4. Comment on Damien Hirst's use of his work and the media for self promotion

Using actual Animals formed with Taxidermy prior to methods of preserving, and raw materials such as diamonds, Hirst very successfully creates a contraversal bubble surrounding his career. I find his work to be pretentious. His mood, style and attitude towards his effort in what is shown is one sided towards one thing, money. Personally, I think his artistic skill is devalued and too boring... Yet his placement in the world as a well known conceptual artist with interesting approaches to art allows him to become successful. He self promotes his work quite effectively, and the way I see it is that hirst is not evidently giving out more effort than any other artist. He simply is self promoting better. And some how his unusual artwork seems to be effective enough to allude people to spend millions on his works. Conceptually his work as a simple reflection of modern society which attaches overriding importance to 'news value'. The messages he trys to convey is that life is too short lived. And it shouldn't be wasted. This is evident as most of his works have some involvement with death.

Projects such as 'The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living' shown below:

 

Is one example of his preserving methods. He has preserved this Tiger shark in a formalhyde, which is a substance that will ensure longativity  for this work. However, note that it is a $12 Million Stuffed Shark, and preserving it alone cost $100,000. Seem a bit pricey for a work that could be replicated by anynone with the money? This leaves me to think about why and what is the point to this work? As much as I disagree with his aesthetic style(I think his work is rather ugly) the work is controversal, due to the fact it deals with the subject of death. It's always different to see animals that are so well known for being so ferocious, dormant in a perserved rectangle box.
Leading to a work that surely enables self promotion for Damien is 'For The Love Of God'
This piece sold for 100 million! It is constructed out of 8,605 Diamonds which is what I call opulent art! The diamond-studded work, has an asking price more than triple that of any sculpture sold at auction in recent years, shows how artists reach for effects to draw sales in a crowded market, and how self-promotion is key to their success.

 

References:

-http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/famous-artists/damien-hirst.htm

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Physical_Impossibility_of_Death_in_the_Mind_of_Someone_Living

-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwBC2mTuGCk

3.Comment on Gavin Turk's work in relation to individualism, status of the artist and egotism.

His work regulates a sense of Egotism in his art projects. Not all of his works express this, but to a degree, Turk is suggesting his thoughts of himself. This is where the concept of Individualism implements ideas of Egotism into his work.

Briefly to describe individualism and compare to Egotism, the artist is throwing away all restraint and painting a human figure as an individual, not an anonymous figure. It is a social theory which advocates liberty, rights or independant action of an individual. The key to this theory was just that with exceptional developments in aprehending 'getting to know ones self'  in art is being conveyed with portraits and rependence of leaving signatures on one's work.

He has made a number of photographic and sculptural self-portraits that often involve some degree of disguise(diguise being a reference to a well known artist, like Andy Warhol for example). Reflecting on self- obsession and uncertainty as prominent features throughout his work distinguish.

Egotism is defined as “excessive and objectionable reference to oneself in conversation or writing; conceit; boastfulness.”  These two concepts are very evident in his work as his particular style is different to that of other artists and his subject matter is quite often a depiction of himself in one way or another.

To provide an example of Turks egoistic mode of manner here is the 'Me As Him' exhibition presentation...

Here it seems he turns his gaze towards the most celebrated and celebrity obsessed figure in conceptual modern art-Andy Warhol. Alot of his works surrounded Warhol as inspiration and reference to fame. The manner of this image quotes the final portraits that Warhol had done before retiring as an artist. His portraits were extremely successful, which left Warhol as an artistic hero and influence on uprising artists. I found this interesting quote from Turk about his effort towards his art,

"I wasn't interested in being a celebrity, to the point where my work was trying to criticise celebrity which stops you being able to see the real value of things. Art is about the public. Sometimes art loses value as it obtains such ridiculous [monetary] values. It becomes elite."

Personally, Turk is egoistic in the sense that his portraits reference him to some type fame(or and artist), though I think it would be wrong to say that he is egoistic for painting multiple portraits of himself.

Refernces:

-http://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Andy-Warhol/85A84FA828A34B78/Articles

-http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/artist-in-attack-on-ybas-who-sold-out-in-pursuit-of-fame-1992683.html

-http://www.mutualart.com/Events/Exhibitions/Gavin-Turk--Me-As-He/BBE1E04606155E16#Info

2. Explain how the artist's social status increased during the Renaissance period. Briefly explain why this happened.

At the age of 21 Durer's status had been elevated to a corresponding title of a member of upper class society. From a number of trips to Italy he had studied various masters such as Giovanni Bellini and Leo nardo Davinci which greatly influenced his work.  His visitings and collaborations with famous artists soon increased his name as a rennaissance artist. Specifically two portraits that he had painted from his 30's-40's showed his concern with Social Identity. Confronting  how society would view the portraits and what reaction he would get from them, these were successful in terms of developing the newest genre of the Renaissance, Individualism. The portraits were expressions of individuality, which was not seen though the dark ages (medievalism) as it was being introduced and developed. For once art was made for the sake of art rather than to provide an 'income' and Durer's audience had considered him to be magnificant in style for expressing himself in a edge setting manner.

Reference:
-http://www.renaissanceconnection.org/artistslife.html
-Blunt A. (1962). Artistic Theory in Italy 1450-1600. Oxford University Press.

Week 4 - The Social Status

1. Identify aspects of Durer's self portrait that show a changing view of the artist's view of himself as an individual. Albrecht Durer's opinion of himself seemed to be rather egoistic in my opinion. In his painting 'self portrait in a fur coat' he had given himself the appearance of a stylised, charismatic living god. There's no doubting the conscious quotation of the conventional image of Jesus. The positioning is christ-like and makes a reference to a famous medieval portrait of jesus in the same compositional setting. Durer was indeed the preminant upriser of Individualism in the Renaissaince. At the time Individualism and portraiture had been unprecedented to proper paintting. This was because the standard beliefs for art during the Medieval period had been that there were no portrait paintings, and the focal point was Religion and Architecture. This self portrait infiltrates self identity and placement in the world. He expresses that he is audacious by placing himself in an alluding 'christ like position. Which at the time challenged the audience. Many people discouraged this style of painting from the fact it was an image based on an individual and not conventional subject matter. yet many were entralled that he had courage to express his opinion of himself in such a manner.

5. Upload a more recent example of Kruger's work where she has used a new medium, that is not graphic design. Title your image of the chosen work and comment on your response to the work. How do you think the audience would experience this work?

Kruger most recently introduce a much larger and challenging media to use. The style is epic and large scaled. I think audiences will see this work as a new revolution for Kruger as it's a statement itself from the scale, that she wants to be heard in the world.

4. Define the concept of Mercantillism and explain how these two examples can connect with the concept.

Mercantilism was an economic theory based on several ideas during the 16-18th century. Economic assets and interest in the wealth of nations were measured by how much silver and gold they had. The main interest was that there were more exports than imports and the commodities lying within trade was controlled carefully by the government; this was to increase the wealth of the nation with additional profits. The concept of Mercantilism was to seek economic wealth which would be considered unbalanced in the long run. These artworks relate to 'currency', which is the leading concept of Mercantilism. Money is seen as a part of our lives because we are unable to live without it in modern society and what Kruger is trying to send to the audience is that we need to spend money in a more efficient way. She focuses on consumerism and this connects well with the concept of Mercantilism. The issue with Mercantilism was that any mercantile nation was 'consuming' too much bullion and wealth into one nation; therefore an unbalance occurred with the accumulative nature of profit, meaning it would not and did not last forever.  For a time period after the Mercantile system had developed into new revolutions those previous nations had struggled to keep the wealth of society accumulative and well.


References-http://caraphillips.wordpress.com/2007/09/20/barbara-kruger/
-The Comlumbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. (2005) Mercantilism. Retrieved Feb 11, 2006, from: http://www.bartleby.com/65/me/mercanti.html

3.Do these images communicate these ideas effectively? Explain your answer.

Her work is successful because it does not pose much difficulty to figure that it is about Consumerism and Materialism. There is a sense of ambiguity within the two images, which are caused by using a combination of imagery and text. As her text is not a straightforward interpretation of a single image, it creates an ambiguous relationship with the text. Through the use of both evocative statements and imagery, the viewer contemplates the relationship between the two.  The image 'I shop therefore I am' carry's a strong message that is relevant to society, it reflects that people feel the 'need' to have things. And imply's by the nature of the text that they shouldn't. The image 'face it' also is effective in communicating the idea of consumerism. The message defines how women focus on objects of desire so much, when more important things can be addressed in life.

http://www.wdog.com/rider/writings/real_kruger.htm

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Mercantilism.html

2.What are some of the concepts and messages that Kruger is communicating in them?

In both images Kruger is trying to depict a simple statement as a message.With the merging of found photographs from existing sources, she conveys her images with pithy and aggressive text that involves the viewer in the struggle for power and control that her captions speak to viewer. Whether the observer sees the images as infridged concepts of art, the works can be seen as and interpreted as true statements that are more than just an opinion. She juxtaposes her imagery and text and focuses on the concepts of consumerism-materialism and Feminism. Quoted from the painting 'Face It' ,''This luxurious garment won't make you rich or beautiful'' The idea of the message is that people shop to fill their needs, things consumers want and just buy for the sake of it which can be said as buying vigourously." In 'I shop, there for I am', Kruger also brings out the same concept- She is directly saying that materials/consumerism has reached the point where people try to define themselves through what they buy.  The nature of the text seems to transgress the message and challenge the viewer.

Reference:
http://swindlemagazine.com/issueicons/barbara-kruger/ http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/feminist/Barbara-Kruger.html

http://www.barbarakruger.com/biography.shtml 

Week 2 - Barbara Kruger And Mercantilism

Describe the 'style' that Kruger has used in the two presented works

Her work is of a conceptual/pop art style that displays advertisement-like compositions. The compositions challenge the viewer with witty statements in the form of a text over an image.  The style is distinctive and creates simplicity by the way she uses the same form of media and approach to convey a message through a simple statement by using the same font, background material and limitted palette. Her work contains a 'signature' style that seems to stay consistant from her combinations of imagery and text.

Reference:

-http://rogallery.com/Kruger_Barbara/kruger-biography.html

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Kruger

-http://www.barbarakruger.com/biography.shtml

-http://www.artburst.com/barbarakruger/