Idea-Alone

I came across this quote by Hunter S. Thompson this week, and when I read it the issues I deal with in my artwork immediately came to mind:


""We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and -- in spite of True Romance magazines -- we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely -- at least, not all the time -- but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness."  - Hunter S. Thompson 


At first, the statement seems negative or cynical, but once I made it to the last sentence I realized that it should feel inspirational. I often talk about the struggle to fight against that urge to find happiness within others instead of ourselves. I emphasize the importance of  personal space and separation from people who comfort us in order to find strength on our own (even though it might feel like the less desirable thing to do). Being alone is often seen as negative because the natural human condition urges us to find mates and  reproduce, therefore, time spent alone somehow instinctually puts us farther away from this goal.

Artist-Annette Messager

I am so excited about Annette Messager's work. Her themes, which speak about women's roles, feminine relationships, and yearning, are very interesting to me as an artist and in relationship to my own work. She seems to say the things that I sometimes want to say but am unsure of how to express. Her art is provocative and brave. I am also very interested in the way Messager presents photographs. I am experimenting with fragmenting my own images so seeing her sculptural instillations are inspiring. I enjoy he way the artist organizes photos in groups of frames and sometimes with other objects that give the work context. 

Bio:

Annette Messager studied at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. She won first prize in the Kodak Photography International competition in 1964. In 1995 the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and New York's Museum of Modern Art co-organized her first major American retrospective. She has had solo exhibitions at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Buenos Aires (1999) and the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2004). She also exhibited in the Biennale de Paris (1977), Documenta VI (1977) and XI (2002), the Biennale of Sydney (1979, 1984, and 1990), the Venice Biennale (1980, 2003, and 2005), and the Biennale d'Art Contemporain de Lyon in 2000. She won the Golden Lion Award at the 2005 Venice Biennale.

(Marian Goodman Gallery)

Quotes:

"At first, I felt proud when someone said 'Your work looks like a man did it.' Then I realized that was stupid"

"The path Messager chose instead was to embrace her gender, to become an artist who interpreted life - sex, love, beauty, pain, yearning, power - through the eyes of a woman. In this narrative, the petite, bright-eyed artist could be the fictional storyteller, and she would play all the roles"

-NY Times 

 

"Her work often involves fragments, such as My Vows, which includes an large number of small close-up pictures of parts of the body. This tendency to fragment and catalog is everywhere in her work." 

-http://www.oneroom.org/sculptors/messager.html

Annette Messager, instillation views from "Mes Voeux (My Wish)"

Annette Messager, instillation views from "Them and Us, Us and Them" 2000

Annette Messager, instillation views from "Mes Voeux (My Wish)"

Gallery

http://www.mariangoodman.com/artists/annette-messager/

Review

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/25/arts/25iht-messager.1.6316141.html

Artist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annette_Messager

Artist-Sam Taylor Wood

I was interested in Sam Taylor Woods work when Denise Markonish came to VCU to give a lecture about the shows she has curated. Woods work looked different than most of the work I'm initially drawn to as it has more energy and is more provocative. 

bio:

Sam Taylor-Wood makes photographs and films that examine, through highly charged scenarios, our shared social and psychological conditions.  (white Cube)

Still Life is one of the most classical works of contemporary art I know. It inscribes itself in art history with hardly any commentary. This is not just a Still Life. It is a vanitas, a particular type of still life developed in the 16th and 17th centuries in the Flanders and Netherlands. Its specificity was the showing of the vanity of the worldly things through often subtle signs of elapsing time and decay. Some of the vanitas had obvious references like skulls, but others yet had simply a watch, or a slightly rotting fruit. Sam Taylor-Wood's work is another step in that direction: the image, beautiful as ever in Taylor-Wood's universe, decomposes itself. By the end, nothing is left but a grey amorphous mass.

On closer inspection, one thing distinguishes this picture from its predecessors. The ball-point pen. A cheap, contemporary object. One that doesn't seem to decay. That is not part of the universal, self-disappearing life. Is it here to stay? This nothingness, this ridiculous signature of us?

This is a poor vanitas. We are more accustomed to rich interiors with gold and crystal. But we don't need more: we got the point. And nothing more is necessary. A simple basket, some light. Time. And a cheap pen. Oh, and lest I forget: an extremely good camera, top of the line, to catch this delicate, beautiful insurgence of death. (http://new-art.blogspot.com/2007/02/sam-taylor-woods-vanitas.html) 

Quotes:

"Taylor-Wood’s work examines the split between being and appearance, often placing her human subjects – either singly or in groups – in situations where the line between interior and external sense of self is in conflict." white cube

stills from the film Vanitas 

escape artist 1 and 2 

Self Portrait Suspended II, 2004, Edition of 7, C-print

53 3/16 x 63 13/16 in. (135.6 x 162.8 cm) (incl. frame)

Poor Cow, 2001, Edition of 6, C-type print

41 3/4 x 51 9/16 in. (106 x 131 cm) (inc. frame)

artist 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Taylor-Wood

gallery

http://www.whitecube.com/artists/taylorwood/selfportraitsuspended/

review

http://new-art.blogspot.com/2007/02/sam-taylor-woods-vanitas.html

Idea-Dependence

I have been researching a psychological condition called Dependent Personality Disorder (DPD). Most of my work leads me back to psychology because I am always searching for the reasons behind thoughts and actions. I didn't know this condition existed until I read an article recently where it was mentioned and I was surprised that I had been representing similar feelings in my photography. This disorder is rather on the extreme side of some of the problems I represent, but it is always better to push things a little to the extreme side right? 


"Dependent personality disorder is described as a pervasive and excessive need to be taken care of that leads to a submissive and clinging behavior as well as fears of separation. This pattern begins by early adulthood and is present in a variety of contexts. The dependent and submissive behaviors are designed to elicit caregiving and arise from a self-perception of being unable to function adequately without the help of others."


"Individuals with dependent personality disorder have great difficulty making everyday decisions (such as what shirt to wear or whether to carry an umbrella) without an excessive amount of advice and reassurance from others. These individuals tend to be passive and allow other people (often a single other person) to take the initiative and assume responsibility for most major areas of their lives."


"Individuals with this disorder feel uncomfortable or helpless when alone, because of their exaggerated fears of being unable to care for themselves. When a close relationship ends (such as a breakup with a lover or the death of a caregiver), individuals with Dependent Personality disorder may urgently seek another relationship to provide the care and support they need. They are often preoccupied with fears of being left to care for themselves." 


Bibliography:
"Dependent Personality Disorder." Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, LLC, 21 July 2008. Web. 2 Feb. 2011.


This article gives a definition of "Dependent Personality Disorder." It gives information for diagnosis of this condition, the treatment, causes and symptoms. It explains how personality disorders are classified and gives an explanation of things someone affected by the disorder would experience. 

Elina Brotherus, Femme A Sa Toillete. Chromogenic Color Print mounted on Aluminum, 80x66 cm. 2001