntire). Like most conceptual art, people either loved it or hated it. HINGSTON With the music industry seemingly at the end of its rope, and many suggesting that the days of compact discs are long over, one graphic designer seems to have different ideas. Tom Hingston, a British designer, has made a studio and a name for himself by pushing impressive and original images into the forefront of the music industry. Beginning his career designing flyers and sleeve art, Hingston has become one of the most talked about designers in Britain, and has worked with the BBC, Nokia, the Rolling Stones, as well as with a number of global fashion houses. How to explain Hingston’s success? What theories and processes does he follow? In this essay I will explore some of these questions.   According to Hingston, one of the theories he operates under is that graphic designing is one of the broadest of all design disciplines. This certainly shows in his range and versatility. Although he began by designing cover art for bands such as Massive Attack and Robbie Williams, Hingston soon branched out (Bucher). Indeed, there was little in his early work that was definitively centred around music. Much of his designs at the time could have been transposed onto fashion advertising or posters promoting commercial or cultural enterprises. Versatility is certainly a touchstone for Hingston and his studio. But that is not to say he has abandoned his roots in designing cover art for bands. This is still very much done in his studio. What is impressive about this continuing element of Hingston’s career is how against the grain it appears at first to be. Music is less than ever a physical product. It is most often stored in MP3 format on computers. Very few people buy CDs anymore. Nevertheless, Hingston presses boldly on, showing that popular music and great design will always need one another. ZITTEL Few installation or conceptual artists are as well known in the world as Andreas Zittel. Her work shows to us just how constrained we can be within traditional forms and spaces. She also tries to show us a way to break out of those constraints and move on with our life, to enjoy the freedom of living. Of course, breaking those bonds is a very hard thing to do. Zittel in a sense turned her back early on an aesthetic aspect of art and sought out instead big ideas that she hoped would change the world. She is influenced by everything around her and tries to add as much dimensionality as possible into her work. Like many conceptual artists she does not recognize the hierarchy between beauty and ugliness or fear. To her, they are all human experiences which should be represented in art. She is also in a sense a performance artist as she sometimes participates in her works of arts too (Perez). Living inside of the art makes the message come through even louder and clearer to her audience. Some of her most famous pieces include Living Units which show what a simplified, more automatic way of life would look like. There is also something ominous about such installations. Overall, Zittel makes us think about who we are, and why we are that way.                 Work consulted Bucher, Stefan G.. All access: the making of thirty extraordinary graphic designers.  (London: Rockport Publishers, 2004), 1995. Cohen, David. “Inside Hirst’s Studio.” Evening Standard. August 30, 2007. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/arts/article-23410356-details/Inside+Damien+Hirst%27s+factory/article.do Gluek, Grace. Rethinking the World by Cutting it Down to Size. New York Times, February 3, 2006. Goldberger, Paul. “Christo’s Wrapped Reichstag.” New York Times. June 23, 1995. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEEDF103AF930A15755C0A963958260 Hughes, Robert. Nothing If Not Critical: Selected Essays on Art and Artists. London: Penguin, 1992. McIntire, Mike. “Enough About Gates as Art; Let’s Talk About Pricetag.” New York Times. March 5, 2005. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/05/nyregion/05gates.html?ex=1267678800&en=92d43f37f76ee7a2&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland  Perez, Magdalene. A Hippie at Heart: Andrea Zittel Talks about Her Wagons at the Whitney. ARTINFO, February 15, 2006. http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/11807/a-hippie-at-heart-andrea-zittel-talks-about-her-wagons-at-the-whitney/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “Conceptual Art.” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/conceptual-art/ Tate Collection Glossary. “Conceptual Art.” http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=73 “Damien Hirst: The Boy Done Good.” The Economist. September 18, 2008. http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12267585 Usbourne, David. “Critic’s Pan Hirst’s New York Show. Independent. April 8, 2005. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20050408/ai_n14590368 Vogel, Carol. “Swimming with Famous Dead Sharks.” New York Times. October 1, 2006. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/arts/design/01voge.html Read More