2nd to last week
This week we are reading about China Adams, Alix Lambert, (the Intro to Measuring Succes) and Betsy Damon.
1.In our book their are about 15 female artists in comparison to the 25 male artists that it focuses one. I’m not sure if the book is a good example of how many women artists there are or their prominence in the art world, although it does seem to focus more on male artists and how prestigious their work has been. Possibly female artists simply do not get the recognition they deserve, or maybe there just aren’t that many well accomplished female aritsts to write about in a contemporary art text book. Some women’s work shown in the text is slightly disturbing, such as Jan Harrison’s gibberish spoken through a sculpted cat’s head, while other’s makes more sense to me like Pipilotti Rist and Nan Goldin. When I typed in “female/women contemporary artists” into google, there were a couple of websites that came up with that in the title:
Four Contemporary Women Artists - By the Speed Art Museum (Lousiville, Kentucky)
http://www.speedmuseum.org/contemporary.html
Women Contemporary Artists
http://womencontemporaryartists.com/
**This website contained a long member list of contempoary women artists
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/women-artists-20thb.html
- contained a list of over 300 contemporary female artists
I don’t think that contemporary female artists are uncommon, I just believe that the author of the book selected a few well-known and interesting artists to peak our interests as readers.
2. When looking and reading about both Lambert and Adams’ works you can tell they have a direct mission, so I can understand the separation that the book is making. THeir work seems to be more emotionally connected to them and seems to have a direct linkage to what they are trying to portray to their audiences. When I look at Damon’s work it is a little disconnected for me. It doesn’t make me feel whatever the artist is feeling, but it’s just sort of… there, looking pretty, but it doesn’t really elicit any sort of feelings. Like discussed in class, Damon’s work seems more instutionalized. She creates works based on what other people want her to create. she has guidelines, budgets, and requests, while Lambert and Adam’s focus on what they wish to create. Lambert’s work has people in it, and interactions of love, compassion, jealousy, trust, and commitment. Her work allows for the audience to identify with it. Adam’s work makes the audience feel slightly confused, or possibly even apalled, but it does make the audience feel. Her work explores humanity and is transpersonal art. Damon’s work doesn’t actively involve her audience, it might make them feel calm, but it doesn’t make them think at all.
