in need of help with contemporary artists (2 Viewers)

[mittens]

i need to know the names of some contemporary artists who's works will tie in well with surrealism... given that (as far as i'm concerned) we're in a post conceptual age in art...

and i already know a fair bit about Fransisco De Goya, Kathe Kollwitz, James Gleeson and many other surrealists like Salvador Dali, james Sebor, escher, Marcel DuChamp or however u spell his name... max ernst... and the like...

i need a couple of artist's names who's works tie in really well with themes of war and violence, shame, and very real emotion, self expression and preferably without much imagination as surrealism relies on the tie-ing together of imagry relating to the artist's self, fears and much, much symbolism... and i'm not too sure andy goldsworthy is all that! infact i'm pretty sure he uses imagination! no, absolutely sure!

note: they need to still be alive and if it can be helped, anything but surreal... even abstract expressionism for all i care i just need to research a couple of artists... and i need help!

 

[MindRiot]

are you sure you need more? geez!! :O That's a lot already that you have there -- well more than enough for a section two response. Unless it's for something else..?

 

[bubble_tea]

How about aboriginal artist Gordon Hookey who created an installation for the Sydney Biennale this year? His artwork called 'Paranoia Annoy ya' had lots of symbolism and political issues to do with war and identity. Why do they need to be alive? I would have said Jackson Pollock but then again he's too predictable to write about.

 

[mittens]

jackson pollock was a strange case of an artist! i really can't stand his works.... they're more based on artist's practise anyway rather than meanings below the surface and i have no idea why he named them... i guess they meant something to him!

they need to be alive because all the other artists i know besides james sebor (a surrealist in australia! wooh!) are dead and therefore 'historical' as my teacher deemed them. i need to look into artists today and although im not too fussed over aboriginal art; thankyou! it might just be the way to go!

would you be able to reccomend any others? thankyou!

 

[PookieMonster]

look up gilbert and george. they are awesome

 

[mittens]

pookiemonster... did u mean alice gilbert? there's a hell of alot of stuff that chick's got... she's a russian artist... or steve gilbert? who reminds me or villem de kooning or phillipe gilbert? he has some nice sculptures.... but im not too sure how they'd relate to anything but the dada movement... which means marcel duchump, man ray, max ernst, and the like... victor gabriel gilbert is historical and i couldnt be bothered looking into it further... who's gilbert?

now george.. i've come across another of those russian avant-garde artists called george costakis... HELP!

 

[soso]

HA HA Ha, you know, english performance artists Gilbert and George. They are together, a pair, not one then another.

 

[soso]

try http://www.newmediastudies.com/art/gilbert.htm

 

[PookieMonster]

the guys that take photos of their piss and shit and cum, and also do performances. these guys:
http://www.culturekiosque.com/art/exhibiti/rhebloody.htm

 

[mittens]

u sick little surrealist

pookiemoster thats so totally festy! dont go invading my innocence with that crap! shame on u for coming into the visual arts world and speading that horrible crap! u sicken me! i'm not even going to touch that link with the mouse much less move my mouse suddenly over it ewwwww how festy. i think u would have gotten along really well with salvador dali!

 

[mittens]

seriously though... im not going to venture into film... sorry but thats film not art... i call architecture art but not film. even if it is only afew mm. sorry to be picky but it's a little hard to tie in.... wait i'll just tell u who i'm using so far and that would be easier for us all... brilliant!

i'm using james gleeson (surrealist talks about war and the havoc it plays also paints and lets the colours make thier own like jacckson pollock did in a sense if u know what i mean... he always sketched first tho. then when he blew the work up and converted it to oil on canvas the colours and lines made an alternate world to the original yet still holding such likeness that you'd swear thats what he'd intended all along instead he's submissive to his medium.

i'm using Kathe Kollwitz! what a legend! her works are so expressive and so passionate! she's talking about the hell of war again and her mourning is a result of her loved ones that she lost to both wars. its truly expressive and most amazing the way she's handled the charcoal- her preferred medium.

fransisco de goya- his works are awesome but the things he paints changes dramatically over the course of his artistic career. he was believed to have gone mad in his final years after he lost his ability to hear and so he painted a series of shocking works which for the time absolutley spooked the viewers out. one of which was his famous work: 'saturn devouring his son' ! a horrible piece! all throughout his artistic carreer he also noted how much he despised war... so if you know of anyone alive today who talks about war in their aims to express themselves in their professional art then please let me know...
thankyou

 

[johnson]

seriously though... im not going to venture into film... sorry but thats film not art... i call architecture art but not film. even if it is only afew mm. sorry to be picky but it's a little hard to tie in.... wait i'll just tell u who i'm using so far and that would be easier for us all... brilliant!

i'm using james gleeson (surrealist talks about war and the havoc it plays also paints and lets the colours make thier own like jacckson pollock did in a sense if u know what i mean... he always sketched first tho. then when he blew the work up and converted it to oil on canvas the colours and lines made an alternate world to the original yet still holding such likeness that you'd swear thats what he'd intended all along instead he's submissive to his medium.

i'm using Kathe Kollwitz! what a legend! her works are so expressive and so passionate! she's talking about the hell of war again and her mourning is a result of her loved ones that she lost to both wars. its truly expressive and most amazing the way she's handled the charcoal- her preferred medium.

fransisco de goya- his works are awesome but the things he paints changes dramatically over the course of his artistic career. he was believed to have gone mad in his final years after he lost his ability to hear and so he painted a series of shocking works which for the time absolutley spooked the viewers out. one of which was his famous work: 'saturn devouring his son' ! a horrible piece! all throughout his artistic carreer he also noted how much he despised war... so if you know of anyone alive today who talks about war in their aims to express themselves in their professional art then please let me know...
thankyou

i beg to differ mittens. re: film is not art.

tracey moffatt, cindy sherman, taneka isogawa, mariko mori are just a few contemporary artists who use the film medium to project artistic ideas and thoughts.

even feature length films such as those in the film-noir period, and experimental film-making, i'd say many people would classify that as art as well.

mittens you seem quite naive...the art world isn't all 'pretty flowers through rose-coloured glasses' etc. take a look at a few artists like aforementioned gilbert and george, and gordon bennett and fiona white and you have violence and sexual themes galore. or, take a look at robert hughes' book/television series "the shock of the new". the contemporary art world is here to shock and horrify.

 

[mittens]

are you serious? i cant stand this medium. tracy moffat to me, well she's boring, and call it naieve if u will but i just cant enjoy her works they bore me to tears. honestly! i prefer teh intricate side of art... as for shock value... it depends how it's presented. take dysmal sport by salvadore dali for example... it talks about his shame in masturbating and how he has this incredible and irrational fear if grasshoppers and it just goes on... but documenting your own waste and excreting is really going a bit too far i almost welcome de goya!violence seems ok now that we're turning to representing sex and vivid detail of things that are ment to be hidden. there is such a thing as closed doors y'kno... and so i refuse to endorse sex in art. is that so wrong? not naieve, just trying to keep it clean. s'pose u've become complacent with that tho.. do u even know why we wear clothes? or is it an artform not to? eh? u idiot how can u endorse this crap!

Art is the expression of self but since everything's been done before i think that ppl are looking to what hasnt been portrayed and the shock value gives them a kick. it's like dada. only the fools turned it into a movement.

so i endorse violence in art now... after all, it's only the media on which figments of our imagination submit to cruel and unusual punnishment. or is that going too far?

 

[johnson]

well it's completely fine to have your opinions, you are perfectly entitled to have them. what i am interested in, however, is evidence and back-up of your opinions so that i may respect them.

why do you think tracey moffat is boring? why can't you stand the medium of film? how is tracey moffatt's art not intricate?

You seem quite conservative about sex as a theme in art, yet you do realise the great impact of sex in traditional art especially in the Renaissance? Boticelli's "the birth of venus", even michelangalo's statue of David. sex has always been a great influence of art, perhaps it has been more subtle in the earlier centuries as compared to the contemporary art world, but it has always been prevalent.

i'm not endorsing sex in art; i'm also not not endorsing it (hm i've confused myself there). the fact of the matter is that it's not about endorsing or not endorsing sex in art, its a matter of realising that it is a theme in the art world and there is not much point turning a blind eye to it because some people deem it "to be hidden".

you say art is the expression of self- sex is part of the self, why can it not be expressed?

 

[mittens]

my reply...

it's just an excuse for porn, it's just another way for guys to get happy, to see a naked girl and if u understood anything about our chemical make-up as humans u'd understand that. i'm not gonna argue that, it's just a value i hold to make it as easy for guys to avoid temptation and thoughts of lust as possible.

on the other hand. (and this comes down to extention history as well, those ppl who talk about aboriginal history, i dunno there's just something so dull about it... it has no reall journey that takes you on a quest to find what went through their minds... everything is just so bland. and i really find it hard to accept. it needs to be intricate or else i physically cannot stay awake, nor can i concentrate. i get really teary and i've nearly cried trying to write an essay on her... i just couldnt do it. as for photography.. i luuuv ken duncan's works! but i genuinely find something boring about documentation. have you seen that artist... anne zahalka! ohh man was that boring! but what teh hell is she taking!? i cant believe that she's shot these photos and blown tehm up and takes yr 11 yr 12 students to see her exhibit and then tells them that ther's no meaning behind it just that they were shot because these ppl arent australian and they live in certain well known parts of Australia. goodness i just cant stand photography. i didnt even like man ray with his surreal photos

and surrealism's my forte! so i dunno im just looking for something different and i figured post modernism and environmental art aren't gonna tie in too nicely... so... i dunno i need help but i dont kno how to ask 4 it...

 

[PookieMonster]

pookiemoster thats so totally festy! dont go invading my innocence with that crap! shame on u for coming into the visual arts world and speading that horrible crap! u sicken me! i'm not even going to touch that link with the mouse much less move my mouse suddenly over it ewwwww how festy. i think u would have gotten along really well with salvador dali!

its MONSTER**
and crap? yes they used and studied their crap visually. u asked for contemporary artists. we watched a video of them in art making these works. it was different and interesting and not monotonous for markers. my teacher is a marker so thats why she show them to us. there is heaps of info on them. so its not like i was throwing u some random people. and me? surreal? u little cnut, im random ill give u that but im not inane and crazy. and before you rib me on inane; its a word. look it up.
thanks pookie monster for contributing to this thread effectively

 

[mittens]

its MONSTER**
and crap? yes they used and studied their crap visually. u asked for contemporary artists. we watched a video of them in art making these works. it was different and interesting and not monotonous for markers. my teacher is a marker so thats why she show them to us. there is heaps of info on them. so its not like i was throwing u some random people. and me? surreal? u little cnut, im random ill give u that but im not inane and crazy. and before you rib me on inane; its a word. look it up.
thanks pookie monster for contributing to this thread effectively

ok pookiemonster, yes i know inane's a word... i am educated. i guess if im gonna go surreal which really is just a subtle way of displaying many an aspect about an artist including their shame then something more blatant wouldnt be so far from the twisted truth of these artists... ok i give in! it's all about the artists' practises and i guess i could use that! so tell me... what was their aim?

 

[muzzling]

it's just an excuse for porn, it's just another way for guys to get happy, to see a naked girl and if u understood anything about our chemical make-up as humans u'd understand that. i'm not gonna argue that, it's just a value i hold to make it as easy for guys to avoid temptation and thoughts of lust as possible.

Whoa there mittens!! I respect passion in art but seriously, like the others said before, art has always been affected by sex and the seductive nature of women. If you saw a gorgeous and sensitive ink drawing of the female form would you call that porn? I would be so hard-up about your views you kno, you could offend someone... Like me!!!! I draw the human figure all the time, and i can assure you, it is far from porn. A naked body isn't porn.. ok?
Plus, what's more intricate than sex?? It is the catalyst to intense emotion and a lot of art is an expression of emotion and feeling. You can't always equate sex to lust...have you thought about it as an expression of love?
So yeh, just as long as we were sharing thoughts..
x

 

[mittens]

sorry muzzling, maybe i should clarify!

im not sayin that all art about sex is all dedicated to porn but there are some artists out there that focus only on certain things... i'd worry that they were perverts. and yeah we did a unit on the human body in art at the beginning of yr 11... i didnt care for it much cause all we were doing is trying to draw realistic proportions and there was little to no expression in this chapter. i dont think that art should be about anything other than expressions of self or other things that someone fonds fascinating! i hate the thought of art 4 art's sake! mind you, i am focusing on artist's practice for section 2 which has a slight tenancy to need a reason for these works! it just comes across as dirty to take pics of ur excrements... if u see what i mean! but honestly, if u really wanna see that stuff u CAN look at your own... kinda festy idea though eh? can u recommend anyone else that might tie in well with surrealism. i guess that since gilbert and george make artworks as a pair then i'm gonna need another source from which i can gain another 4 artworks! i wanna be as prepared as possible... as for shock value, it dies with the times. does anyone still get shocked by Fransisco De Goya's 'the nude maja'? if so then you were born yesterday. why do they take these pics of that stuff anyway? im curious now...and i mighht just use them to make up afew points im forming now...

 

[mittens]

sorry muzzling, maybe i should clarify!

im not sayin that all art about sex is all dedicated to porn but there are some artists out there that focus only on certain things... i'd worry that they were perverts. and yeah we did a unit on the human body in art at the beginning of yr 11... i didnt care for it much cause all we were doing is trying to draw realistic proportions and there was little to no expression in this chapter. i dont think that art should be about anything other than expressions of self or other things that someone fonds fascinating! i hate the thought of art 4 art's sake! mind you, i am focusing on artist's practice for section 2 which has a slight tenancy to need a reason for these works! it just comes across as dirty to take pics of ur excrements... if u see what i mean! but honestly, if u really wanna see that stuff u CAN look at your own... kinda festy idea though eh? can u recommend anyone else that might tie in well with surrealism. i guess that since gilbert and george make artworks as a pair then i'm gonna need another source from which i can gain another 4 artworks! i wanna be as prepared as possible... as for shock value, it dies with the times. does anyone still get shocked by Fransisco De Goya's 'the nude maja'? if so then you were born yesterday. why do they take these pics of that stuff anyway? im curious now...and i mighht just use them to make up afew points im forming now...