Christo and Jeanne Claude

Cristo and Jeanne Claude were both born on the same data. They both met in paris for the first time. Cristo settled in Vienna, and enrolled at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. After only one semester there, he traveled to Geneva and moved to Paris in 1958. Jeanne Claude went to the University of Tunis and earned a baccalaureate in Latin and philosophy. They both met each other in October and shortly after that she became pregnant by Cristo. And from there on the worked together on a lot of amazing art work called wrapping.

The Running Fence-40 kilometers long and constructed in Sonoma and Marin Counties, California

The Wrapping of the Coast-wrapped Two-and-a-half kilometres of coast and Cliffs up to 26 metres high.

The wrapping of trees- wrapped trees in parks around the cities.




By: Robby Westbury

French Culture Project 1

“The work of art is a scream of freedom.”

Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Both of the artist were born on the same day, June 13, 1935. They first met in October 1958 in Paris, France. When they met Christo was doing a painting of Jeanne-Claude's mother. He was first attracted to her half sister Joyce. Jeanne-Claude was engaged when she first met Christo. She ended up pregnant by Christo and she still got married, but after the honeymoon she left her husband and went to Christo. They soon had a son named Cyril born on 11 May 1960. Jeanne-Claude's parents didn't approve of the relationship because of Christo's refugee status.

There works were just credited to Christo until 1994, when Jeanne-Claude finally got credited to there work. They rode in separate planes so if one was to crash the other could continue on with the work. This work of art above is called The Wall. It was finished on April 6,1999. Most of there art is made out of fabric, large curtains, wrapped forms, surrounded islands, and large umbrellas.

The photo on the left is called Surrounded Island. It was complete on May 7, 1983, where they covered 11 islands. They completed this piece of art in Biscayne Bay, between the city of Miami, North Miami, the Village of Miami Shores, and Miami Beach.

The photo on the right called Over the River, for the Arkansas river. He did this in dedication to Jeanne-Claude after she passed. It was a dream of there's to do this so he wanted to continue on after her death.

What are some of the major themes that your subject addresses?

Some of Christo and Jeanne-Claud's themes for there art was environmental. They did alot of things with water and covering bridges, islands, buildings, and gates. They thought by wrapping these items it would give them a new since of an identity. It would be able to show basic features and proportions of the object. The use of fabric gave the item a more sensual and temporary feel. They dont consider there work just "wrapping" they consider it more of altering the enviroment.

What about your subject is particularly "French"?

When Christo escaped communism he felt the need to express it in his art. There art shows love, passion, beauty, freedom, and joy. Just how french is percieved and is. To see orange fabric flowing off of gates or buildings shows freedom. By erasing everything in your mind and just watching the fabric flow back and forth. The French culture has a beautiful look, so does Christo and Jeanne-Clauds' artwork. They represent there work with every aspect of French Culture.

http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/

Pierre Restany

Pierre Restany was born on June 24th, 1930 in Amelie-les-Bains-Palalda, Pyrenees-Orientales. He spent most of his childhood in Casablanca and attended the Lycee Henri-IV in 1949. He then went on to universities in France, Italy, and Ireland. Restany was known as a French art critic and a cultural philosopher internationally.

in 1960, Pierre came up with the new idea of Nouveau Realisme- or new realism- a new art movement, such as Pop Art.

This group contained Christo, Niki de Saint Phalle, Martial Raysse, and many others. Pierre defined this group as "new perceptual approaches to reality." Their first exhibition took place at the Paris Festival d'avant-garde in November in 1960. Pierre Restany passed away in Paris in 2003 and was buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery.

What about your subject is particularly "French"?

This subject is particularly french because Pierre Restany was a french art critic and philosopher. He grew up in the French area and worked there till his life ended. He brought a new type of art to the world.

What are the major themes that your subject addresses?

The major themes that are addressed are the new types of art. Pierre Restany introduced new realism which is Pop Art, Fluxus, and Neo-dada: all new types of art that Restany discovered.

Adel Abdessemed: Chad Hunter

Adel Abdessemed:

A French Artist

My post on contemporary art is about Adel Abdessemed, a French male artist.

A portrait of Adel Abdessemed

Adel Abdessemed was Born in 1971 in Constantine, Algeria and lives and works in Paris, France. His art focuses on the idea of globalization.He has many art photographs and sculptures in America and France. He works with video, animation, performance, and sculptural installations around the world. Over the last few years, he has been considered as one of the most promising artists with a world wide career. He also was known for the concept of "Performance Art".

                                             

This a monument that Adel built in Italy and was then put in the M.I.T. museum in New York.

Adel finished this model in 2003 in Paris. This kind of art influenced many artists to a new kind of art. Adel calls it the "French performance art." Adel is very well known as a random artists who always comes up with something out of the ordinary or things that wouldn't happen in everyday life. Now days more French artists are using Adel's concepts for their own art.

A picture of a (fakely shown) loose lion in the streets of Paris

In 2006, Adel with the help of an animal trainer took multiple photographs in the streets of Paris of real wild animals like boars, a snake, and a lion shown above. Once these extravagant and unusual photos came out Adel instantly became one of the most popular French and American artist. He was a artist who changed a major part of American and French art.

Adel's drawing of the Matta's bridge in France

This is a black and white painting that Adel is working on currently and planning on presenting it sometime in the month of November

Link to Adels gallery: http://listart.mit.edu/node/438

Culture Project 1: Ben Vautier: Ben Vautier: Culture Project 1

Culture Project 1: Ben Vautier: Ben Vautier: Culture Project 1: Ben Vautier was born July 18 1935, and works and lives in Nice. Vautier was interested in many french artist and musicians inspiring him w...

Culture Project 1: Ben Vautier: Ben Vautier: Culture Project 1

Culture Project 1: Ben Vautier: Ben Vautier: Culture Project 1: Ben Vautier was born July 18 1935, and works and lives in Nice. Vautier was interested in many french artist and musicians inspiring him w...

Annette Messager

Annette Messager is not one of the normal artists in French culture. She was born in 1943. As a child, she always would visit the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs. She spent more time at the museums and movie theatres at school, so was eventually asked to leave. Annette was fascinated by the art work. In her early 20s, she began to feel lonely as her role models were all men. 

She decided she wanted to express her gender of pain, love, beauty, power, and yearning through the eyes of a woman. For this, she is considered one of Europe's most important artists. 

Her work usually involves photography, drawing, knitting, embroidery, sewing, and other objects she has collected. In 1974, she began collecting French Proverbs and embroidering them onto cloth. Messager adopted extreme measures to not become invisible. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6N6g3Al-zc


She made her dream to a reality by changing the world, and spread the word that women should have just as much power as men. 

Her pictures were completely thinking outside the box. She reached the level of fame of where she is right now by twisting the status quo and making it into something new and exciting. She has been role models of many other artists in France and inspires others with her work. 



What about your subject is particularly "French"?


Annette Messager loved creating new ideas in France. Her goals were to become a top artist in France. She went above and beyond her goals and reached people all over Europe and North America. She used her talent to express a woman's view of life through art. She influenced French women to have rights and be independent. She was daring to just talk about women's rights to a friend, but telling it to the whole world, she was "absurd". No matter what her judgement was, she revealed different attitudes of her lifestyle such as women working, and she used different vibes in her choice of colors and shades. 




What are the major things that your subject addresses?

Annette Messager transforms every day objects into installations that flavors creativity, memory, melancholy, mystery, and obsession through what she thinks is of feminine views.  She has her own styles. She wanted to express feelings through her artwork and get her ideas thrown out into the world. She used different and crazy sculptures that were something so odd but beautiful, they grabbed people's attention; and look where she's at now. Her pictures were radical. She went over the top to get the message out because she loved art and she was passionate about it. Her work addresses women's rights through going beyond women's traditional roles such as cleaning and cooking. Instead she spread the word that women can vote, and women can play sports, and women can go to med school. 


Annette Messager wasn't just an artist. She was a leader. 

Pierre Restany by Abbey Moore

Pierre Restany was born on June 24,1930 in Amelie-les-Baines-Palalda, Pyrenees-Orientales located in southern France and died on May 29, 2003 in Paris. He grew up in Casablanca and studied in France, Italy, and Ireland. He was an internationally know art critic and cultural philosopher.

















He and Yves Klein came up with the idea of "Nouveau Realisme" and described it as "new perceptual approaches to reality". Artists like Niki de Saint Phalle, Christo, Cesar, Jacques Villegle, and Jean Tinguely were all apart of Restany's new realism.











His work got into detail about problems that Frace was facing in modern days.

He was the editor of the Domus archetectual magazine and co-founder of Domus Academy.

What about your subject is particularly "French"?

Pierre Restany loved living and creating in France. He lived in Frace for his whole life and enjoyed showing people the "new real" meaning of things. He used his artistic abilities to bringing forth a new era of artwork in the French world that would be similar to American pop art that is more modern and relative to problems France is facing through art and got the message across.

What are the major themes that your subject adresses?

Pierre criticized other people's artwork because thats what he did for a living. His group of new realists adressed the "humanistic ideals in the face of industry expansion". Humanistis ideas are ideas based on human nature and such. His work was themed pop and modern art. Towards his end, he thought on nature and chaos (the events and courses that nature takes) with artist Carlos Ginzburg and created an exhibition in New York in 2001.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Christo and Jeanne-Claude were an artist married couple. Christo discovered his artistic ability at an early age. He was born in Bulgaria and later moved to Paris, France to pursue his passion for art. While in Paris, he was drowned in social isolation and earned little income by painting portraits.

Jeanne-Claude was born in Casablanca, Morocco. Her parents were French, but her father was in the French military and was stationed there. During World War 11, they returned to Paris.

Jeanne-Claude and Christo met through Christo painting a portrait of her mother. At the time Jeanne-Claude was engaged to Phillippe Planchon, but her true love was Christo and she found out she was carrying his baby and ended the relationship with Phillippe. Jeanne-Claude and Chisto moved to New York City to aspire their artistic dreams. They barely had any money. Their occupation was to decorate store fronts. The store fronts they decorated stirred a lot of attention and many started to notice the capability of their artistic and influential skills.

One famous work of Jeanne-Claude and Christo are "The Gates". "The Gates" were inspired by the torii gates that line the paths of the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto, Japan. "The Gates" were composed of pieces of vinyl that ran 23 miles long in Central Park, New York. The cost of the construction and materials rounded to about $21 million. "The Gates" took about a month until it was completed. They ended up only lasting about one month.


Another well known project of Christo and Jeanne-Claude was the "Running Fence". The "Running Fence" was another fabric piece that went for 24.5 miles and was 18 feet high. It was constructed on the hills of Sonoma and Marin in northern California. It was removed within 14 days and people claimed it was not artwork and a waste of money.

Jeanne-Claude and Christo used the artistic technique of Nouveau Réalisme which means 'new realism'. Artists who used this technique took different aspects of the world and they would incorporate them into their works. Example: The "Running Fence" symbolized the Continental Divide in Colorado.

Their art is also considered Environmental Art, which means that the artists became really connected with the environment surrounding them and incorporated it into their work.

The significance that Christo and Jeanne-Claude's artwork is exposing people to the culture of being environmentally conscious and being aware of the beauty and delicacy of the environment.

Major themes that Jeanne-Claude and Christo address would be the 'gates' or 'fences' that are exaggerated and stretched for many miles. They also relate to being flowy with design and movement in their artwork.

Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin

Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida

http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/index.shtml

Robert Doisneau

For my first culture blog post, I am writing about Robert Doisneau. He was in the photography arts, not the traditional paint and paintbrush kind of stuff. In other words, he was French a photographer, known for his work in photojournalism. He was born in Gentilly, France.

When Robert Diosneau was 16, he took up photography as an amateur. By the start of the 1930's, he was working as a camera assistant and a staff photographer at the Atelier Ullmann (Ullmann Studio). After a year, he left the studio to be the assistant to the modernist photographer André Vigneau. His best job or the job that really got him started as a street photographer was him working at the Rapho photo agency in 1939. There he travelled all around Paris taking pictures of Paris' streets.rance. He began serious photography in 1930 and sold his first photo-story in 1932 to the Excelsior newspaper.

Robert Doisneau was known for his artistic vision of the streets and cafes of Paris. He was a street photographer. He said, “The marvels of daily life are so exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street.” He was like the photographer of life. He took pictures of daily living in Paris.

Kiss by the Hotel de Ville.

This is probably his most famous picture. It became a symbol of young love in Paris.

Robert Doisneau won many awards including the Kodak Prize in 1947, the Niépce Prize in 1956, the Grand Prix National de la Photogragraphie in 1983, and the Balzac Prize in 1986.

What about your subject is particularly “French”?

What about it isn’t French, is more like it. He was a French photographer, born in France, and he took pictures of French life. I don’t know what else to say besides that? He was even in the French Resistance. I don’t know how you can get more French than that? He was a FRENCH photographer. He even married a French girl, Pierrette Chaumaison and had two French children, Annette and Francine. He lived in Paris his whole life. His photographs are of the French way of life, not America, not French. His pictures show the French lifestyle. I find the lifestyle of the French is very subtle. So instance, they are very quiet then they eat dinner. They are never loud or outspoken. I think his photos capture not only the uniqueness of life, but also the subtleness. Much like clothes, his photos can be loud, but subtle, and unique, but familiar. We all can relate to his pictures.

What are the major themes that your subject addresses?

I believe that Robert Doisneau captured the simplicity and happiness of life in his pictures. I think that everyone can relate to what’s in his photographs. Everyone has seen people kiss in public before. Everyone has seen dogs and their masters walking down the street. Everyone has seen people marvel at things they find extraordinary. I also think that his pictures capture the essence of life. Every photograph of his is different and everyday is different from the last. You can't predict what will happen in your life. You can't control what will happen either. The only thing that is predictable about life, is its unpredictability. Life is unpredictable and so are his photos.

Blek le Rat

Blek le Rat is a French stencil graffiti artist, born in Paris in 1951. He began painting graffiti on the walls of many buildings in France in the early 1980s. His first painting was a stencil of a rat that he painted all around the city, hoping to make an "invasion of rats." This idea helped in the making of his name. The "Blek le" was inspired by a cartoon strip he used to read when he was young called "Blek le Roc."

Blek le Rat painted the rat for about two years and became well-known. Later, he decided to make his paintings about more serious cases. He wanted his paintings to inspire, conjure reaction, and make change.

And they did.

After 1991, Blek le Rat never painted on walls again. He was put on trial for ten years of doing graffiti and had to pay dramatic fines. He was told that if he was caught painting on walls again, he would be sent to jail. So instead of walls as a canvas, he uses paper now.

Blek le Rat is now living in a 10th century castle in France with his family.

What about your subject is particularly "French"?

Blek le Rat was born in France. His artwork is all over France and it's buildings. He got inspired to paint in the seventies there and then ten years later, he started his painting of the rats. France has helped him become aware of the things around him and has helped him to try and make a difference for the world.

What are the major themes that your subject addresses?

The major themes my subject addresses is independence and change. Blek le Rat showed feelings through his work. Everyone has a voice, but may not know how to use it, so expressing what you feel through pictures and artwork, helps. Blek le Rat said that teenagers just want a way to tell people, to scream, that they are here--they want to be heard.

By expressing your feelings through paintings, it lets the world know what you are thinking. And that conjures reaction. Those reactions turn into ideas and those ideas turn into change, whether it's a drastic change or a small change.

Sources:

http://www.artrepublic.com/biographies/10-blek-le-rat.html

http://www.escapeintolife.com/artist-watch/blek-le-rat/

http://www.google.com/

Blek le Rat's personal website:

http://bleklerat.free.fr/stencil%20graffiti.html

Some YouTube videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hk7BUOhzvo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP-u48tpU3Y

Annette Messager

     For my first French Culture blog post on French art, I am doing Annette Messager. Annette Messager is a French artist who's art work varies to just about any form there is.  "Installation" is one form of art that she uses. "Installation" is a genre of 3 dimensional art that is usually used specifically to transform and alter the perception of space. Messager's art does not all fit into this one category, she is just known for her work with "Installation" because she is so talented with it. Her work is also very recognizable because of it's unique features. Her pieces usually, if not always, are made up with a majority of  photographs, prints, and even pictures she draws. She has been featured in several different contemporary art magazines such as "Bomb", "Journal of Contemporary Art", and even an Australian visual arts magazine called "Eyeline". She has also been featured in "New York Times" on several occasions. She and her artwork are all very unique and beautiful, and show her amazing imagination and creativity.

À Corps Perdu (Meaning "Heart and Soul")

How has your subject influenced French culture?

        Annette Messager's art work has influenced French culture in many ways. Her art work has been displayed in museums all over France. It has also appeared in museums around the world as solo exhibitions. This has greatly influenced French culture because not only have people in different countries seen it, many have gone to France to see more from her and many other artists.

What significance, if any, does your subject have on American culture?

       My subject has influenced American culture some but not as much as it has influenced France. The "Installation" method seems to have really taken off in this decade. There have also been many people coming from America to see her artwork. It is incredibly unique and this catches many people's eyes.She was also a very devoted feminist.

                                   

Pierre Restany

Pierre Restany was born on June 24, 1930 and spent most of his childhood in Casablanca. He returned to France in 1949 and attended Lycee Henri- IV. In 1960 he created the term "Nouveau Realisme" or new realism.

This subject is influenced french culture because a french artist created realism.

The subject created its own culture movement. New realism was found by Pierre Restany.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Restany