Tag Archives: installations

Tracey Emin – by Amelia Zeller

Tracey Emin is a British artist born July 3, 1963, in Croydon, United Kingdom. Her own life and emotions are the subject of her multimedia works, including installation, photography, drawing, video, painting, sculpture, neon text, and even needlework. Her work is often provocative and personal because it represents her experiences. She studied printing at Maidstone College of Art in 1986. In 1989, she earned her masters in painting at the Royal College of Art in London, where she is now a Professor of Drawing. She is one of two female professors the College has employed since opening in 1768. After earning her masters, Emin went through an emotional time where she had two abortions and destroyed all the work she had made at the Royal College. Emin is a member of the Young British Artists who exhibited together in London in the ’80s-90s and is known for their autobiographical installations.

In 1999, Emin was nominated for a Turner Prize and although she did not win she received a lot of attention for her work My Bed (1998). It was a perfect example of her intimate work, an installation of the artist’s bed covered with cigarettes, bottles, condoms, and stains representing days spent depressed in bed. Another example of her very personal work is Everyone I Have Ever Slept With (1963-95), a small tent installation appliqued with a list of 102 names of people the artist had sex with or literally slept next to in her life, notably including her brother, grandmother and two aborted babies. Emin named Edvard Munch and Egon Schiele as her inspirations. She represents a self-confessing form of expressionism and has inspired women and artists around the world to be honest.

“There should be something revelatory about art. It should be totally creative and open doors for new thoughts and experiences.” -Tracey Emin

Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995 (1995)

Works Cited:

https://www.artsy.net/artist/tracey-emin

https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/tracey-emin-my-bed-1998-tate-britain/

http://www.artnet.com/artists/tracey-emin/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tracey-Emin

https://www.theartstory.org/artist/emin-tracey/artworks/

Tara Donovan – By Tanner Poole

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Tara Donovan is an american sculpture from Queens, New York who specializes in monotonous hand-crafted sculptures that use unnatural items created by man to express in an abstract way how nature grows. By closely studying the materials she obtains, Donovan muses how each individual item can be expressed in ways outside of its given purpose. In her artwork, Donovan uses items such as Scotch tape, mini golf pencils, toothpicks, drinking straws, slinkys, and Styrofoam cups to create her earthly masses.

Donovan received her Bachelors of Fine Arts degree from the Corcoran of Art and Design in Washington D.C. and her Masters of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University (“ArtNet: Tara Donovan” 2020). Donovan’s work has gained her praise, recognition, and awards; she has received the Alexander Calder Foundation’s first annual Calder Prize, and the MacArthur Fellowship, and has had her work shown in the Pace Gallery in New York, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston (“ArtNet: Tara Donovan” 2020).

Donovan’s sculptures, which are specifically site specific sculptures, use day-to-day items to mimic what it’s natural counterpart would appear as in nature. For one example, Donovan recreated a beehive by attaching many Styrofoam cups together.

In an interview with New York Times, Donovan states, “I think of my process almost as a re-manufacturing of a manufactured material, and I think that it’s inevitable that what results goes back to nature. I never have a set idea in mind of what an overall composition will look like; it really grows out of a doing and making and a sense of play and an idea of chance.” Examples of the “re-manufacturing of a manufactured material,” are shown below:

This sculpture used styrene plastic cards.

“Untitled,” 2014-2015.Credit…Ron Blunt / Courtesy of the artist and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

This sculpture used circular cut Mylar that was folded into cones then formed into a sphere. The Mylar causes the light do reflect different shades of white, silver, and black.

“Untitled (Mylar),” 2011-2013.Credit…Mick Vincenz / Courtesy of the artist and Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck.

This installation used slinkys!

“Untitled,” 2015.Credit…Gary Mamay / Courtesy of the artist and the Parrish Art Museum.

Works Cited

“Tara Donovan, A sculpture Who Finds Beauty in the Mundane.” The New York TImes. Accessed 31 March 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/books/tara-donovan-fieldwork.html

“Tara Donovan – artnet.” artnet. Accessed 31 March 2020. http://www.artnet.com/artists/tara-donovan/

Rebecca Horn: Mai-Thi Kieu

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Rebecca Horn is a German artist, born in 1944; she is well-known for the various types of media: performance art, installation art, film, body sculptures, and modifications in her artworks. It was around 1968, the college she attended Hamburg academy to study art. However, she suffered in some cases of lung poisoning from her unprotected work that handled with glass fiber; For the most part, she was hospitalized and had to change mediums from polyester and fiberglass to softer material. Around 1971, Horn worked as a performance artist, and she began producing body sculptures, body extensions, or prosthetics; she developed the first kinetic sculptures, and each material Horn use in her sculpture gives mystical spiritual imagery. She also worked on full-length films that featured some of her sculptures that talks about her obsession with imperfect bodies and balance between figures and objects.

*Landscape of the Golem II,* 2010
acrylic on paper paper: 15 3/4 x 11 7/8 inches (40 x 30 cm)
framed: 24 3/8 x 19 5/8 inches (62 x 50 cm) RH-1069

In the first performance with the body-extensions, she wanted to explore the equilibrium between the human body and space; When she changed to the kinetic sculptures, they were her artistic expressions, it wasn’t just sculptured on its own, but rather the movement, rhythm, and sound. It represented in a historical aspect rather than it’s architectural or spatial. It represented in a historical aspect rather than it’s architectural or spatial. It reflects on the aftermath of WWII, it was difficult for Horn and her family to live around because of Nazi’s destruction, the Germans were hated, so she learned to speak French and English to avoid suspicions. Eventually, Romanian governess introduced drawing to Horn, drawing felt like it was a form of communication. From that experience from being isolated, judged, and hospitalized, there some hints in her artworks that express macabre or exaggerated imagery that is expressing its own emotion, like its own being. Some of her famous works below where Horn is modeling with her sculptures:

“Finger Gloves, 1972”. Tate Collection (2002)

Rebecca Horns is currently living and works in Paris, France and Berlin, Germany. As a tribute for Rebecca’s artworks, there’s an exhibition that features her famous artworks that dwell more in Rebecca’s Horn theme about the human body metamorphizes or evolve, called the “Theatre of Metamorphoses” located in The Centre Pompidou-Metz museum in Lorraine, France.

Left: Rebecca Horn, Concert for Anarchy, 1990, Piano. – Right: Rebecca Horn, Die preussische Braut, 1988

**Rebecca Horn, The Peacock Machine, 1981, Installation, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, © 2019: Rebecca Horn/ProLitteris, Zürich**

Ever since the artist presentation was mentioned at the beginning of the semester, I decided to take a sneak peek and see what kind of artists is there to see. Immediately, when I saw Rebecca Horn’s name, and I decided to research more about her, that was when I was so fascinated by how she expresses her artworks, it brings out a lot of character and charm. Especially in her paintings and sketches, it reminded me of how I draw or sketch some of my works.

Work Cited:
http://www.dreamideamachine.com/en/?p=48191
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/horn-rebecca/
http://www.artnet.com/artists/rebecca-horn/

Yayoi Kusama – Marsha Itsaleumsack

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Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese woman who made her title as an avant-garde artist, raised in Matsumoto before moving to New York in 1958, as recommended by her therapist who said her dysfunctional family would swallow her whole. Kusama was a diamond in the rough, having at first had to use scraps she found and mud sacks to craft her art after her mom threw out all of her supplies. Her mother condemned Kusama’s passion for art which only fueled her further. Her most popular works that gained traction delve into psychedelic and what she calls, a ‘self obliteration’. Many if not all of her works are hallucinatory projections and this notably comes in the form of polka dots — her trademark.

Infinity Mirrored Room – Brilliance of the Souls by Yayoi Kusuma

Yayoi Kusama, Transmigration , 2011

“These rooms reflect all of her elements: her obsessions, her accumulations, her infinite repetitions. And it’s all very bodily and immersive,” Yoshitake said.

But there was a time before she adapted to the new scene. Her works when she was still a fresh and new, innovative artist had much to do with innate promiscuity and elemental nudity. Kusama abhorred sex, lost and disoriented with the concept of skinship and intimacy, stemming from childhood trauma. This trauma translated into her early works, many of which that puts multitudes of phallic objects on display to more performative pieces of nude men and women alike.

Yayoi Kusama posing with , New York. ©Yayoi Kusama and Yayoi Kusama Studios Inc.

A nude happening and fashion show at Kusama’s Studio, New York, 1968

”I don’t know how long I’m going to survive even after I die; there is a future generation that is following in my footsteps,” she said, sitting in the bright open space that is her new gallery in central Tokyo. “I would be highly honored if people would like to look at my work and be moved by my work.”

Katharina Grosse – Lainey Crawford

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Katharina Grosse is a German artist born in 1961 who combines a wide array of bright colors with architecture, sculpture, and paintings to create massive visual installations. Before her career took flight, she studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. There, she pursued a degree in painting. She now teaches at the university, but continues to explore and display her artistic ability.

Though considered a painter and sculptor, traditional painting is not what she is known for. Her techniques primarily consist of spray paint to create a specific movement among her pieces. The ideas that may come to mind when viewing Grosse’s works may resemble psychedelics as the color schemes and motions present are extremely captivating. Her installations have lead to major accomplishments and awards, such as the Oskar Schlemmer Prize, Fred-Thieler-Preis, Stipendiaten der Stiftung Kunstfonds, and the Villa-Romana-Stipendium, Florence. Her works have been displayed in a multiple museums, such as the De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland.

Grosse often calls psychology into question as her works challenges the reality of things as her pieces are much larger than what you would normally see. Viewers are immersed in a world of art that physically surrounds them rather than sits on a wall to be stared at. Her work can be described as an environment as so much space can be taken up, but these environments explore hard-to-imagine dimensions and illusions, greying the line between imagination and reality as viewers can almost be swallowed by the works. Grosse is a very unique artist that utilizes a space in a very engaging and intense way using a multitude of colors and forms that sometimes include furniture and often contrast each other.

20130418075614-two_younger_women_come_in__02 — Two Younger Women Come In and Pull Out a Table

They Had Taken Things Along to Eat Together

The Horse Trotted Another Couple of Metres, Then It Stopped

Works Cited :

https://art21.org/artist/katharina-grosse/

http://www.artnet.com/artists/katharina-grosse/?type=paintings

https://www.katharinagrosse.com/

https://www.ideelart.com/magazine/katharina-grosse

https://renaissancesociety.org/exhibitions/454/katharina-grosse-atoms-inside-balloons/

Ernesto Neto – Jill Van Domelen

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Ernesto Neto

Ernesto Neto is a Brazilian Conceptual artist who lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His main focus is installations and sculpture. He began pursuing art in the 1960’s when he enrolled in art school. He realized sculpture was what he wanted to do after taking a clay workshop. His first solo exhibition was at the Petite Galerie in 1988 in Rio. Along with having his studio there, he also runs a gallery called A Gentil Carioca featuring new Brazilian artists. His work is now featured in many esteemed galleries including places such as New York, Paris, London, Tokyo, Los Angeles, and more.

Neto’s work is largely about interaction. It is inspired by things like nature and the human body, specifically skin and the body’s relationship with water. In an interview Neto says, “There is always an edge between one thing and another – a membrane. My work is very much about this limit between one side and the other”. Some subjects that influence his work as well is his known interest in anthropology, cultural history, and physics. Neto’s works consist of fabrics, transparent, stretchy material, styrofoam pellets and spices to create his installations. The viewer is meant to feel, touch, and sometimes smell each piece he makes. He provides many ways to interact with his pieces, extending so far as to one piece that you can actually swim in.

One work called Mother body emotional densities, for alive temple time baby son displays his combination of fabric and spices. The fabric is polyester Lyrca and gives the impression of skin. The skin bags at\re filled with spices such as turmeric, clove, cumin, ginger, pepper, and annatto. This work was featured in the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego.

Image result for Léviathan Thot — *Léviathan Thot Europe at ‘le Panthéon’, Paris*

Another work called Léviathan Thot featured in Europe at ‘le Panthéon’, Paris is a good example of the use of line and shape as well as unity and space. The materials used is lycra tulle, polyamide fabric, and styrofoam balls. The way the fabric is stretch and thin at the top and enlarged at the bottom by the placement of styrofoam. It is said to be a representation of the story in the Old Testament about the sea serpent, Leviathan in the book of Job.

Unity- Consistency with the droplets and how it is all tied together in the center.
Line- The lines in this piece help it create a more representative feel. For example, the structures in this piece are often referred to as resembling raindrops, tears, webs. The lines again, spawn from the center. Your eye naturally moves from that center and all fabric from the top is thin and your eye is drawn to the bottom which again leads to the center.
Space- The space in this helps create depth and interest. For example, if there were no holes in the center piece, all there would be is a white sheet and the eye wouldn’t be drawn as much.
Shape- The shapes in this piece are important because if, for example, the styrofoam wasn’t round of the fabric wasn’t thin then it would give it a completely different feel and may not tell the same story.