Bruce Charlsworth
http://www.brucecharlesworth.net/
Airlock
Airlock is in stages. You start of in one room looking at one of the videos and you slowly progress through the installation. It is very safe and people who are in the hallways can return at any given time if they were to start worrying.
From what i see the first room just has a T.V monitor showing a video, then you continue around the corner and down a shot hallway and there is a second video being projected onto one of the walls, with some normal household furniture at the end off the hall. Its seems from the floor plans quite safe and comforting. but in the actual instillation the walls are very close and there is very little room to move around and this can make some people feel claustrophobic especially when they continue fourth into the instillation. There is a very small room between the two main rooms that is roughly the size of an airlock and it has two doors to it, though i could only see through one of the doors as i could only see what was in the floor plans as there is no video to this instillation, the only video you see is the three that are in the building. Then you go thought the other door and you are in a larger room with a small swimming pool with another video being projected onto the wall. Compared to the other room this one is very dark as the hallway is light colours but they are very dull and the airlock has a blue lighting to the room. The last room isn't very big but it is still bigger than the other two by far, there is a blown up swimming pool and a pulley with a basket just over the top of it. Everything that you see has something to do with the video as in the videos that is being shown at the very beginning has a man in fisherman's clothing with waterproof gear on. In the hallway video you see the man who is the creator Bruce Charlsworth stands in front of the airlock and he is just trying to pass the time, or so it says. When you continue there is another video this one is set in the third room and once again you see Charlsworth in a room trying to pass the time. There is a slight narrative to the instillation but some viewers do not always see the same thing as unless they watch each video all the way thought then they do not know everything that happens and it alternates the story, but it says that there is no beginning middle or end to the videos and the viewers can decide what they want about the story as it was created to see the response of the viewer's and see what they made of it all.
Bruce didn't really say that much about this instillation for what reason i do not know he did act in the video himself though so that he would get everything perfect to the way he had imagined it.
http://vimeo.com/22088132
"Bringing a filmmaker's sensibility to his work, Charlesworth's photographs embody the dislocation of modern society with subtle wit and wild abandon."
http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Private_enemy_public_eye.html?id=2uY4AQAAIAAJ
I dont really understand full what it is they are on about but i think they mean that his work is based on modern times and that they are different to others and that i agree with. I feel that to make the insulation more easy to understand they could have put a little more into the videos so that all viewers can understand what they are meant to be think, as i know he wanted to make people feel claustrophobic and i can see that it would make you feel it as there is very little space to get around and that can already create a tension that leaves the viewers uneasy, but apart from that i do not see what message he is trying to get across and the only thing that would make it clearer id make the videos being shown more understandable. It is a clever idea and can be a very strange experience for the viewers.
Love Disorder
This is a very simple idea but it is still very clever. All there is to the instillation i one room with a control bored and a massive screen which i filled with a mans face, what i like and find very clever is how the man reacts to the viewers, he can greet them and he responds to everything they do and it isn't always the same as there are quite a few different thing he says. It says that he tries to encourage the viewer to get closer to the screen by complimenting them and continues to encourage the viewers to get closer and when they get a certain distance from the screen the man shouts and scares off the viewer or he can act scared also making the viewer back away. A lot of people commented on how clever the video is as the man responds to how you move and what you do, there are also so many different things he says that every viewer would most likely get a completely different experience to each other, it can be sad, angry, happy or many other emotions it is just very clever the way that the man reacts to the movement of the person viewing the instillation.
"Charlesworth conveys a disorienting vision of the banalities and horrors of
everyday life in his offbeat art, mixing mediums of videos, film,
"photo-novellas," installations, theater pieces, short fiction."
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=bruce%20charlesworth%20private%20enemy%20public%20eye&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FPrivate-Enemy-Public-Eye-Charlesworth-Charles%2Fdp%2F0893813370&ei=TrEPUarVF5OThgfgjYGQDw&usg=AFQjCNHLJLQA6kkfN848DUwGb4y_z3Q0dg&bvm=bv.41867550,d.ZG4&surl=1&safe=active
I do agree with this as in the two pieces that i saw they were very different to each other and i found this one very clever in the way it was so simply presented and that it was so different to his other pieces of work. I think that the insulation is clever in the way that it react to peoples movement and has a range of reactions to what they do. I don't feel that it has anything to do with peoples day to day lives it is just random reactions played to get a reaction from the audience and it does that well, i still think that what the review says is very strange for this particular insulation as there s nothing to do with the horrors of day to day life. But the installation itself is very effective and the way it makes the audience feel is clever and that it isn't always the same.
Bruce Nauman
http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/show-list/artwork-type/?search=Installation
The University 2
When you first look at this piece it looks just like a piece of modern architecture and doesn’t look like anything special, it does look interesting though and it makes the viewer wonder what it is, this would make them approach it to see what it really is and what is going on inside of the piece when the viewer approaches they would see that this isn’t just a normal piece of architecture as when you get up close you see that there is body part that look realistic, you also see a decomposing werewolf in the middle of the structure. Though the werewolf dose not move and play no apparent part in the narrative he has something to do with everything around him, also he is a symbol of transformation. It is not just about a rotting werewolf but it is about everything around him, its all about the wealth he had as the room is filled with crystals and jewels. Also there are handmade plastic flowers and birds scattered around the piece, David Altmejd wanted to show the beauty of the man’s life before the transformation even though it seems very dark in its content he still wanted to show with decay comes promise of regrowth
I found a page that had a review on the artist himself a quote from that is.
"Over the last four decades, American artist Bruce Nauman has been hugely
influential on artists all around the world. The vast range of media that many
artists work in now can be tracked back to his aggressive installations, neons,
sound pieces, videos and performances. Their willingness to make a viewer flinch
can also be traced to him. That's made Nauman a favorite of many of the world's
top curators, critics and collectors." By Blake Gopnik
I do agree with this in some of the work that he dose, with this piece there isn't that much till you get inside when there are the decomposing werewolf heads and body parts which when noticed the viewer might well flinch wondering what it is and not being able to see it properly i cannot get the full effect of what it is someone sees there. I don't think that i would want to go and see it but the way that it entices the viewer into the building and then grosses you out with all the body parts lying around. I think that it is an effective insulation that creates the reaction that was wanted. The review doesn't really talk about the insulation but about the man himself and i can see how he could be influential to other artist.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/07/AR2009060702428.html
http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/show-full/piece/?search=Installation&page=1&f=Artwork Type&cr=3
David Altmejd
The healers
This is a sculpture made by David Altmejd it is all about people even thought they don't look very like humans they have some of the basic features, it shows the human figure in all its spatial, spiritual and psychological multiplicity. He experiments with the way they all look by adding elements that you wouldn't see on any human, this would make anyone who passes by look at it and wonder what its all about as you continue to look around the sculpture you see that there is a sexual theme to the sculpture but it is subtle witch is clever the way that he has managed to show sex without it being to obvious and off putting for the viewers. It is very interesting to look at and very well made as the viewer i wonder what it was David Altmejd wanted people to think when seeing this piece of his work and what is it he was thinking when he created it.
“Property itself has become a more social endeavor,” Wired Magazine co-founder Kevin Kelly wrote three years ago.
"the work of Canadian David Altmejd escaped the opprobrium ladled by critics on some other artists, in part because his sculptural giants, for all their size, simply lack the overweening gigantism so bullyingly displayed by even more massive works in Joannou’s inventory. I also want to believe that Altmejd was spared because of a certain quality inherent to his work, which I have long admired, not only for its beauty and evident skill, but for its poignant identification with the struggles of the underdog."
I don't think that the instillation is beautiful in anyway i find it quiet ugly and pointless but there might be other people that like the piece. I can see how people think that the size of the piece can be seen as intimidating as they are very large and does tower over people. I do to think that the idea is very creative but i do not understand why it was created or what the point to it is. I think if there was more to the price then it might make more sense and that it might be even more interesting also viewers would understand it more. I'm still not sure why it has been made or if there even is a point to it, but it is very creative but needs the creator of it to explain it more as it only seems like a sculpture. It might be that he was just trying to be different as the reviews say about it and it is different as i have never seen anything like it before, so i guess that it is strange and different and i think that that is what David Altmejd was trying to accomplish.
http://www.canadianart.ca/reviews/2012/01/26/david_altmejd-2/
http://www.art-agenda.com/shows/review-paddy-johnson-on-david-altmejd-at-andrea-rosen-gallery/
