Kelley, Dion, Simmons, and Nauman

Mike Kelley’s work is primarily based on the idea of memory and described in Art:21 as being fairly consistently film based. His pieces allude to memories and not only of Kelley, but ones that are also relatable to the viewer. In his piece “Day is Done”, spoken about in the article assigned on Mike Kelley, an obvious allusion to high school pep rallies and pride functions is created. Kelley takes this relationship one step further and places a sense of surreal actions, garments, and acts into what could be everyday activities. In his collaged stuffed animal pieces/sculptures, Kelley creates a very similar sense than that which is observed in “The Day is Done”. Kelley states that these pieces spurred off the audience’s reaction to stuffed animals and their reference to child abuse. This idea then became one that Kelley seemed attached to, and that further grew and evolved. When viewing Kelley’s “More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid" and "The Wages of Sin”, I felt a strong connection to the work of Marc Chagall due to the idea of referencing memory or heritage and the visual theme of the broken image. In Chagall’s work “The Village”, this idea is displayed in his use of color and fracture and in Kelley’s work it seems to come through in the broken segments of the video and piecing the stuffed animals together.

Bruce Nauman is an artist whose work does not seem to stick to the guidelines of a singular media. It, instead, ranges from large site specific sculptures to video recordings and everything in between. In the article on Nauman, one specific piece is primarily discussed. This is a piece that seemed to happen as an accident and began with the idea of to catch a mouse that was in the artists studio on camera. The idea then evolved into an intimate view into the artist’s studio and its life when the space was supposedly inactive. Another piece that stood out was one based on the idea of the standard step and how it can become a rhythm when walking down a set of stairs. Playing with this idea, Nauman varied the step sizes and their distance apart to control the experience of the person experiencing it. Many of the pieces created by Nauman share this idea of questioning purpose or trying to invert the purpose of an object. This is an idea that shares close strides to the work of artists and followers of the Dada movement. Marcel Duchamp was a big contributor to this movement and the idea of changing an object’s function, whether it be his infamous urinal piece entitle “Fountain” or the idea of changing the definition of art, these two artists seem to share a common thread in their works and thoughts.

The next artist’s work is strongly influenced by the idea of collection and cataloguing. The work of Mark Dion places pressed specimens of plant-life, such as a variety of seaweed, into an artistic content. Each work strives to preserve pieces of natural beauty that look both aesthetically pleasing and intriguing. Dion’s works hold a strong thread relating back to the collection and preservation of different specimens and creates a visual catalogue for the viewer. It is also a body of work that has great appeal to different science-based organizations, which is discussed in the short clip viewed online, as well as the article. With this strong foundation the work of Dion is very close to the work of a taxidermist. The forms take on a different being once Dion’s artistic process is complete, however, and begin to form intriguing drawings. In the visual sense, these images are reminiscent of the line quality created in Jackson Pollock’s paintings. The plants seem to create erratic lines and compositions and although they are structured far more formally than the process of Pollock, their end results are similar in appearance.

Lastly, the work of the artist Laurie Simmons is structured around the idea of photography, but is contextualized in video pieces as well. Simmons describes her works as starting with the idea of creating a larger-than-life camera and then placing it on the person who taught her everything she knows about photography. This idea evolved into so much more as Simmons’s career and work developed. Her idea of placing large objects onto simple white silhouettes of legs turned these sculptural objects into something with much more life behind them. Later, these pieces became inspirations for video segments in which a gun danced on two white legs much like in an audition setting. Simmons creates a sense of surrealism that relates very openly to the idea of collage and piecing unrelated things together to create a singular image. This idea is one that was used largely in the Dada movement and an idea that very commonly comes to the surface in many pieces that are collage based. The pairing of two objects that seem so distinct and different creates an interesting partnership and is an act that can be seen largely in the work of Hannah Hoch, especially her piece entitled “Grotesque” which also uses a pair of white clad legs as a large component in the piece. The idea of creating something new by combining two everyday seemingly ordinary objects is one that can create a great amount of diversity out of the everyday, as well as artwork that can be very interesting.

nauman, kelley, dion, simmons

This weeks selected artists from PBS’ Art in the 21st Century, features work that can collectively be conceptually postmodern. Bruce Nauman subverts the function of the simple structure of stairs and bleachers by deconstructing their form into something familiar but yet uncanny. Mike Kelley sources inspiration from memories of his past whist creating art that focuses on the commodity of culture. Mark Dion applies the evolution of natural history in relation to humans, different environments, and Western viewpoints. Laurie Simmons makes photographs and films drawing from pop culture. All of these contemporary artists share a common thread in their ways of applying culture and skewing the way society views it throughout history.
Bruce Nauman claims that there is no specific way to making art. In his interview with Art 21, he notes that in some ways, the accidents that happen while making art keep the process real and exciting. From my prior knowledge of and exposure to Nauman’s work, I was surprised that the video excerpt didn’t feature more of his radical neon light pieces or his gravitation towards working with words and text. While Nauman’s art is playful and mischievous, it still deals with serious concerns and communicates with the viewer on different levels. His interest in deconstructing language and definition can be closely associated with contemporary American composer, John Cage, and his conceptual approach to reconstructing music into something nontraditional, disorienting, unpredictable, and new.
Inspired by culture while playing with the “purposefulness of ridiculousness”, Mike Kelley’s artwork is full of materialistic objects and black humor. His films pull from his personal memories of the past, which other people can closely identify with, such as “Day Is Done”, shot within a high school gymnasium. His work is reminiscent of Dada assemblages of artist’s like Kurt Schwitters’. This Dada artist’s collages made from found objects and ridiculous fragments that often make witty allusions to current events. Kelley’s absurd video clips also remind me of filmmaker John Waters in that they both share a campy plasticity to their characters and settings.
Mark Dion re-creates the categorization and exhibition practices of museums. This area of concentration within Dion’s work can be compared to fellow contemporary artist’s Fred Wilson’s work, especially, “Mining the Museum”. Both artists obtain artifacts, whether they are organic plant forms or excavated man-made tools, and place new meanings to them according to their different arrangement and placement.
Laurie Simmons stages photographs and films with dolls, puppets, ventriloquist dummies, and costumed dancers as “living objects,” animating a dollhouse world submerged in nostalgia. Simmon’s work can be associated with Kelley’s memory-saturated work because her films and photos are very much colored by an adult’s memories, longings, and regrets. Simmons work also meshes psychological, political and conceptual approaches to art making, photography’s propensity to objectify people, especially women. With this being said, Simmons exploration into the media’s construction of gender roles can link her to feminist artists such as photographers Cindy Sherman and Lorna Simpson who also stage their photographs.
All in all, this week’s artists can be tied to other conceptual artists of the 21st century, or to those of the Fluxus or Dada movements. Bruce Nauman, Mike Kelley, Mark Dion, and Laurie Simmons are artists from different backgrounds and are unique in their own right. Though through this analysis of comparing these artists to other artists, I was able to see that many similar conceptual ideas and processes have been implemented/stolen/imitated/borrowed/ crossbred through and within every art movement.