Jenny Holzer

Vintage photo of graffiti artist Lady Pink
wearing a shirt made for her by Holzer, featuring
a line from Truisms

Jenny Holzer's Inflammatory Essays

For this unit in art we are specifically focusing on street, and it worked out that the artist I wanted to highlight in my blog post did a
lot of street art. Her name is Jenny Holzer and she started publicly
posting her art around 1977 and is still currently doing so. The main
themes of her work is violence, oppression, power, war, feminism, and
death. Holzer's main goal is to shed light on ideas that have been
kept silenced.




Her first project was called Truisms and it is probably her most
famous to date. She would go around NYC hang up these posters, carve
them into benches, and she printed them on shirts as well. Truisms were basically a list of one line phrases she had come up with based
on the writings of authors she was reading as a student.


Her next project, which is my favorite, is called Inflammatory Essays
(1978). She wrote these after reading writings of fascist and
communist leaders, and would write some of them in their voice, like
making satire in a way. Each poster had exactly 100 words and 20
lines. She would distribute post these in neighborhoods of NYC, she
said, "putting the scarier ones in the richer parts of town". Holzer
made printed them on different colors, basically signalizing that it
would be a series of posters.




She would later start to get asked to post her work on buildings.
Holzer also does a lot with lighting, including projecting her work
onto buildings. Her last project was in 2011. I picked her because I
found her art a few months ago and I really fell in love with reading
her inflammatory essays, and then got into a lot of the other public
work she had done.





Questions:
1. What do you think could the negative effects of being so blatantly
political in art?
2. Do you think artists should make the public see the world their
way or the publics?
3. What do you think has a bigger impact in art: a broad message or a
specific message.
-Amanda

Dance . !

The Art of Dance

  Art is defined as many things, but it’s truly just expressing yourself. A form of art that too many people fail to notice is dance. Dance may not be considered art in the eye of some, but in my opinion, it’s one of the most commonly used forms. It shows your expression/emotion through your body. Dance may be the only form of art where you use all of yourself in the making. It’s beautiful to see an artist embody themselves in their work, and dancing allows you to do just that. Dance has been around since the beginning of time. The Aztecs, Egyptians, and other early civilizations used it on a daily basis. They danced and prayed to worship their Gods.Anyway it goes, dance has really become an important form of art that can create and effect peoples’ emotions. FMA (Flash Mob America) is the perfect example of this. A Flash Mob America flash mob is a spontaneous public performance, usually a dance, that appears seemingly out of nowhere with just one person, grows to hundreds of people, and quickly disappears. Flash Mob America strives to give people a purpose which is to create joy through surprise. Flash Mobs are also bringing the community together and helping people in need. They gave a deserving family $10,000 to help change their life; over 1,000 people came out and danced in their honor. Also they beat the world record with First lady Michelle Obama to how many people could jump rope at once.

QUESTIONS :
1) Do you consider Dance as a form of art?
2) Can it evoke emotions and experss thoughts?
3) What is the difference between dance and other forms of art?
 

CTA Public Art ^-^

This colorful public art can be seen on the Pink line on 18^th street and it was completed in 1998. It was done by the artist Francisco Mendoza who was also my elementary art teacher. But he did not do this on his own; he got the help of many of his student who were enlisted in Gallery 18, which is a satellite program of Gallery 37.  His purpose for doing this kind of art was to show the Mexican heritage and some of the cultural icons in Mexican history. This was different than other public art we’ve seen in class since the others have a humorous meaning behind it or they are head turning due to the abstract characteristic they have. This on the other hand is more like a symbol of the community which anyone can see just by going out and riding the train. ^-^

1)      What kind of public art do u like better? (Humorous, the kind that questions people’s morals, etc.? Why?

2)      Do you think this kind of public art is fair or unfair due to the fact that not only do Mexicans live in this area, but other nationalities as well?

3)      Is there any other CTA public art that you’ve seen that you particularly liked? Do you know the meaning behind it?

 

image source:

http://chicago-outdoor-sculptures.blogspot.com/2011/11/cta-arts-in-transit-pilsen-station.html

---Brenda