Janine Antoni

Janine Antoni is a contemporary artists who was born in Freeport, Bahamas. To me she is one of the most original artist I have come by. I love how she integrates herself in most of her works. I was really impressed how she learned how to tightrope just so she can use it in her art. That just shows how dedicated she is to her passion. 

It is truly amazing how she uses her bodies in such a variety of ways. In Loving Care she uses her hair as the paintbrush and paints a whole floor of a room. I really enjoyed seeing the process of how she creates all of her works. She is incredibly talented and diverse. She sees things that most of us can't. 

 

In this performance art she returns to the beach where she grows up. She tightropes next to the water and it looks like she is walking on water. This is my favorite piece from her. 

Janine Antoni: Loving Care

 

Wynwood Walls

I have always heard of people I know going to Wynwood to see all the walls but I have never actually experienced it myself. I went for the first time yesterday and I was blown away by the talent of the artist who create these works. To me it is like a mix between graffiti and street art. Wynwood was created by Tony Goldman in 2009. It has really transformed that neighborhood to an incredible art center. Its incredible that on every wall you look there is a cool painting. Almost all the walls are covered in something.

 Tony Goldman had a vision to revitalize the what was then warehouse district of Miami. He thought that the buildings with no windows would be a perfect blank canvas for artist to create massive murals. He started with a couple of buildings first then explored out more. Goldman wanted to revitalize the movement of graffiti/street art and he presented into a way no one has seen it before. Now the Wynwood Walls bring some of the world's greatest artists to create on these empty canvas.

Artist: Ron English
This one reminds me on a character from
Dragonball Z. I like how the artist painted on the bottom to give it a 3D feel. 

This one is really out there, it definitely is not my favorite. It looks like some mythical creature eating a mushroom. There is also a mosquito looking creature. 

I enjoyed this one a lot. It contains many of pearls and jewels alongside bottles of alcohol. It really comes together nicely. 

This one stood out the most. It is one of the first one that catches your eye when you walk in. In the center is as a large image of Tony Goldman. It also features famous people like Jimi Hendrix, and Martin Luther King.

To me this is the most impressive. This artist actually chiseled small pieces out of the wall to create this wondeful image of Andre the Giant. 

Maya Lin : Art X Architecture

Maya Lin really stood out to me when I learned she created the Vietnam memorial. I have visited the nations capital many times and seen all the monuments every time. And each time I go back the Vietnam is still the most jaw-dropping. This monument is so powerful and reflective yet so simple, it really gets to me. The marble wall lists every fallen soldier during the bloody vietnam war. The total causalities from that war totals to 58,207. When your walking down the wall you think the names are never going to stop. I wonder how long Lin must have taken engraving all those names. It truly is wonderful. 

This is the Vietnam memorial during a beautiful Washington D.C sunset. As you can see it is a long wall that utters such sadness however looks beautiful with the sun reflecting off it. 

Maya Lin is an incredibly gifted lady. She gets her inspiration of art from landscape. She studies the earth and looks upon it in many different ways. She is a huge environmentalist, and always tries to make the environment the subject of her work. In the Eleven Minute Line she creates a long serpent like line that curves through a field. She found inspiration from the mounds because of ancient Indian tribes burial mounds. I loved how she created this on a farm with cattle. The artist was also interested in line drawing and how something 2-dimensional is viewed 3-dimensional. I am a huge fan or earthworks it interest me how artist can take such natural beauties and make them more amazing.

Eleven Minute Line
Wanas Foundation, Wanas, Sweden, 2004

 This picture is great, I love the cow that is standing on top of the mound. 

 

Matthew Barney - The Cremaster Cycle

Matthew Barney is an American artist who does different work in film, photography, drawing and sculpture. In his early works he combines his performance and film with installations. Between 1994 and 2002 he created the famous Cremaster Cycle. This is a series of 5 feature length films that explore the processes of creation.
This project is filled with different themes and symbols. One being the process of sexual differentiation. For those of you who don't know the cremaster muscle is the muscle that holds your testes. Cremaster 1 represents the most undifferentiated state while Cremaster 5 represents the most differentiated state. The cycle returns to symbols early in the sexual development in which you are not sure the outcome. To me Barney is trying to represent a condition of pure potentiality, where it is up to you to decide the outcome.
These films are very hard to come by because they will never be for sale on DVD. The only way to see them is to find a theater where they will be showing it. Barney only released 20 sets containing all the films as fine art and they all sold for 100,000 dollars. 

Jessica Stockholder

Jessica Stockholder is a famous artist that works on sculptures and installations. She uses color to really bring out the piece she is working on. She loves using bright colors to stand out to the audience. These colors are also beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. Most of her pieces contain materials you can find around the house but she combines them with other things so you really don't know what they are or why they are there. In this installation Mixing Food with the Bed she uses materials such as stoves, refrigerators and bath tubs to create this weird and interesting piece.



  

Chris Burden

Chris Burden is an American born artist who stands out compared to other artists. He focuses in the fields of contemporary art. Most of his pieces I had trouble connecting to art like in the Shoot where he has one of his friends shot him in the arm. As he starts to develop his carrerr his installations become more normal but they are still incredibly unique. One of my favorites is the flying tractor where he makes a tractor float as if it were a feather. Burden really stands out to me because he is not afraid to be different and he does not care what people think of him.