Vanessa Beecroft- 4/21/15

Vanessa Beecroft is an Italian contemporary artist who works with photography, performance, drawing, and painting and sculpture. Beecrofts work generally works with conceptual and aesthetic concerns, which draws a lot of people into what she does. Her performance art is usually large scale and with nude females. Because of this her performances have been described as art, fashion, brilliant, terrible, evocative, provocative, disturbing, sexist and empowering. These events are recorded live, by photographs and videos. Generally she picks models that have the same face structure or body structure. Her point with these is to make them more close to paintings, she makes contemporary versions of the complex figurative compositions that have challenged painters from the Renaissance onwards. These pieces of hers are shown all over the world, opening in big cities like Paris and NYC. I don't really know how I feel about her work, its very strange but cool?

Anish Kapoor- 4/21/15

Anish Kapoor is a British Indian sculptor, best known for his famous sculpture in downtown Chicago; the Bean. In the 80s he became known for his geometric and (eventually later on his strange use of materials in his pieces). He started working with materials such as marble, granite, limestone and plaster. He then started making pieces that were free-standing and larger than normal. "Many of his sculptures seem to recede into the background, or disappear into the ground".  His first public commission was set in Japan, and after that was Cloud Gate, the 110 ton mirrored bean shape sculpture. Kapoor says his bodies of work are neither intended to be sculptural or architectural. A lot of museums over seas pay big bucks for his work, with the highest sculpture being sold for 2.8 million dollars. I hope I am a successful sculptor like Kapoor. I really enjoy his use of mirrors and making the pieces in a huge manner.

Sally Mann- 4/21/15

Sally Mann is a American photographer. She is based out of Lexington, Virginia and has been called one of the most influential photographers in the world. In my film class yesterday we watched a documentary on her, What Remains, and I was completely in awe of her. While a lot of her photos are very well known, people have attacked them, claiming most of her work is child pornography. The series of images Immediate Family, is a book full of her children at the families' summer cabin. They show quite a bit of nudity but she conquers topics such as skinny dipping, reading, napping and board games. As well as loneliness, insecurity and sex. Personally, I don't find the images disturbing at all, I find them beautiful as she has captured her children in photos that they feel very comfortable with. I myself liked to run around naked, and these photos embody being a child. After actually getting to see what Sally does, and watching her documentary, I have come to the conclusion that she is likely my favorite photographer. Here are some of her wonderful images.

BLU 4/9/15

Blu is an Italian mural artist. His identity remains unknown. In the early 2000s he was a very active artist, but has recently been quite since 2012. We watched some of his long wonderful animations in class last week. And I was automatically overwhelmed with how great of an artist he is. The skill and thought that goes into his art, and the videos he creates with the sounds are unbelievable. I have a goal to see one of his pieces on my Europe trip this summer. His murals are mainly England, Spain, Germany and Italy. His personal website shows a bunch of images of initial sketches for future murals. Most of his murals, and the ones that I enjoy most he uses his trademark of warping or contorting the body in strange and dysfunctional ways. He also deals with everyday controversial problems and gets down to the point. While I truly don't understand murals and how they are made I strongly respect them. The idea of putting art in a landscape that can be rural or urban and have thousands of people to stumble upon it in a lifetime is wonderful. I have a lot of respect for the artists that do this type of work, breaking the rules and going against the grain, which is what art is to me after all.

Kate Bingaman Burt- 4/18/15

Kate Bingaman Burt is an artist that focuses mainly on illustrations and the day to day life of most people. In her first book, Obsessive Consumption: What did you buy today? She took a picture of every single thing she bought for two years. While I personally think this is insane, and extremely yes, obsessive I understood her motives behind this. " I make piles of work about the things we BUY and (want) and the emotions attached to our (STUFF)". One thing that is very likable about Burt is that she is an everyday normal person. She hates sketching like myself, but made herself sketch every day for a year and now she loves it. This is also a goal I am setting for myself this summer. She comes across very awkward and strange but is a extremely successful and ever changing artist. I really like the way she sketches and interprets everyday items. The way she draws is something to what mine looks like, very simple lines and pretty accurate. I really like how simple and wonderful a whole page of these mashed together looks.

Jacqueline Rush Lee- 4/18/15

Jacqueline Rush Lee is a Hawaiian book artist. We went over her in class, and I found a lot of her pieces beautifully disastrous. When we first started going over book idea projects I was initially very nervous and apprehensive. I love books and the idea of tearing them up and stripping them naked made me very upset. However, after the process of my own project started I realized there were many things you could make out of books. Lee has very many different takes on book projects, and is considered a book pioneer in this day in age. As she has worked with demolishing and beautifying books for 17 years she has the art down. My favorite sculptures of her remain the warped, wet looking books. They take on a look as if the book has gone through a literal hurricane, but its still a book and maybe even readable. I really enjoyed the book project, and this summer want to immolate a couple of her works and see if it is doable.

Extra Credit- 4/13/15

 On Friday April, 10^th I attended the newest BFA Exhibition; Ball of Wax,. We first ventured into the Liberal Arts Building, where there were many interesting pieces on the walls. There was a set of very well done oil paintings on canvas. A very overwhelmingly huge portrait of a multi-colored and textured man was very interesting. However, my favorite piece was a piece called “self portrait” made of these gray glazed ceramic blobs with faux fur. In the other building however, I liked more of these, they were larger and a lot more visually fascinating. There was a bed made out of bricks that were soda fired, and a mirror that had a video installation of everyday activities cracked on it. One of the original pieces that I didn’t understand at first was another video installation. It had 4 cameras showing videos, and I figured they were somewhere in the building. It was later that my speculations were confirmed when my boyfriend was pulled aside by a man in a suit with a security badge and asked to step in a smaller room. I then knew that Devin was going to be on a live newsfeed, where he later told me they asked him questions like, How did you get here, who did you come with and why are you here? I thought that this project was quite interesting and came off kind of creepy but cool. Another project I was partial to was a set of silhouettes of people, made out of all different types of materials. A lot of people came out for this opening reception, and overall it was a great time.