`To see a world in a grain of sand
and a heaven in a wildflower
to hold infinity in the palm of your hand
and eternity in an hour'
- William Blake.
The Spanish art curator Rafael Doctor once wrote that London-based German-born photographer Wolfgang Tillmans had an amazing ability to see the whole in something small and mundane. Last year the judges of Britain's Turner Prize acknowledged this gift, making hTillmans the first photographer ever to win the Prize.
As an openly gay artist Tillmans's images have inspired fear and loathing among certain sections of the British press for some time, but subsequent to his Turner Prize victory the condemnations became more frequent and febrile. A photograph of a naked man urinating on a chair prompted such headlines as, `Turner Prize Winner is a Photographer Who Specialises in Shaved Private Parts.' He was labelled an amateur pornographer - `amateur' because Tillmans takes great care to make his work appear spontaneous and unplanned. The Mirror Newspaper even sponsored a contest, `Have you Taken a Better Picture?' in which readers were encouraged to submit their favourite snapshots.
Admittedly, this is all good for business. Controversy is de rigeur for contemporary artists. While some, like Tracy Emin, court controversy with disingenuous contrivances (getting drunk and swearing on national television), Tillmans's transgressive aesthetics are the genuine article. His notions of beauty and his sense of playfulness naturally espouse an alternative agenda. A man sitting on an aeroplane with his exposed penis seemingly eating from a lunch tray is, for Tillmans, both beautiful and funny. People might denounce such images as offensive to public morality, but what they are really react...
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...nce Klein's death Tillmans has experimented more and more with abstraction in his work, perhaps in a subconscious effort to distance himself from the corporeal. His photographs for the Royal Academy's `Apocalypse' exhibition last year were predominantly flaming sunsets abstracted into colour schemes of bruised claret and clear vermilion. It was a far cry from the searing realism of his early images. The man who had been called `the chronicler of his times' seemed to be turning his back on his times. It was only a natural progression insofar as Tillmans is an artist who refuses to remain static. Rest assured that his future work will be as qualified by stylistic tangents as his past work admits to them.
Works Cited:
Adrian Searle
Wednesday November 29, 2000
The Guardian
Maev Kennedy Arts and heritage correspondent
Wednesday November 29, 2000
The Guardian
As one of the few white men supportive of Hawaii’s monarchy, Claus Spreckels set a great example for others. His life started in Germany and took him to all over the United States. He formed many businesses and helped try to keep Hawaii a monarchy. He was close friends with King Kalakaua and Queen Liliuokalani and fought for them to remain Hawaii’s leaders. His legacy and influence live on to this day, yet most people don’t even know his name.
Florian Maier-Aichen is a landscape photographer and drawer.With the computer he is able to alter photographs and make them a piece of artwork that not only pleases his thoughts, but also makes a statement.Since he takes real life images of a landscape and then constructs them in different modes that satisfy him , those images aren’t reality anymore.In Blum & Poe you can observe the strange colors he added to enrich myth-making.He fantasizes landscapes, making them open ended
Jerry Uelsmann has impacted society culturally and ethnically with his surreal engineering photography. His personal beliefs and surrealistic perspective defined his photography. He bases his creative process and how he engineers his photographs around his philosophy and morals. He used many techniques that challenged his will to work so extensively because of the complexity of his photographs, and paved the way for surrealistic photography in the present. Jerry Uelsmann’s photography surpasses the state of reality so much it looks perfectly photo shopped, but his photography took place decades before Photoshop. He is a photographer who pioneered the art of multi layered imagery years ahead of anyone else. He uses only his own negatives from the pictures that he shoots, and he says that he does this often without a specific composition in mind. Uelsmann was born in Detroit, Michigan on June 11th 1934. Jerry is best known for his in black and white images that he layered skillfully without the use of Photoshop. His photographs combine several negatives to create his landscapes that mix images of trees, rocks, water and human figures in new and sometimes unexpected ways. He has impacted society culturally and ethnically with his surreal engineering in photography. Through Jerry Uelsmann's inspiration and creative process he assembles elements of pictures together, rather than just taking a normal photograph to make a profound and thought provoking photography. His personal beliefs and surrealistic perspective defined his photography. He always based his creative process and how he engineers his photographs around his philosophy and morals. Jerry Uelsmann paved the way for surrealistic photography in the present, impacting society ...
In 2002, Perry had a major solo exhibition in Amsterdam. A year later he was awarded the Turner Prize, and was praised for his “uncompromising engagement with personal and social concerns”. (Tate, 2003)
Arts Council of Great Britain. The Real Thing: An Anthology of British Photographers 1840-1950. Netherlands: Arts Council of Great Britain. 1975.
...nings behind them and that’s what this painting renders. The modern time painting is another interesting outlook of death transcending from bright colors to darkness, exceedingly imaginative
Often artists can express complex emotions in a form of a single subject matter. For example, the movement of abstract expressionism originating in the middle of the twentieth century was an approach to modernism/ post-modernism accentuating the uninhibited expression of emotions. The products of this genre are characteristically free and loosely structured, stylistically. They tend to focus the emotions that could be derived from the artworks rather than clear representational imitation of reality. In this artwork, ‘Red, Brown and Black’ (1958) by Mark Rothko, all consist of soft, rectangular bands of color stretching horizontally across his canvas. The artist views color as the most powerful communication tool. Through his blocks of color, which are representative of the simple components in the artwork, are meant to provide a contemplative, meditative space in which to visually investigate one's own moods and affiliations with the chosen palette. ‘He sought to distill an essence, or true nature, out of codified hues’
It appears to me that pictures have been over-valued; held up by a blind admiration as ideal things, and almost as standards by which nature is to be judged rather than the reverse; and this false estimate has been sanctioned by the extravagant epithets that have been applied to painters, and "the divine," "the inspired," and so forth. Yet in reality, what are the most sublime productions of the pencil but selections of some of the forms of nature, and copies of a few of her evanescent effects, and this is the result, not of inspiration, but of long and patient study, under the instruction of much good sense…
As I skim through American Photo, I finally come to an article on "The 25 Most Important Photographers Now." There's a nice introduction on the first page, about what this article is about, and on the bottom-left corner it starts with the first photographer in the list, Gilles Bensimon. The article has a nice layout, including a picture by each photographer and their name headlined above or below, and each photographer also has a good-sized paragraph about himself or herself.
Varnedoe, Kirk. A Fine Disregard: What Makes Modern Art Modern. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1990. 152. Print.
Abstract Expressionism is making its comeback within the art world. Coined as an artist movement in the 1940’s and 1950’s, at the New York School, American Abstract Expressionist began to express many ideas relevant to humanity and the world around human civilization. However, the subject matters, contributing to artists, were not meant to represent the ever-changing world around them. Rather, how the world around them affected the artist themselves. The works swayed by such worldly influences, become an important article within the artists’ pieces. Subjectively, looking inward to express the artist psyche, artists within the Abstract Expressionism movement became a part of their paintings. Making the paintings more of a representation of one’s self.
Introduction Upon my first encounter with Kandinsky's painting, my eyes and indeed my mind were overcome with a sense of puzzlement, as it seemed impossible to decipher what lay beneath his passionate use of colour and distorted forms. Kandinsky hoped by freeing colour from its representational restrictions, it, like music could conjure up a series of emotions in the soul of viewer, reinforced by corresponding forms. Throughout this essay, I will follow Kandinsky's quest for a pure, abstract art and attempt to determine whether his passionate belief in this spiritual art and his theories on its effects on the soul, can truly be felt and appreciated by the average viewer, who at first glance would most likely view Kandinsky's paintings as simply abstract. Kandinsky was indeed a visionary, an artist who through his theoretical ideas of creating a new pictorial language sought to revolutionize the art of the twentieth-century. Regarded as the founder of abstract painting, he broke free from arts traditional limitations and invented the first painting for paintings sake, whereby the dissolution of the object and subsequent promotion of colour and form became means of expression in their own right.
Vincent van Gogh’s development in stylized representations of nature, created by the application of dark colors, bold lines, and thick paint all show an expressionistic view of the natural world as seen through the eyes of the artist. While we will never find a definite answer for whether or not Vincent van Gogh intended for Wheat Fields with Crows to be any indication of his suicide, we continue to draw on conclusions of what this painting really meant. Even though we can say with certainty that this was not Vincent van Gogh’s last painting, the subject matter and formal elements suggest that it probably was - intended or not - some indication of van Gogh’s unhappiness.
While reading this article, the first problem was the author’s assumption that the reader is familiar with Andy Warhol. In fact, the author does not even mention Warhol in the first paragraph. He briefly recites the radical predictions of Donald Trump’s presidency from television shows like The Simpsons. Likewise, the show did predict this, but this statement was weirdly placed and confuses the reader. I believe a proper preface to Andy Warhol and his influence would better suit the first paragraph. After the incompetent introduction, the author cites Warhol’s later works. He states, “the vanity and ritual of ‘self-portrait with skull’ and ‘self-portrait strangulation’ creepily foreshadow selfie culture.” The opinionated statement does not bother me, in fact, I somewhat agree with the author’s comparison. However, the author’s choice to not add a visual representation of what “self-portrait with skull” and “self-portrait strangulation” was ignorant. To know what the author is referencing, the reader would have to separately research the art piece. He continues by citing two
...s work The 3rd of May, 1808 is a very detailed and dramatic narrative within a collection of war themed works by the artist. I believe that by using the formal elements of color, texture, shape, lines, space, and the value I was able to sufficiently provide evidence that Goya offers a sequential order of direction for the audience to comprehend from their personal viewing. The twisted and grief stricken work creates a massive emotional connection and the artist plans for the viewers’ to grow and understand this message. The subject highlighted is obvious that Goya is passionate on his stance and outlook on war is suggested in the work. It’s obvious that Goya’s formal organization of his color palette, variation of brushes, repeating shapes, and play with lighting all correspond to depict man’s savage and at times monstrous actions are justified during war.