There are many ways that artists can meaningfully and powerfully connect with their audience, however the most common way is by reflecting belonging, identity and culture within the artwork. Heritage and No Man’s Land are two modern day artworks that reflect belonging, identity and the culture of two artists, Cai Guo-Qiang and Christian Boltanski. These two particular artworks are both spectacular and thought provoking; however, show very different relationships with the Earth and with one another, visually they are quite extreme. Cai Guo-Qiang was born in 1957 in Quanzhou City, China created Heritage in 2013. Born in 1944, Christian Boltanski is a French sculptor; photographer, painter and film maker installed his finest creation ‘No Man’s Land’ in Park Avenue Armory, New York in 2010.
One of Boltanski’s most famous creations called ‘No Man’s Land’ consists of 27215.5 kilograms of discarded clothing, an 18.30 meter tall crane, 3,000 stacked biscuit tins and the recorded sound of human heartbeats. This particular artwork explores the signature idea of his forty-year career Individuality, anonymity, life and death in an immersive landscape that is powerful. Elements of design revealed in No Man’s Land include colour, texture and shape which are shown by the various amount of different clothing and the focal point being the large crane and mountain of clothes situated in the middle of the artwork. There is considerable contrast within the artwork with various colours, shapes and materials, this symbolises the diverse people in the world. Symbols are an important feature of Boltanski’s work; he states in his interviews that “the claw is like the finger of God. God doesn’t care about us and sometimes God takes us by chance. The idea...
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In comparison, Boltanski has a very realistic view that shows an unpleasant side to the relationship of humans and the earth yet Quo-Qiang’s artwork shows the beautiful and utopic side of what he visions the world could be like. Both artists are looking at the universe and what is happening within it. They both appear to want reconciliation within the world with tolerance and trust. The natural world is beautiful however humans have damaged it and this needs to be rectified and both artist feel that it can be done. They both reflect their concern for humanity. Boltanski shows what humans have done to the world however Quo-Qiang shows how he would like the world to be.
These are two very different artworks that have been expressed in contrasting ways; however, both inspire a vision of the earth and humans’ relationships.
The two pieces of art that I have chosen to compare reside in Toronto’s ‘Art Gallery of Ontario’. While the two pieces are very different in terms of artistic medium and period, the painting, “The Academy”, by Kent Monkman, makes direct reference to Auguste Rodin’s sculpture “Adam”. The sculpture is a giant bronze cast from 1881 inspired by Michealangelo’s “Creation of Adam” Ceiling Fresco in the Sistine Chapel. “The Academy” by Canadian painter, Kent Monkman was commissioned by the AGO in 2008. The piece was created as a visual commentary on the “injustices and oppression Aboriginal people have suffered” (Filgiano) However different they may appear to be, Kent Monkman ‘borrows’ the theme of Rodin’s “Adam” sculpture to create an analogy between Adam’s banishment from paradise and the Aboriginal’s loss of paradise through colonization.
Art has always been considered the effervescent universal tool of communication. Art does not require a concrete directive . One sculpture,drawing or written creative piece, can evoke a myriad of emotions and meaning . Artistic pieces can sometimes be considered the regurgitation of the artist's internal sanctum. In Richard Hooks graphic painting,Adoption of the Human Race, the effect of the imagery,symbols ,color and emotional content projects a profound unification of a spiritual edict.
While these two pieces have many similarities and differences, they have a common purpose, to allow a viewer to experience a bit of nature. The two artists used their own unique styles to depict a similar scene that resulted in two different paintings that each allow a viewer to experience this bit of nature in whatever way they interpret it. This is sort of the whole point of art, and it seems that both of these pieces captured that point very well.
Over the decades, art has been used as a weapon against the callousness of various social constructs - it has been used to challenge authority, to counter ideologies, to get a message across and to make a difference. In the same way, classical poetry and literature written by minds belonging to a different time, a different place and a different community have somehow found a way to transcend the boundaries set by time and space and have been carried through the ages to somehow seep into contemporary times and shape our society in ways we cannot fathom.
The representation of the new age of exploration, which serves as an allusion to man’s potential, is starkly contrasted with the depiction of Icarus that serves as an allegory for man’s limits, indicating the shift from a euro-centric universe. This painting is an oil canvas landscape of the sun setting on the horizon of the ocean sea, while the ships were sailing through the body of water. The focus on humanism during this period is clearly portrayed by the presence of the plowman, shepherd, and fisherman performing their daily task. Lighter colors are used, which differ from the darker colors that were emphasized during the Dark Age or Medieval period. Shadows can be seen on the ground next to the plowman, showing the increasing artistic methods that begin to be utilized.
Robert Smithson is best known as a pioneer of the Earthworks movement. However his involvement in the development of Earthworks is only one of his many contributions to postwar American art. His most popular concepts he innovated was a “site,” which is a place in the world where art is inseparable from its context. In addition to large-scale land interventions, Smithson’s artistic practice also includes photography, painting, film, and language.
If someone who had no prior knowledge about art, or the elements and principles of design, were given five seconds to look at these two paintings, they’d probably say they had almost nothing in common, other than the fact that they both feature mountains, and it’d be true for those people. But, if you are someone that does know a lot of information
These assemblages of work mirrror a reflection of glimpses of landscape beauty, a particular solace found in the nature surrounding us during her time in the outback, elegance, simplicity and the lifestyle of the physical world around us. Gascoigne has an essential curiousity displayed in her work exploring the physical word that is captured in an essence of this rural home which brings evocate depictions, subject to the arrangement of these simple remnants that offer so much more. The assemblages focus us on viewing the universe from a unique turnpoint, compromising of corrugated iron, feathers, worn linoleum, weathered fence palings, wooden bottle crates, shells and dried plant matter. The art works offer a poetic expression that traces remnants around the world that individually hold meaning to their placement in the
The exhibition, Same but Different: Not Seen from the Naked eye, investigates the deeper meanings between similar art pieces. Some older masterpieces from Barnett Newman and Mondrian are also present within the enclosed venue. However, the selected pieces from the old Modern Artists are in relevance to the Co...
Since its emergence over 30,000 years ago, one of visual art’s main purposes has been to act as an instrument of personal expression and catharsis. Through the mastery of paint, pencil, clay, and other mediums, artists can articulate and make sense of their current situation or past experiences, by portraying their complex, abstract emotions in a concrete form. The act of creation gives the artist a feeling of authority or control over these situations and emotions. Seen in the work of Michelangelo, Frida Kahlo, Jean Michel-Basquiat, and others, artists’ cathartic use of visual art is universal, giving it symbolic value in literature. In Natasha Trethewey's Native Guard, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,
Art is a very important part of humanity’s history, and it can be found anywhere from the walls of caves to the halls of museums. The artists that created these works of art were influenced by a multitude of factors including personal issues, politics, and other art movements. Frida Kahlo and Vincent van Gogh, two wildly popular artists, have left behind artwork, that to this day, influences and fascinates people around the world. Their painting styles and personal lives are vastly different, but both artists managed to capture the emotions that they were feeling and used them to create artwork.
On one side of the conflict, Americans have a passionate relationship with nature. Nature acts as a muse for artists of every medium. While studying nature, Jo...
..., he acknowledges and reinterprets traditional Chinese art in his works. This is his mode of expression via shanshui tradition, and his ways of thinking, viewing and perceiving are infiltrated by the literati ethos. He works in the computer with his countless digital photographs, he creates virtual city landscape, combining the countless small format snapshots in a way that imitate the characteristic structure and composition of the classical shanshui. In his works, we can see that it always visualizes how China is developing and illustrates the consequences of modernization, globalization and the destruction of China’s ecological equilibrium caused by the speedy growth of its megacities over the past few decades. Yang said, “ The media… is not important, no matter what method you use to create, to maintain the creative spirit of the ancients is the most import.”1
Art has had its roots, one may argue, when civilization was born. With each respective civilization and time periods from the past, humans have formed a diverse and unique society, a group of people with their own individual characteristics, cultures, as well as philosophies within which all kinds of differing ideas, thoughts and opinions are always brought upon for challenge and evaluation. These distinct aspects of a culture and/or time period may be recorded by people in varying forms of expression we all know as art. Directly from where culture had originated, events and/or emotions from that time period have been reflected or directly recorded in the arrangement of pictures i.e. paintings from the past which inform us about the people’s experiences and events in the past historical periods. Ultimately, History is the record of the development and how we have evolved as humans together in a society. History can be expressed and reflected in different kinds of music, sculptures, as well as paintings. There are several different periods of Art, each has contributed and reflected to how a society was. Art has been usually used by historians as one of the vehicles of history to illustrate and illuminate it as they are able to recognize that some types of art may be able to help them identify and explain the nature of societies and periods in history. Art and society have counteracted with each different type bringing forth new arts and new societies for many generations to come. Ideas have caused responses by citizens and therefore bring forth several different types of influences on a period’s background, heredity, and environments. These influences are then translated into new a idea, which then triggers the circle to repeat it...
“In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. Moreover, unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.” This quote by Ernst Fischer, a German composer, means that truth in art exposes the parts of society, and of life, that no one wants to see. In order for art to change society, it must first reflect the fears and failures of its people. The artist can change how people think of themselves and the world by using less conventional methods of creating art. The artist, in doing this, introduces new ideas of human placement in time and space, new frontiers of thought, that are furthered by the disciplines of science and philosophy. The artist works to introduces unique- and sometimes offensive- ideas so that society will be exposed to new ways of thinking and understanding the world. The artist does this through experimentation with color, style, and form. Therefore, the purpose of the artist should be to challenge how individuals perceive themselves and the offensive aspects of society reflected in art to bring about innovations in the greater society.