Post 2 Influences - Aris S

1-Who are the 5+ artists you chose?

• Cao Fei
• Sarah Sze
• Guadalupe Maravilla
• Gabriel Orozco
• Zanele Muholi

2-What were 5+ themes the artists addressed about making work? 

• Cao Fei discusses the borders between reality and non-reality, culture and how modern real trends influence a person into wanting to create an idealistic world outside of their real one. The absurdity of reality and the detachment from it through exaggeration and simplification in worlds meant to mimic reality.
• Sarah Sze explores the most densely populated point where all cultures meet, in the Subway. Urban life impacts her work. Culture, community, and sharing a small space. 
• Guadalupe Maravilla uses sound and other visual mediums on land to explore healing from sickness and trauma, from the standpoint of someone who is ill and someone who helps heal others.
• Gabriel Orozco explores art as not just a form of commodity, but as a tool for knowledge.
• Zanele Muholi uses photography to bring voices and awareness to the often neglected and targeted Black LGBTQ community. Freedom and community is prevalent in this work.

3-What were 5+ challenges the artists faced in making their work?

• Fei's work dealt with technology as it became more prominent. Creating a virtual city was an accumulation of all the culture and world views she had grew into thus far. Though she had wanted to create an never-ending city in Second Life to homage the world she loves, technology has it's limits and the borders between real life and second life can't be taken dow. Fei Acknowledges this and embraces the disconnect.
• She paid special attention to making sure her work did not read as mechanical and perfect, as blueprints usually are required to be. She makes it a point for her work on walls to have an obvious hand touch to them, to go back in and add a human quality to it. 
• Maravilla struggled at some point in his career deciding whether to continue with being an artist or to explore sound alone. His experiences with crossing the border at a young age and his bout with cancer ultimately led him to using his experiences to help others.
• Orozco challenges the world of art and art viewers who go to galleries to consume art and leave, and gives a new perspective to earn from viewing his pieces. Going to his show will not only expose you to art, but to experiences and knowledge to the world and others
• Capturing not only the beauty of these women, but also the individuality of them is a task that takes a lot of skill. In a gallery space, beauty is not the only purpose of a photo, there is a story that needs to come with it. Muholi takes care to expose the art world to the LGBTQ world in a way that humanizes the subjects. 

4-What were 5+ inspirations you drew from the artists?

• Fei's work is fun and also thought provoking, Her implementation of her culture and urban life creates a lively and also lonely feeling to her work. There is an emphasis on Satirizing the real world through performance and virtual technology.
• I enjoy the way Sze considers the flowing of life in and out of one space. She pays special attention to the space itself, what it houses, and the community it provides.
• Maravilla uses sound in his work as another medium, as well as community involvement. He is the healer, but without those who need healing the piece is not complete. This involvement is give and take and is essential to his work.
• Orozco's use of language and the dismantling the barrier is essential to his work. He explores art as a tool to give the art viewer something beyond performance, knowledge that the viewer turned participant can take forever.
• Muholi uses the world as her studio, no where is a space that can't be photographed. Being free in identity extends to not only herself but to the world her pieces are created.

5-What were 5+ things you would like to incorporate into your own work after watching these videos?

• Fei's work inspires me to explore more of critiquing the real world. My work is an exploration of a world that doesn't exist, an exaggeration of real life through fiction. However Fei also critiques escapism and idealism, which is something I want to consider for my work, as I tend to find myself relying on escapism to live my everyday life. It is subconsciously a trait I find negative, but have never explored to critique or address in my own idealistic work,
• Sze's work makes me want to pay more attention of my environment, and consider pulling in my surroundings into my work. It is not usually what I strive to focus on in my work, as the basis for it is detached from the space around me on purpose. However there is room to explore making the real world apart of my pieces in small ways
• Maravilla's inclusion of sound is an aspect I want to bring into my exhibition, as sound can greatly affect the atmosphere that draws in your viewer. As my BFA work is focused on the world of horror, I am thinking of implementing eerie and unsettling sound alongside my work to create my own atmosphere in a way similar to Maravilla
• I'd like my work to allow viewers to leave feeling like they have come out of it understanding a bit more of a community they never normally interact with, and not only show my feelings but to pair it with the culture that is often shielded or ignored.
• As my work is heavily impacted by my focus on LGBTQ experience, I wish to address it in a way similar to Muholi that is free and unapologetic. I wish for my work to be inclusive and to not shy away from acknowledging the lives of those who usually are not represented in gallery spaces.