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Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman Untitled Film No. 92, Chromogenic color print, 24 x 47 15/16" 1981

Cindy Sherman is famous for her photography. Her subject is mostly herself but she has used mannequins in her work. Although, she doesn’t consider herself a feminist her photographs focuses on women and their role in society. In her project Untitled Film Stills, she portrays herself as a woman that viewers already have a typical conception because of her role.  She is both director and actress in her black and white and color film stills. She dresses into a typical female role that Hollywood and other media have portrayed. They are not portraits of herself but a depiction of her control of this stereotypical role. The best example (in my opinion) is Untitled Film Still number 92. Sherman appears in a night scene or a dark basement as an exhausted female student who has fallen or tripped. An unknown light source focuses on her frightened expression as an unknown assailant is coming toward her from the right.  

Kiki Smith

Kiki Smith Untitled 1990.  Beeswax and microcrystalline wax figures on metal stands: female figure, 73 1/2 in. high; male figure 76 15/16 in. high. 

Smith has worked with a variety of media such as screen prints, sculptures, sketches, and in and outdoor installations. Her works depict the body in its natural form such as Untitled. These two large figures around six feet in height are made from wax and take the naturalistic biological form and function of the female and male body. They are suspended and display excreted fluids such as the female excreting milk from her breast which flows down her body and the male figure penus is excreting sperm which has trickled down his legs. Her topics vary from biological, religion, mythological, political and society. Most of her works involves herself or the female figure.

Ana Mendieta

Ana Mendiata, Flowers on Body, 1973, Color photograph

             

   In her early works, Ana made short films focusing on abused women as a performance art.  Her films involved writing in red in the wall or displaying the bruised and bloody woman. Her later works before her death took a different aspect. It involved the relationship between the body and the environment. Her subject involves herself or a female silhouette placed in a certain environment.  Her media involved flowers, mud, sand, anything relatable to her earthwork. In her work Flowers on Body, she laid nude inside a burial like setting and places white flowers with long stems on her face, the middle portion of her upper and lower body only exposing her arms, legs, and feet.  A rocky natural wall surrounds her body. She would camouflage herself into the surrounding or engraving her silhouette on the ground. Her series “Silueata” displays the spiriutal and ritualistic attributes of the body and landscape.

Louise Bourgeois

 

Louise Bourgeois 1997 Maman bronze cast 94 x 94 x 84 inches

Louise Bourgeois The Couple 2003 Aluminum 

Louise Bourgeois is known for her sculptures like her large steel and marble spider Maman  which represents her loving mother. Her sculptures are both abstract and natural; it represents the form of the human figure but psychological perspective of troubled figures who want protection from the human environment. Her medium includes wood, bronze, marble, aluminum and plaster. Her works have a strong sensual presence such as “The  Couple”. The piece is made of aluminum and depicts two figures intertwining each other and hanging from a rope. The aluminum gives it a soft curvilinear appearance. Many of her works refers to her childhood and the relationship with her father having an affair and her loving mother.

Nick Cave

Nick Cave, Soundsuit, 2009; mixed media; 97 x 26 x 20 inches 

Not only does Nick Cave make fabric statues, he makes sound suits. His suits are attributed from African tribal influences. These outfits visually display storytelling of tribal history or events. It involves dance with the movement relating to their costume and music. He uses various found objects and materials both natural and synthetic like his first piece which involved twigs he collected from a park. His exhibitions are both interactive performances and statues.