NICOLE ALBERTSON
Life Editor
There is no standard for art. Anything can qualify as long as one person declares it so. Three pairs of stacked shoes, a collection of books or an interestingly placed chair can be considered art. While abstract art has already gone to an extreme with its “realistic interpretations” of ordinary objects, the latest wave in contemporary art has taken another leap into the unusual.
Popular artist Damien Hirst has created a contemporary classic piece by displaying a shark submerged in a tank of formaldehyde. Aptly named “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” created in 1991. The rest of his collection includes sheep and sliced-up cows sustained in formaldehyde tanks.
Another new artist stirring up the art world is Jeff Koons, now famous for his 1985 piece, “Three Ball 50/50 Tank,” and 1992’s “Puppy.”
“Puppy” is a 43-foot topiary sculpture of a West Highland white terrier puppy constructed from a variety of flowers on a steel substructure. It was reconstructed as a temporary exhibit at Rockefeller Center in New York City in 2002.
As contemporary art has changed names from Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” and Dali’s “Soft Construction with Boiled Beans” to abstract artists Hirst and Koons, so have the influences behind the creative masterpieces. While old-school influences include architecture, religion and politics, the newest art craze is a direct reaction to the popularity of entertainment and mass media.
“The media has affected the evolution of art just as it has done for other areas of self-expression,” said senior art history major Josh Damien. “It has brought out voyeuristic tendencies in some arenas, while causing others to shun the involvement of the contemporary world in exchange for fanciful, more romantic times.”
The first popular artist to showcase the crossover between art and entertainment was the infamous Andy Warhol. His interpretations of Marilyn Monroe and Campbell’s Tomato soup can in 1962 are two of the most well-known pieces in the world.
“Warhol broke down the wall between entertainment and fine art that has reached its height today,” said Michael Zakian, director of Pepperdine’s Fredrick R. Weisman Museum. “Art has become an expansion of the media and everyone wants to be famous.”
Since Warhol’s interpretation intrigued the art world and grabbed the attention of mainstream America, art has continued to include entertainment influences in their work.
American photographer Gregory Crewdson is one of the latest “superstar” artists to personify the entertainment/art crossover. He creates photographs that resemble movie stills from Hollywood films and is known for elaborately staged, surreal scenes of American homes and neighborhoods. His most famous piece, 2001’s “Untitled,” – in which a woman is floating on her back in the middle of a flooded living room is a symbol of art imitating entertainment.
“[The media] is a large part of our lives in this day and age and as a human being I have to weigh what attributes are positive and negative to my life,” said aspiring artist and 2007 Pepperdine alumn Dougie Mann.
Since the entertainment and art world have collided, art has not been the only reflection of the new relationship. Music has shown the power of artistic creativity by showcasing famous artworks on album covers and creating new versions of classic pieces.
“Musicians such as Elton John, Jeff Beck and Alan Hull indicate [Rene] Magritte’s continuing influence on pop artists,” according to the December 2, 2006 edition of The Orange County Register. “Some of the covers are reinterpretations, while other’s are direct reproductions of Magritte paintings.”
The reincarnations include Beck’s 1969 album, “Beck–Ola,” featuring “The Listening Room” (1952) on its cover.
Abstract art, while sometimes hard to understand, is often created to convey a specific message or meaning. Warhol created art because he was a commercial artist and wanted to speak from the voice of the unassuming everyday commercial artist without insinuating a deeper meaning with his paintings.
Relative newcomer to the contemporary art scene, Hirst is thought to make political and shocking statements with each new creation. His dead animal art is supposed to bring attention to waste on cattle farms and push the limits of making art.
“Mr. Hirst often aims to fry the mind, but he does so by setting up direct, often visceral experiences, of which the [object] remains outstanding,” wrote Roberta Smith for the New York Times on Oct. 16, 2007.
From the ceilings painted by Michelangelo to the “drip paints” of Jackson Pollick and Japanese prints of James Abott McNeil Whistler, art is continuously evolving with society. “Abstract art’s role within today’s society is a result not only of artists breaking through the medium, but also as another unique avenue of expressions as dictated by the senses,” Damien said. “Abstraction can powerfully convey both emotions and be representative of sensations that every single person possesses or has experienced at one point. If there ever was an art form that was truly about the viewer and their experience, it’s in abstract art.”
From a life-size, one-legged wax nude female created by Urs Fischer to a column of cascading vertical blinds decorated with toy soldiers and tinfoil by Isa Genzken, abstract art is open to each individuals interpretation. Whether abstract art is understood or not, it is a reflection of the culture that created it.
“Art serves as a barometer of our culture,” Zakian said. “You don’t have to like it, it doesn’t have to be good. But it tells you something about our society today.”
01-31-2008