This Grade 12 Visual Arts guide covers major international art movements, including Land Art, Installation Art, Video Art, and Body Art. It highlights influential artists and works, examining how these movements redefined art through interaction with the environment and human experience. Ideal for ...
LAND ART
Characteristics
• Movement in which landscape and the work of art are inextricably linked.
• It is also an art form that is created in nature, using natural materials, organic media and water with
introduced materials such as concrete, metal, asphalt, or mineral pigments.
• Sculptures are not placed in the landscape, rather, the landscape is the means of their creation.
• The works frequently exist in the open, located well away from civilisation
• Understood as an artistic protest against the perceived artificiality, and commercialisation of art at the end
of the 1960s in America.
Christo and Jean-Claude
• Married couple who produce impressive and large scale environmental installations.
Wrapped Reichstag (1977-1995)
✦1,076,390 square feet of thick woven polypropylene fabric with
an aluminium surface were used for the wrapping
✦The work of art was entirely financed by the artists. The artists do
not accept sponsorship of any kind.
✦Took 24 years to complete
✦The building has experienced its own continuous changes and
perturbations but the Reichstag always remained the symbol of
Democracy.
✦Throughout the history of art, Fabric, like clothing or skin, is
fragile; it translates the unique quality of impermanence.
Surrounded Islands (1980-1983)
✦ The installation of Surrounded Islands was completed in Biscayne
Bay.
✦ Eleven of the islands situated in the area were surrounded with 6.5
million square feet of floating pink woven polypropylene fabric
covering the surface of the water
✦ The luminous pink colour of the shiny fabric was in harmony with the
tropical vegetation of the uninhabited verdant islands, the light of
the Miami sky and the colours of the shallow waters of Biscayne Bay.
✦ The marine and land crews picked up debris from the eleven islands,
putting refuse in bags and carting it away after they had removed
some forty tons of varied garbage
, INSTALLATION ART
Characteristics
• Artist views the notions of time and space in a unique way
• Installation depends on both space and time for its effectiveness
• Location of the installation is important
• Viewer is encouraged to engage with artworks
• Objects are placed in a certain way to convey meaning
Damien Hirst
• Prominent member of the Young British Artists, who are known for controversial and contemporary work.
• Known as richest living artist ( $198 Million )
• Influenced by Francis Davison’s abstract collages of torn coloured paper
• While a student had a part time job at a mortuary - had a huge impact on his later work
A Hundred Years (1990)
✦Consisted of large glass case containing maggots and flies
feeding on a rotten cows head
✦ Hirst is playing God by creating and environment he is fully
in control of
✦Makes the viewer cringe and reflect on the meaning or lack
there of life
✦What life consists of in its most gruesome and unidealised
form.
✦Viewer is able to move around the work and become fully
immersed
For the Love of God (2007)
✦Its raw materials define it as an artwork of unprecedented scale. The
32 platinum plates making up ‘For the Love of God’ are set with 8,601
VVS to flawless pavé-set diamonds, weighing a massive 1,106.18
carats.
✦The teeth inserted into the jaw are real and belong to the original
skull.
✦The skull from which ‘For the Love of God’ was cast, was purchased
from a London taxidermist and subsequently subjected to intensive
bio-archaeological analysis. This research revealed it dated from
around 1720 - 1810, and was likely to be that of a 35-year-old man of
European/Mediterranean ancestry.
✦ ‘For the Love of God’ acts as a reminder that our existence on earth
is transient.
✦Hirst combined the imagery of classic memento with inspiration
drawn from Aztec skulls and the Mexican love of decoration and
attitude towards death. He explains of death: “You don’t like it, so you
disguise it or you decorate it to make it look like something bearable –
to such an extent that it becomes something else.”
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