This essay is about postmodern artists and how their art changes the environment around them. The two artists I am discussing is Richard Serra, “Band,” 2006 and Guerrilla Girls “Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into The Met Museum,” 1989-2005.. Two different artists that have changed the way you can create art and how it can effect society.
First of all I am going to talk about Richard Serra, who plays with the original views of how a sculpture should be. Before the 1960s sculptures were about beautiful human figures made out of marble, gold or any expensive media to show the status of the person who you were making It for. However, this changed in the 1960s, art became minimalists playing with traditional methods and using art to show emotion through colours and shape. Industrial materials grew Serra took advantage of this and started working with lead and steel. He played with the traditional techniques of using these materials, he did this by throwing melted lead against studio walls which he then casted. This emphasized the physical process of how he creates his pieces Serra likes to represent the raw aggression and physicality of how he sees his work and how it is produced. Showing his emotions trying to change points of view, Serra says this about his work, “ I don’t consider myself a political artist, but anything I can do to make a difference, I will. America is a right-wing country and I’m essentially from the old left.”
Serra creates his sculptures by using various of techniques on huge plates of towering steel he, bends and curves steel, carving private spaces from the large public places. This is represented in “Band,” the curved and bent shape separates large public spaces and turns them into small private rooms. His signature for all this sculptures is the towering curves and oxidised steel.
In contrast to this Serra didn’t just experiment with techniques, he also changed his sculptures into pieces that wouldn’t just be shown in a art gallery. He made them in a massive scale and didn’t build them in clean pretty places, Serra put them where the media suited its surroundings. On the other hand he has also created pieces that are small.
Serra’s work refers to how art is not just something that has to be beautiful, it can be beautiful through the process it was made in or what it may mean emotionally to the artist. His work is all about breaking the boundaries of sculpture which is why he is a postmodern artist. The post modernist era was very much about change and changing peoples views in society, Serra did this by bringing out the sculpture process into the final piece. His pieces are not about natural body forms they are about the raw emotion of how he thought to produces them.
Whereas, Guerrilla girls founded in 1985 by a group of anonymous artists which took names of dead female artists brought to change views within the art society. In public they wore gorilla masks and hided their identities by focusing on the issues happening in society. They also say they wear gorilla mask to "we wear gorilla masks to keep the focus on the issues rather than our personalities,”
In the 1960s culture changed completely and the guerrilla girls took advantage of this. They advertised the rights every human being should have, changing the emotions and views in society. They did this by making posters, billboards, public actions, books and other projects making them feminism funny by putting the signature gorilla mask on every woman. In the piece I have chosen the background is a very bright yellow to catch passers bys attention. There is also a woman in a royal pose you can see this by her laying on purple sheets and face sideways which was a common pose for royalty to be painted in. The stereotype in which women were painted in was naked and having a upper class background with flowers or on a bed. They broke this stereotype by putting the gorilla mask on her, showing that because you cant see her face is she still a woman? Paintings were about being attractive and they took this away to see if the art community still though of it as a piece of art. Guerrilla Girls formed to challenge the sexist practises within institution of high art museums and galleries. In the piece I have chosen they refer to female nudism in art museums and how the female form is more recognised then the art women artists can produce.
Likewise to this they focus on the stereotype of women in the piece there is a duster which focuses on how women are second class citizens and should stay at home and clean.
The technique they use mainly to produce there posters is through print, they mix various types of screen prints because they bring the bright colours and eye catching pictures to draw the viewer in.
In there posters Guerrilla Girls use statistics like “Do women have to…,Met Museum,” showing how they don’t recognise the talent which female artists have. Changing that beautiful women can make beautiful art. This is why they are a postmodernism artists the Guerrilla Girls broke barriers in gender and sexuality, showing everyone is equal and stereotypes mean nothing. Using any type of public communication to broadcast there message.
In conclusion to this postmodern artists were very much about there views and trying to change society around them, excepting who you are and what you’re art means. Serra’s art is about changing the views on what art is, asking the art world what they think makes something wonderful. However, the Guerrilla girls are postmodern artists because using there art to change the views of society and breaks the stereotypes of sexism and sexuality, but broadcasting there message through there pieces advertising the right to be whoever you want to be.
Richard Serra, Band 2006.
Guerrilla Girls, Do Women Have To Be Naked Into The Met Museum, 1989-2005.
Sophie Semmence
Word Count: 995
Bibliogrpahy: www.moma.org/visit/calender/exhibitons/14
www.ppbs.org/art21/artists/serra/#
www.gagosian.com/artists/richard-serra/
http:ggbb.org/
www.guerillagirls.com/interview/index.shtml
www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/248352/guerrilla girls.html
http://affinityproject.org/groups/guerillagirls.html
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