my overall thoughts...

I really enjoyed this class. I didnt like it when there was some change starting module 3. I personally did not have any interest on art. to be honest, the only reason why I enrolled in this class was recommendation from one of my english class-mate. I first thouht this class was all about drawing and get grades on that. but when I notice how this class work, such as, researching artist, museum trips, and art projects, I really had fun. I especially liked on identity. I was able to put more efforts into on my identity project because it was all about me. as i was doing this project i was able to look back my childhood, memories, and realized how important my families are. I now able to look more deeply on any paintings or art stuff. I learn that some artist are willing to sacrifice their life, such as, griffith artist. I've exprienced to paint on the wall at the Venice art wall and realized that there are many different style and concepts on art. once again, I really enjoyed this class and I'm glad I acutally gain some knowlege on art, better understanding, and be creative... BE CREATIVE!

12th artist: Vanessa Beecroft

Vanessa Beecroft is an Italian contemporary artist living in Los Angeles. Beecroft's work is a fusion of conceptual issues and aesthetic concerns, focusing on large-scale performance art, usually involving live female models. At her performances, video recordings and photographs are made, to be exhibited as documentation of the performances, but also as separate works of art. The work and her conceptual approach is neither performance nor documentary, but something in between, and closer to Renaissance painting. She sets up a structure for the participants in her live events to create their own ephemeral composition. The performances are existential encounters between models and audience, their shame and their expectations. Each performance is made for a specific location and often references the political, historical, or social associations of the place where it is held. Beecroft’s work is deceptively simple in its execution, provoking questions around identity politics and voyeurism in the complex relationship between viewer, model and context. I think her work is very impressive in a way how she uses women as to create works.

11th artist: Marina Abramović

Marina Abramović is a New York-based Yugoslavian performance artist who began her career in the early 1970s. Active for over three decades, she has recently begun to describe herself as the “grandmother of performance art.” Abramović's work explores the relationship between performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind. In her first performance Abramović explored elements of ritual and gesture. Making use of twenty knives and two tape recorders, the artist played the Russian game in which rhythmic knife jabs are aimed between the splayed fingers of her hand. Each time she cut herself, she would pick up a new knife from the row of twenty she had set up, and record the operation. After cutting herself twenty times, she replayed the tape, listened to the sounds, and tried to repeat the same movements, attempting to replicate the mistakes, merging together past and present. She set out to explore the physical and mental limitations of the body – the pain and the sounds of the stabbing; the double sounds from the history and from the replication. With this piece, Abramović began to consider the state of consciousness of the performer. “Once you enter into the performance state you can push your body to do things you absolutely could never normally do.”

10th artist : Donatella Versace

Donatella Versace is an Italian fashion designer and current Vice-President of the Versace Group, as well as chief designer. She owns 20 percent of the entire stock market assets of Versace. Her brother, Santo Versace, owns 30 percent. Donatella's daughter Allegra Versace inherited 50% of the company stock after the death of Gianni Versace, Donatella's brother and Versace's founder. I personally like her because she is one of woman who has been success in life. She has created many designs that would stand after Versace brand name. She has created clothing, accessories, and now moves on to furniture. She is always moving forward for new style to design and create. Oblivious, her brand is very famous that everyone in today’s world recognizes and even popular star wear her clothing in special event. Overall, I like how she always moves forward and have versatile talent that is very useful and promote her to higher social position.

9th artist Isamu Noguchi

Isamu Noguchi was a prominent Japanese American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public works, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several mass-produced lamps and furniture pieces, some of which are still manufactured and sold. There is a place called Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum and this is where he would decorate with all of his art that has been created by him. It is really interesting to find out that he has a museum that is decorated by his work. He is best known for his abstract sculptures designed as adjuncts to architecture. An example of his environmental work is his massive red cube designed for the marine midland bank building, New York City. As a landscape architect, noguchi created a large number of playgrounds, parks and gardens. In the 1950s, he designed gardens for Keio University.

Yoko Ono

My Artist: Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono was born in February 18, 1933. She is a Japanese artist, musician, and author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon. Ono brought feminism to the forefront through her music which prefigured New Wave music. She is a supporter of gay rights and is known for her philanthropic contributions to the arts, peace and AIDS outreach programs. Ono was an explorer of conceptual art and performance art. Ono had ordeal life since she was young. First, she is daughter of a Japanese pianist who gave up his career to marry into money. In 1945, her mother either suspected or was warned that America would bomb Tokyo, and took the family to safety far from the city before the bombs began falling. Ono married composer and pianist Toshi Ichiyanagi, and then attempted suicide. At the mental hospital she met jazz musician Anthony Cox, and when she discovered she was carrying his child she divorced Ichiyanagi and married Cox, but he had mood swings wilder than Ono's and she promptly had the marriage annulled. Cox apologized, and Ono was pregnant, so they remarried before their daughter was born. By the mid-1960s their new family was living in New York, where Ono dabbled in music, performance art, short films, and performance art like "Cut Piece," wherein audience members were given scissors and invited to cut away her clothing. In 1969 she divorced with Cox then remarried with John Lennon, the member of Beatles. As I was researching I noticed that she had challenge life. One of her work called “cut piece” is very famous performance art she have done in the year of 1965. She would sit impassively, a kind of bodhisattva, while people slowly cut off her clothes. It was an amazing feminist manifesto before most people knew what feminism was.
http://youtu.be/Zfe2qhI5Ix4
What interested in me was few of her message that were hidden unless anyone could recognize the message. The message were such as, “look at youself in the water you are beautiful”, “breath”, “don’t stop”, and “I love you.” This entire message can mean differently regarding on how audience accept and understand. It may be given comfort or love or even a peace… restfulness… I like the idea where she writes her message in anywhere, so the audience can look at or find out unexpectedly.
http://eunicelee.tistory.com/236
overall, her work was very interesting to me. her work is very simple but have strong point and powerful meaning. also, I like the idea when she asked audience to come over to the stage and be part of her performance art during the "cut piece".

Module 4, 8th artist: Ana Mendieta

Ana Mendieta was a Cuban-American artist famous for her performance art and "earth-body" sculptural, photographic, and video work. I was surprise on her death at early age. According to this one article, it said it was an accident which she fell down on 34 floor of where she lived with her husband. Her husband was also well known artist and he was accused for murdering her death, but court announced that it was a suicide and no charge against him. I heard about how artist suffer from depress and how their emotions change so quickly. Her performance art focused on women’s body and trying to express what women have on their appearance and comments on things that was restricted to women in back in the days. Was she commenting of freedom? equal right to all human being?

Module 4, 7th artist: Maurizio Cattelan

Maurizio Cattelan is Italian contemporary artist. Since the early 1990s, his work has provoked and challenged the limits of contemporary value systems through its use of irony and humor. His work seems odd at some point but I felt he express strong comments to our society. In reality we tend to act with manners, force to smile, and talk with soft voice. But through his work, when I was looking at the work, I felt as if expressing what I really want to show and tell the others. I don’t have to hide my feelings and act differently. We don’t need to lock ourselves and pretend to be live in perfect life. Sometime, we all need to have some time off, and act natural as possible and show who we really are. As human being, it is natural to feel suffocate and suffer from particular issue, so Maurizio clearly points out that situation and creates art as humor but have strong meanings. Often time, I had to think deeply to figure out his concept of the art, but overall very impressive and interesting work!

Module 4, 6th artist: Maya Lin

Maya Lin is an American artist who is known for her work in sculpture and landscape art. Maya Lin examines how our current relationship to landscape is extended, condensed, distorted, and mapped via new technologies, and then translates these systematized spaces of the natural world into objects and environments that can be engaged physically. The work called “Vietnam Veterans Memorial” was most touching work she has created. Lin's conception was to create an opening or a wound in the earth to symbolize the gravity of the loss of the soldiers. The memorial has since become an important pilgrimage site for relatives and friends of the American military casualties in Vietnam, and personal tokens and mementos are left at the wall daily in their memory. To me, this was most touching work. she want everone to know how brave and courage the soliders were at that time... never want to be forgotten...

Module 4, 5th artist: James Turrell

James Turrell was born in the year of 1943. He said, “My work is about space and the light that inhabits it. It is about how you can confront that space and plumb it. It is about your seeing, like wordless thought that comes from looking in a fire.” Just like what he said, I thought his work was interesting on how it was mainly focus on lights and space. Although it is hard to understand, but at least you get to think more and look deeply as you look into the work. I sort of thought his work depends on how we see things and how we all can come up with different solutions. Is there a chance that he might want us to ask question to ourselves, such as, the object we are looking at are real? Are we not missing any important part by our ignorance on particular object? Perhaps, he might want us to think and see more closely and deeply as we see things… maybe…

Module 4, 4th artist: Nancy Popp

Nancy Popp is performance artist. I found that her work seem very interesting. Mostly her performance looked dangerous and she was arrested by police, but I think that was her intention, meaning, to see how people react by her dangerous performance. Also, she might want it to experience the new ways of looking down the society. Climbing up the pole is very risky but she would still perform her work. I felt that she was trying to find what is hidden by tall buildings and people ignorance.

Module 4, 3rd artist: Allan Kaprow

Allan Kaprow was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the "Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as their theory. I personally like the performance called “Time Pieces” It was about Partners read pulses and exchange breaths. Breathe… if we can’t breathe then that means we are dead. It is sort of like exchanging you’re experiencing with other. I can breathe just as you can breathe. What is he trying to convey the audience? I don’t understand.  Is he trying to say that we are all same? Its really hard to understand but somehow it seem very interesting and mystery… to me!

Module 4, 2nd artist: Burning Man

Burning Man is a week-long annual event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada, in the United States. The event is described by many participants as an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance. Burning Man is organized by Black Rock City, LLC. The “Burning Man” caught my attention at first. I thought Burning Man as burning human being. “ART CARS ON THE PLAYA” I found this was interesting because regardless of their appearance, as long as the art cars have the right to be driven, to be mobile and given life, they will in turn give life to the event regardless of its size and location. It can be look as nasty, funny, and more like toy looking but the appearance don’t matter. What it matter is that it’s still the car. I think this is sort of comment on our society too. Regardless of how people look alike or different, we are all equal and we should never be judge by our appearance. Am I right? We should always respect others so that way the others will respect you.

Module 4, 1st artist: Joseph Beuys

Joseph Beuys was a German performance artist, sculptor, installation artist, graphic artist, art theorist and pedagogue of art. His extensive work is grounded in concepts of humanism, social philosophy and anthroposophy. He mentioned that everything must be expressed, negatives even those beyond language. One particular work called Infiltration for Piano 1966 / The Skin 1984, seem very interesting work to me. “The piano is an instrument to produce sound, when not in use is silent but still has sound potential. When no sound is possible the piano is condemned to silence.” This was what he said during his interviews on this particular project. It’s hard to truly understand what it means but I think he’s trying to convey the audience on how we are all related to objects during his performance. For example, the Red Cross mark on the piano and being silent could relate to on how our society can be cruel to those who need help if we were to keep our mouth shut. During his performance, it does not talk about what we should be understand, but he hints the clue on his performance, such as Red Cross and being silent on piano, often explains what we should be think and understand.