Contemporary art is the most pretentious as well as a mysterious art form which cannot be apprehended easily. It has always been criticized by ninnies and nitwits, curators and art historians. The only reason is their failure to perceive the intended meaning of the particular artistic creation. Matthew Israel wrote a book titled “The Big Picture: Contemporary art in 10 Works by 10 Artists. He has beautifully mentioned how the 10 artistic works contributed to the development of Contemporary art in the art history.
The artworks include painting and photography, video and film, public art and performance etc. They are not world known masterworks but surely they have some donation in this art world. Below are the artworks recognized by Matthew Israel.
Andreas Gursky
Andreas Gursky was the German photographer. His masterwork Rhine II in 1999 has been the astonishing artwork which impressed the Matthew Israel. He captured the view in Germany somewhere and smartly struck off all the natural sceneries nearby. He captured the calibre of man who succeeds in manipulating and transforming the world as per his wish. This masterpiece is approx 12 feet long and 7 feet high. His digital compositions made the world think that photography can also be as same as an art form.
Painting by Andreas Gursky
Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson is a Danish-Icelandic artist. In 2003, he created an artwork and titled it as “The Weather Project.” This was an absolute contemporary artwork which was created within the room. At that time this was known as the contemporary artwork ever produced. It was efficiently created using the space technique. At that time, museums used to exhibit monumental-scale artworks and thus this masterpiece was criticized widely. This was compared with public parks and amusement monuments but this piece got recognized soon. It has lamps and lighting which beautified it a lot along with other artworks in the masterpiece.
Painting by Olafur Eliasson
Rachel Harrison
Rachel Harrison got a place in Matthew Israel’s book because of the artwork named “Huffy Howler”. She is an American visual artist who is popular for her sculptural work. She used items like handbags, gravel etc as her prop. The speciality in this artwork is that these items were regarded as very cheap. To merge such items and to create something new and beyond expectation made the artist recognized across the whole world. Her artworks were the result of inspiration gathered from Robert Rauschenberg’s painting and sculptures.
Painting by Rachel Harrison
Kehinde Wiley and Vik Muniz
Kehinde Wiley’s paintings have always been interrogated as far as western art history is considered. This artist is known to speak up against racial discrimination. He rejected the roles in which white, black and brown men were classified on the basis of colour. His work Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps was amazing. He is known as the pioneer of African- American art. He has been the inspiration for many. Matthew Israel included Kehinde Wiley’s artistic work as it influenced many newcomers.
Matthew Israel considered Vik Muniz’s artwork as it gave a special place to the Jardim Gramacho of Rio de Janeiro. It was the largest garbage dump in the world. Muniz is the Brazilian- born artist who made New York and Rio as the base. He created an art piece which included series called Picture of Garbage. Vik’s art raised many important questions in the contemporary world. ‘Marat’, is the artistic work which has been included in Matthew Israel’s book. This artistic work is no less than any political work but it succeeded in influencing many people many times.
Vik Muniz’s artwork
Ai Weiwei and Kara Walker
May 12, 2008, has been the historic day for China as 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit the western part of the country and adversely affected it. It killed thousands of young students. This painful incident became more painful as the government refused to help commoners in the investigation. Everyone was disappointed and all of them lost hope. But then came artist who took the responsibility to help people in the investigation. This artist was none other than Ai Weiwei whose son was put into exile due to political influence. The artist made sculptures depicting the incident and called it as ‘Remebering’.
Kara Walker’s, ‘A subtlety’ has been the last but the most important art piece in Matthew Israel’s book. She made the bright-white sculpture of nude woman which was approx 35 feet tall and 75 feet long. To beautify it she covered the whole sculpture with refined white sugar. The woman represented black and the effect was added to show white. This sculpture was made to express views on African- American woman.
Kara Walker’s, ‘A subtlety’
Ryan Trecartin
Ryan Trecartin is popular American artist and filmmaker. This Los Angeles based video artist got recognition because of his contemporary videos which are known as Tempest. Contemporary art has many media facilities but Ryan made a video as the most energetic aspect. He always made the video which lacked hesitation and was practical enough in order to be expressive. Ryan has been making contemporary videos since twenty-five years which has now become the inspiration for many youngsters and newcomers. His techniques have always been accorded time and attention and thus it is widely used by many artists. All this gave him a place in the Matthew Israel’s Book.
Painting by Ryan Trecartin
Marina Abramovic and Tauba Auerbach
Matthew Israel has considered this artist to bring revolution because of the artistic work of Marina, ‘The Artist is Present’. It is very simple yet sober and smart work in the contemporary art history. It has Abramovic who is sat on the chair in a silent mode for hours. This art piece has been exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This artwork was term as the limited or confined artwork of that time but now it has been identified as the ultimate art piece. The theme followed by the artist has also been termed as the progressive art piece theme of the world.
Tauba’s artistic work, ‘Untitled’ (Fold) has been considered in Matthew Israel’s book. She has succeeded in expressing her views through Crease and Crumple paintings in series ‘Fold’. Tauba tried to divert and confuse minds of observers and commoners between two-dimensional and three-dimensional space. She was supposed to create a four-dimensional painting to experiment such idea but she didn’t do so to execute the idea.
Contemporary painting
What do you think?