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Contemporary Art, Screen Shot 2021-11-11 at 6.48.11 PM, DIG.28, mary-miss…

- - - - Zanele Muholi - Being (Photo Series)
        This image is the documentation of the queer community around Muholi. Documenting tender images of LGBT love challenged stereotypes about this community and was a form of empowerment against the hate in South Africa
        
        Hans Hacke - News (1969/2008)
        This conceptual artist critiqued social and political agendas and their involvment in the art world.
        
        Chris Burden - Shoot (1971)
        This piece was commentary on how often gun violence happens in American society and how people have become desensitized to it because of the media.
        
        Kerry James Marshall, Untitled (policeman) (2015).
        This powerful painting of a black police officer will likely make the viewer consider the tension between black people and police in America. This piece is not inherently political but due to current events in the 2020s it becomes a social work of art
        
        Frantz Fanon - The Fact of Blackness.
        "For not only must the black man be black; he must be black in relation to the white man." Page 1
        "It (colour prejudice] is nothing more than the unreasoning hatred of one race for another"
        Page 3
        These quotes show societal issues that become very personal to the individuals experiencing them but for the problems to be societal they must involve everyone, which racism does
        
        Audre Lorde - The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House
        "in a country where racism, sexism, and homophobia are inseparable. To read this program is to assume that lesbian and Black women have nothing to say" This topic of intersectional feminism is both personal to the artist and an issue among society that discredits the position of a large population of women.
- - - - Howardeena Pindell - Unititled (1968)
        Her abstract painting with simple shapes and colors appears to be purely abstract but once it is explained it becomes a piece of racial and social justice.
      - Lorna Simpson - 9 Props (1995) Black blown glass vessels. Simpson's work is abstract art that uses the notion of objecthood to represent black Americans
      - Senga Nengudi Her work broke barriers by using nylon bras and pantyhose which has significance in some lives but is being used in an abstract way of swinging. Only after hearing the explanation that it was a response to her body changing after pregnancy and during motherhood did this piece contextualize. David Hammons commented on Nengudi's work that it was outrageously abstract and unlike most other art made in the 60s that was politically charged.
      - Duron Jackson - Rikers Island Jail (2010)
        This painting appears to be a symbol for an unknown language at first glance but it's the birds eye view of the prison the artist was being held in. This structure must have extreme significance to the artist but the translation of this painting does not make the viewer think of prison until the title is given.
      - Flusser Form and Material
        "Heavy bodies appear to roll around without following any rules, but in reality they behave according to the formula of free fall."
        There may seem like a way things work but the formula behind it may be deceiving. When I looked at all these works of art I assumed they were complete abstraction because they don't look like they're trying to communicate anything with the viewer but all of them are actually largely representative of a societal or personal issue something beyond their literal material. A good example of this is Lorna Simpson's piece that uses black glass to represent black people.
      - Fried Art and Objecthood.
        "no matter how simple the object may be, there remain the relations and interrelations of surface, contour, and spatial interval. Minimal works are readable as art, as is almost anything is today-including a door, a table, or a blank sheet of paper..."
        When anything can be perceived as art it's easy to be confused by the meaning of a piece of work. Humans lean towards narratives and will try and relate what they see to what they already know. It's easy to do and it's easy to be wrong about interpretations. These pieces seemed purely aesthetic to me but because of their level of abstraction, not everyone will read them the same way