Tutorial: Work to Date
Wednesday 21st March 2017
In discussion with Helen I can now see that the sculptures I have created so far either have an architectural essence with strong lines or a more textured essence, with softer lines and more like nature.
Advice from Helen is to consider using colour with the sculptures to make it not clear what the materials used are. The plan is to revisit this just before the Easter Holidays to see which maquette can be used further and incorporated into the final sculpture piece. Also, so far all the pieces made have been floor based and to consider wall based or hanging or in the round.
The following artists have been recommended by Helen.
Eva Hesse
Hesse’s early work (1960–65) consisted of abstract drawings and paintings.[25] She is most well known for her sculptures and because of this, her drawings are often regarded as preliminary steps to her later work.[26] However, Hesse created her drawings as a separate body of work. She states, “They were related because they were mine but they weren’t related in one completing the other.”[27]
Hesse’s interest in latex as a medium for sculptural forms had to do with immediacy. Keats states, “immediacy may be one of the prime reasons Hesse was attracted to latex”.[28] Hesse’s first two works using latex, Schema and Sequel (1967–68) use latex in a way never imagined by the manufacturer. “Industrial latex was meant for casting. Hesse handled it like house paint, brushing layer upon layer to build up a surface that was smooth yet irregular, ragged at the edges like deckled paper.” [28]
Hesse’s work often employs multiple forms of similar shape organized together in grid structures or clusters. Retaining some of the defining forms of minimalism, modularity, and unconventional materials, she created eccentric work that was repetitive and labor-intensive. In a statement of her work, Eva describes her piece titled Hang-Up, “It was the first time my idea of absurdity or extreme feeling came through…The whole thing is absolutely rigid, neat cord around the entire thing . . . It is extreme and that is why I like it and don’t like it . . . It is the most ridiculous structure that I ever made and that is why it is really good”.[29]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Hesse
Zaha Hadid
Described by the The Guardian of London as the ‘Queen of the curve’,[3] who “liberated architectural geometry, giving it a whole new expressive identity.”[4] Her major works include the aquatic centre for the London 2012 Olympics, Michigan State University’s Broad Art Museum in the US, and the Guangzhou Opera House in China.[5] Some of her designs have been presented posthumously, including the statuette for the 2017 Brit Awards, and many of her buildings are still under construction, including the Al Wakrah Stadium in Doha, a venue for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.[6][7]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaha_Hadid
Anish Kapoor
He represented Britain in the XLIV Venice Biennale in 1990, when he was awarded the Premio Duemila Prize. In 1991, he received the Turner Prize and in 2002 received the Unilever Commission for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern. Notable public sculptures include Cloud Gate (colloquially known as “the Bean”) in Chicago’s Millennium Park; Sky Mirror, exhibited at the Rockefeller Center in New York City in 2006 and Kensington Gardens in London in 2010;[4]Temenos, at Middlehaven, Middlesbrough; Leviathan,[5] at the Grand Palais in Paris in 2011; and ArcelorMittal Orbit, commissioned as a permanent artwork for London’s Olympic Park and completed in 2012.[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anish_Kapoor
Proposed for 2017 is a Holocaust Memorial in the UK with Zaha Hadid.
Also in 2017 Anish Kappor is encouraging other artists to join his I like America and America doesn’t like me campaign which protests against Donald Trump.
I call on fellow artists and citizens to disseminate their name and image using Joseph Beuys’s seminal work of art as a focus for social change. Our silence makes us complicit with the politics of exclusion. We will not be silent.
http://anishkapoor.com/4303/i-like-america-and-america-doesnt-like-me
Anish Kapoor has joined others in the politically invigorated creative industries with his latest work “I Like America and America Doesn’t Like Me”. The piece reworks “I Like America and America Likes Me” by Joseph Beuys, subverting the original work to comment on the Donald Trump administration.
Bueys’ original performance piece saw the German artist transported via ambulance to the Rene Block Gallery, where he shared a small room with a coyote, an animal thought to represent America, to comment on the United States’ political strife and troubling social landscape. After three days, he was transported back to JFK airport, meaning he never technically set foot on American soil. Kapoor has recreated the poster for Beuys’ art, now featuring an image of himself with the title “I Like America and America Doesn’t Like Me”, using font that recalls Nazi propaganda.
Michelle Wright, Fine Artist 