Artist(s) of the Week: Guy Tang & Kat Von D

Guy Tang is a Los Angeles based hairstylist. Who is best known for his hair color designs. He is also very popular in the social media world with millions of followers. What is interesting is that his work tends to be very vibrant. He mentions that he takes most of the photos of his clients himself! And even notes that if he was not a hair stylist he would be a photographer. He posts YouTube videos of his work, as he is also a hair educator.

Watching some of his YouTube videos it seems that he’s really fun and personable to be around. I think that if given the opportunity I would let Guy do my hair! But unfortunately he’s not accepting new clients.  Boooo!!!

Kat Von D is a Los Angeles based tattoo artist. She came to fame by way of reality shows. In 2007 she held the Guinness World Record for most tattoos given by a single person in 24 hours! (400 tattoos) . Then her ex-husband took it from her…welp! More recently, she has been in the media because of a falling out with Jeffrey Star (this other social media dude with a make-up brand. Kat not only tattoos but has written books and has a really successful make-up line, fragrances and modeling.

She does a lot of charity work which is really sweet! Like Guy, Kat Von D is not accepting any new clients. A few years back a friend tried to get an appointment with her and the waiting list was 3 years… oh and the cost was like an arm and a leg. I also think it’s really neat that she has hairless cats and plays the piano.

Food Art!

This was the selection of WaterMely

Safety First!

Gotta let the baby rest before surgery

Here….we…go!

Yikes!

Just a little cosmetic surgery

Gotta remove some of the extra meat

Sculpted some gnarly teeth

Gave him his fin thing

Obviously human flesh inside of him

He can now see!

Posing with the dinner

:’)

So this week, we had the option to choose from different activities. I didn’t opt for anything crazy with hair because well…It’s my hair and it’s totally something I’d freak about. Clothes are cool but I’m not as fashion forward as I’d like. And to be honest, who doesn’t love food? So I went on this crazy google search and found some super tight food art.

I recently went to my nephews baseball game and someone carved a really sick watermelon so that’s where I drew my inspiration from. I looked up a few ideas and decided that a shark is so perfect, for summer and all. And you know, to draw awareness to all the shark attacks (okay, that’s a lie).

I thought this was going to be easy.. yeah, okay. I couldn’t cut a straight mouth for the life of me. The teeth. The eyes. THE DETAILS!! These people are so talented. If it’s one thing I’m learning in this course is that there are some wickedly talented people out there.

Dinner guests weren’t really impressed and moved my shark off the table…sooo  this was fun, but I may stick to just slicing my watermelon.

 

 

Artist(s) of the Week : Street Photographers

This week, we looked at different Street Photographers.

Daniel Arnold

Daniel Arnold is a New York street photographer who uses mostly an iPhone and sometimes old cameras in his photography. Arnold became famous in 2012 when the Gawker published an article about him being censored on Instagram for posting a racy photo of topless sunbathers. For extra cash, Arnold began to sell his Instagram prints for $150 dollars and made $15,000 dollars.  One of his recent works involved him taking over the New Yorkers Instagram where he documented daily subway life.

Scott Schuman (The Sartorialist)

 

Scott Schuman is a street fashion photographer whose photos are taken all over the world!  The Sartoliast is the name of his blog and the purpose of the blog was according to Schuman was a way to create a two way dialogue about the world of fashion and its relationship to daily life. Schuman has appeared in national campaigns with The Gap, Verizon, Nespreso, Crate and Barrel and Burberry (just to name a few).

Gary Winogrand

Gary Winogrand is a street photographer from the mid-20th century, from the 50’s to the 80’s. The  main focus of Winogrand’s photos was the American Middle Class. Winogrand took photos not only in the cities but also in the suburbs, always waiting for a moment that would make for a good photo and capture the American Culture. Most of his photos were black and white. According to Wikipedia (probs a shady source)many of his late work remained undeveloped, with about 2,500 rolls of undeveloped film, 6,500 rolls of developed but not proofed exposures, and about 3,000 rolls only realised as far as contact sheets being made.

Phillip-Lorca diCorcia

Phillip-Lorca diCorcia is a Connecticut born photographer, he had a rough upbringing and nearly died at a young age because of drugs. He attended art school where he first discovered photography and his life changed. While he was at school, he was the only student to be using color photography because he wanted it to be generic and not fancy art photography.His first pieces were of normal views of a room where an object has fallen off a table or mantel piece. Many of his photographs were staged to create some sort of emotion. One of his famous series  was called “Hustlers” which portrayed male prostitution.

Street Photography

For this activity I decided that I wanted to go somewhere with different types of people. I chose Little Tokyo in Downtown Los Angeles. I really wanted to go for a fashion theme, but I couldn’t muster up the courage to ask people… so I guess I just took some creep photos.

And here are the photos :]

I really really liked this photo because I was totally digging the colors and this woman’s outfit. Her crochet dress was really neat and I was really digging the pop of red in her purse!

This was also really neat, because it was a mother and her daughter and I was loving all the prints, from their dresses to their bags  and the little girls yellow shoes. I felt like they both had an interesting and unique look. They really caught my eye.

the reason I chose this person as well was because I felt like she embodied the Harajuku Japanese style. I think that if I could choose anywhere in the world to take street photography, it would for sure be Japan.

Honestly, I just really liked this dudes hat. In case anyone was wondering, they’re discussing Pokemon Go! Because there was a crazy amount of people playing the game here.

This isn’t really street art buuuut it’s a cool display!

And last but not least… I really liked this photo because it made me feel happy! That’s really what I was going for here, people enjoying themselves.

So… being a street photographer sounds easy. Until you do it. And then you’re like “Woah, this is harder than I thought” I wish I wasn’t so shy, because there were so many cool people that I wanted to capture.

 

Artist of the week: Janet Cardiff

Janet Cardiff is a Canadian artist who primarily focuses on sound and sound installation. She is most known for her work on Forty Part Motet. This piece is a 14 minute piece that consists of 11 minutes of singing and 3 minutes of intermission. The piece is also particularly interesting because there are individually recorded parts that are projected through 40 speakers. 

I think it’s important to note that her husband George Miller is also her partner in creating a lot of her pieces. In 1985 they both creates “Dark Pool”which is described as ” On entering the doorway to The Dark Pool, one encounters a realm of suspended animation, an elaborate assemblage of furniture, carpets, books, empty dishes and mechanical paraphernalia. As viewers move through the installation, they activate acoustic components of the work – the silence of the space is broken by strands of music, echoes of stories and fragments of dialogue.”
This to me was an interesting artist to look into. I know that we take sound and musicians for granted. I think the fact that Janet and George played around with  technology and the set up of speakers to convey their message. Truthfully, I thought this artist was cool but I wasn’t particular moved to look up a lot about her or investigate further. I felt a little “meh” about her. 

MOCA Museum Visit

Woah. Okay. So… I haven’t been to a museum in ages and to be honest. I wasn’t even THAT excited to go. But as soon as I walked in. Boy, did my perspective change. So I know I’m supposed to compare two items but there were a few items that really caught my eye and I’d like to touch on all of them (assuming that’s okay). Also I only took two selfies there because it was totally requires and I hate photos of myself but that’s an entirely different topic. 

My favoooorite piece there was for sure the flowers on napkins. So this was a set of flowers that were drawn with a pen on multiple napkins. Very simple, yet pretty. The reason I liked this so much because it felt relateable it felt like I was at home with it. I often find myself doodling on napkins.  I felt a some sort of appreciation for it. I felt comfortable with it. 

So my second favorite is the whole Santa/ Christmas  display. And honestly I really hated this “piece” it was creepy is was kind of gross and it made me upset because that’s not what Christmas is about! Christmas isn’t about dying trees and Santa going crazy with a can of Hershey’s chocolate syrup. Because it made me feel so uncomfortable it was definitely my second favorite piece.

The contrast between these two is a little obvious since the flowers were solely ink on napkins and the Christmas exhibit was Christmas trees, tables and photos. But for the emotions they evoked were very very opposite ! One made me feel peaceful and familiar and the other made me feel upset and confused.

Honorable mentions go to 



Artist of the Week – Andy Warhol

This weeks artist is Andy Warhol. I was already familiar with his art and with his prints but never really considered looking into him. It’s like I knew of him but not about him. This week was a really good chance to look into him a little more. I ended up looking more into him as a person than into his art… not sure if thats bad or not.

I learned that  he just didn’t make prints but he also made films and videos and  performance art. Some of his more famous pieces include photos of artists (such as the Elvis piece below) Campbells soup cans, a banana and even vacuum cleaners!

What I read about and found most interesting about Andy was not his like for celebrities or pop culture but his use of animals in his art. In 1954 he released a book of cat prints called 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy which he worked on with his mom. I also learned that he was crazy about his weenie dog Archie (first photo) which he released some prints of. Yay for Archie!

This weeks artist is Andy Warhol. I was already familiar with his art and with his prints but never really considered looking into him. It’s like I knew of him but not about him. This week was a really good chance to look into him a little more. I ended up looking more into him as a person than into his art… not sure if thats bad or not. Because he is so high profile, there was tons of information, more than I could get through.

 

 

 

 

Landscapes and Corpses

This activity was not my favorite! Mostly because I’m superstitious about things like this.. like putting death out into the universe and what not. So I had a hard time getting myself to think of something. I ideally thought that I wanted to paint my face as an old lady and die peacefully in bed (because I hope to die that way) But I figured I should stop being so annoying and actually try and do something cool… or maybe a way I wouldn’t want to die.

 

Sooo because it’s a 3 day weekend and everyones partying hard… I figured.. this is the way I might not want to go! I figured that alcohol and pills arent that bad because  it’s pretty painless. My friends were super helpful with this and maybe had too much fun with it. Overall, I wasnt too happy with the way I looked since I look like death (pun totally intended) but it was fun.

I dont think that this is going to be my favorite activity in this class. Just because of the creepiness of death and it made me wonder what intrigues other artist to make that their topic of choice. They’re into some weird stuff, man.