Molly's Artist Diary: March 2011

Thursday, March 10, 2011

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 Sally Mann has chosen a medium that is known for its perfection, but since she uses such outdated technology that he peices are full of "imperfections."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.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

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