Analysis of Artwork by Bill Barminski, Coco Fusco and Donald Morgan - Essay Example

Art is undergoing a transformation into a multicultural platform where parties involved are sensitive to each other’s cultural issues.

The distinctive observation about Donald Morgan’s work of art is that the artifacts he creates and displays around the world are culture-sensitive. The artifacts he creates are based on forest imagery, objects that are familiar to individuals from all cultures. Therefore, Donald Morgan’s work is multicultural and serves to bring individuals together from various cultures in appreciating common works of art. The main focus of Donald Morgan’s multimedia presentation is the notion of manifesting diversity. The forest imagery that the presentation depicts ranges from natural to artificial objects and living to non-living objects (University of Oregon, uoregon.edu). This forest diversity represents the cultural diversity that characterizes the people of the world. Morgan depicts his art both through paintings and sculptures. This serves to emphasize the concept of diversity further by utilizing diverse artistic techniques. A distinctive observation concerning Barminski’s multimedia presentation is that he employs diverse artistic techniques, which put across his message concerning gun culture. He uses sculptures as well as photos and drawings. Therefore, his artwork portrays diversity (Barminski, Barminski.com).

Both Morgan’s multimedia presentation and Coco’s performances make me feel that different people are becoming more tolerant of each other’s differences than ever before. I feel there is a realization among people all over the world that their different cultures, beliefs, and lifestyles are not significant enough to compromise their relations with each other. For example, Coco writes that a white visitor to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago was shocked to see Coco and Guillermo put in a cage like animals. Thinking they were not performing but were real aborigines, he was astonished to see people put in a cage fora display to the public (Gablik, 313). This occurrence serves as a testament to the fact that western attitudes regarding cultural equality have changed significantly since several years ago when western people used to believe their culture is superior to the rest of the world’s cultures.

The performances of Coco and Guillermo had a significant impact in furthering the cause of artists of color of achieving greater representation in the world of art. However, some of the methods the two performers used to achieve their aims were unorthodox. In particular, the instant whereby the two performers mislead city officials in Spain to believe that their performance was just street entertainment in order to receive their permission was quite irresponsible of them (Gablik, 326). Their decision to downplay the political aspect of their performance almost put the city officials in trouble with their seniors. The two should have conducted all their activities with honesty and integrity. Their lack of integrity undermined the cause for which they were fighting.

Donald Morgan’s multimedia presentation displayed a high degree of creativity which I found very impressive. His focus on forest imagery is quite revolutionary artwork since artists rarely venture into this area, fearing that the artifacts will not generate significant interest among audiences. However, Morgan overcame this challenge by expertly depicting massive diversity among his artifacts, a move which made them exotic and, therefore, appealing to numerous kinds of audiences. However, I find it inappropriate that Donald Morgan displayed his artwork mostly to white populations such as those residing in Portland, Oregon (University of Oregon, uoregon.edu). Since his work carried the theme of diversity, it would have been more appropriate for him to display his work to more audiences with diverse cultures and not just white audiences. For example, Native Americans would appreciate his work since it depicts the natural environment that they loved.

I find Barminski’s multimedia presentation very impressive due to its combination of both photographs and drawings, which makes the work mightily expressive (Barminski, Barminski.com). However, his message is not sufficiently clear as the mere depiction of guns appears as the promotion of gun culture as much as its opposition. The main connection between Morgan’s multimedia presentation of forest artwork, Barminski’s presentation, and Coco and Guillermo’s performances is that they all promote diversity. Morgan and Barminski’s works portray the diversity of artwork, whereas the performances of Coco and Guillermo target to increase the acceptance of cultural diversity among artists.