Who have I looked into?
Another Artist who uses the everyday objects to address experiences is Louise Bourgeois who is renowned for extracting fragments of her traumatic past into her works. In particular with the Cells Installations – Eyes and Mirrors, they hold crucial evidence of her personal life experience even when it is displayed in such an abstract way. When it is displayed in an abstract way, it would seem that this points out to a less direct response for the audience forcing them to question the work further to make sense of what it is about.
Bourgeois highlights that pain or trauma can take different forms physically and mentally known as formalism. As pain can take many forms, it is also possible to make artwork in different forms or narrative as well that can hide well within random looking objects presented in an abstract way. In this abstract form, the objects give off some kind of clue or inkling into what has been experienced but does not hold the whole story.
How does Louise Bourgeois relate to my own work?
As her pains and traumas correspond well within her works it is also possible for my own traumatic memories of my Chinese and English illness to take on forms with objects too. As she uses the everyday, I like to also use the everyday objects to create narratives or clues to make the audience question the work further just like Bourgeois’ works.
Who have I looked into?
The Dada movement started in Zurich in Germany and the artists, intellectuals and writers were furious with the modern society. So they decided to show their protest through artistic medium and decided to create non-art since art in the society then had no meaning. The so-called non-artists turned to creating art that had soft obscenities, scattered humor, visible puns and everyday objects. The most outrageous painting was created by Marcel Duchamp and he painted a mustache on a copy of Mona Lisa and scribbled obscenities under it.
He also created his sculpture called fountain which was actually a urinal without the plumbing and it had a fake signature. the public were repulsed by the Dada movement. Since Marcel Duchamp liked using the everyday objects as artworks it also becomes a Dada.
Why does Marcel Duchamp relate to my work?
Reflecting back to my first current works with the pairs of English and Chinese food and drink objects, they are also a readymade because of the way they are presented as originals. These everyday objects harks back to dadaism where Duchamp made good use of objects to creating his artworks.
Who have I looked into?
Hans Peter Feldmann is a visual artist who moves in the universe of the everyday. he takes from the universe the materials, objects and images along with themes.
He states that all his work is based on personal experiences and it is a way of transforming experiences, obsessions and intuitions into language, an attitude that which is common to many artists. The materials he uses is the everyday stuff that habitually surrounds him. The magazine photos, family snaps, postcards, books, objects etc. With his material and his themes, Feldmann wants to place himself on the margans of art history in order to represent the everyday.
The images and objects presented inhabit the daily life along with the narratives which are constructed with all of these materials. His work involves many different social contexts that resemble to Emin’s and Gonzalez-Torres works of the everyday objects.
How does Hans Peter Feldmann relate to my own work?
The themes in my own work closely resemble to the everyday objects that holds narratives from my own personal experiences such as my English and Chinese foods and drinks readymades. He also relates to my other artwork of the Chinese and english illness sculpture where you have the Chinese squatting toilet and the english bricks which also consists of the everyday object.
Why look into Tracey Emin?
Tracey Emin is an British artist who recreates her past through objects to make her art work. Looking at Emin’s my bed within the horizontal view of the photograph, it seems inhabited with recognisable used everyday objects which simply forces the viewer to respond more in a social context. The meaning of the social context is more outlined when it comes to seeing the everyday used objects on the bed that relates back to her social life style.
Theorist mandy merck and Chris Townsend explain about how the use of objects or readymades develop the signs of memory traces through Tracey Emin’s work.
” Emin frequently uses images, objects and materials from her own life to address difficult subjects such as rape and abortion but her work consciously reworks her ‘life story’ as a set of narratives and memories.”
My bed is clearly a piece of work that invokes a direct response to the viewer with the objects laid out as obvious clues to Emin’s past. All the objects point to a direct sexual downfall of Emin’s relationship history. These signs from the objects indicate memory traces from her relationship with men.
How does Tracey Emin relate to my artwork?
So in relation to my current themes most of my work is about cultural relationships and does address a social contexts such as Emin’s work. I also like to use everyday objects to address my experiences as narratives. Like my Chinese squatting toilet, this explains a narrative that is held within the objects because I am partially trying to explain my illness and not telling the whole story.
Why look into Gonzalez-Torres?
He primarily uses everyday objects to present his artworks in a way to show his personal memories of his relationships with his gay lover. This idea of presenting lovers within objects to make a narrative of loss or absence relates back to my degree show of the two clocks with the eight hours difference and my Chinese and English food and drink objects.
One of his best known works is called Perfect Lovers (1991) which are two very identical clocks that appear to look the same but are in fact representing two different male lovers. The two clocks were created into an art form representing the traumatic state with the death of Gonzalez-Torres’s partner and these two clocks act as the transfiguration version to both lovers.
Although my clocks in my last degree show and my latest work with the Chinese food and drinks do not entirely relate to the whole trauma theme, there is still this loss of my girlfriend in which does become traumatic for me in a way that you feel you have lost something and when you want it you cannot grasp it.
