William Wegman

Jasper Johns

Duchamp

Francis Alys

Jeff Koons

Theaster Gates

Bruce Nauman

Henry Moore

Jean Arp

Pipilotti Rist

Matthew Ritchie

Richard Serra

Sigalit Landau

Tim Noble and Sue Webster

Sally Mann

Sally Mann's photographs embrace the medium entirely. Artists are constantly working to force a material to work for them and be their idea of perfected. It is a shame that many artists are not able to embrace the nature of their medium. Sally Mann has chosen a medium that is known for its perfection, but since she uses such outdated technology that he peices are full of "imperfections." Sally Mann uses what is typically thought of as imperfection to make her artwork original and successful.

Patrick Dougherty

Patrick Dougherty creates sculptures that are almost overwhelming in scale. His work seems to provide a gateway for people to converse with nature. The beautiful and domineering stick sculptures are reminding the viewer that nature is some many things in one, powerful, delicate, beautiful, atrocious, etc. all in one but that it demands respect above all.

Maya Lin

Most well known for designing the Vietnam Memorial, Maya Lin is hard to define at first. Much of her work architectural and not artistic in the idea that it would be shown in a gallery. But I define her as an artist.

First of all she does create pieces actually for galleries, such as the second piece. What she clearly accomplished with the Vietnam Memorial is she made architecture art, much like Hundertwasser. She studied the area and designed a shape that embraces that area while drawing people into the monument. Perhaps that most important feature in the Vietnam Memorial is the material she chose. The stone that the surface is made of reflects the viewer's face;  seeing how you are physically effected and seeing yourself as part of the memorial itself  is one of the most moving aspects of the memorial.

Frederich Hundertwasser

Hundertwasser began his artistic career with painting abstract, colorful spiral gardens. He was known for is architecture. The premise behind his beautiful buildings that mimicked the nature of his paintings was that we lived a society (particularly its buildings) was too sterile. He wanted to make people happier, and he did that by creating beautifully absurd buildings and incorporating as much plant life into the urban setting as possible. 

Paul Pfeiffer

http://video.pbs.org/video/1237794459

Chapters seven through nine in this video are interviewing Paul Pfeiffer. As a video artist he has to protect his work from being exploited on the Internet, so this Art21 video shows the most footage of his works.

Morning After the Deluge

 Dutch Interior

 

Anne Lindberg "Raume Yellow"

Linberg says "I believe in the potential of action and one material having many voices." Her installations, particular this one, are incredibly memorizing and very minimalist. For this piece she has just used thread to create space that has the same characteristics as drawings. When her work is three-dimensional it still has the same qualities as some of her two-dimensional drawings. She draws a space instead of sculpting one.

Dan Steinhilber

Dan Steinhilber's favorite material is plastic. Many of his installations deal with plastic bags and air. Part of what Steinhilber wants to do is give the viewer the experience of watching air move. For example in the installation Breathing Room (below), he uses fans to either suck the plastic away from the viewer of blow it towards him.

Brad Downey

Downey, like specter, creates street art with renewed originality. Sticking with the illegal theme, Downey is most known for removing and repositioning bricks into sculptures. He calls the work "Spontaneous Sculptures." His work does have the same sort of spontaneity that  seemed present in the early graffiti street art.

Gabriel "Specter" Reese

Specter is a part of a new movement in street art. Graffiti in the traditional sense is losing its pizazz. Specter is taking the concept of graffiti into three dimensions. He creates sculptures from found material and displays them in public areas throughout New York and Toronto. 

Jon Pylypchuk, "Press a Weight Through Life, and I Will Watch This Crush You"

Pylypchuk creates little creatures that border on puppet- or stuffed-animal-like. His hand can be easily seen in his work, not in a way that suggests poor craftsmanship but in a way that denotes a raw, intuitive connectedness with his materials. This aspect of his work is what draws me. Contrary to  Kiki Smith's work, Pylypchuk creates environments for his installations, so to give the viewer the sensation that he is looking into a world where the same societal principles apply but is still unique from ours