Green Coke and Boobs Covered in Gum....in School.

This week studying the last chapter of our text book in History of Western Art, we focused on pop art, and postmodern art. Next week will be the last week for lectures in this class, to prepare for finals. Yikes! My post goes as follows:

Andy Warhol’s Green Coca-Cola Bottles is a beautiful piece from 1962 that expressed the growing advertisement in the world. He chose the comfortable and familiar Coke bottle because he knew that Coke was so universally enjoyed. It could be afforded and enjoyed by the guy down the street, to the President of the United States. Seeing the beauty in the idea of this object he created Green Coca-Cola Bottles as though, like the bottles themselves, the piece was mass-produced. Making such a work that the elements can be so universally recognized also had to have made him an artist that was also well recognized by the everyday man, which may have not been the case with artists like Ellsworth Kelly, or Louise Bourgeois.

In Hannah Wilke’s S.O.S. - starification object series, she presents both a pictoral and sculpture element in her composition. S.O.S. Is comprised of fifteen tiny sculptures of gum shaped into a vulva, as well as ten photographs of herself, topless, in various poses while covering herself with these vulva shaped gum sculptures. The photos are extremely provocative with the controversial poses and the strange pieces of gum strewn over her naked chest. In a society becoming more accepting of women and sexuality, the composition seems to scream to women to push the limits of what they think is acceptable. Her vulvas are said to be seen as both a hint toward female pleasure, as well as to pain because of their scar-like feeling. I believe the work represents a dialogue toward a movement of removing the scars of the past put on women having to hide their sexuality and toward a voice, and freedom of expressing yourself and body, and pleasure however you want. Overall it’s a beautiful message.

Artists styles like these develop based on what is happening in the world, whether around them, or from what they hear and can express what they feel about it. Whether art is a reaction to war with total removal of emotion toward the specific event, or with images of carnage as the artist sees it. It could be a reaction to how commercial sales is growing, and an artistic adaptation to advertisement, or a reaction to the changing attitudes of a people toward their freedoms and rights. Art styles can develop from anyones mind about anything they feel they need to express an emotion about onto their canvas.

----I totally love S.O.S. it's so interesting! It's provocative, and dangerous, and makes you double take! What a different piece of art!