anna's writeup on suh, hawkinso, zittel, ali

Each of these artists could be categorized as Post Modern. Do-Ho Suh, Zittel, and Hawkinson could be seen as Conceptual as well. Zittel creates a 'lifestyle' as art. Do-Ho Suh creates sculptures from fabric (buildings you can fold up and take anywhere). Hawkinson uses his own body through photos, and everyday household and industrial items to create sculpture. Ali's paintings depict societal issues in a comic book style with glimpses of American folk art.

Andrea Zittel's intial inspiration came from a 200 sq ft apartment when she first moved to New York City. Do-Ho Suh's inspiration came from adjusting to noise and trying to get sleep while settling into his new apartment. both are affected by their living conditions, but concentrate on very different aspects of those conditions.

Suh's thought is to create a home you can take with you anywhere. This is a very comforting thought for anyone who's ever emigrated. The only piece of home that can be taken with you is usually just your memory of it. He creates fabric sculptures with a ghost-like feel, creating a sculptural memory of place.

Zittel's inspiration leads her to create her own company, A-Z Administrative Services, to hawk her ideas about daily living. while her company has employed non-established artists and her designs do inspire ideas about sustainable living, the artist is becoming her own corporation. It's ironic that her actual living experience consists of three homes, bi-coastal teaching jobs and businesses, while creating artworks as consumption. She actually seems to be living the ultimate consumer's dream. In the interview she states, "You keep thinking if you get another house, take another vacation, or that if you make more money, that it will free you up. But it only becomes a larger and larger web of entrapment." She doesn't seem to heed her own advice.

Tim Hawkinson's work in some ways is as ecological, in that he uses common household and industrial material to create his pieces. He also photographs his own face in body, as a way of saving time and not having to worry about copyrights, etc. if he was using other people's likenesses.

Laylah Ali's gouache paintings touch on society issues of violence and power. Her figures are stark and flat, like a cross between Egyptian art and Southpark. One of her projects was a collaboration with Dean Moss, who created a dance based on her paintings. This was surprising and scary to her because of the interaction with live people.

Two themes came to mind when learning about these artists. The first was, even though initial inspirations can come from a similar source, they can vary greatly in how we choose to express them. The secon thought was about collaboration. Zittel discusses communes, Ali collaborates with a choreographer, Do-Ho Suh explores the collective in his piece Some/One. It made me think of how this semester is really going by fast. In reworking our artists statements, what do we really want to convey? Each of us has a very different way of making art. How do we take what we've learned collectively to inform our own work?