Research

Artist #1: Sherrie Levine

Levine is an American artist, known for her photography, appropiated work and conceptual art. She was born in Hazelton, PA in 1947 and studied art at the University of Wisconsin, Madison where she recieved both her BA and MFA. She recieved attention from the art world in the early 1980s, for her solo exhibition at the Metro Picutres Gallery, entitled, "After Walker Evans." Her work has been seen to some as commentary on the end of the Modernist era in art. Her artwork is also interpreted as questioning artistic originality, the authenticity of the object of the art piece itself and the work as a commodity. More recently, in November 2011, the Whitney Museum of Art in NYC displayed "Mayhem," an exhibition of Levine's career.

Levine's exhibition, "After Walker Evans" included well known Walker Evan's photographs (depicting the rural poverty in the US during the Great Depression) that were then rephotographed by Levine from an exhibition catalog. Levine's photographs were then printed and displayed with no extra work or manipulation done to the photographs. The exhibit questioned exactly what she wanted to question, by not tampering with the photographs she then asks the viewer to consider what is authentic and then the autonomy of the art is then also in question. Through the every nature of this project, she raises points about authorship and originality in art with her slight degree of appropiation.

In the first reading we did by Walter Benjamin entitled The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, reminded me of this artist, Levine, because of his thoughts on photography. He stated how photography was questioned, as to if it was indeed an art medium, and then how could it be, especially with photography's ability to print multiples. I thought about this, and how it was similar with appropriation art work, where appropriation was questioned, and then how much changes does an artist have to make to another's work to be able present it as their own. Levine's other photography work includes photos of Van Gogh's paintings from a book and her 1991 Fountain, a bronze urinal based off of Marcel Duchamp's 1917's Fountain.

Artist # 2: Poster Boy

Henry Matyjewicz, aka Poster Boy, is a street artist based in New York City. He is best recognized for his satiric collage-esque works made from cut outs from advertisement posters in NYC subways. He began art as a teenager, in the form of graffiti, where he was arrested on misdemeanor charges. He later became interested by politics from readings of Noam Chomsky and George Orwell. In college, he started creating collages, through means of appropriating used canvases of other students. This then turned into working on art on the NY subway while going to and from school.

His work can be found throughout the NY subway platforms, and has actually been imitated by other graffiti artists. Most of his work is mash-up like in order to create humorous juxapositions and compares his work to freestyling through visual appropriations. The work normally includes commentary on current events, and has been labeled the "Matisse of subway-ads mash-ups." He describes himself as a freestyler, because of his process, he has no set plan of what work he'll create, he just goes out and gets inspiration from what he has to work with.

This type of artist, reminded me of the No Logo reading we did. The whole reading was about using advertisements to mold into art, whether it have political or social messages, which is exactly what Poster Boy is doing when he creates his work on the platforms in NY subways. This art causes one to reconsider what the advertisements meanings' were originally.