Artwork is sometimes overwhelming. Existence as a entire can become overwhelming, and at times I do find myself caught up in its whirlwind of drama. Becoming the person that I am, being faced with it, I tend to question the issues that I do not understand, and sometimes I questions the issues I understand the most, the issues that I am certain of the most, like artwork.

After 1 of our regular seminar sessions at school I found myself considering a piece of work we were presented with that afternoon: three canvases painted yellow placed on top of each other on a wall of a gallery, a creation seemingly easy, however was declared to us and to the entire globe as a masterpiece, some thing of offered worth, an example we should measure up to. It stirred a great deal of controversy in the space, the most diverse response I have ever before witnessed on an artwork related discussion among my classmates. Some could not help but demean it, other people dismissed it as some thing pathetic, some thing a kid could produce in 1 day, while a few glorified it. However I sat there disappointed with my not knowing how to assess it, with my not understanding how it could appear credible and worthy of admiration to numerous.

From that day on, viewing such pieces of artwork grew to become extremely thought provoking for me. When I visited the college’s library, I came across a guide on Tom Friedman’s work. 1 of his pieces, untitled 1995, caught my eye it was a chewed piece of bubble gum that has been stretched to stick to each the ceiling and the floor. On the spur of the moment, this piece of work seemed insignificant and dirty to me. Why a chewing gum as an artwork piece? Something extremely available to all, some thing we chew on and spit on the side of the streets day following day. Why would he want to existing such a trivial thing as a work of artwork? I just did not get how such an artist would find recognition and fame. It produced me reflect on artwork once more. What is it? Who defines it? Who produces it? And exactly where do its parameters lie?

As I read about it I found that it all lies inside the concept, the worth of it lies predominantly in the idea, the philosophy embedded behind it. This particular piece of work ‘untitled’ 1995, was 1 among several other people of his showcased in an exhibition in 1996. Each person piece was an illustration reflecting on 1 angle of the larger picture he was exploring.

His work in that display was seen collectively as an exploration of the relationship in between suggestions suggestions that he did not mention the content of, but suggestions that I see representing general types, representing thoughts in their raw context. How do they interact with 1 an additional? Do they exceed to reinforce, or do they branch out and complicate on their own?

The bubble gum piece visually tackles the concept of suggestions drifting apart from each other, hence the action of being stretched. It also exhibits how further and further absent the idea has moved from its authentic state. The relationship is then depicted to have become thinner and thinner until its connection is no lengthier detectable and defined. It has also been stated that this particular piece carried further which means, as in it Friedman saw the relationship his other various pieces of work have with each other, their growing independency and their evolving further apart.

Reflecting back again on this piece of work I have become much more appreciative of such work, and learned to search for meanings to pieces of artwork that I fall short to understand at the initial glance. However, still bearing in thoughts the subject matter of this work (suggestions and their relationship with each other), I have come up with an interpretation of my own that could be related. What if the stretched piece in in between the ceiling and the floor expresses a feeling of holding on instead than relocating absent? This idea could also reflect the ambiguity, contradiction and spontaneity that exists in the way we think and create suggestions. I also think that he is an sincere, simple person, who reduces or compares the which means of life to a thing, smaller sized than him, some thing tangible, some thing our fingers can play around with, like a chewing gum in Friedman’s situation. To me it is his expression of control over his life. In my viewpoint he is making life appear as trivial.

Friedman is 1 artist that has approached artwork in methods that are beyond the conventional painting or sculpture, and, as I have come to find out, this is 1 of the features of contemporary artwork as a entire, in which conceptual artwork belongs.

Conceptualism is a type of artwork that questions conventional artwork. It sets to undertaking a concept to the viewer through a piece of work, in which the worth of it lies firmly on the intellect and the idea behind it instead than the representation of it. In reality the physical look and the aesthetics of it is frequently of small or no importance. Like the functions of artwork that are classified under conceptual artwork, the movement in itself is open to controversy, numerous do no want to stick labels or definitions to it, other people reject it as not artwork. www.bbc.co.uk, www.artlex.com. Lucie-Smith, 1995

The movement started out as a backlash created by a group of independent artists in opposition to the commercial perspective that existed in the direction of the prior artwork movement (pop-artwork). The exponents of conceptual artwork consequently wanted to produce artwork that was deprived and ‘purged’ of the ‘impurities’ of Pop Artwork such as its heavy emphasis on iconography and its quest for visual appeal. Furthermore, most of the conceptualists have absolutely nothing to market, enforcing a statement to their viewers about their attitudes in the direction of materialism. It also provides a clearer idea of what they worth most about their work their consideration of type as type, idea as an idea.

To return to Friedman’s work, &quotUntitled 1990&quot, Two white sheets of paper, displayed side by side seemingly with identical dimension, texture, and think it or not with identical wrinkles. The idea presented by him this time revolves around identification and ‘identicals’. To him such a thing does not and cannot exist. He is teaching us some thing new while making us doubt what we think in. No two issues can be the exact same, they can be alike but never the exact same to have some thing be the exact same as some thing else would mean getting two of the real and thing, which in actuality can not happen, because at the end of it we will usually have 1 authentic. Each is placed at a ‘different’ relation to 1 an additional the right piece is positioned to the left of the left piece and vice versa. I cannot help but find it ironic that what we initial perceived to be identical objects evolved into opposites through a procedure of thought and cause. I wonder if the artist had it in thoughts to lead the viewer into this route of thought or whether it is only my added insight on what I understood from his guide.

Friedman’s recurrent incorporation of everyday issues, such as chewing gum, straws, papers and pencils, into his work in a matter new to all, produces an ambiance of contemplation. This kind of new positioning of products and objects tends to make the viewer think about their existence and his existence in 1.

Allow us take Simone Berti’s work for instance. As a component of an outside exhibition he has placed a bridge of bricks in the center of a pond so that, it is enclosed by the water. Observing this installation piece, numerous people would reach the conclusion that the water is acting as an obstacle not allowing the bridge to perform its undisputed of transferring people from 1 end of dry land to the other end of dry land. However, despite this unsettling arrangement of the bridge and the pond, Berti wanted to existing this scene as a harmonious atmosphere. He meant to existing to us the bridge as ‘an object in its own right’, while to him the pond almost acted as a track record or a backdrop.

As I view it, Berti is not illustrating an emotional attachment or a connection with the bridge, but instead using it as a tool to inform the viewers that it is okay to break loose from the chains, break absent from the ideals of what appears or is certainly right. It allows us to see the larger picture in life and be less afraid to label issues that are uncommon as the norm, or even much more daring as the praised. What if we take what Berti has just taught us as a measure of our attitudes to other issues in life, like beauty for example, why is still not acceptable to have an overweight woman on the cover of Vogue journal? It is only us that set certain measures and constrains on ourselves, and in buy to change that, artwork radicalizes what is typical to us and stretches it like the piece of bubble gum. Until that piece of actuality has distorted itself and we are then forced to appear at life from a fresh much more hopeful, much more questioning angle.

This brings me on to mention the similarity I have also found in between Friedman’s pieces and 1 of Damien Hirst’s. The piece titled this small Piggy went to Marketplace this small stayed home is 1 example of his wider work on animals. In it he displays a pig that has been cut across into person components, each is placed in a tank of formaldehyde preservative which is then separately monitored by an ‘automated track’. The tanks then transfer the components of the pig apart and slide back again into place in repetitive motions, connecting and disconnecting the pig’s physique.

Although in comparison with each Friedman’s and Berti’s work, this piece seems to me as surprising, grotesque and sickening. I find that a similar thoughtfulness in their methods. Hirst stated that he wanted his piece of artwork to make &quotpeople think about the issues they take for granted. Like smoking, like intercourse, like adore, like life, like marketing, like death&quot. He also stated that he wanted &quot to make people frightened of what they know. I want to make them question&quot. http://www.newsletterjournal.com

In my viewpoint it is his inclusion of objects and issues that are acquainted to us in his artwork work in methods that are new and unthought-of of that really provokes us as viewers into questioning. The realization of actuality in a new buy brings fear. &quotOrdinary issues are frightening. It’s like a shoe is meant to get you from 1 place to an additional. The moment you beat your girlfriend’s head with it, it turns into some thing insane. The change of is what is frightening?. That is what artwork is.&quot http://www.newsletterjournal.com

Say we were presented with canvases that no lengthier hang in galleries, no lengthier undertaking an idea through its surface but instead through the manipulation of the physique of the canvas it self, won’t that be scary. In some of Angela De La Cruz’s work, I found such ideas to be evident. Her canvases are almost the personification of ugly and negative feelings. They seem to be treated as people who have committed a misdemeanor and have been punished, or instead abused for it. After studying about her piece titled, Sky Folded, 1997, I have come to discover that with out acknowledging the action and the procedure in which such pieces have evolved into, they will never preserve the exact same worth and appreciation if they were. Reading about Sky Folded, 1997, I was amazed to find out that the block of canvas ‘has been violently smashed and bent along the diagonal, like arms pinned behind one’s back again in a agonizing wrestle’. This kind of info alters my perception of it now, it is not a piece of canvas that has been folded at 1 of its corner and then placed thoughtfully on the floor, and instead it has been emotionally and physically dealt with. Breuvant, 2002

To conclude I have come to realize that what it all arrives down to merely when actuality is rearranged it confuses people simple as this may audio I found this out while researching artists that have presented our actuality in an additional type. I found a actuality of an additional type and that, is what I find surprising, artwork functions that have insignificant dimensions of faeces on a pedestal have never managed to make me doubt my knowledge and typical feeling. It is like finding a new dimension of thought and staying accurate to this point, can any and all type of artwork other than conceptual in a position create a wave of shock when realizing the hidden thought and intents behind its concept?

Mahaba Abdulla