Anish Kapoor Sculpture

inside of the Cloud Gate (2004), Millennium Park, Chicago

1. research Kapoor's work in order to discuss whether it is conceptual art or not. Exlain your answer, using a definition of conceptural art

Anish Kapoor is one of the most influential sculptors of his generation. He is born in Bambay (Indian-born British Installation Artist). According to Lisson Gallery's representation:" Kapoor's work being engaged with deep-rooted metaphysical polarities, pressence and absence, being and non-being, place and non-place and the solid and the intangible".

Tall Tree and the Eye 2009

I think Kapoor's work is conceptural art, the brief of conceptural art is art in which the concepts or ideas involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Each pieces of his works ubiquitous emergence of the shadow of play with wild materials and new ideas. The materials are from nature, such as sandstone, marble and slate are impregnated with raw powdered pigment of vivid hues, thus enhancing a feeling of inner radiance.

2. research 3 quite different works by Kapoor from countries outside New Zealand to discuss the ideas behind the work, include images of each work.

Sky Mirror

The sculpture is called "sky mirror" and it's essentially a large, solid piece of highly polished stainless steel, roughly in the sharp of a contact lens. Also used computer generated a same image at other site. It presents a new way to think and view the world. A viewer said:" it general look of liquids, it resists the sense of fixity of massive public sculptures".

Memory

This sculpture entitled "memory", it appears like strong, monodithic and singular sculptures, only to suddenly dissolve into a nimimous void of unfathomable space. In an interview of Kapoor ( http://db-artmag.de/), he said:" you walk in and there is a big object that blocks off the space, it doesnt allow a full view of the form or the building, then you have to physically leave the building and walk around to anotehr entrance to be able to see the other side,the whole idea is you will never know whats going to happen, the only think you know just your memory".

Shooting Into The Corner 2008/09

"shooting into the corner2008/09" is on view in the large exhibition hall. Apheumatic compressor shootes  11-kilogram balls of wax into the corner across the room, all in all, 20 tons of wax be fired away throughout the exhibition run. The idea of this work is confrontation with the public is becoing increasingly important to Kapoor, depite the simple sharpes, viewers are unsettled in their preception and forced to complement or continually relativize, their impressions with new views over and again.

3. discuss the large scale ' site specific ' work that has been installed on a  private site in New Zealand.

Accoring Latest News:" site specific New Zealand is a theatre collective based in Wellington. Founded by award-winning actor/director Paul McLaughlin, site specific aims to create works of theatre that use locatioin, vocation, music and charactor to create intimate, intriguing and intelligent new plays".

4. where is the Kapoor's work in New Zealand? what are its form and materials? what are the ideas behind the work?

The Farm

This work entitled 'the farm', it occupied a 1,000acre private estate outdoor art gallery in Kaipara Bay, north of Auckland.

The sculpture is fabricated in a custom deep red PVC-coated polyester fabric by Ferrari Textiles supported by two identical matching red structureal steel ellipses that weigh 42,750kg each, the fabric alone weighs 7,200kg.

'The Farm' is designed to withstand the high winds that blow inland from the Tasman Sea off the northwest coast.

5. comment on which work by Kapoor is your favorite and exlain why. are you personally attracted more by the ideas or the aesthetics of the work

Yellow 1999

This is my favorite work from Kapoor 'yellow' which be created in 1999
 quite early year. First time I saw it the bright yellow attract my view, 'yellow' is a monumental and arresting work, it breaks the traditional thought of color, plus the embrace and subvert form,just a fabulous piece. I like teh process of the finished work, before it got to the quality of finish, we can see the sculpture is meticulously moulded and smoothed down, then after applied the yellow pigment, the surface appears flawless.

references

http://fabricarchitecturemag.com/
www.sitespecifictheatrenewzealand.com/
www.e-flux.com/shows/view
http://db-artmag.de/
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/
www.tate.org.uk/servet/ArtistWorks
http://www.lissongallery.com/

 comments

niveou's blog ( http://niveou.blogspot.com/ )
You gave the defination of the 'conceptural art', but didnt connect with Kapoor's work yet. Kapoor very used to use wildly different materials to explore his those fanbulous new ideas, we can see it in each piece of his works, no doubt this Indian-born Britich istallation artist's work is 'conceptural art'. And we chose 3 totally different works from Kapoor, my choices are 'sky mirrior', 'memory' and 'shooting into the corner', but all of his wirks absolotly brilliant.

bianca's blog (http://biancathompson1992.blogspot.com/)
I quite like 'Leviathan' too, especially when Kapoor exhibit the sculpture in Paris,

call goes out for museums and galleries to close for a day in sympathy for missing Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, Kapoor said:" I never met Ai but he made sunflower seeds work in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, he is not just an artist more like a collage to me",

Kapoor was speaking at the opening of the Monumenta exhibition in Paris's Grand Palais – a commission similar to the Turbine Hall in that it is filling a vast space, this time with the added trickiness of having glass windows all around.

Pluralism and the Treaty of Waitangi

1. Define the term 'pluralism' using APA referencing.

According to Caldwell (1999):

"Pluralism in art refers to the nature of artforms and artists as diverse. The cutural context of art is all encompassing in its respect for the art of the world's cutures. Inclusion of individuals of differing ethnicities, genders, ideologies, abilities, ages, religions, economic status and educational levels is valued. Pluralism honours differences within and between equitable groups while seeing their commonalities. (para 1)."

Cadwell, B. (1999) Cultural context. retrieved 16 Oct, 2003 from http://www.public.iastate.edul~design/ART/NAB/PluART

the foundation of Pluralism

2. How would you describe New Zealand's current dominant culture?

I think New Zealand is a multicultural country, it has a long history of immigration, there have been a number of 'waves' or groups of immigrations since Aotearoa was discovered and settled by the Maori. Now New Zealand includes several different cultures, like " Maori, Niuean, Chinese, Indian, Jewish, Muslim and Christian". (Sue and Emma 2002, P.57).

Haka

3. Before 1840, what was New Zealand's dominant culture?

New Zealand was one of the last corners of the planet to be inhabited by people, around 950AD the Maori arrived from Polynesia. During the 1830s there was a small number of Europeans living in here, but Moari still was the main controller until the Treaty be signed.

4. How does the Treaty of Waitangi relate to us all as artists and designers working
in New Zealand?

New Zealand is an isolate country in the South-Western Pacific Ocean, so it developed a distinctive art atmosphere, individual mythology, recitative, sports etc, all of these give more opportunities to artists and designers who are working in New Zealand to combine Maori and Weatern techniques to creat fabulous works.

unique and dynamic curture

5. How can globalization be seen as having a negative effect on regional diversity in New Zealand in particular?

According to web ( http://searchcio.techtarget.com/): " Globalization is the tendency of business, technologies or philosophies to spread throughout the world, or the process of making this happen". To New Zealand this kind of isolate country, globalization can cause some outbreak out of control, like terrorists attack, local culture extinct, western monopoly power invate, especially disease can destroy natural environment.


New Zealand natural environment

6. Shane Cotton's paintings are said to examine the cultural landscape. Research Cotton's work 'Welcome'(2004) and 'Forked Tongue' (2011) to analyze what he is saying about colonialization and the Treaty of Waitangi

At the heart of Share Cotton's art is something of the ambivalence about the land and curual landscape, his ambivalence about concepts of landownership and the nation of two curtures living in one land. According to the National Review (2011): " in Shane Cotton's painting always can conveyed in a literal way with many images and symbols making it possible to read a simple narrative with Maori and Pakeha cultures ". In both 'Welcome' and 'Forked Tongue' can easily find Maori designs and an elaboration on the link between Maori and this country. Also have symbols show the western countries try to colonialize New Zealand, thereby, he want to appeal the potential problems of Treaty of Waitangi.

needlework

7. Tony Albert's installation 'Sorry' (2008) reflect the effects of colonization on the aboriginal people of Australia. Research the work and comment on what Albert is communicating through his work, and what he is referring to. Describe the materials that Albert uses on this installation and say what he hopes his work can achieve. Define the term 'kitsch'.

Albert is an Australia artist who has made something of a name for himself during the post few years by recontextualising the bric-a-brac he has collected since he was a boy living in Cardwell in north Queensland. 'Sorry' is a work made up of big letters spelling out the word, with each letter covered in what he calls Aboriginalia: stereotyped and kitsch portraits of Aborigines from a time it was considered quaint to beat into copper an image of a man standing on one leg with a boomerang or to paint an idealised bare-bosomed maiden on to black velvet.

He said in his 'Sorry' all the images of Aboriginal people are who around him, he built his own way to show the respect and Aboriginal people have been offered many broken promises, Albert and his army of kitsch faces have taken this apology on face value until real change is observed.

exotic OTHER, 2009   Tony Albert Australia  Vintage ephemera and vinyl

'Kitsch' is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. Also kitsch refers to the types of art that are aesthetically deficient and that make creative gestures which merely imitate the superficial appearances of art through conventions and formulae.

Cats and Kitsch Jigsaw Puzzle

8. Explain how the work of both artists relates to pluralism.

Shane Cotton's paiting and Tony Albert's installation all used local individual images, religions and the background history, Maori and Aboriginal, both exist in isolated island and keep their unique techniques but colonised by western culture. Two artists stand on the observe side appeal equality and matural benefits.

pluralism be described as something better than tolerance




references

http://www.nbr.co.nz/
www.buzzle.com/articles/negative-effects-of-globalization
www.crystalinks.com/maori.html/
http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/globalization
www.inna.co.nz/about/history.html
Sue, M. and Emma, B. (2002) Cuture and Change. Pearson Education New Zealand
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/
http://21cblog.com/tony-albert-story

Kahinde Wiley and inter-textuality

Kahinde Wiley

1. find a clear defination of Intertextuality

According to Chandler, D. (2003) Intertextuality:" Intertextuality refers to the way that any one text (written or visual ) is influenced, or made up of a variety of other earlier texts."

After Pontormos Two Men with a Passage from Ciceros on Friendship 2009

2. research Wiley's work and write a paragraph that analyzes how we might make sense of his work. Identify intertextuality in Wiley's work.

Wiley's painting style has been compared to so many traditional portraitists like Reynolds, Gainsborough. Wiley's work reference specific paintings by Titian and Tiepolo, but he incorporates rang of art historical and vernacular styles from French Rococo to the comtemporary urban street. It is the intertextuality in Wiley's painting. Thereby he creats his own style which based on photographs of young men from streets.

After Jean August Dominique Ingres The Virgin with the Host 2009

3. Wiley's work relates to "Pluralism", find out how the work relates to it

It is generally believed that during modernity just European (white), male and middle class visual art was therefore prioritised in the art gallery or in the art history book. In Wiley's work only have male figures appeared, he must followed this rule somehow. Also according to Cadwell, B. (1999) Cutural context:

" Pluralism in art refers to the nature of artforms and artists as diverse. The cultural context of art is all encompassing in its respect for the art of the world's cultures. Inclusion of individuals of differing ethnicities, genders, ideologies, abilities, ages, religions, economic status and educational levels is valued."

Wiley himself is an African American and he has used African American male to pain, so pluralistic feature emerged.

Triple Portrait of Charles I 2007 oil on canvas

4. comment on how Wiley's work raises questions around social / cutural hierarchies, colonisation, globalisation, stereotypes and the politics which govern a weatern worldview

western world in general conforms to the beliefs or philosophies of materialism, capitalism and humanism which has so many pros and cons. Definitely Wiley uses his painting support pluralism which also have obverses and reverses, he put these contradictory concepts in each paiting, using traditional way of oil painting to represent hierarchies, colonisation, globalisation and politics. In another side, Wiley challenged religion which use a humorous fundamental, this acquirs the connection of humanism, or say as western worldview.

Ice T  2005  oil on canvas

5. add some reflective comments of your own, which may add more inforemation that you have read during your research

Be an artist Wiley not just use traditional oil painting do portraits, add large, vibrant, highly colorful pattens, also he develops his own style, hip pop street fashion which can slice of nowadays urban amarican life. The treatrical poses and objects appeared in his works from seventeenth through nineteenth century western art, but he gives the authority of those historical sitters to twenty-first century, which is dramatic and fabulous.

Portrait of Michael Jackson  2007





referenses

www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/recognize/paintings.html
http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/
www.deitch.com/artist/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/kehinde.wiley
Cadwell, B. (1999) Cutural context. retrieved 16 Oct, 2003 from http://www.public.iastate/~design/ART/NAB/PluArt.html
Chandler, D. (2003) Intertextuality. Retrieved 9 Oct, 2003 from http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem09.html

week 3 Hussein Chalayan

                        Hussein Chalayan

1. chalayan's works in clothing, like afterwords(2000) anf Burka(1996) are often challenging to both wiewers and the wearers. what are your personal responses to these works? are afterwords and burka fashion of are they art? what is teh difference? not all clothing is fashion, so what makes fashion fashion?

1st time I saw these works I shocked, because normal feeling to clothing is fashion show, new and classic style designed by fashion designers whole over the world, but hussein's works just like conbination of pieces and really is a tough challeng to my thoughts and feeling.

  manifest destiny   spring summer collection 2003

Like the introduction of the Paris' Les Arts Decoratifs opened " Fashion Narratives " said:" fans and industry icons alike flocked to the opening -- kindly showing their affection and loyalty to Hussein's works." Each time he has exhibition, must be titled "art and fashion", as you can see, his pieces already jump out of basic fashion conception, it is more like architectures in clothing, and also would rather collect it at home or museum, not weat it walk in the street.

According to Designboom (2006), in the interview, Hussein be asked "do you discuss your work with other fashion designers", he answered "yes but not really in depth, i like talking with architects because we speak a similar language".

  spring summer collection 2008

Web(http://www.tirocchi.stg.brown.edu/):

"art and design were more closely tied at the turn of the 20th century than they are today, artists did not see the difference between creating an original work of art, such as a painting and designing a textile patten that would be reproduced many times over, each was a valid creative act in their eyes."

I think fashion is an art form which is decorative, some critics call it "applied art", art is a bit conception, fashion designer need amount of artistic expression goes into clothes, they dont have huge distinction but they are different.

  spring 2010                

Fashion, a general term of a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear or accessories. What makes fashion fashion, I think is the fashion trend, because the trend always can define it is fashionable or nfashionable.

2. chalayan has strong links to industry, pieces like The Level Tunnel(2006) and Repose(2006) are made in collaboration with, and paid for by commercial business, in these cases, a vodka company and a crystal munufacturer. how does this impact on the naturel of chalayan's work? does the meaning of art change when it is used to sell products? is it still art?

The Level Tunnel Installation 2006

Chalayan's work lay stress on nature. The Level Tunnel is a 15m long, 5m high installation that can be experienced from the exterior or blindfolded on the inside, also play with scent, touch and sound, and the sound made from vodka bottles.

in "the level tunnel"  vodka bottle  2006

Also chalayan had collaboration with Swarovski, the collection forcuses on hybrid of cultures culminating with a special museum piece the Floating Dress.

the floating dress      Swarovski    2006

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influencesand affects one or more of the senses, emotions and intellect. Traditionally the term art was used to refer to any skill or mastery, and the conception 1st time changed during the Romantic period, it is more with religion and science. Thse days the meaning of art change again, it involes selling, buying, pecuniary trend, but it still art, still can effect human society.


Detail of shoes  Ready to wear collecton  London fashion show  Winter2008

3. Chalayan's film Absent Persence screened at the 2005 Venice Biennale.If features the process of caring for worn clothes and retrieving and analysing the traces of the wearer, in the form of DNA. This work has been influenced by many different art movements, can you think of some, and in what ways they might have inspired chalayan's approach?

  Absent Persence

Absent Persence is a video installation telling a story based on identity, geography, genetics, biology and anthropology. It questions whether the extent to which identities can adapt to new environment. I think it has been influenced by Impressionism, Humanism and Industralism. Chalayan took the idea of DNA and analysing it, this movement was very technological and scientific, it represented the process in doing something in human's DNA thus learn more and help more about wearer, humanism become visible. With Inpressionism the DNA traces of the use of clothes give scientist impressions to increase the quality of wearing. To Industralism I think its because whatever we improved, discovered or impressed, the society need economy, then Tndustralism engaged.

  Absent Persence

4. many of chalayan's pieces are physically designed and constructed by someone else, for example, sculptor Long Sigurdson made some works from Chalayan's Echoform (1999) and Before Minus Now (2000) fashion ranges. In fashion design this is standard practice, but in fact that he personally made the painting. Contrastingly, Andy Warhol's pop art was largely produced in a new york collective called The Factory and many of his silk-screened works were produced by assistants. Contemporarilly, Damien Hirst doesnt personally build his vitriness and preserve the sharks himself. So when and why is it important that the artist personally made the piece?

 echoform

Any exhibition or fashion show cant present by artists or designers themselves, all successes depend on well cooperation, maybe hundreds or thousands people involved. But the artist made some pieces personally is also occupied a very important part in whole, the ideas, materils, forms etc should have a basic constructure by artist, I think it should be done from beginning of the exhibition or fashion show, also in the half to finish, artist need check again which means no discuss or outside interruption, just use art sense and sensertive feeling.

  before minus now

Design Museum exhibition Hussein Chalayan Works 1994--2009

reference

www.husseinchalayan.com/blog/

www.designboom.com/eng/interview/chalayan

www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2003/jul/13/art.artsfeatures

www.tirocchi.stg.brown.edu/514/story/fashion-art.html

www.whatmakesfashion.com/

http://www.designboom.com/

http://www.dianepernet.typepad.com/

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/art

www.imdb.com/title/tt0768786/

Post-Modernism, Ai weiwei and Banksy

  post-modernism building    Frank O Gahry

1. Define Post-Modernism using 8-10 bullet points that include short quotes.

• Modernism is riddled with doubt about the continued viability of the notion of progress, post-modernism is the philosophical movement away from the viewpoint of modernism.
• Post-modernism for some it means anti-modernism, for others it means teh revision of modernist premises.
• According to Witcombe, C (2000) Modernism & postmodernism : "deconstructive postmodernism is seen perhaps as anti-modern in that it seens to destroy or eliminate the ingredients that are believed necessary for a worldview."
• According to James mORLEY (2000) Postmodern Culture: "post-modernism was a movement in architecture that rejected the modernist, avant garde, passion for the new."
• According to web (www.allaboutphilosophy.org): "post-modernism claims to be the successor to the 17th certury Enlightenment." It connected with the "new age" thinking.
• Web (www.pbs.org) said: "post-modernism is largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific, objective, efforts to explain reality."
• In essence, it stems from a recognition that reality is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality.
• According to web (www.britannica.com):

         "in western philosophy, a late 20th century movement characterized by broad sleepticism,       subjectivism or relativism, a general suspicion of reason and an acute sensitiviy to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power."

•   Post-modernism as a philosophical movement is largely a reaction against the philosophical assumptions, values and intellectual worldview of the modern period of western history.
• Brittney Betbeze (2010) "Banksy: A postmodern pioneer” gives an opinion: "Postmodernism is a term that gets tossed around a lot these days, usually by people who are trying to sound intellectual, hip, or otherwise superior to the average conversationalist."

post-modernism building     Noam Chomsky

2. Use a quote by Witcombe (2000) to define the Post-Modern artist.

The post-modern artist is "reflexive" in that he/she is self-aware and consciously involved in a process of thinking about himself/herslef and society in a deconstructive manner, "demasking" pretensions, becoming aware of his/her cultural self in history, and accelerating the process of self-consciousness.

post-modernism building    The Hearst Tower in Manhattan

3. Use the grid on pages 42 and 43 to summarize the list of the features of Post-Modernity.

• postmodernity more focus on the society and reality, each part changeto more pluralism and confluent.
• excavale surface value without dig in depth.
• plagiary inundant and legal.
• pursue hyper-reality authenticity of originals became unacceptable.
• diverse culture.
• art not as mysterious as before, more public opinions involved.
• break the form of seriousness.
• do not have main and rounded system.

             vase with coca-cola logo      Ai Weiwei

4. Use this summary to answer the next two questions.

5. Research Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's 'Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola logo'(1994)
in order to say what features of the work are Post-Modern.

Ai Weiwei (1957) is one of the China's earliest and most influential avantarde artist. In the later 1970s, he was a member of the "the stars", a group of largely self-taught artists who challenged official communist icons and ideology and helped spark the modern art movement in Berjing.

According to Witcombe, C (2000)  Modernism & Postmodernism: " in the later half of the 20th century there has been mounting evidence of the failureof the Modernist enterprise." In a lot of Ai Weiwei's works have modernism in them, but the Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-cola Logo i can see post-modernism, it breaks the traditional form of seriousness which is anticent product just match with outdated extras, and coca-cola's logo is one of the most recognising in the world, put it on the urn can attrack more public attention.

the process of drop and break a vase                 Ai Weiwei

Han Dynasty Urn with coca-cola logo (1994)    Ai Weiwei



6. Research British artist Banksy's street art, and analyze the following two works by the artist

to discuss how each work can be defined at Post-Modern.

Banksy is the driving force behind the explosion in the Urban Art movement, his style and energy has been responsible for opening the eyes of the masses and creating the platform for other artists.

His worldwide popularity is often put down to his ability to encapsulate the way people feel about today’s tainted world with poignant clarity.

 He has also gained great acclaim for his ‘crude oils’ – reworked traditional oil painting, often classics, with a special Banksy twist.

'Flower Riot', Banksy



Los Angeles (2008), Banksy

Banksy as a pioneer of post-modernism, his works usually be referred to as low form, or even anti-form art, graffiti is Banksy’s chosen medium for many, seemingly obvious, reasons. The process, which is often championed over the product from a postmodern perspective, and in his book, “Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall,” Banksy writes:
" Graffiti has more chance of meaning something or changing stuff than anything indoors. Graffiti has been used to start revolutions, stop wars, and generally is the voice of people who aren’t listened to. Graffiti is one of those few tools you have if you have almost nothing. And even if you don’t come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make somebody smile while they’re having a piss. "

He put more attention to the public thoughts and altitude，and mix projects of incompatibility, broke the form of seriousness, like these two works above, robber with a bunch of flowers, ape man with fast food.  These works are stencil based, often hand finished, this style translates naturally to the screen-printing process.

references

http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/postmodernism.htmllaboutphilosophy.org/postmodernism.htm
www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/postmodernism -body.html
http://elab.eserver.org/hfl0242.html
wikipedia.org/wiki/postmodernism
Witcombe, C (2000) Modernism & Postmodernism
www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1077292/postmodernism
http://blastmagazine.com/the-magazine/culturefashion/arts/art/banksy-a-postmodern-pioneer/
Banksy "Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall"
http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090303234311AAgv7UV
http://streetart.co.nz/oi-you/competition/inspiration/banksy

week 1 Nathalie Djurburg's 'claymation'

                     Nathalie Djurburg
1. what do you understand bt the word 'claymation'

'Claymation' is the generalized term for 'clay animation', it is a form of stop animation using clay. According to the web (http://www.wisegeek.com/):

"claymation involves using objects or characters sculpted from clay or other moldable material, and then taking a series of still pictures that are replayed in rapid succession to creat the illusion of movement."

Nathalie Djurberg “Still from There ain’t no pill”  Courtesy of Zach Feuer Gallery, New York

2. what is meant by the term "surrealistic garden of eden" and "all that is natural goes awry"?

Djurburg's works be set up in a strange room named "Experimentet", according to web (http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/):

"Experiementet is an installation recreating a Garden of Eden from hell. It is a garden covered with creepy flowers. They are so big they dwarf visitors, their colours and sharps are nauseating, sun never lights up the garden, it is set in a perpetual crepuscular in the basement of the Padiglione delle Esposizioni."

I feel this representation very interesting, Djurburg put niceness into creepy theme to against the rude reality.

 Nathalie Djurberg  "Feed All the Hungry Little Children"  2007

3. what are the 'complexity of emotions' that Djurburg confronts us with

People describe life is a drama, but some critics review Djurburg's work is a drama, even titled her as "the fairy tales gone mad". The story line in her work always simple but also complicated, suddenly chang between good and evil, light and dark, beauty and horror, like a tiger licking a ctie's bottom or a father who will eventually be killed by his own daughter. Emotion is a big topic, it is complicated and volatile.

  Nathalie Djurberg  "Still from I Found Myself Alone"  2008

4. how does Djurburg play with the ideas of children's stories, and innocence in some of her work

Djurburg always make short films which no longer than 5 minutes to present a story about the investigation of the dark side of the human soul, and children's story can showing the idea very well, because it always take place in a forest or somewhere claustrophobic rooms where grotesque episodes playout. According to web (http://www.artists.org/):

"Djurburg's stories have a lot of in commont with traditional folktales, they deal with archetypical themes and involve traditional roles as the good, the bad and the kind helper, such as bear and tiger."

Nathalie Djurberg "Snakes knows it's Yoga"  Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

5. there is a current fascination by some designers with turning the innocent and sweet into something disturbing, why do you think this has come about?

"The innocent and sweet" is the dream of adult, but it is just belong to children, in natural world full of terror and death, stir and chaos, so people start to fascinate, thus through artists put these childlike theme into their works, positive always can attract public's eyes, anyway, turning the innocence and sweet into something disturbing is good to the views, also good to these artists themselves, positive products trend can change to a beneficial outcome.

Nathalie Djurberg  "Snakes knows it's Yoga " Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

6. in your opinion, why do you think Djurburg's work is so interesting that it was chosen for the Venice Biennale

As the catalog of the biennale says:

"Through these minutely composed sequences of stop-motion animations, Djurberg toys with society's perceptions of right and wrong, exposing our own innate fears of what we do not understand and illustrating the complexity that arises when we are confronted with these emotions."

To me, i think the greatest artist is the one who can present work in a simple but very hard to simulate way, the essence of Bjurburg's work capture viewers.

   Nathalie Djurberg   "hungry hungry hippos"   2007

7. add some of your own personal comments on her work

She is talent person, the using of a variety of media like stop motion animation, installation, sculpture and drawing really inspire me, her works motive me try more new things in my own art works.

        Nathalie Djurberg  "Experimentet"   2009








references

www.wisegeek.com/what-is-claymation.htm
www.we-made-money-not-art.com/archives/2009/10/nathalie-djurburg-who-won-the.php.
http://www.designmate.blogspot.com/
www.the-artists.org/artist/nathalie-djurburg.
www.oremierartscene.com/magazine/biennales-own-pavi.lion
www.artnews.org/artist.php?i=1211