Nigel Coates has created an architectural piece of art, as an aspiring architect i am really interested about this work and what he has to say about it. The cityscape that is made of everything from everyday objects, toys to modern computer modeling techniques, this is something that i am very interested in because i have always seem architecture as this amazing art in which very old and traditional buildings can be placed right next to modern sleek design and then inbetween have this mix between the two, these building really tying a city together. I think that he has really capture this aspect of a city, when you look at the work as a hole you see this city that looks normal in a quirky kind of way but when you start looking closer you can see how crazy the work is, with toys molded in glue to stacked sugar cubes. This is what really makes the work brilliant to me, the more you look the more you find, and i could stare at it and just imagine myself walking around this toy city that looks like something you would find in a kids film that little people would make out of things they find lying about. I love how fun this work is and find it really interesting to look at. It has made me think that you can create art of the craziest things its just how you put them together.
Author: artatthepeak
Bob and Roberta Smith
‘There more about language and how we speak to each other’
This is one of my favorite artists that i have looked at, the simple straight forward messages and text in there work but they are packed full of meaning and are designed to be interpreted by the viewer in there own way. Make art not war is one of my favorite works that i have seen in a very long time, for such a simple piece there is so much going on. The words were spososidly said to the artist by his father on his death bead, he was also an artist but got heavily injured on a battlefield, giving the work a sense of meaning and a personal touch. The word are written in an old Edwardian font but with modern colours and clean lines making the work bold and really stand out to those that see it. My favorite thing about all this is that although the words are very literal they can be taken in many different ways, when I think about i think about how we should think about the actions we take and how they are going to effect other people, and try and chose the option that might not be right for you but is right for everything around you. this really made me think about how art can send out many different messages even when it is so simple.
1000 Screams
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is all that comes to mind when i think of 1000 people screaming at once in a hall, most things I understand about art but this I can not get my head around. I am always getting into arguments with friends trying to prove to them that art can be almost anything, from a single line on a canvas to an unmade bed, if it is presented in the right way almost anything can be art. The pieces that I end up getting into arguments with people with often turn out to be some of my favourite because they have brought out such strong feeling in people.
This work is no more than an elaborate group therapy session. The more that i think about this so called work the more I do not understand it, its just a whole load of people being given some earplugs, walking into a room, letting of some steam and then leaving as if nothing has happened. The fact that this has made me so annoyed and giving me such feeling some might argue that for that reason it is art but I just can’t see it like that.
Freedom Matters
An artist working an Nepal was asked to create a design for a brightly colours mosaic, this mosaic would be mounted upon an wall of school building in the middle of a Nepalese slum. This is one of the most inspirational works that i have seen in a very long time, This art work means to much to the community that it was built in. The whole work was done trying to get the out of everyone involved, the mosaic was designed by a artist for the charity and then it was put together by local people that have been saved from the human trafficking slave, to try and get them involved in the community again and then it was mounted on the side of a new school building that is the center of the slum. The art was designed to try and inspire the kids that go to the school with images that will motivate them and bright colours to try and grab there attention, this is really somewhere where are is not only going to be appresheated but also become something to help people’s lives progress. This has made me think that when creating art you not only need to think about what it is going to look like but also where it is going to be places as this will give it context and meaning.
Paula Rego
‘You might start with one story and finish up with a different one. You have to trust the picture, because the picture that you are doing that is telling you whats inside you.’
Paula Rego’s work always has this sense of realism that you wouldn’t expect from the images that she creates, the quirky picture that she creates are full of hidden messages and unexpected meanings, creating the feeling of unravelling the more that you look at the images. She paints this world of a dark fairy-tail, drawing things from sets that she creates and coming out with pictures that you couldn’t even think of in your wildest imagination. This gives her work this essence that you cant stop looking at it no matter how much it kind of creeps you out.
The more that i look at her picture the more uneasy I feel, the twisted pictures that destroy what you thought as a child of the makeover world, and bringing it into so kind of distorted reality of pain, suffering and sex. But in some kind of messed up I cant help but enjoying her art, its so dinamically impressive and I just cant stop looking at it, I’ve always thought the main meaning of art if to raise debate or to give the viewer feeling in there gut, Paula Rego’s work does both so to me it is impressive art.
Quentin Blake
‘I want everything I do to look spontaneous, its not that I think all illustration should look like that, but this is what i can do.’
Quentin Blake is a very talented illiterate that is very embedded in the roots of drawing techniques. When i first think of his work i can’t help but think of my childhood, not only because he illustrated the Roald Dahl books that i used to read under my covers with a flash light but also because the pictures have a real child like quality that you cant help but smile at. He draws the lines as if they themselves have a mood, varying between quick thin lines that bring movement and excitement, to thicker slower lines that can really transport you into the image.
The aesthetics of the drawing remind me of the drawing that all kids have done and handed to there parents when they were younger, but his while somehow maintaining this playful quality also add detail to tell a story. Everything from the colours used in the picture to the way that the faces are drawn add to the feel and emotions in the piece. I love how you can get so much out of simple image. It has really made me think about how i use lines in my own work, how that line was drawn can add or deduct from an article.
Do Ho Suh
‘Life is a passage way, I experience life moving through a series of spaces.’
Do Ho Suh is a sculpture that moved from Korea, he then moved to america, he says that this transition between cultures really helped him see life in a very different ways. seeing things as simple as doorways as something that can join two object but can also separate them. This is how staircase 3 the fabric architecture piece came about, a translucent staircase suspended from the ceiling, to high for people to touch but low enough to see the detail. The work is made out of a thin pinkey material that can be seen through, and is a 1 to 1 scale replica of his apartment stairs that led from his flat to his land lords. Making the work personal, but only if you knew the story behind the mysterious stairs.
The one thing that i cant help but think about when looking at the piece is the stair way to heaven, how behind these unreachable stairs there is light streaming down though them, but the more you look the more fragile the stairs look, reminding me that the christian belief in getting to heaven is a fragile idea that could easily be broken. This made me think about what my messages i want my work to send out to those that have the time to look.
Shiein Neshat
‘People should be free to choose what they want to do with there lives, what they want to wear, what religion they want to believe in; this is not something a government or community should impose.’
Shirin Neshat was born on the 26th of march 1957 in Iran. She is well known for her work in film, video and photography, her work referring to the social, cultural and religious code of the muslin society. She is very bold with her work, this has brought her allot of attention on the art scene, not all the attention has been positive. The fact that she questions allot about the muslin and Iran’s community and how they act has been very controversial, but she has done so by creating stunning images. She is best known for her photos that she then writes on top of with traditional writing. Even though i cant read this writing the images still bring up allot of emotions in me, everything from pittey to sorrow. This has tough me allot, it has shown to me that if you are using text in a piece of work it doesn’t always matter what it says, just where you place it and how you write it on the work that can really effect the mood of the piece. From now I will think allot more about how i construct and build up my art to get the desired look.
Anthony Gormley
Horizon Field, ‘where do human beings fit into the scheme of things.’ This is one of the most impressive pieces of instillation art. The raw sculptures, left just as they are out of the mold, left in the hills to face the whether and elements just like humans had to hundreds of years ago. The hundred sculptures that are all made out of the same mold, allowing Anthony Gormley to place almost identical works all over the Himalayan landscape, really igniting peoples imagination. With people having to find these figures that stand alone but at the same time part of a larger mass. I think that Anthony Gormley really capture the human essence by doing this. If you really think about it that’s what were all trying to do,we all want to be an indevidual but also always trying to fit in to a group whether it be geeks, rockers or any other group.
I really like this work because it is going to always just be growing and molding into the landscape as they rust and moss grows upon them. As this happens the work will become more visually impressive.
Barbican’s Rain Room
The rain room is a hundred square meter space filled with falling water, but this is no ordinary room full of rain. The room is designed so that no matter how you walk though it you will never get wet out of the hundreds of water droplets that are falling none will ever hit you. Giving you the feeling that you are quite literally controlling the elements. Imagine walking through a room with water falling all around you and the sounds of a rain storm all around you. Your brain telling you that you that at this point you should be getting drenched but the sensors in your skin telling you that your bone dry, giving you the feeling of extacy.
This installation piece, that took so much work and thinking over everything from how to make it work, to constructing and initializing. But the payout is massive, to ignite the imagination of everyone who walked in the room has hardly been been done before by art, it would be a room that would be impossible to be unhappy in.
Art at the Peak 
