Andy Warhol…Why Is He An Important Artist?
Marilyn Monroe, 1962
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol painted icons. He painted Marilyn Monroe only after she took her own life. These images deliver a big punch. Mortality stares us in the face…Marilyn’s mortality and our own.
Jackie, 1964
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol painted history in the making. He uses boxes of silk-screened photographs to record Jackie Kennedy’s courageous encounter with death.
Love him or hate him, Andy Warhol was just the latest in the long line of artists documenting our times.
Portrait of George Washington, 1797
Gilbert Stuart
Jimmy Carter, 1976 and Richard Nixon, 1972
Andy Warhol
Warhol presents these presidential images in wild colors. They are silk-screened, an ancient method of print-making using stencils and ink on silk. Many of his works are huge in size.
Derrick Cartwright, Ph.D., states, “What I think is most essential about Warhol was his canniness in identifying images from the media, repeating them and recirculating them as art before many others recognized them as history.”
The colors, the odd blurring of lines, the uncompromising images startle us.
We, the viewers, first see Andy Warhol’s art. Then we experience history, our own history.
Watch Andy Warhol in Action! Click here if unable to view the video.
Dark Moments…Great Painters
Ever wondered why we are fascinated and confused by beautiful paintings that have ominous images?
Brain researchers in the field of Neuroscience have increasingly turned their eyes on art in an effort to understand how we see these works of art.
There is a deep portion of the brain, the amygdala, which triggers BOTH negative & positive emotions. So when we see a frightening image surrounded by beautiful bright complimentary color, the brain is perturbed. We hate it but we love it! What’s a brain to do?!
Paul Gauguin and Egon Schiele perhaps unconsciously combined the beautiful with the sinister.
“Spirit of the Dead Watching”, 1892
Gauguin (1848-1903)
Gauguin was a brilliant artist who is called The Father of Modern Art. He was also a pretty nefarious character deserting his wife and children so he could live in “ecstasy, calmness and art” on the island of Tahiti.
In the above painting, notice the sinister figure in the background. Kinda scary, huh? But, oh, what gorgeous color!
_______________
“Wally with a Red Blouse”, 1913
Egon Schiele (1890-1918)
A melancholy eccentric, Egon Schiele (Austrian), often drew his models from the top of a ladder looking down capturing unusual, arresting compositions.
Look at the contorted, twisted figure in Egon Schiele’s drawing. The expression on the face is…confused? Angry? Sad? Yet the figure has a certain innocence and the combinations of color are thrilling!
These images of dark and light, negative and positive are indeed disturbing. But we are drawn to them. Could the artists be showing us life in all its mystery?
Art In 36 Seconds! “EAT AT ART” Award winning art video!
Click here if you are unable to view the video.
Produced by Kirby Kendrick and Tyler Jordan, www.theartoftylerjordan.com
Most Famous Art Show In The World
If you happen to be in Venice between June and November this year, you will find yourself in the midst of the most important art show in the world, the Venice Biennale. The Olympics of art.
Art from 88 countries fills the museums, the palazzos, the canal-fronted warehouses, and the small intimate gardens. It’s everywhere!
But, alas, perhaps you and I will not be in Venice this year. Don’t despair…we CAN experience it!
They Come To Us Without A Word
Joan Jonas
United States Pavilion
Lines are forming to see 79-year-old acclaimed artist Joan Jonas’ exhibit in the United States Pavilion. Jonas uses flashing videos of children playing, environmental elements, mirrors (made in Murano, Italy, famous for its glass-making) and storytelling. The multi-media exhibit, an homage to nature, art and music, is a blockbuster!
The Key in the Hand
Chiharu Shiota
Japan Pavilion
A huge, sensorial experience. Hundreds of keys attached to bright red yarn hang from the ceiling and transform the Japan Pavilion into an impenetrable jungle. The artist, Chiharu Shiota, feels keys not only lock and unlock physical spaces but memories as well.
Arrivederci Venice! Ciao!
Watch this short video, “Behind the Biennale: The World’s Most Famous Art Show”
Click here if you are unable to view the video.
Troubled Times – Brilliant Art
Jacob Lawrence
1917-2000
“The migration was spurred on by the treatment of the tenant farmers by the planter.”
Jacob Lawrence
One hundred years ago there were two big issues in America…migration and racial inequality.
One hundred years ago, despite the Civil War’s abolishment of slavery, but before the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans were still repressed socially, economically, and legally.
“For African Americans there was injustice in the southern courts.”
Jacob Lawrence
A mass migration of African Americans fled the rural South, heading north, mostly to three cities: New York, Chicago and St. Louis.
“They were very poor.”
Jacob Lawrence
Jacob Lawrence, African American artist, painted their stories. With his 60 small intimate, paintings, done on wood board and with inexpensive tempera paint, Lawrence’s series was instantly recognized as a tour de force, a new American epic.
Lawrence and his wife, Gwendolyn Knight, wrote captions for each painting which are reproduced under each image.
“In the North the African American had more educational opportunities.”
Jacob Lawrence
By 1970, the migration of African Americans had ended, and 6 million souls had left the South, hugely enhancing American culture. American music, food, expressions, and politics would never be the same.
2015: One hundred years later there are two big issues in America…immigration and racial inequality.
More Jacob Lawrence. Click here if you are unable to view the video.
Must see video – Marian Anderson, celebrated African American singer, performs before a crowd of 75,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday, 1939. Click here if you are unable to view the video.
Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series
Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, New York City
www.MoMA.org
April 3 to September 7, 2015