Titled Balloon Flower (red)
History
This sculpture is made by Jeff Koons. He made five of them in different colors between 1995-2000. They ranged in colors blue, magenta, yellow, orange, and red. It sits at the World Trade Center site in New York City. It is made out of Stainless Steel. and weighs more than a ton and it stands over 10 feet tall.
Analysis
These towering sculptures inspired by balloon animals are Koons most famous works of art to date. It is said that its shiny exterior is supposed to "seduce and manipulate." The surface of the Balloon Flower evokes the shininess of precious metals. Since it actually really is metal, its reflective, yet immaculate surface and perfectly concealed joints invite us to marvel at the symmetry and perfection of the objects. But when you walk up close to it, something neat happens. The overall composition fades, and you're confronted by his or her own distorted, imperfect image. How interesting and neat is that. I find this to be a really neat sculpture and would love to get up close to one. If they had small ones you could use for a shelf or desk I think it would be a neat conversation piece.
Titled Temperance
HistoryThis sculpture is by a French American artist Niki Saint Phalle. It is from her Nana series. This piece resides at the Tarot Garden, Southern Tuscany, Italy, and was made in 1987. The original statues she started out with mesh wire that she covered in paper mache then went on to make use of fabric and found objects and as more were created, Saint Phalle used polyester, ceramic, and other things to make the statues more curvaceous.
Analysis
Niki's Nana series of statues were originally inspired by a pregnant friend of Saint Phalle's Her Nana series are shaped into female sculptures in outrageously modern contortions and bright colors brought her some notarization. Niki also designed and created this fantasy garden in Tuscany with large colorful figures and shapes that were based on Tarot cards. This sculpture is a model of Temperance, card number 14. Interesting right? The full-size piece crowns the Chapel of Temperance in the garden in Italy. She definitely broke boundaries with her artistic sculptures. They're not concerned with the fortune-telling uses of the cards, but rather the elements of life's experience, personality, and self-knowledge they really refer to. These sculptures have lines that are curvy and well rounded all shapes that are a great representation of women. As a true feminist rebelling against the patriarchy and women's assigned role of homemakers, Niki de Saint Phalle created these models that represented a certain joy for life and liberty. They are eyeless and they are found in unexpected stances that show the real challenge to laws of anatomy, gravity, and weight. I think it would be neat to have one of her small sculptures in true nana form on a desk. I would love to see the big sculptures if I ever get the chance.
Her "Nana" sculptures are designed to liberate women from the straightjacket of 1960s society.
Titled Hon
HistoryThis sculpture is another one of Niki de Saint Phalle's. But this time she collaborated with Jean Tinguely and Per Olof Ultvedt. It was a temporary exhibit called Hon- en cathedral (She-a Cathedral) in 1966 at the Modern Art Museum in Stockholm, Sweden, which was devoted to creating a massive pregnant sculpture that people could come and interact with. It was 25m (82 ft) long and 9.1 m (30 ft) wide weighed in around 6 tons and took a team of 8 about 40 days to create.
Analysis
First off I think it would be really interesting and neat to go to an exhibit like this. This sculpture is a giant form of the female body from the waist down and it is lying down with knees up and feet planted. You can walk through the door-sized Vaginal opening between her legs. They had a milk bar that was in one breast, and they deposited waste down a chute into Tingley's formidable glass-breaking machine below. Which kind of feels like it was something of a digestive system. A goldfish pond occupied the area of the womb. Ultvedts heart was not simply a flapping, rocking, pumping shape, but a man could be found in HON's heart. They also had a brain with mechanical parts by Jean Tingley. With this artwork, Saint Phalle reclaimed the woman's body as a site of tactile pleasure rather than just an object of voyeuristic viewing. Hon was both, a colorful yet playful homage to woman as nurturer and a potent demythologizer of male romantic of the female body, as an unknown content and unknowable reality. Niki de Saint Phalle often presented images of women that ran counter to formalist aesthetics of the Pop art era, when all we had were pin-ups and slick nudes. They used bright colors on the outside and inside all in black. Very contrasting. They used the curvaceous shapes of women on the outside. I think all these illusions were intentional. HON transformed a very random idea occurring on the inside into something new, giving it a meaning that it would never have had on the outside of the sculpture. This one makes me giggle and I would never want it in my house but would love to visit one. Breaking that artistic norms and boundaries yet again!
Titled Fillette (Sweeter Version)
HistoryThis was made by Louise Bourgeois and American French artist. Its size is 59.7 x 26.7 x 19.7 cm. It is made out of latex over plaster. It is in the Estate of Peter Moore, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Analysis
In the late 1960s and 1970s, many American women artists were drawing on images from the body. As people enter the 20th century, vaginal shapes become three dimensional, rising up from their surface in ways some have actually found quite beautiful, others essentialist and reductive, and still others threatening. The human body is a natural part of life. Why not put it on display since it is a beautiful thing? Bourgeois has certainly used female sexuality in her works, but by the 1960s she was more androgynous or maybe even masculine in her choices of subject. Her most famous and most photographed "erotic" work is her latex sculpture Fillette 1968, which playfully confuses genders. She combined her themes of confinement, power, and sexuality in a series of cages, or cells. This piece Bourgeois achieved a fleshy, tactile texture in this hanging sculpture. Well, you guessed it, it obviously is a phallus, but if you look at it, it can also be in the shape of a female torso. The two round forms are the tops of two legs, attaching to their hip joints. This molding of genders creates ambiguity, as do the work's dual qualities of erect potency and fragile vulnerability. "From a sexual point of view," Bourgeois said, "I consider the masculine attributes to be very delicate."(Louise Bourgeois) I find this art neat, and would love to see it in a museum, but not at home.
Titled Cacoon
History
This artwork was painted by Christina Michalopoulou and was painted in oil on canvas. It is 27.5" x 39.4". It comes from the "Selfie" series and was included in the "HerStory" exhibition.
Analysis
Michalopoulou once said "I always try to narrate a story through the lines of a body, through a scar, a wounded skin, a sight or touch. At the beginning of every painting I fall in love with the story, the body, the skin, and the feeling, I get deep into it and when it comes to an end I always feel exhausted and empty. It's an addiction" (Phillips). She uses the female body to show her lines and it creates a different emotion depending on who you are I think. If you have curled up on the shower floor and laid there crying, this might hit you. If you lay there in bed but love to curl up you would get a different emotion. Myn is just the safety I feel when I am curled into this position brings good emotions. This piece would be cool to put over my bed at home.
History
This piece was made by Joseph Havel in the years 2004-2005. Its top corners are spread to 16 feet wide but the overall dimensions are w61 x h 487.7 x d 71.1 cm. It is balanced on a knotted foot of curtain. Its medium is Bronze with Patina. Between 1996-2006 Havel made 30 sculptures that were made from cloth and cast in bronze.
Analysis
I am finishing out my post-modern blog with this piece. Who would of thought with a piece of cloth you could make artwork that would inspire others. He took something as simple as a plain boring sheet and made something extraordinary. This piece is almost motionless and appears to be floating in space with no gravity. This piece has different textures using cloth and bronze. The lines in it are wonky and definitely don't have those neat lines or curvy ones of some of the other sculptures. It almost looks as if you have just pulled some sheets out of the dryer and they are all bound up and you have to twist them out of a ball. That is what this feels like. Something all tied up and twisted into a knot. I wouldn't want this piece in my house. But this piece really shows he was thinking outside the regular norms of modern art.
Throughout history, art has served as a powerful tool for self-expression and social commentary. From the earliest cave paintings to modern-day sculptures and masterpieces, individuals have went on to use art to make statements about the world and their place in it. It is fascinating to dig deeper into it and see how it changes throughout the years. I hope you enjoyed my blog today. Thank you for reading it and commenting.
Resources
Deng, Connie. "Niki de Saint Phalle". Encyclopedia Britannica, 25 Oct. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Niki-de-Saint-Phalle. Accessed April 2024.
“Visualizing Birth and Rebirth in Niki de Saint Phalle’s ‘Hon – En Katedral’ (‘she – a Cathedral’).” Visualizing Birth, 21 July 2023, visualizingbirth.org/visualizing-birth-and-rebirth-in-niki-de-saint-phalles-hon-en-katedral-she-a-cathedral.
“Fillette [Louise Bourgeois].” Sartle, 30 Aug. 2022, www.sartle.com/artwork/fillette-louise-bourgeois#:~:text=Bourgeois%20herself%20said%2C%20%E2%80%9CFrom%20a,torso%20with%20a%20severed%20head.
Phillips, Renee. “Home.” Manhattan Arts International, manhattanarts.com/interview-with-artist-christina-michalopoulou/. Accessed 15 Apr. 2024.
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