Eleanor Antin
The Tree From the Last Days of Pompeii
C-Print Photograph
Eleanor Antin, This is not 100 boots, 2002
Week Ten: Eleanor Antin
Eleanor Antin is an old soul in a present day body. She loves to work with the past and related it to the present. When she was younger, she would dream that she was invisible, in the same rooms watching Marilyn Monroe. So now, she recreates these scenes. She loves to work with different people, and likes their creativity, but she is also a dictator, so she has a vision in head and wants it done her way. In her own words, she has a love affair with the past, and likes to create hew own narratives with these scenes while also creating her own history. All of her work is humorous but can also have those tear jerking moments. All she wants to do is interoperate the past in her own comical way, so that people can have a better understanding of what life used to be like.
(Source: pbs.org)
Carrie Mae Weems
you became a scientific profile
from the Hampton Series
1996
Week Ten: Carrie Mae Weems
Carrie Mae Weems is very interested in African American history, and what has happened with it in the past 40 years. She did a collection of archived photos from Harvard University, where she took them, put them against glass, and combined them with text. Harvard saw what she had done and wanted to sue her for taking and using their photos. She saw this as a great opportunity to have a very public display and conversation about morals and black history. Harvard eventually dropped the charges, but then said that every time she made a sale, she had to give a portion to them. They then proceeded to buy all of her photographs, which really confused her. Carrie comes from a very large family, over 300 people, and wanted to get a better understanding of where she came from. She also has led a very radical life, and this has led to her current art pieces. Her latest work was recreating Birmingham and brought all of the history and trauma to life of the past 40 years of African American History.
(Source: pbs.org)
Oliver Herring Gloria (2004)
digital C-print photographs, museum board, foam core and polystyrene, 72” x 40” x 40” with vitrine
Week Nine: Oliver Herring
Oliver Herring is a very interesting man. He is very self expressive and shows this through all of his art pieces. His main mediums are a sort of stop motion video and photography and knitting. He likes to keep his work simple, because it reflects how he learned English and how simple he spoke. And at one point all of his color lost its color because of an art friend committing suicide. This is when he took up knitting, and used it as a meditation tool to get though the emotional hardship. It was also a sort of performance because he would repeat the motions over and over again. Once he started a piece, he was locked into it until it was finished, and tis cold take several months.
In his first video, he is a main actor in the pieces because he was trying to figure out what he wanted. He then started using strangers in them instead. He stated that he does not care about what medium he is using, or even the object he is capturing, but cares about the process in which he captures it all. The intimacy of the process is disturbing to him because the focus is not on the fun aspect of the piece, but in the quiet focus for the sculpture of the work of art.
(Source: pbs.org)
Arturo Herrera
Mixed Media on Paper
Mixed Media on Paper
2010
h: 31.1 x w: 51.6 in / h: 79 x w: 131.1 cm
(Source: artnet.com)
Week Nine: Arturo Herrera
Arturo Herrera started out by making collage in a very tiny space. It was great because it was inexpensive, and then he was able to move forward from this with just the use of an exacto knife, paper and glue. This paper is also very accessible. He has a scrap pile that he has been collecting for many years now of paper that is now unrecognizable. What is interesting about these pieces is that they come from everywhere and have every type of medium on them. He is amaze that one can take an image that is so composed, clear and objective, and then it can be made from these tossed away fragments into another work of art. But it is not just made, but glued and forced to reside by one another in the piece that creates an entirely separate meaning from the pieces that were used to make it. Herrera is always looking for something to hold an image in it’s place, so structure on a piece is very important to him. He believes that life is made through connecting things, and will continue his work, and test to see if it could be done in other, more spectacular ways.
(Source: pbs.org)
