I examined five contemporary artists: Vija Celmins, Elizabeth Murray, Ann Hamilton, Bruce Nauman, and Mathew Barney. Even though their processes drove them as painters, each artist had a very different perspective on art and how to create art.
In Vija Clemins’ youth, she thought she would do the same painting of the ocean water all her life. Of course this got tedious and boring so she moved on to better things even though she did paint the same image of the ocean water on different canvases and with different utensils. She sees herself as a creator and even though she paints “corny images” with no symbolic meaning, she takes pride in her work. Her last painting which was on the stars in the night sky, has been redone nine times. Overall, she seems to be a very diligent artist and knows how to create genuine art strictly for pleasure and entertainment.
Even though Vija Clemins thought that her art was corny, I truly believe that Elizabeth Murray’s art tops her charts. She “harnesses the energy from paint” to create exotic shapes and images that produce conflict and tension. She creates enormous canvases with the oddest shapes and colors that looks cartoony in attempt to evoke questions. Even though her art seemed corny, odd, and misplaced when alone up in her studio, placing the pieces together in an exhibition gave the art a sort of theatrical function and seemed really neat.
You may consider Ann Hamilton even more out there than the other two artists. She used an old empty factory to setup fabrics dissecting the empty space into rooms. The lights of the factory were turned off and the only emitting light was the projectors and the projections revolved around the room. She also has the idea of putting a camera in her mouth to take pictures of what was going on in front of her. Even though it was a bit odd, I found her art intriguing. My favorite art work of hers was when she was at the Venice Biennale and she used spread large Braille markings on the wall of a room and a pinkish red powder flowed from the ceiling onto the Braille making their message visible. She used this to represent the issues of slavery and oppression in America’s society.
The artists just keep getting a little bit odder. Bruce Nauman tells himself that his art is presentable to one person then he could present it to a large audience. He also wants to make sure that what he is doing stays really clear even if he makes numerous accidents. He claims though, accidents “keep it real.” Even though he seems like a normal, sensible person, his art is not. His art drives me crazy and not in the good sense. For example, he has a video of him yelling “thank you” continuously over and over again; it only takes ten seconds before the yelling gets to your head. Even if he thinks he plans out what he does, it would seem to me that his art is more spontaneous. It appears to me that his art comprises mostly of videos repeating themselves. Some of my favorite pieces of his work are the objects that he creates that appear to have a function but cannot function. For instance there is bleacher that starts to go up but then is inverted so that it goes back down. There are also the stairs that go almost horizontally across a stretch of land.
Another intriguing artist is Mathew Barney. Mathew claims that he is attracted to even the most repulsive objects. His work involves the processes of life and evolution. He once wanted to be a surgeon but he just did not make it. Even though he left medical school, he was very educated in the biology, anatomy and physiology, and even art history and cultural production. He has used his knowledge to create very abnormal films to portray physical rigors and activities to explore the body’s limits. I believe that his dead horse film was one of his most interesting artworks. He created some sort of fabric that could go over a horse which was decorated to make it look undead. Even though I did not find out its complete meaning, Mathew surely created an eye-opening film.
