global contemporary

Guggenheim Bilboa Museo

• Artist: Frank Gehry

• Location: Bilbao

• Materials: Titanium, glass, and limestone

• Function: To bring people to the boat-shaped museum to remember the seat port city

  • was also used to revitalize Bilbao

MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Art

• Artist: Zaha Hadid

• Location: Rome, Italy

• Materials: Glass, steel, and cement

• Function: Serves as a proud display of technology; innovative materials like titanium in Hadid’s work, or unusual materials

The Gates

• Artists: Christo and Jeanne-Claude

• Location: Central Park, NYC

• Medium: Mixed medium installation; orange fabric

• Function: To spread happiness and inspire joy and beauty rather than deep messages

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

• Artist: Maya Lin

• Medium: The earth (earthwork)

• Location: Washington D.C

• Function: A minimalistic to memorialize veterans; the reflective black granite is used for people to see themselves in the veterans/soldiers.

Horn Players

• Artist: Michel Basquit

• Medium: Canvas panels (triptic)

• Location: Santa Monica, California

• Materials: Acrylic and oil paint stick

• Function:

  • Urgent paint application and hurried lettering convey Basquit’s dedication to Jazz.

  • Foregrounds African-American subjects in an unsettling way.

• Content: Horn Players portrays legendary jazz musicians Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie

  • Inspired by Picasso’s “Three Musicians”

Summer Trees

• Artist: Song-su Nam

• Medium: Paper

• Location: British Museum, London

• Materials: Ink

• Content: Ink trees on paper; abstract visual mixed with contemporary styles

• Function:

  • References a traditional theme of pine trees; symbolizes a gathering of friends

  • Combines traditional Sumukhwa (oriental ink movement of the 80s) with contemporary techniques

Androgyn III

• Artist: Magdalena Abakanowicz

• Medium: Installation

• Location: MET, NY

• Materials: Burlap, resing, wood, nail, and string

• Content: ambiguous and empty sculptures of people.

• Function:

  • Draws of personal history, yet very ambiguous

  • The brutality of war and totalitarian state. The body is a husk without arms and legs

A Book from the Sky

• Artist: Xu Bing

• Medium: Installation; books

• Location: Madison, WI

• Materials: Books

• Content: Block printed characters on books; false characters (made up). 400 handmade books

• Funciton:

  • To question the meaning and importance of langauge

  • Inspired by Warhol and Michel Duchamp

Pink Panther

• Artist: Jeff Koons

• Medium: statue; porcelain

• Location: MOMA, NYC

• Materials: glazed porcelain, acrylic

• Content: 3ft statue of Playboy Playmate Jane Mansfield

• Function:

  • Exists as a commentary on romance, sexuality, commercialism, stereotypes, pop culture, sentimentality

  • Very sensual piece of art

Untitled #228

• Artist: Cindy Sherman

• Medium: Photograph

• Location: Santa Monica, California

• Materials: realistic photograph with makeup and costume

• Content: Cindy Sherman posing as Judith with the head of Holofernes.

• Function:

  • Inspired by living in Rome

  • Similar to Cristofano, Allori, Judith with the Head of Holofernes, 1613 and Judith Slaying Holofernes (Carrivageo)

Dancing at the Louvre from the series The French Collection, Part 1

• Artist: Faith Ringgold

• Medium: Canvas

• Location: Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio

• Materials: fabric (on the boarders), acrylic

• Content: A woman with her three daughters and a friend dancing in front of the Mona Lisa

• Function:

  • Significant statements about race in America through African American quilts

  • challenges people to think about expectations of gender and race, as well as traditional values of art

  • Rewrites history to make a place for women

Gifts for Trading Land with White People

• Artist: Jaune Quick-to-See Smith

• Medium: mixed media canvas

• Location: Chrysler Museum of Art, VA

• Content: mixed items of knick knacks, boat painting, sports teams (hats), etc.

• Function:

  • Response to 500th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival to North America

Earth’s Creation

• Artist: Emily Kngwarreye

• Medium: synthetic polymer, paint on canvas

• Location: Australia

• Content: Complete abstract art with patches of bold reds, greens, blues, and yellows

• Function:

  • To represent the green time when the outback flourishes

  • Kngwarreye was very close and personal when creating Earth’s Creation.

Rebellious Silence

• Artist: Shirin Neshat

• Medium: Photograph

• Location:

• Content:

  • A woman in a chador with a rifle across her face.

  • Writing on her face

• Function:

  • To demonstrate the Western view of Muslim/Islamic women.

  • The fight between tradition and modernity, as well as a protest or movement against the regime in Iran

  • Shows the changing cultural landscape of the Middle East

En La Barberia no se Llora

• Artist: Pepón Osorio

• Medium: Installation

• Location: NYC

• Content:

  • A life size installation of a barber shop

  • highlights pictures and images of Puerto Rican men who visit the shop often

  • personal artifacts and memories

  • Bronx community’s stories and personal materials

• Function:

  • Commentary of traditional gender roles, cultural identity, and the dynamics of a barbershop as a gathering place for men

PIsuppo Lua Afe (Corned Beef 2000)

• Artist: Michel Tufferey

• Medium: Mixed Media, Installation

• Location: New Zealand, pacific

• Content:

  • Canned been cans made into a cow.

• Function:

  • to criticize issues of ecological health

  • interested in how the introduction of cattle to New Zealand and the Pacific impacted negatively on the plants, landscapes and waterways of these countries.

Electric Superhighway

• Artist: Naum June Paik

• Medium: Mixed Media, Installation

• Location: Smithsonian Art Museum

• Content:

  • Neon lighting outlines the fifty states (Alaska and Hawaii are on the sides). Neon lighting symbolizes motel and restaurant signs

  • Each state has a separate video feed (313 monitors)

• Function:

  • celebrates the fact that the “electronic superhighways’ allows us to communicate with and understand each other across traditional boundaries

  • posing some difficult questions about how that technology is impacting culture

The Crossing

• Artist: Bill Viola

• Medium: video and sound installation

• Location: Dallas Museum of Art

• Content:

  • Two male figures drenched in water and burning in flames

• Function:

  • Mixed messages, could represent heaven and hell.

  • Religious implications

Pure Land

• Artist: Mariko Mori

• Medium: Color photograph on glass

• Location: LA, California

• Content:

  • Artists uses a creative interpretation of traditional japanese art forms> animated figures of aliens play musical instruments on clouds

  • Mori herself is in the disguise of a deity (the essence of beauty and the harbinger of prosperity and happiness)

• Function:

  • Jewel symbolizes buddha’s universal mind

  • religious and contemporary/modern implications and combinations

Darkytown Rebellion

• Artist: Kara Walker

• Medium: Cut paper and projection on wall

• Location: Luxemburg

• Content:

  • One figure stands upright over his severed limb

  • A teenager holds a flag that resembles a colonial ship sale

  • A woman with a bonnet and a voluminous hoop skirt may be attacking a smaller figure on its back, perhaps a crying baby.

• Function:

  • to represent slavery and colonization, and show the histories of the past and issues of the present

The Swing

• Artist: Yinka Shonibare

• Medium: Mixed Media Installation

• Location: London

• Content:

  • Life-size headless mannequin

    The dress is made of African print fabric (Dutch Wax Fabric)

  • Meant to imitate the French rebellion and original painting

• Function:

  • Dutch wax was sold in South Asian markets and that failed. So, they were integrated into West African colonies (colonization)

  • represents the beheading and aristocracy, and the reign and terror of the guillotine.

  • invites us to consider the increasing disparity between economic classes today.

Old Man’s Cloth

• Artist: El Anatsui

• Medium: Aluminum liquor bottle caps and copper wire.

• Location: Ghana, Gainsville FL

• Content:

  • A bunch of bottle caps and wire used to create a “cloth” of some sort in traditional African colors.

• Function:

  • The bottle caps signify a fraught history of trade between Africa and Europe.

  • Bottle caps were made in Nigeria and sold to Europe

  • A wall hanging; the colors relate to west african textiles and traditional colors of ghana (gold), and royalty.

  • Combines the home country of ghana, nigeria, and the global contemporary art

Stadia II

• Artist: Julie Merehtu

• Medium: Ink and acrylic on canvas

• Location: Pittsburgh

• Content:

  • represents a stadium; complete abstraction

• Function:

  • The feeling of being in a excited stadium, with different countries/teams

Praying Mantra

• Artist: Wangechi Mutu

• Medium: Mixed media on mylar

• Location: Brooklyn, NY or Kenya

• Content:

  • The female body posing exotically and making eye contact with the viewer

  • Colors like purple and dark pink/magenta

• Function:

  • Complicating both western and non-Western cultural norms, questioning how we see gender, sexuality, and even cultural identity.

  • images have the female body, specifically an imagined "African" body, subjected to sexism and racism on a global scale.

  • work was shaped by the complex history of colonization and women’s rights in Africa

Shibboleteh

• Artist: Doris Salcedo

• Medium: Installation; ground

• Location: London

• Content:

  • focused around Colombia and the boarders

  • A large crack in the ground

• Function:

  • Shibboleth is a term from the Bible used to differentiate two groups of people

  • Speaks on issues at the boarder for immigrants/refugees, specifically Latinos.

  • Also represents feeling different or the “outsider” in a new country/place

Sunflower Seeds

• Artist: Ai Weiwei

• Medium: Installation; porcelain

• Location: London

• Content:

  • millions of hand crafted porcelain pieces resembling sunflower seeds

  • looks like an ocean

  • 600 artisans worked for 2 years

• Function:

  • represents fathomless depth; each seed is made in Jingdezhen, a city known for porcelain during imerial china

  • The sunflower seeds were eaten as a source of food during the famine era under Mao Tse-tung

  • Speaks on the realities of fast production

Assemblage

art that is made by assembling disparate elements – often everyday objects – scavenged by the artist or bought specially.

Earthwork

Art that is made by shaping the land itself or by making forms in the land using natural materials like rocks or tree branches.

Installation

large-scale, mixed-media constructions, often designed for a specific place or for a temporary period of time.

Kistch

art, objects, or design considered to be in poor taste because of excessive garishness or sentimentality, but sometimes appreciated in an ironic or knowing way.