POST 2 - INFLUENCES IN ART PRACTICE - DEE DIAZ

 Five artists that I chose:

1. Joan Jonas
2. Hiroshi Sugimoto 
3. Jeff Wall
4. Charles Gaines
5. Jes Fan

Themes that were addressed by each artist:

1. Joan Jonas’ work has themes of simplicity, repetition, and strangeness through playfulness. The works are based on her idea of creating her own language through art. She wanted to do this by using and combining music, sound, and three-dimensional space. With this the she created recorded films of her collaborative performance artwork.
2. Hiroshi Sugimoto’s work explores themes of time, architecture, and abstraction of forms to create something else. He makes his work in natural ways with the use of film cameras, sunlight, and shadow because he believes sticking to traditional art makes the best picture. He sees photos as the fossilization of time. His aim in his work is to make work that reflects his imagination to his viewers. 
3. Jeff Wall’s themes of his work are documentation, absurdity, recreations, and limitations in photography. He believes that whether or not a photo is staged is not important because what you see in the photo is something that actually happened whether staged or not. His photos are often recreations and exaggerations of events that he sees in real life. 
4. Charles Gaines’ artwork has themes of conceptualism, race, the system we live in, and appropriation. He believes the materials of his work are not important but rather the concept or idea being the forefront of the creation of a given piece. He creates pieces that challenge the narratives created by the system that we live in that perpetuates and at the same time ignores racism.
5. Jes Fan’s artwork has themes of race, gender, and beauty standards. Through the utilization of gendered and racialized materials such as semen, blood, melanin, and urine, they are able to create grotesque forms with sculptures. These glossy glass like materials are meant to be ugly and compel you with their beauty.

Challenges these artists faced:

1. The initial challenge when it came to Joan Jonas’ work was that she had to figure out a way to create her new “language” in her artwork. After she had discovered her niche it became a problem that no one was viewing or responding to her work. Primarily because they did not know how to when it was viewed. It was not till she wrote in and complained herself to the New York Times that she was able to gain notoriety.
2. Hiroshi Sugimoto did not discuss any challenges in the video that I watched talking about his work. However, one can assume that it was not easy for him as a Japanese immigrant to make waves in the art world and gain the attention that he has today when he first started. Through the use of solely natural lighting and still photos could also pose complications for getting the ideal photo with so many outside variables.
3. One challenge that Jeff Wall faced whilst making his work is that photography is often questioned on whether or not it is historically accurate. His work is often scrutinized for the validity of his images having actually taken place rather than the content, the framing, the time, and beauty of each piece. Wall does not make any dramatic effort to conceal the reality of his images as being staged but does not often give away the hidden components to his works.
4. The first challenge that Charles Gaines mentioned was that while taking a painting class he struggled to understand the purpose of it and became disinterested. He instead explored ways of creating in a different way and took away emphasis from material and medium and placed it onto the theme and subject of the works.
5. Jes Fan discussed two primary challenges that they faced, the first of which was not having any happy queer adult representation around them in Hong Kong. They also have felt oppressed and find comfort in the oppression, danger, and risk. However, they are no longer feeling that same oppression and use their work to reconnect with these struggles.

Inspirations I got from each artist:

1. Joan Jonas’ work in film is something that often cannot be created anymore because of the restrictions on filming in certain locations. Her work inspires me to create my own language through art in a way that, just like Joan, no one else is doing. She keeps her work very clean, simple, and often repetitive but in that way it is profound because of its minimalistic qualities. 
2. What I found inspiring about Hiroshi Sugimoto’s work is also his simplicity of form. I appreciate his eye for detail and creating beauty through abstraction of forms. I really liked it when he said that his subject in a series of work was water and the air above it, that it was an “abstract thing”. The way he describes his artwork in general is very inspiring because you can tell he has his own thing and he’s passionate about it.
3. I find Jeff Wall to be inspiring through his ideology behind his artworks that he creates. Wall is fixated on the idea of creating what he calls “impossible photographs”. He attempts to create photos that feasibly could never happen and at the same time prides himself on what you see is what happened. I think it is inspiring that he emphasizes that there is “no fakery in photography”.
4. I find Charles Gaines work to be inspiring because he challenges the notion of what makes someone an artist. He does not stay in any one given medium and instead is a creator in all of them. I find it inspiring that he is able to float between various mediums and does not believe that you need to be trained to be an artist.
5. Jes Fan’s work is inspiring because they challenge the societal norms of what makes someone or something perceived as beautiful. There is somewhat of a diptych like quality to a sculpture that is made not only to repulse you but also draw you in with this beauty. They challenge the notions of society’s need to make people conform to a perceived ideal.

Five things I would like to incorporate after watching these videos:

1. Joan Jonas- I would like to incorporate after watching Jonas’ series shown in “Extended Play” the use of film as a medium. I have only just recently started creating videos but want to learn to make more abstract short films like hers that utilize bodies, movement, and space.
2. Hiroshi Sugimoto- I would like to make more traditional work like Sugimoto that incorporates more abstract forms as subjects. I enjoy his black and white pieces for the solitude, serenity, and stillness that each image is able to portray.
3. Jeff Wall- I would like to incorporate Wall’s concept of creating impossible photographs. I enjoy the notion of creating an image that seemingly cannot exist but does as proven by the artwork.
4. Charles Gaines- I would like to use different mediums like Gaines’ has throughout his work. I want to create more pieces in mediums that I am not entirely familiar with but be able to make something out of it regardless with my concept in mind.
5. Jes Fan’s- From Fan’s work I would like to incorporate their use of taking something that’s seen as the norm and flipping it on its head. To create a work that pushes you away and at the same time beckons for you to look closer.