Week Six

Lens-Based Artists:

1.) Peter Yumi
     http://peteryumi.com/

Peter Yumi is a Colorado based collage artist. He uses photographs on women as well as food to create collages. I found his work interesting because I like how he takes 2-D objects (photographs) and combines it with 3D objects (sculpture). His work also says a lot about the objectification of women by comparing it to something that we consume.

2.) Jill Greenberg
     http://www.jillgreenberg.com/

Jill Greenberg is an American artist. I am focusing on her body of work entitled “Glass Ceiling” because it closely relates to the work I am interested in. In this body of work, Greenberg completely decapitates her subjects, and removes their identities. The subjects (women) fit in with society’s definition of “beauty”. I really like this work because it shows the flaws of feminism and takes a stand against society’s idea of beauty.

3.) debbrown54
     http://www.flickr.com/photos/36505717@N05/4436807264/

The other day, I found this collage on Flickr. This collage is entitled “Flora, Roman goddess of spring arrives”. This work relates to what I want to do, because I want to take the Roman goddesses and incorporate them into my collage sculptures. This collage was really well done; the artist successfully incorporated symbolism into their collage (something that I am striving for).

Non-Lens-Based Artists:

This week I decided to look at paintings. The three paintings below I looked at because I wanted to start thinking about which paintings I am going to reference with my sculptures. I would like to keep them strictly Roman goddesses for consistency.

1.) Justita: Roman goddess of Justice
     http://www.howarddavidjohnson.com/mythic-women.htm

Justita is the Roman goddess of justice. I am interested in this painting because of what she is holding. I would like to somehow incorporate props with my collages when I begin the sculpture process.

2.) Selene/Luna: Roman goddess of the moon
     http://www.pwgart.com/2009/07/artist-peter-nixons-goddesses-of-moon.html

Selene/Luna is the Roman goddess of the moon. I particularly like this painting because of the way Selene is positioned. With these paintings, I am not only looking for props and backgrounds, but I am also looking for how the positioning of the goddesses resemble exotic dancers.

3.) Juno: Roman goddess of light/queen of the gods and goddesses
     http://www.greek-gods.info/greek-gods/hera/hera-paintings.php

Juno is the Roman goddess of light. She is also the queen of the gods and goddesses. I like this painting because she has an interesting interaction between the other characters in the painting. Interactions between the sculptures is something I also plan to explore for this project.

Week Five

Lens-Based Artists:

 1.) Rebecca Sittler

     http://www.rebeccasittler.com/

Rebecca Sittler is a contemporary photographer who received her MFA from Massachusetts College of Art in 2003. I would like to focus on her body of work entitled “non-franchise” because it deals with what I am interested in. For this body of work, Sittler visited every single independently owned donut shop in Long Beach, CA (each shop had to have the word “donut” in it). Sittler then purchased two donuts (one glazed and one specialty) and photographed them in order to curate an archive of their differences. When I first viewed this body of work, I did not know that this was the intention of the work because the artist statement was not given until the end. In fact, when I saw this work, I immediately went down the road of consumption. Sittler photographed each donut as well as the receipt the donut came with. Because each donut changed as well as the receipt, you can tell that the donuts are from different places. My perception of the work deals with food consumption because it is something I can relate to. I am a very busy person who is always on the go, and I can relate to grabbing something cheap and convenient to temporarily sustain my appetite.

2.) Kelly Ichinose

      http://www.neiu.edu/~kaichino/about.html

Kelly Ichinose is a photographer who enjoys photographing the relationship between people and food. My favorite topic that Ichinose explores is the duality of how food is advertised by American media and how it is actually eaten in real life. The media portrays food to be pleasurable, but how do you look when you actually eat it?

3.) Leigh Beisch 

      http://www.therecipeclub.net/2011/09/08/photographing-odd-bits-an-interview-with-food-photographer-leigh-beisch/

Leigh Beisch was the photographer for Jennifer McLagan's cookbook “Odd Bits: How to Cook the Rest of the Animal”. I think that this work is interesting because the photographs actually look like normal food that you would find in a cookbook. After you read the titles of the work, you are grossed out because of what the food actually is. However, it does work for the point of the cookbook though.

 

Non-Lens-Based Artists:

1.) “Hamburger Bed

      http://www.hamburgerbed.com/ 

I came across this from a post on Facebook. This “hamburger bed” is exactly what it sounds like: a bed that looks like a hamburger. I think the idea of making a bed that resembles a hamburger is absolutely ridiculous. Do we really love food so much that we have to sleep with it? Nowadays, the consumption of food has almost started to become kitsch, especially when you start to wear it (Joy Kampia's dresses) or sleep on it. The artists that make this work (food clothes, food beds, etc) probably just want to make something cute that they know would sell. However, I see this work as being ridiculous. I cannot believe that we as a society have gone as far as to wear and sleep on/with our food.

2.) Xavier Cha 

      http://xaviercha.com/ 

Xavier Cha is an Asian-American contemporary performance artist. In her “Human Advertisement” series, Cha explores how the body can be presented as a form of advertising. In this work, Cha dresses up like a shrimp, fingernail, and fortune teller and dances around. Cha then video taped her performance and the reactions of people driving by. This absurd body of work relates to my concept because it deals with body image as entertainment. I am interested in body image as well as food consumption, and I am interested in the advertising behind it. Why do we objectify females as a form of entertainment? Why is this so successful when it comes to selling a product?

3.) Andy Warhol 

     http://www.warholfoundation.org/ 

Andy Warhol remains to be one of the most influential pop artists and cultural icons. I want to focus on his work “100 cans” because it deals immensely with food consumption. Warhol painted several cans of Campbell's soup on canvas using oil. When asked why he painted soup cans, he said “Because I used to drink it. I used to have the same lunch every day, for 20 years, I guess, the same thing over and over again. Someone said my life has dominated me; I liked that idea” (http://www.albrightknox.org/collection/collection-highlights/piece:100-cans/). When you look at the work from farther away, the cans appear to be identical and put into place in perfect rows. However, if you take a closer look at the work, you can see that the cans are all different, they are also not placed into perfect rows. On top of that, the bottom row of cans are cut off. This suggests that the work can continue off of the canvas. All in all, this work speaks about the consumption and mass production of food. 

Week Four

Lens-Based Artists:

1.)  Alicia Nicas Miquel

http://maccsart.ning.com/photo/food-face-collage-2

I am categorizing “Food Face Collage” as lens-based because the collage itself is made up of several images. I could not find information about Miquel or a description about her work. This week, I wanted to look at collages with backgrounds to see if I can get any ideas. I think that the background for this collage is successful because it fits well with the subject matter filling the woman. The woman in the collage is made up of “healthy” food and flowers. Miquel here is comparing healthy food with the idea of beauty and purity. I like that she added mountains to her background because it gives you a sense of serenity, something that fits with the overall message of the work.

2.) “Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality”

      http://www.thewvsr.com/adsvsreality.htm

     

I am categorizing this article as “lens-based” this week, because I want to talk more about the photographs than the actual article. If you click on the link to the article (I will post pictures below), you will see a drastic difference between the photographs on the left and the photographs on the right. The photographs on the left were taken for a specific advertisement. The photographs on the right are what you would actually get in real life. As you can see, the real life food looks nothing like the food you would see on an advertisement. This makes you stop and think about the food you are actually consuming: why still eat it if you know that you are flat out being lied to?

 

3.) Emi Illig

That’s me! I continued to add on to my self-referential-differential project. I         think turning it into a video blog is a cool idea (thanks Thomas!). Below is this week’s video. Disregard the meowing cat in the background (she was just mad that I kicked her out to work on this project). I also have the collages below that I talked about in the video. The first one is the silhouette I completely filled with hamburgers. I have decided to go more in the direction of the second one. I really like how you get the idea that these women are still people. It also questions this: what happens when we start to become what we consume?

Non-Lens-Based Artists:

1.)  Sandro Botticelli: “The Birth of Venus”

http://www.italian-renaissance-art.com/Birth-of-Venus.html

“The Birth of Venus” is one of Botticelli’s most famous works as well as one of the most recognizable images in art history. Venus, looking like a classical statue, rises from the sea and floats on a seashell. I would most like to reference this painting through my hamburger collage. I would like to take a Big Mac container and paint it the color of the seashell (and even add a few details to make it look like a real seashell). I then would like to print out my hamburger collage really small, and construct it so that when you open the Big Mac container, my collage will pop out. I am really excited to get going with this idea!

2.) Paul Morris

      http://paulfmorris.com/Food_Pile.html

Paul Morris is a contemporary artist that mainly works with ceramics. His work entitled “Food Tetrahedron” relates to my topic because it deals with food consumption. This work is literally a representation of a pile of food made out of pylon; Morris however is clever about the description of the work (he calls it pylon/pile-on). His clever play on words go hand in hand with the idea of consumption: we are literally just piling this food into our bodies. If you take a closer look at the work, you will see that the placing of the food in the pile is not random, it is meant to represent the food pyramid.

2.)  Ben Heine

http://www.benheine.com/

Ben Heine is a Belgian multidisciplinary artist who started off as a painter and cartoonist. He is now widely known for his “Digital Circlism” and “Pencil vs. Camera” projects (Photoshop and photography). In one of his illustration projects “McDonaldization”, Heine criticizes the fast food industry (McDonald’s in particular). Specifically, he criticizes the globalization of McDonald’s and how it is affecting people’s lives.

Week Three

Lens-Based Artists:

1.)  Peter Menzel

http://www.menzelphoto.com/

Peter Menzel is a freelance photojournalist. My favorite work by Peter Menzel is his series in which he photographs families all over the world behind a table filled with their week’s worth of food. I really like this work because it is a good visual that shows how much food we consume in a week; it is a real eye opener.

2.)  Matthew Carden

http://www.matthewcarden.com/

Matthew Carden is a contemporary photographer that combines toys with food. When I look at his work, I see a critique in food consumption. Compared to the toys, the food is larger than life. The size of the food criticizes the amount of food we actually consume. It also tells how we as a society place food on a high pedestal. Food is so important in our everyday life, and it is shown through Carden’s work. 

3.)  Cherry Archer

http://cherryarcher.com/

Cherry Archer is a contemporary photographer. Archer’s project titled “Consumption Society” mostly relates to my own work. “Consumption Society is a series of photographs that shows how and what we consume (as far as food is concerned), and why we glamorize it; the work was influenced by the level of consumption in Western Society.  

Non-Lens-Based Artists:

1.)  Martha Rosler

http://www.martharosler.net/

Martha Rosler is an installation and performance artist. She also works with video. In her series “Bringing the War Home”, Rosler combines war with pop culture using collage. This series shows how we as a society are no longer shocked or fear the images that she is depicting. Instead, we are desensitized to the horrors of war because of how often the media exposes us to it. Martha Rosler’s work is relevant to my work because I have recently started to work with collage. I am also interested in exploring consumption and the attraction to things that are “unflattering”.

2.)  Jennifer Rubell

http://jenniferrubell.com/index.php?sec=bio

Jennifer Rubell is New York based installation and performing artist. She uses a lot of food and drink in her installations. She also encourages the audience to participate in her installations, something that violates the traditional boundaries of art institutions. In her series of work “Nutcrackers”, Rubell took female mannequins and mounted them on their sides. Visitors of the exhibition were then invited to take a pecan and place it on the mannequin’s bottom thigh, and crack it open by pulling down the upper thigh. I really like this work because it embodies two stereotypes: the idealized sexual beauty of a woman, and the powerful nut-busting woman. This is relevant to my work because I like to explore the stereotype of idealized beauty in our society.

3.) Joy Kampia

      http://www.joykampia.com/

Joy Kampia is a contemporary artist that has a degree in Studio Art with an emphasis in textile. Her favorite medium to work with is crochet. My favorite work by Joy Kampia is her wearable art collection (her wearable art collection includes crocheted dresses). I really like this work because it says a lot about the consumption of food: are we really that obsessed with food that we have to wear it? What happens when we do wear it? What happens when we start to become the food we consume?