Public Art

This week’s discussion focused on the use of the public in art.  Some artists use the general public to finish or complete a work of art.  This moves the population, whether it is a large or small group, into an area of creating and finishing artwork.  In the video we viewed, art is described as the origin or experience of beauty.  The things we call beautiful are so different.  Art is meant to make different objects captivating and beautiful to look at.

Spencer Tunick used the public to create his artwork.  He is an American artist who creates installations of the body.  He does this by using people in the nude; it gives a different outlook on both art and the human body itself.  His works use the body in the multiple and he has these humans posing with complete strangers.  He reflects these bodies to landscapes or other spaces that he chooses.  It is almost like they are used as camouflage because so many bodies are put together in one shot.  Although the public is naked, it is not exposing because it is a community effort and so many people are posing together.

I think this is a really strange way of making art.  It is definitely unique and interesting to look at because you cannot even notice that the people in the photo are naked simply because there are so many of them.  However, when looking at his work it seems as if there is a deeper meaning to just the use of the public in art.  I saw it as an expression of being comfortable with the human body.  Not only are these people naked, but also they are posing with sometimes hundreds of complete strangers.  I know that I would never be able to do something like that!  I don’t even care if you couldn’t pick me out of the crowd; it is not something that I would be comfortable with.  I think it says a lot about the people in the artwork themselves.  This type of art also reminds me of street art in the fact that it is a community effort rather than just one person making the art themselves.

Another artist were focused on was Gillian Wearing, who looked at people under different psychological strains in society.  She composed a piece where she had people not moving for sixty minutes.  This piece focused on the idea of holding back and restraint.  It also gave this idea of being able to let go and scream out once the sixty minutes were finally over.

Vanessa Craft is an artist who uses women with a certain body type to create her staged photo performances.  She connects art to art while reformulating ideas that have been around for decades.  Women are her material and surrogates.  She uses a specific group of women and poses them in a certain way; she refers to them as her “army.”  I did not think her photographs were as interesting as Tunick’s or Wearing’s.  For some reason they just did not jump out at me as much as the others did.  I think I was not as interested because she only really worked with a very specific type and really staged her photographs.

This type of art is really interesting because it is not like anything we have looked at before, besides the art where artists used his or her own body as a form of expression.  In these pieces the people aren’t really doing anything, but they still serve as the medium or the central idea for the artists.  They do not have to be physically doing anything; their existence in these pieces of art are vital simply because they are completing the work.


-Kristen