Xavier Cha #6

Xavier Cha is a performance artist. She has done a lot of popular work. She does not like advertisements and she mocks them by doing strange things. She has dressed in a shrimp suit, stood outside a restaurant, and danced like a retard. Showing how dumb some advertisements can be, because what does a dancing shrimp have to do with eating. 

I found her work very humorous and I enjoyed viewing her website. 

XavierCha.com

Andy Goldsworthy #5

Andy Goldsworthy is an artist who does  lot of earth art. He creates pieces made from objects that nature created. He also finds natural art and take pictures of it without having to touch it. He doesn't use any store bought products, he only uses what nature provides for him and that's all he needs. Here are some pictures of his work. 

Hussein Chalayan #4

Hussein Chalayan is a Turkish fashion designer born in 1970. He was crowned 'British Designer of the Year' in 1999 and 2000 and was awarded a Member of the Order of the British Empire. 






Hussein has worked with many artist. One of his designs was worn by Bjork in her Post album shown below.

Robert Smithson #3

Robert Smithson is a painting, sculpture, and earthscape artist who uses nature's creations to create his own masterpieces. He seems to be obsessed with spirals and circles which shows in some of his art, but he does have other patterns where he shows his creativity as well. 

Nancy Popp #2

Nancy Popp is a performance artist with an awesome name.

Isamu Noguchi #1

Isamu Noguchi is a landscape artist who creates sculptures and public art. He has is own museum (The Noguchi Museum) and it consist of different pieces of his artwork. He carves stone and rocks, and he sets the up in an artistic way. 

Marina Abramovic

Marina Abramović

The Grandmother of Performance Art

She wanted to explore her body's physical limits and find the connection between love and hate and body and mind. In her film "The Star", she explains how she put her body through pain and blood shed, and how to watch hospital operation to push her body and mind to its limits. She also wanted to surpass the barrier of fear, pain, and death. 

Rhythm 10

Her first performance where she focused on rituals and gestures. In the video she lined 20 knifes up and played the Russian hand game where you lay your hand on a surface and stabbed the areas between your fingers. Every time she cut herself, she would pick up a new knife. She cut herself twenty times in this process. So she replayed the tape, listened to the pain and sounds of her body, and tried to replicate her movements. By doing this, she connected the past with the present. "Once you enter into the performance state, you can push your body to do things you absolutely could never normally do." 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9-HVwEbdCo&feature=player_embedded

Rhythm 2

On stage and in front of an audience, Marina took a pill that is usually prescribed for catatonia. Catatonia is a condition where the muscles tense up and remains in a single position for hours at a time. Marina's body acted violently to the drug. It looked like she was having a seizure and she was moving uncontrollably. Ten minutes after the pill wore off, she took an antidepressant pill. Her body was fine, but her mind was gone. She doesn't even remember anything after the second pill. The reason she wanted to do this is because she wanted to experience what happens when her body in an unconscious state, but still being conscious.

Rhythm 0

  

She stood in front of an audience for a 6 hour performance. There was a table with 72 objects on it. These objects could bring pleasure and joy, while others could bring pain and harm. Some of the objects were a feather, honey, a rose, a gun, a bullet, scissors, a whip, a scalpel, comb, olive oil, wire, cake, knives, sulphur, and other items. People grabbed objects and did as they pleased to Marina. At first, people were played with Marina cautiously, but then the crowd became violent. They cut her clothes, stuck thorns in her stomach, someone loaded the gun and aimed it at her neck, 

Marina learning experience, "What I learned was that if you leave it up to the audience, they can kill you."

The Artist is Present

In the Museum of Modern Art from May 14 to May 31 2010, Marina sat in a chair on a stage and had a chair on the opposite side of her where someone else could sit. She sat there for hours and hours without moving, to test how long she could do it. The people in the museum took turns sitting across from her and trying to sit as long as they could. She was seeing how long she could last sitting down for hours. This performance attracted celebrities such as Bjork and James Franco. James Franco only lasted about a minute and twenty seconds. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trw9vYV_g6c

Lady Gaga praised and loved her. Marina emailed a question to Lady Gaga asking, "Who creates limits?" And Gaga responded, "We create our own limits. Marina is a limitless human being, and she is amazing."

Marina cut a star over her stomach with a razor and began to whip her stomach and back. The whole sitting on a block of ice.