Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese woman who made her title as an avant-garde artist, raised in Matsumoto before moving to New York in 1958, as recommended by her therapist who said her dysfunctional family would swallow her whole. Kusama was a diamond in the rough, having at first had to use scraps she found and mud sacks to craft her art after her mom threw out all of her supplies. Her mother condemned Kusama’s passion for art which only fueled her further. Her most popular works that gained traction delve into psychedelic and what she calls, a ‘self obliteration’. Many if not all of her works are hallucinatory projections and this notably comes in the form of polka dots — her trademark.
Infinity Mirrored Room – Brilliance of the Souls by Yayoi Kusuma Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Room, 2013
Yayoi Kusama, Transmigration , 2011
Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Room, 2013
“These rooms reflect all of her elements: her obsessions, her accumulations, her infinite repetitions. And it’s all very bodily and immersive,” Yoshitake said.
But there was a time before she adapted to the new scene. Her works when she was still a fresh and new, innovative artist had much to do with innate promiscuity and elemental nudity. Kusama abhorred sex, lost and disoriented with the concept of skinship and intimacy, stemming from childhood trauma. This trauma translated into her early works, many of which that puts multitudes of phallic objects on display to more performative pieces of nude men and women alike.
A nude happening and fashion show at Kusama’s Studio, New York, 1968
”I don’t know how long I’m going to survive even after I die; there is a future generation that is following in my footsteps,” she said, sitting in the bright open space that is her new gallery in central Tokyo. “I would be highly honored if people would like to look at my work and be moved by my work.”
Vija Celmins is a Lativian-American who has been engaged in art since she was a child. She has a career spanning over fifty years in Los Angeles and now New York, and continues to create amazing works of art to this day. She is featured in Manhattan at the Met Breuer. Starting her career in the 1960s, she drew and painted everything from her stove burner and lamps to the waves from her beach walks.
Vija, in an interview, commented on her works made from using real life and newspaper clippings, saying about her art:
“This is an invented thing. You know that it’s not like a copy of nature, or copy of photograph. It’s an invented thing you have in front of you” (Vija, Art21 32:49).
She has been inspired to make art concerning space in much of her work after the 1960s space race and the moon landing in 1969.
Night Sky #18 1998 Vija Celmins born 1938 ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland. Lent by Anthony d’Offay 2010 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/AL00178
Vija also uses paints and sculpture to bring her art alive. In her work “To Fix The Image In Memory”, she made bronze casts of eleven different rocks and than painted the casts to resemble the real rocks as much as possible. In the work, the rocks and casts are placed together and the viewer is challenged to tell the real life and painted ones apart. Vija saw this as a way
“…to create a challenge for your eyes. I wanted your eyes to open wider ” (Celmins).
Vija emphasizes the fact that the canvases are part of her work and she spends a good amount of time preparing and “building” them.
“…I often now talk about building a painting instead of painting a painting,” (Vija, Art21 31:14).
she commented when explaining her process of sanding, applying paint and then sanding again as she adds more layers to her work and rethinks the work as a whole.
The thoughtfulness and humility that she speaks with when explaining her work is clearly seen in the works of art themselves. Though many of them are black and white images, the works come to life and feel as if they are moving and breathing.
Ocean 1975 Vija Celmins born 1938 Purchased with assistance from the American Fund for the Tate Gallery, courtesy of the Judith Rothschild Foundation 1999 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/P78336
Her work is truly inspiring and thought-provoking in a simple and calm manner.
Maya Lin is an artist with a passion to make her work mean something. She was born in Athens, Ohio, 1959. Both of her parents were immigrants from China with creative backgrounds and they worked at the Ohio University. With such an upbringing it is no wonder why Maya grew to be a prestigious artist who has an eye for design and the want to make a difference.
Vietnam Veterans Memorial 1982
Maya is most widely known for her Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. which commemorates those who fought and died for our country. She designed it while she was a student at Yale University which may be why it doesn’t look like a conventional memorial or monument. She brought a modern and honest design that may seem stark but that is what makes it so breathtaking.
“Folding the Hudson” A River is a Drawing Exhibition
Maya is also a strong environmental activist who is using her work as a way to talk about important topics such as climate change. Pieces like this she has done specifically focus on bodies of water and their importance. Also another interesting concept Lin introduces through this exhibition’s title is that rivers themselves can actually be classified as drawings which is an interesting line of thought considering what is classified as a drawing. A river is really just the remnant of how water has eroded soil and left a mark on the landscape which can be effectively classified as a line made with mark making. This piece she made was created with many recycled glass marbles that come together to form the Hudson River running all throughout the space.
The Deglaciation of Laurentide
As previously stated Maya likes to focus on climate change in her work. She likes to focus on water and is fascinated with its ever-changing state and the role it plays in history. With pieces like this she compares the original sizes of glaciers and their current shrunk form. Its like bringing geological topography maps to the fluid state of water. When she makes pieces like this the plan is usually put into a computer program and then printed by a 3-D printer. This method is how she is blending technical architectural practices with that of the art world to end up creating something that is beautiful with a strong message.
This piece entitled “Flow” is Lin’s interesting depiction of water’s fluid movement crafted from a rigid medium of wooded blocks. The result is a beautiful composition that draws the eye to slide over its lines of movement. With the wave’s tilted angles it makes viewers feel like a chunk of the ocean has been frozen in time and stowed away.
Overall, Maya Lin is one of our nation’s most inspirational and important artists. She has a mission and purpose behind her art. Not only that, she also is innovating the art world and how we look at how nature and its honest life can fuel beautiful works of art that say something. Lin is starting a conversation in a unique way through the use of art that may open people’s minds that previous ways haven’t before. Either way her work inspires, from her great stone memorial to her fragile glass marble river her work will forever be in people’s minds and maybe even leave a lasting impression on how they view the world.
Jordan Casteel is from Denver, Colorado. She received her Bachelor’s Degree from Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, then her Master’s from Yale School of Art. Jordan Casteel’s first solo exhibit was displayed in the Denver Art Museum until August of 2019. The exhibit displayed thirty paintings collectively titled: Returning the Gaze. Jordan Casteel’s paintings create art out of everyday people, specifically Black people. Casteel’s motive is to reveal people who often go overlooked. Now living in New York, Jordan Casteel continues to paint portraits of Black men addressing Black masculinity as a part of her passion for social justice. Jordan is changing the way society views Black men while emphasizing Black culture and its pertinent impact on our society’s larger culture. Jordan gets inspiration from her neighborhood in Harlem, New York, which is still heavily populated by Black Americans. I am drawn to Jordan Casteel’s work particularly because she casts black men beautifully. I enjoy that she does not change the cultural parts of Black Americans to place them in her art. The Black men she paints are still dressed in their everyday attire. Some of Jordan’s paintings even show Black men naked. These paintings draw attention to Black men’s humanity. In Jordan’s paintings, it is very apparent that Jordan Casteel focuses on the people who surround her, people who she sees and finds a home in. The environment of the paintings, the clothing on the men, the objects in the paintings can all be identified as pieces of black culture.
Jordan Casteel, Galen, 2014Jordan Casteel, The Baayfalls, 2017Jordan Casteel, Subway Hands, 2017Jordan Casteel, Ashamole Brothers, 2015 Jordan Casteel, Shirley, 2018Jordan Casteel, Three Lions, 2015Jordan Casteel, Ato, 2014
“…Once your life is too stable, your creative dies.”
-Yoshitaka Amano
Post by Diego Manalili
Yoshitaka Amano has a wide variety of experiences as a character designer, fine art painter, Japanese artist, theater and scenic designer, costume designer, and animator. Notable for his contributions towards the Japanese animation industry, video games, graphic novels, and the fine arts of painting. His art style revolves around western comic books, Art Noveau, and Japanese woodblock prints according to his work website, “yoshitakaamano.com”.
AMANO’S BIOGRAPHY
Yoshitaka Amano was born on March 26, 1952, and somewhere near Shizuoka, Japan. At the age of fifteen, he moved to a company dormitory to work at Tatsunoko Productions, an animation studio. He created character designs for animation shows such as Gatchaman, Hutch the Honeybee, and Cashaan: Robot Hunter.
He left Tatsunoko Productions at the age of thirty in order to work on more independent projects. When he left the studio, his employers and co-workers were skeptical about his departure, because he was throwing away his financial stability. However, in response to this, he said,”…But once your life is too stable, your creative dies”.
AMANO’S WORKS
Fine Arts
Illustrations
Fine Arts
Illustrations
Character Design
Costume Design & Fashion
Animation
Deva-Loka
Warning: sexual nudity
AMANO’S ART STYLE
I have previously mentioned his art style had an influence from western comic books, Art Noveau, and Japanese woodblock print.
Art Noveau
Japanese Woodblock Print ukiyo-e
Western Comic Books
Art Noveau is an art style that focuses on more of a decorative and fine art aspect within designs.
Japanese Wood Block Prints utilized flat coloring and heavy lines.
Amano’s art style heavily focuses on a variety of fantasy and sci-fi as it can be seen in his works. In 2008 at an art gallery, Gallerie Michael Jansen in Berlin, Germany, Daniel Boese, a critic on the Artforum mentions how Amano was a “superflat concept”, not figuratively but litterally. Boese says Amano’s paintings had fused with “graphic design, pop culture, and the fine arts…”
Rich in idiosyncrasies, Arlene Shechet’s latest works combine disparate mediums, from ceramics to wood and metalwork, with playfully ambiguous titles that prompt endless associations. In Art21 series.
Jennifer Guidi creates paintings notable for their luminosity, texture, and sculptural presence. Her swirling, mandala-like compositions oscillate in color and texture, inspiring shifts in perceptual awareness to forge new sensory horizons. Each painting is methodically executed through a unique process—at once systematic and organic—which reflects the connection of her painting practice to strains of Minimalism that privilege attention to detail and repetition. Her sculptural markings evoke an intensely meditative sense of narrative and spiritual votive. Guidi’s richness of palette and trademark use of sand as a medium link her mode of abstraction to tactile experiences of the natural world, from light permeating the landscape at dawn to the hazy atmospheric conditions of the West Coast.
Guidi was born in 1972 in Redondo Beach, California. She received a BFA from Boston University and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Guidi’s work is included in many important public and private collections worldwide. Selected solo exhibitions include Field Paintings, LA><ART, Los Angeles (2014); Pink Sand, Harper’s Apartment, New York (2016); and Visible Light/Luce Visibile, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Villa Croce, Genoa, Italy (2017). Recent group exhibitions include The Afghan Carpet Project, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2015), #crowdedhouse, Harper’s Books, New York (2015); No Man’s Land: Women Artists from the Rubell Family Collection, Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2015, traveled to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC, through 2016); Unpacking: The Marciano Collection, Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles (2017); and Generations: Female Artists in Dialogue, Part 1, Sammlung Goetz, Haus der Kunst, Munich (2018).
Lehmann Maupin is pleased to announce Found Buried, Lari Pittman’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. For this body of work, the Los Angeles-based artist will present a series of new paintings and works on paper that combine the genres of landscape, portraiture, and still life. Pittman continues to address the histories of identity, violence, class, and human nature through the polemicized lens of decoration, decor, and the decorative embodied in the memento mori and other forms of commemoration. Pittman is best known for his unique visual aesthetic that has established him as one of the most significant painters of his generation. In this exhibition, he continues his signature, densely-layered painting style that includes a lexicon of signs and symbols, a compilation of varied painting techniques, and a clear homage to the applied and decorative arts. There will be an opening reception with the artist on Thursday, March 5th, from 6 to 8 PM at 501 24th Street, New York, NY 10011.
During the mid-1970s, Pittman attended California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, completing a BFA and an MFA. The institute’s strong feminist arts program challenged the devaluation of art forms traditionally associated with craft, and it was his engagement with this program that inspired Pittman’s interest in undermining aesthetic hierarchies and embracing the decorative arts. Pittman’s strong affinity for the decorative can be seen throughout his many bodies of work and it has contributed to his singular visual style. While Pittman’s early works were informed by the socio-political struggle resulting from the AIDS epidemic, racial discord, and LGBTQ+ civil rights struggles that defined the last two decades of the 20th century, his later paintings evince more subtle political gestures through a focus on interior spaces, including domestic and psychological subjects.
The title of the exhibition, Found Buried, relates to ideas of excavation—personal, political, and historical. This alludes both to the way one experiences his work as well as Pittman’s approach to painting. For each work, Pittman builds complexly layered compositions that mediate the tension between color, text, and imagery; figure, landscape, and decoration; and chaos, order, and clarity with remarkable dexterity. He has an innate ability to give each element within a painting equal space and significance. This creates multiple entry points for the viewer, who is invited to do their own excavation of sorts, reading and interpreting the various layers of each work in their own way.
The works in the exhibition feature symbols such as pomegranates (which are often connected to power and imperialism) and tools related to labor and potential violence, as well as decorative objects such as vases, chalices, lamps and an assortment of objets de vertu. Human figures are adorned with theatricalized, imaginary garments and insignia that destabilize expectations of Colonial American, European, and indigenous cultural aesthetics. By merging these seemingly opposing signifiers, Pittman complicates our understanding of colonial identity and its contemporary legacy. In one painting, Piittman portrays a scene comprised of three figures adorned with indigenous headdresses and colonial era garments, fragmented and rendered amidst abstracted patterns of pomegranates and chalices. This painting presents a conceptual reading of violence—self-imposed, physical, and psychological—surrounding oppositional identities, class, and place. In his works on paper, Pittman depicts tools of labor in relation to decorative objects that signify wealth and power. In one work, the image of a hammer is superimposed against a patterned background of chalices, allowing for two seemingly oppositional realities (labor and wealth) to exist simultaneously. Taken together, the works in Found Buried are literally and figuratively a practice in uncovering (i.e. unburying) the codex of signs and symbols Pittman has developed over the course of his career that give unique perspective into past and present political realities.
Marela Zacarías is an artist from Mexico City, Mexico, specializing in the merging of sculpture and paint in a rather flowing way. Zacarías’s work embodies the challenge of making a sculpture fold and fall in the same way fabric may, while also filling her pallets full of color and vibrancy. Along with a large amount of pigment Zacarías uses, she also fills her winding sculptures with geometric shapes and designs.
According to Zacarías’s profile written on Art21, most of her works are, “built from window screens, joint compound, and polymer before being painted in bold, geometric, abstract patterns.”
As you would assume, Zacarías’s process for making these intricately wound pieces is “labor- and research-intensive,” as claimed on her own artist site. Most of her pieces are even designed for the exhibit she is working for at the time.
Art21 said, “Zacarías’s works are often inspired by the sites for which they are planned, such as Works Progress Administration murals in the Brooklyn Museum, Mayan textile colors for an installation in Mexico, and a map of Brooklyn for a new hotel in the borough.”
Not only has Zacarías taken part in numerous exhibitions, but she has also held solo exhibits and even commissioned large-scale permanent pieces for “Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Facebook, the William Vale in Brooklyn, and the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey, Mexico,” according to her site.
The Brooklyn Paper also looked into these lively sculptures, saying, “Like much of Zacarias’s work, the sculptures are meant to interact with the architecture of a specific communal space — the pieces, resembling huge, living blankets, seem to have just finished crawling the walls and balconies of the museum’s cavernous entrance lobby.”
Zacarías’s way of breathing life into her sculptures translates with every twist and turn of the surprisingly harden sculptures she manifests.
Coatlicue’s Return: Solo Exhibition at Wasserman Projects in Detroit
Coatlicue’s Return: Solo Exhibition at Wasserman Projects in Detroit
Coatlicue’s Return: Solo Exhibition at Wasserman Projects in Detroit
Mannahatta, Site specific installation at William Vale
Red Meander: Permanent Installation at American Consulate in Monterrey, Mexico
Katharina Grosse is a German artist born in 1961 who combines a wide array of bright colors with architecture, sculpture, and paintings to create massive visual installations. Before her career took flight, she studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. There, she pursued a degree in painting. She now teaches at the university, but continues to explore and display her artistic ability.
Though considered a painter and sculptor, traditional painting is not what she is known for. Her techniques primarily consist of spray paint to create a specific movement among her pieces. The ideas that may come to mind when viewing Grosse’s works may resemble psychedelics as the color schemes and motions present are extremely captivating. Her installations have lead to major accomplishments and awards, such as the Oskar Schlemmer Prize, Fred-Thieler-Preis, Stipendiaten der Stiftung Kunstfonds, and the Villa-Romana-Stipendium, Florence. Her works have been displayed in a multiple museums, such as the De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland.
Grosse often calls psychology into question as her works challenges the reality of things as her pieces are much larger than what you would normally see. Viewers are immersed in a world of art that physically surrounds them rather than sits on a wall to be stared at. Her work can be described as an environment as so much space can be taken up, but these environments explore hard-to-imagine dimensions and illusions, greying the line between imagination and reality as viewers can almost be swallowed by the works. Grosse is a very unique artist that utilizes a space in a very engaging and intense way using a multitude of colors and forms that sometimes include furniture and often contrast each other.
Two Younger Women Come In and Pull Out a TableThey Had Taken Things Along to Eat TogetherMumbling MudI Think This Is A Pine TreeAtoms Inside BalloonsThe Horse Trotted Another Couple of Metres, Then It Stopped
