Damien Hirst

Beautiful, amore, gasp, eyes going into the top of the head and fluttering painting, 1997

 On Wednesday I visited the highly hyped new Damien Hirst exhibition at the Tate Modern. I must say it’s basically the best exhibition I have ever been to mainly because I have always been a huge fan of his work, but also because from looking at this work in it’s physical form with his thoughts has allowed me to properly understand the concepts of his art and how his background heavily influenced him.

  Growing up in Leeds Damien Hirst was expected to fit a certain criteria his mother had set him; it soon became obvious that Hirst wanted to pursue a career in the arts and has made a ton of money in doing so. His eccentric ideas have provided fascinating works based mostly around the topics birth, death and decay; in his exhibition a collection of his work provides a fascinating thought provoking insight into his mind.

A Thousand Years, 1990

  I particularly enjoyed his project “A Thousand Years” a sculpture of a vitrine is split in half by a glass wall: a hole in this partition allows newly hatched flies from a box reminiscent of a die in one half, to fly into the other where an Insect-O-Cutor hangs. The corpses of the flies inside the vitrine accumulate whilst the works are on exhibition. In ‘A Thousand Years’, a decaying cow’s head is presented beneath the fly-killer. 

A Thousand Years, 1990

  It’s not a particularly aesthetically pleasing sculpture but the thought behind it and detail makes it beyond fascinating. Damien Hirst has really hit the nail on the head with successfully providing a visual display upon the exploration into the research of life and death and in-between. His use of movement with flies allowed suspending things without strings or wire and makes you realize the extent of how precious life is.

  Hirst has many talents but the way in which he provokes reaction to the art forms he assembles, then closely narrates with his concepts really makes you think and wonder exactly how one person could create such a grand intelligent understanding of the world yet capture imagination in all that view it. I was very happy after visiting the Tate Modern and am glad to have been able to have to opportunity to be in the same room as such magnificent art with admirable narration throughout. 

I Am Become Death, Shatterer of Worlds, 2006

http://www.damienhirst.com/
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/damien-hirst
(notes taken from exhibition pentathlete also)

Haifa Street Art.

Haifa Broken Fingaz Studio. (Rudi Khalastchi)

  London's idea's upon street art have previously been highly popularized by Banksy but recently a group of Haifa style street artists have brought its wild Israeli style to the chic London galleries inhabited previously by D*face, JR, and Banksy. The work has been criticized by Governmental bodies saying street art is a form or graffiti and vandalism however the group are young, local artists who are contributing to a changing face of the urban landscape and simultaneously redefining the boundaries of their medium. I love the work and there is no political reasoning for the work it is simply art and the group enjoy speaking about inspiration and their own opinions.

Bat Yam, Israel BFC

 http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/97274/broken-fingaz%E2%80%99s-graffiti-art

Cinemascapist Photography

  After looking at Gregory Crewdson's work I came across artist Aaron Hobson who uses Google earth to collect images and use them as photographs. I don't know a lot about Aaron Hobson but I am fascinated by the way he uses a complex worldwide system to make this amazing photographs.

Examples of his work: 

 

Route 17, South Africa

Canary Islands, Spain

Prague, Czech Republic

http://aaronhobson.com/

Megatherium - Andre de Freitas

  
  Photographer / Illustrator Freitas is interested mostly in capturing stillness and when drawing he tries to capture illustrations by imagining in fact he is taking a photo of the subject. So by doing this it was his gateway in the photo-graphical world.

 
The most interesting to me were the set of double exposed images; below are a few pieces of his work.

  http://andredefreitas.com/

Gregory Crewdson

Twilight Series, 1998 - 2002

Twilight Series 1998 - 2002

 Over the past week I have been heavily looking at the work of well-known American photographer Gregory Crewdson after finding him when I was studying for my A-levels. I became almost fixated on how he took such fascinating and paranormal shots of suburban America with the use of artificial lighting and using his well-publicized love of the ‘twilight hour’.

  I first came across him again when looking through the library just for inspiration I looked at Twilight a set of forty photos displayed in a book accompanied with an essay by Rick Moody; I chose to spend a lot of time really looking at a few of photos trying to gain more knowledge on how he shot them but until I got to the back of his book and really began to fixate upon how they were shot I was engrossed on how such large scale expensive shoots created such amazing photographs.

  Amongst my favorites is a photo of a woman sat in her kitchen on a flower bed its simple but evokes such weird imagery its almost like she is possessed. I think the wonder and forced artificial lighting really makes it perfect for this staged distance he creates from reality.

Twilight Series 1998 - 2002

When you see the effort, direction and money that Crewdson applies to his sets you cannot believe he hasn’t made a film; but the appearance of these stills that he has made from these sets is put into perspective of how an average town in America has been changed by one mans mind and fascination with a very natural light form and enhanced by artificial lighting. 

www.vam.ac.uk/content/article/p/gregory-crewdson/

  Crewdson, G., 2002. Twilight. New York: Abrams. 

Picasso Light Painting.

  This is just a quick one on something I thought was really interesting; Light painting is when you use a source of light in an otherwise dark setting and this creates bright light streaks.  

  One famous artist who used light painting was Pablo Picasso during the 1940's so Gjon Mili, a freelance photographer of the time visited Picasso and whilst showing several artists some of his light patterns Picasso grabbed a small flashlight and produced similar light patterns but he then allowed Mili to photograph and do a short collaboration of images of Greek profiles and beasts of lasting around 30 drawings he could keep from the session. The effect was created by Mili keeping the shutter open on his camera and captured the light paintings with a 1/10,000 second strobe light.

  Here are some of the images from the shoot:

Picasso light painting original shoot, Gjon Mili

  Here are some more examples of work I have been looking at other light painting:

Marko 93

  After looking at several famous images of light painting by Picasso I decided to do my own of simple red fair lights and moving them around with my Nikon and they came out very successful so I decided to include them as a means of experimentation. I didn't make images as such but more light trails just to see what light and effects I could capture.

Image One of my own, Heart

Image two, Fairy

http://fadedandblurred.com/blog/picasso-painting-with-light/

(images from Picasso collected from above)

Irina Werning ; Back To The Future

Niko 1986 & 2010 Buenos Aires

  Irina Werning did a project in recent years which I really like and would like to do something similar to in the future. They are sets of old photos with the modern equivalent compared beside. They are identical photographs just one is modern and one is old. They are really interesting with the likeness but the difference's make them yet more fascinating and because I am also fascinated with what people used to look like and look like now its a lovely nosy little project with great results.
  Here are some of her photos;

Tommy 1977 & 2010 Buenos Aires

Lulu Geraldine 1980 & 2010 Buenos Aires

http://irinawerning.com/back-to-the-fut/back-to-the-future/