My Kid Could Paint That

Bookiyo-e

By TROY WORKMAN

Bookiyo-e

The Japanese name for this sea monster is Umibōzu, or "sea monk," hence the bald head. Umibōzu are said to sink the ships of anyone who dares talk to it. They appear out of nowhere, usually approaching in calm waters, but when they surface, raging waves and storms instantly accumulate. Umibōzu typically try to smash the hulls of the ships with its long arms, but depending on the size, it may use other methods. These monsters ared categorize as demonic ghosts, because it is an accumulation of many different souls. They are thought to be made of drowned priests, due to the shaven head, and usually appear to be praying. These priests were usually thrown into the sea by angry villagers. 

Because of their terrible deaths, the priest's souls seek vengeance by drowning people. Others belive that Umibōzu are made up of souls who have no one to maintain their graves, as they take refuge at sea. Their bodies are described as cloud-like, and often have serpentine limbs or tentacles. If the Umibōzu is angered, it will ask for a ladle or a barrel. which it will then continue to fill up with water to drown the boat. In order to survive the Umibōzu, one must provide a bottomless ladle or barrel, so the water will pour out before it sinks the boat.

Bookiyo-e

By TROY WORKMAN

Okiku's story has quite a long history but its origins are unknown. The story first became popular in 1741, due to the ningyō jōruri, or puppet show, adaption. Later on in the mid-19th century, it became a well known play in Kabuki theaters all over Japan. The most popular adaptation of Okiku's story follows the roots of the original puppet show. It begins in Himeji Castle, with the reigning lord Hosokawa Katsumoto falling dangerously ill. Katsumoto's heir to the throne, Tomonosuke, plans to win the Shogun's favor in order to ensure his accession to power by sending a set of 10 priceless plates. However, Tomonosuke's chief retainer, Tetsuzan, wants to assume control by eliminating Tomonosuke. On top of that, Tomonosuke's lower retainer, Taketsune, is preparing to marry Okiku, then a lady in waiting. Tetsuzan successfully steals one of the precious plates, and orders Okiku to bring him the box of plates in his private quarters. There he attempts to seduce Okiku, but she refuses due to her love for Taketsune. 

After Okiku rejects him, he tells her to count the plates and she only counts nine. Tetsuzan then blames her of theft, and traditionally the punishment for stealing those rare plates was execution. He then tries to offer to lie for her if she becomes his mistress, but again she refuses. Tetsuzan then begins beating her with a wooden sword. He binds her up and suspends her above the well. Enjoying her torture, he lowers her into the water and hoists her back up and continues to beat her with the wooden sword. On the final try, Tetsuzan commands Okiku to assist in the murder of Tomonosuke and to become his mistress. Okiku refuses and then Tetsuzan then strikes her with his actual sword which sends her body plummeting down into the well. As Tetsuzan is wiping the blood from his sword, he hears counting from one to nine coming for the well. Okiku's ghost rises out of the well as Tetsuzan stares at her with scorn.

Okiku's body in this print consists of the nine plates that sealed her fate. In other adaptations, Okiku's ghost torments her killer by wandering the house and counting to nine, then letting out a horrifying scream on ten to represent the missing plate. Some people believe she cried out in agony because she was looking for the last plate but could never find it. In other versions, an exorcist came to get rid of Okiku's ghost, and when she began count to nine, the exorcist shouted ten before she screamed, and vanquished her. Her spirit was happy that someone found the tenth plate and she could move to the afterlife in peace. But many people also believe Okiku is still in the well at Himeji castle, and since it is closed at night, she may come back out and count to nine.

Bookiyo-e

The story of Kuzunoha begins in the tenth century with a a young nobleman named Abe no Yasuna. One day he is visiting Shinoda shrine in Settsu province. On his way, he encounters a military commissioner who is hunting foxes for their livers, which are used in traditional medicine. Yasuna decides to fight the hunter and wins, but is wounded in the process. Immediately after his victory, he sets a white fox free from a trap the hunter set. Shortly after, a beautiful woman named Kuzunoha comes and tends to his wounds and helps him home. Without Yasuna knowing, this woman is the same white fox he set free.

In Japanese myth, foxes are able to shapeshift into human form with the use of different leaves on their heads for transformation, hence "Kuzu" or Kudzu leaf, from her name "Kuzunoha." Yasuna falls in love with Kuzunoha and then they later marry. She bears him a child named Abe no Seimei, who later becomes a prominent onmyooji, or spiritual astrologist for the Emperor. Several years later Kuzunoha is viewing some chrysanthemums and Seimei sees the tip of her tail. After her true identity is revealed, she prepares to depart back to the forest. Before she leaves, she writes a farewell poem on a screen, asking her husband to come visit her in Shinoda forest, where he first saved her. Yasuna and Seimei search for her and she appears to them in the form of a fox. Kuzunoha then reveals that she is the kami, or God, of Shinoda shrine and bestows upon Seimei a gift of being able to comprehend the language of beasts. Abe no Seimei cured Emperor Toba of a special spell cast by Tamamo no Mae, the Emperor's favorite concubine. Tamamo no Mae was supposedly a nine tail fox herself. 

Relative to Japanese mythology, foxes often are portrayed as malicious and dangerous. But the fox is also revered as guardians of the rice crop and also the messenger of the god of harvests, Inari. It is said that when a fox turns 100 years old, it can not only assume human form, but can possess humans as well. When a fox turns 1000, it will turn gold, and grow nine tails.

By TROY WORKMAN

This print comes from the story of Yotsuya Kaidan. Originally a Kabuki play, Yotsuya Kaidan is one of the most famous Japanese ghost stories. The play starts with a young woman named Oiwa. Oiwa’s father wants her and her partner, Iemon, to separate. But Iemon brutally kills her father out of anger. Without Oiwa knowing that her father’s killer is her own partner, Oiwa then marries Iemon. Shortly after, another woman named Oume falls madly in love with Iemon but feels she is much uglier than Oiwa. So Oume and her grandfather made a plan to disguise a topical poison as a skin cream. Unbknowest to Oiwa, she applies the poison, and her skin begins to scar. Iemon sees her horrifying appearance, and asks his friend to rape Oiwa so he has an excuse to divorce her. Iemon’s friend couldn't carry through with it, so instead he showed Oiwa her own reflection in a mirror. Upon seeing her reflection, Oiwa grabbed a knife and ran towards the door. Iemon’s friend tried to grab her but she falls and the tip of the knife pierces her throat. As Oiwa bleeds out, she curses Iemon. After her death, Iemon marries Oume, and on their wedding night, Oiwa’s ghost appears and tricks Iemon into slaying both Oume and her grandfather. 

Oiwa’s body is said to be buried at the Myogyo-ji Temple in Tokyo. Since this ghost story has accumulated so much fame since its Kabuki debut in 1825, there have been many different adaptations, in the form of television shows and films. Reports of mysterious accidents and even deaths have occurred on the set of these modern works, leading to the now ritual trip to Oiwa’s burial site at Myogyo-ji Temple, to ask permission for their production. The permission from Oiwa is thought to be paramount for the actor who portrays her. Oiwa’s spirit is known as a onryō, or a ghost who seeks vengeance. The way Oiwa is able to bridge her way back to Earth is her undying zeal for revenge. Usually Oiwa would be depicted as wearing a white burial kimono, long unkempt hair with patches missing from the poison, and her eye at a drooping slanted angle due to the burns of the poison. 

The story of Oiwa carries a powerful message. "What comes around goes around." In the end of the play, Iemon tries to find solace in a remote island off the coast. Instead of finding tranquility, Oiwa follows him and merges Iemon’s dream world with reality. He quickly spirals out of control and into a vortex of insanity. Iemon’s friend comes looking and finds him in the forests, and recognizes his insanity. Out of disgust and compassion, his friend kills Iemon with his sword. Oiwa’s strength after death greatly surpasses her power in her past life. Not only does she get her revenge on Iemon, she transforms him from the tormentor into the tormented.

By LIBBY ROHR

You can feel it in your bones, lungs, muscles, and your brain. Your heart seems to vibrate with the beat, reverberating out of industrial-sized speakers so loud the earth seems to tremble where you stand. An earthquake of beauty in music shaking you alive again. It smells like alcohol, smoke, perfume, and sweat. The air is congested from all the bodies, the heat, and occasionally the fog machine. No matter where you look, there are people, in a swarm all around you, bouncing in waves with the beat, all vibrating, hearts beating to the same feeling as you. It's a collective experience, probably the most uniting experience we can get in this life. Now imagine it here, at Dance Valley in the Netherlands, at the first installment of the festival that continues to today. On the 23rd of July in 1995, at this first show, eight-thousand people showed up to the massive concert that would one day be nicknamed the "Woodstock of Dance." Amongst these eight-thousand was german photographer Andreas Gursky, in one of the most actively global periods in his work.

Born in East Germany in 1955, Gursky's father was a commercial photographer and they spent much of his childhood moving from place to place. After attending art school, he began working under Bernd and Hilla Becher who inspired much of his style throughout his career. The Bechers, unlike Gursky, worked primarily in black and white, often photographic interesting pieces of architecture and design. You see their influence in Gursky's wide, landscape perspective, defined lines, and often subject matter. One of the first photographers to fully embrace digital technology to alter or enhance his photos, the composition and color in his photos is constantly captivating. Gursky's work gives a panorama-like view of contemporary life, ranging from photography of beaches, to office buildings, to mountains, to hotels, to rallies and even dance festivals. Through his travel, Gursky's work is truly Global and has discovered a level of compositional beauty that is worldwide. Recently one of his nature landscapes, Rhine II, sold for $4.3 million at Christie's, making it the most expensive photo ever sold.

Although Rhine II is undeniably beautiful, in looking through his work, it was Dance Valley that struck me differently. Unlike most of his work, composed in high saturation with crisp, contrasting colors, Dance Valley is relatively monochromatic in a way that appears almost sepia toned. In Gursky's other photographs of crowds, it showcases the individuality in the masses through color and sharp lines, but Dance Valley does the opposite. The oval mass of the crowd, encircled by the vignette of darkness, they look like a single organism, glowing in the gold-tinted light. The haze of smoke gives this photo an ethereal quality, united, turned towards one stage. Unlike so many concert photos, we see no performer. Instead, the subject is the fans, the dancers, the listeners of the music, the ones that determine success or failure in the first place. At concerts, there's a tendency to focus on the performer as the make or break aspect of the show, but in reality it's the audience. There's a saying in theater that the ensemble can either infuse the show with life or it can suck all the life from it, and in this case the crowd is the same way. Individually, each person is one in eight-thousand, but together they have the power to come together and ramp up the energy and create an unforgettable experience like this festival. Dance Valley might not be the clean-cut, vibrant photo we're accustomed to from Gursky, but the feeling of unity that this photo invokes creates a universal and incredibly powerful experience for the onlooker. This is Gursky's greatest talent. He doesn't just create a pretty picture, he encapsulates a moment in time.

Known as one of the most experimental and versatile artists of the twenty-first century, Sigmar Polke creates a style that is both contemporary and unique. Polke manages to evolve his technique using various mediums while retaining a sense of individual purpose and intention. During Polke's five decade career he experimented with countless different mediums including drawing, painting, photography, film, sculpture and print making. He combined these mediums to create an impact unlike anything people had ever experienced. Polke's primary goal was to stay active as an artist, partaking in what he defined as contemporaneity and what was so essential to the creation of art, the "debate with existing reality."

This Knee is a Royal Pain: Disney Princesses & Art

Greetings, loved ones. Let’s take a journey.

Disney princesses: idolized by youngsters, teenagers’ love life aspirations, adults’ worst nightmares. A never-ending nap? A girl taken hostage by a beast? A girl with hair long enough and strong enough to climb? A mermaid that becomes human? A maid who marries a prince? Where did Hans Christian Andersen, the Grimm brothers, and the other writers get these creative ideas? Let’s take a look at some possible inspirations.

The Birth of Venus is called the "first large-scale canvas created in Renaissance Florence,” measuring six feet by nine feet. Unlike other artists, Botticelli used expensive alabaster powder, which "mermade" the colors brighter and more radiant than usual. Nude paintings were not common in the Middle Ages, but this painting was an exception due to the godly subject. Also, how convenient is the length of her hair?

On her left, the blue ocean represents the divinity Venus came from while the lush, green nature on her right represents the human world. These two contrasting sides shows her transition from divinity to the mortal world. On the seashell, Venus leans more towards the right side, embracing her change to the mortal world. Furthermore, on her left is the God of Wind and on her right is the Goddess of Seasons. The path of the flowers towards the right of the painting shows Zephyrs using his powers of the wind to push Venus towards Earth.

Is this a painting of the birth of Venus, or the moment when Ariel becomes a human? It seems like the woman has red hair and she’s basically emerging from the ocean. Also, she looks a little wobbly on her feet. Who wouldn't be after magically developing legs? One side of the painting could symbolize Ariel's life under the sea and the other side could symbolize Ariel's transition to the land of the walking. Off she goes to find Prince Eric!

This Knee is a Royal Pain: Disney Princesses & Art

Greetings, loved ones. Let’s take a journey.

Disney princesses: idolized by youngsters, teenagers’ love life aspirations, adults’ worst nightmares. A never-ending nap? Talking furniture? A girl with hair long enough and strong enough to climb? A singing mermaid with red hair? A pretty maid who marries a prince? Where did Hans Christian Andersen, the Grimm brothers, and the other writers get these creative ideas? Let’s take a look at some possible inspirations.

When Lady Lilith was first painted, Dante Gabriel Rossetti used his mistress Fanny Cornforth as his model. A few years later, he changed the woman in the painting’s face to show another model’s face. However, the woman in the painting is meant to be a more modern version of Lilith, the first wife of Adam, who is known for seducing men and murdering children. In the painting, she does not have the typical Victorian corset, which exhibits her refusal to follow society's expectations. In the myth, Lilith is a powerful woman who does not allow men to control her. Her beauty attracts many men, which leads to the death of any male in her presence. The painting’s crowded, yet depthless space is shown in the mirror’s reflection of the candles and a garden. The background of the painting consists of roses, poppies, and foxgloves. The roses signify cold love, the poppy represents Lilith’s relaxed personality, and the foxgloves indicates insincerity.

With hair as long as Lilith's, clearly it needed to be brushed constantly, or it would become Tangled. The woman in the painting seems to be in a small room, perhaps located in a tower in the middle of nowhere. Although Rapunzel does not lure men to their death, she sure has the ability to. Rapunzel’s beauty and her luscious locks of hair would have gentlemen lining up, if she wasn’t hidden away. Lilith's boldness and alluring looks, along with her love for flowers are qualities Rapunzel just happens to share. Coincidence? I think not.

This Knee is a Royal Pain: Disney Princesses & Art

This Knee is a Royal Pain: Disney Princesses & Art

Greetings, loved ones. Let’s take a journey.

Disney princesses: idolized by youngsters, teenagers’ love life aspirations, adults’ worst nightmares. A never-ending nap? A girl taken hostage by a beast? A girl with hair long enough and strong enough to climb? A mermaid that becomes human? A maid who marries a prince? Where did Hans Christian Andersen, the Grimm brothers, and the other writers get these creative ideas? Let’s take a look at some possible inspirations.

Painted in 1863, it is a short 96 years before the creation of Sleeping Beauty in 1959. The three cherubs directly about Venus represent the three fairies in Sleeping Beauty, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, fretting over Sleeping Beauty. The far left cherub stealthily flying away depicts Maleficent content with her actions. She will soon be followed by her raven accomplice, who is presently occupied with a seashell.

The Birth of Venus is based off of the myth of Venus's creation from sea-foam. The light colors of the sfumato technique Cabanel used helps glorify and draw attention to her beauty. However, the painting is lacking the notorious dolphins and her chariot shell. Some critics believe the moment painted is the moment directly after her birth, so the chariot shell and the dolphins have yet to arrive. At the time, nude paintings caused an uproar, shown in the negative reactions to Olympia painted by Edouard Manet. Manet’s painting was painted the same year as The Birth of Venus and also had a similar composition, yet Manet received much more criticism. Venus’s popular myth, along with her relaxed stare and pose produced a painting that was acceptable for viewers, since painting such a classical subject makes nudity tolerable.

By SARAH XU

Souls Aflame : Fire in Art

Souls Aflame : Fire in Art

Here it is, the token war painting in the collection of works about fire. It's got it all. A massive naval battle, exploding ships, gratuitous billowing smoke, the cover of nightfall, a full moon, and yet there is nothing ordinary or average about this work. Ivan Aivazovsky was born in Crimea, and raised up with ample education for a working class boy. From his youth, he showed promise in the field of art and eventually grew famous for his seascapes, such as this one. He had a particular talent when it came to recreating the shimmering of light on water, so expertly exemplified in this work. At the end of his life, much of his work trended towards war scenes. It's the strength of nature and humanity combined at their most intense and most chaotic states. Compared to the peaceful glow of the Yves Klein painting, the last installment of this collection, Aivazovsky's work is everything it wasn't. It's the inferno we all know and in some ways adore. As human beings, a part of us is attracted to the power, the chaos, and the intensity present.

Souls Aflame : Fire in Art

Curated By LIBBY ROHR

Souls Aflame : Fire in Art

Curated By LIBBY ROHR

Paul Klee took a trip to Egypt, the year before this was painted. The landscape is said to have inspired several other paintings in this stratified style. The title helps the audience to un-riddle the image. Through it's undeniably abstract, Klee still manages to evoke a reality. The composition of this work spirals around the one block of red in the center. It's a bit heavier on the left side where there's more change in color. The particular stair step pattern is almost Fibonacci-esque in pattern, in a way that's calming to me, like sitting around a bonfire on a warm summer evening, in the desert. The particular shades of purple and green are pleasant and gentle, but the intensity of the flame comes in the contrast. At first glance, the lines appear sharp and defined, but upon further examination I see they're soft and although separate, like fire these segments are also one.

"The works must be conceived with fire in the soul but executed with clinical coolness."
-Joan Miro

The North Western Passage does not exist and now you know, its just shifting ice that will pin in your ship and break its hull into splinters. The towering spires of ice draw the eye to their fractured forms. Only after some time does the eye wonder to the tragedy of the broken ship. In this painting, as in the Arctic, nature is king. The entirety of the subject matter is positioned in the middle third of the painting, emphasized by the lighter color and the clouds breaking above. This is one of Friedrich's greatest works, a foreshadowing of what the German identity would become.

Before the Franco-Prussian War, Germans were perceived as sign-song romantics, and for good reason; the most notable works of art from the romance period came from German hands. Poems, fairy tales, and paintings flowed out of Germany like Panzers into France. This image of German would be forgotten soon, Bismark and his Prussian staff would transform Germany into the Regimented Militaristic Society it has the reputation of today. Fredric's work sits on the boarder, it both romances and creates the image of destruction.

Charge, charge noble 600. No wait not over there, over there (pointing to set of cannons on the other side of the valley). Blast, they've charged at the wrong guns.

That was, in brief, what happened during that fateful Crimean day. Although, what can be expected of serving under inbred fools who purchased their commissions in the Royal Army? But, let us venture into analysis of the painting at hand. It follows the typical military hero painting guide: Cavalry, check. Heroic hand gestures, check. Stupid looking death faces, check. An inflated sense of what actually occurred, CHECK. The main purpose of this type of art is to commemorate a person or event of historical note. While the Charge of the Light Brigade did indeed happen, it was little more than a grave military blunder. The real impact came when the dispatches reached London. Public outrage at the officers involved soared as did celebration of the enlisted men. The Brits sure love a heroic slaughter.

The action of the painting revolves around the two horsemen in the center. One a British hussar, the other a Russian artilleryman. The white horse of the Brit forces the viewer to look at the one non-earth toned object in sight. Remain parts of the painting are rather dull, perhapase= good for funny little captions, but now is not the time to do so.

"Go West" they said. "Everything is great out there,"they said. Well, looks like you didn't go West enough to escape tornadoes. So now your stuck in a flat desolate, soon to be dust bowl, where even the wind is trying to kill you. But you endure, you are the hardscrabble of America and its your job to make sure those soft handed bankers and city folk on the coasts have food to eat. There is probably some poem celebrating the glory of farmers I could quote, but I'll spare you.

Artistically, thematically, and subject-wise, John Steuart Curry is similar to Benton. The faces differ, as Benton's are less defined, Curry's have more depth and are fully seen. Curry's work also possesses the bending pattern of Benton. This comes as no surprise. Benton, Curry and Grant Wood are all hailed as the heroes of Midwestern Regionalism. An interesting note on Curry's artistic life is its similarity to Norman Rockwell's. Both did illustrations for various magazines, even working on Boy's Life and The Saturday Evening Post during similar periods.

The storm is the least of your worries, while the North Atlantic has earned its reputation for storms that rival the biblical deluge of Noah, the Royal Navy still controls the surface. With His Royal Majesty's Navy guarding shipping on the surface, you must descend into the black waters to continue your fight. When a ship is spotted the Captain orders a dive to torpedo depth, at twenty meters depth the pressure on the hull is merely three times what it is on the surface. Hopefully the ship chasing you is not sonar equipped, but if it is the never ceasing sonar pings will have you on the brink of madness. *PING*... *PING* ... *PING* You must sit in silence, even the slightest sound could betray your position to the set of English ears listening to a hydrophone. When, when not if, you are found the enemy will start dropping depth charges in an attempt to blast you out of the water. These depth charges are simply bombs designed to detonate at a pre-selected depth, the water amplifies the blast resulting in misses still causing catastrophic damage. The only hope of escape lies in going deeper. The submarine plunges deeper and deeper, the pressure hull groaning against the water pressing in, already leaks have sprung from pipes soaking the crew inside. A dive can only happen for so long, at the quarter kilometer mark the worst can happen. 250 meters is the theoretical limit, calculated in a design bureau in Berlin and almost never actually tested. Should the worst happen, the water filled tanks used to control buoyancy will be unable to evacuate the water stored inside. With no way to evacuate the tanks, the submarine will continue it descent unstopped. Eventually the pressure hull will give way under 30 times the normal atmospheric pressure flooding the submarine. Perhaps the ship will hit bottom first, stranding the crew on the seabed, waiting to succumb to oxygen deprivation. That is all in your potential future, don't worry about it know. Just get through this storm.

By the way, good hunting.

It's freezing cold, you live in Russia and you just spent all day hammering steel girders into frozen earth, could it get worse? Yes, yes it can. Its December of 1941 and the German Army is twelve miles from Red Square. A sense of unique Russian hopelessness fills the painting. The rooftops of the buildings slope down to the far right of the painting while the ground slopes up, forcing the eye on the the retreating tuck. This truck is a clear sign of what come soon, a complete abandonment of Moscow. But there is still hope, the steel girders defy the lines set forth by the ground and roofs. They form both a literal and artistic bulwark against the despair of defeat. Lighting in the painting also adds to the story presented here. The German approaches on the left side of the painting is shrouded in darkness, both of the smoke of war and a warning of what may come to Moscow. The left is bathed in light, a sign that the workers paradise of Russia is still alive and ready to fight. But, the most terrifying prospect of this painting is the date, 1941. Four bloody more years of war are to come, Stalingrad, Leningrad, Kursk, Berlin and the post-war pillaging of Germany are yet to come.

At our core, we are just people, regardless of our skin tone, ethnicity, or culture.

Roger Shimomura spent a considerable chunk of his childhood sitting within the confines of the Minidoka internment camp in Idaho. There, Japanese-Americans lived out their lives as best they could, boxed in by barbed wire and watched by soldiers. Their housing quarters were less than sanitary, and their food practically inedible. Many of the internees had mentally removed themselves from their home country entirely, so the prospect at being held hostage because of their ethnicity naturally came as a huge betrayal. Still, despite the inhabitable nature of the internment camps, very few skirmishes were had overall.

American Infamy depicts a shadowy, anonymous soldier watching over the community of Japanese-Americans. Unlike the edgy, anti-Japanese caricatures that Shimomura often reprises from the past, the people below are, for the most part, a normal community of people. There’s no fishy business to be had and no spies in sight (except for the American soldier, ironically), just an overall sense of community. The prisoners are dealing with the reality of their internment in all sorts of ways. Adults chat and walk about like normal, perhaps to ease the children who have taken to their new life by idly playing. Some, however, stare out past the fence with longing. An elderly woman collapses by her window.

Much like Shimomura’s other pieces, American Infamy is a deeply political painting. It criticizes American mistakes of the past, and recollects a shared human experience that we have since forgotten.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Irony of a Negro Policeman, 1913

Beginning her art career as painter, Sherman found the limitations in the medium to be frustrating and turned towards photography after the wave of American Feminism. Her series of 69 “Untitled Film Stills” determined her reputation as she flipped the camera on herself for various self-portraits. This series brought on international recognition. From Hollywood to ‘the girl next door,’ Sherman posed and re-evaluated women’s roles throughout history and pop culture. By leaving lots of her works Untitled, she leaves the interpretation up to the viewers. In fact, Sherman strives herself on believing her work has no direct message. 

Themes of sexual adventure and self-identity ravage the stills. Particularly in Untitled #21, Sherman stands as a small town girl taking on the crazy metropolitan city. This black and white photograph brings out the dark shadowy building and the newly-found seduction of the Big City. As she ran out of clichés in 1980, she stopped. The Metropolitan Art Museum obtained them for $1 million. Little did Sherman know that by simply standing still, she could revolutionize photography in her own way.

When you think of the feminist movement you might initially think of Susan B. Anthony, but in terms of this century let’s chat about Judy Chicago. 

Working primarily in the 1970s and on, Judy Chicago started out with minimalistic art eventually expanding into sculpture and collaborative projects later in her career. Her early works express her journey to capture the female orgasm with pieces like Let It All Hang Out and When Women Rule the World. Although provocative, Chicago is best remembered by her Dinner Party. 

The Dinner Party, created in 1989, reflects Chicago’s impressive artistic abilities with the integration of ceramics, embroidery, sculpture and painting into one cohesive piece. She creates a homage to the women of the world with an open triangle of equality, dividing the threes side by period beginning with Prehistory to Classical Rome, Christianity to the Reformation, and the American Revolution to the Women’s Revolution. 

Within the installation Chicago mentions 1,038 women, and 39 receive their own place setting with a plate combining the female form and aspects of the individual woman. In addition to the place settings, Chicago inscribes another 999 female names on the Heritage Floor, which acts as the base of piece. 

In art history you don’t see a lot of women, let alone the celebration of women on their own terms. By Chicago claiming the female sexual organ as her own and remembering those who stood against the hierarchy of men she creates the foremost piece of feminist art in the 21st century. 

In 1989, Barbara Kruger designed this print for the March for Women's Lives in Washington D.C. The march's purpose was for the women's reproductive rights protest. Kruger's bold statements with the sharp text, compliments the positive and negative sides of the image, symbolizing the inner struggle between right and wrong. Barbara Kruger's work throws controversial issues right into the viewer's face, forcing them to confront it at that moment. Her political statement frankly addresses the audience with the bold text, but also with the struggle for feminism in this period. Kruger links the bond between the woman's physicality with the modern day constrictions by laws placed upon it. This piece perfectly embodies her style of art, which is afraid of nothing, and will confront anyone who dares to look at it. Not only does feminism reoccur in many of her works, the idea of making the audience think for themselves makes her work worth looking at, and distinguishes her vastly from other artists.

By ROSIE PASQUALINI

On November 14, 2013, Jeff Koons broke the record for the most expensive artwork created by a living artist when he sold his Balloon Dog for display in the Chateau of Versailles for a record $58.4 million dollars. This seems like a lot, but Jeff Koons'  work has been selling for astronomical values since the inception of his work back in 1979, when he released his Equilibrium series. Since then, Koons has found success in his massive stainless steel, mirror finished, sculptures.

The majority of Koons' fame came from his 1995 works called "Celebration." Celebration saw Koons begin to play with the idea of massive steel works. He began playing with mirror finishes as well. From this was born his first set of balloon works, the orange balloon dog and his tulips, now in Bilbao. These works gave Koons immediate success. He claimed his work had no secret meanings or ulterior motive other than the pure purpose of pure enjoyment. Because of this, his work has suffered little actual criticism. However, when the Chateau of Versailles bought his balloon dog, there was a lot of controversy and confusion. How could they put a massive balloon dog in the once palace of Louis XIV.

Despite the criticism, Koons still garners a lot of respect as one of the best modern sculptors today. While his works may not represent much, they are pleasing to the eyes, and my favorite works of modern art. Sometimes, simple is the most elegant.