This document provides information on several contemporary artists including Jeff Koons, Heim Steinbach, Damien Hirst, Colab, Ilya Kabakov, Christian Boltanski, Bill Viola, Tony Cragg, Richard Deacon, Martin Puryear, Judy Pfaff, Nancy Graves, Donald Lipski, Yasumasa Morimura, Matthew Barney, Raymond Pettibon, and Charles LeDray. For each artist, it discusses their background, artistic style and themes, and provides examples of their work. The document examines these artists in the context of postmodernism and conceptual art from the late 20th century.

1. Chapter 26
New Perspectives
on Art and Audience

2. Jeff Koons
Pink Panther, 1988. Porcelain
Commodity Art
Jeff Koons
• became a Wall Street commodities
broker to support his art-making.
• he is the artist who reinvented
Duchamp’s readymades for the
consumer age, and as a result he
constantly is involved in high-profile
copyright cases.
• Koons took Duchmap’s concept to
whole ne level when he created a
factory-scale art production
company to make his art that also
made him super rich.
• He is also known as the maker of
some of the most genuinely
perplexing works of art out there.

3. Jeff Koons. Michael Jackson and
Bubbles, 1988. Porcelain, 3’ 6” × 5’
10-1⁄2” × 2’ 8-1⁄2”. Sonnabend
Gallery, NY.
Jeff Koons is often portrayed
as the contemporary art world’s
supreme operator, in the
tradition of Duchamp and
Warhol: “provocative,
consistently self-referential
icon who seems to both
embody and parody the art
world’s worst excesses and to
stay one jump ahead of his
audience’s expectations at all
times.”(Robert Ayres, Art Info
2008)

4. Heim Steinbach
• known for his arrangements of
found objects on shelves;
• works in the tradition of Marcel
Duchamp;
• explores the role of the artist as
a collector and curator of
cultural artifacts;
• “We communicate through
objects just as we
communicate through
language,” he has explained.
• “We see objects, we have
feelings about them, and we
feel them when we touch
them.” (Heim Steinbach).
Heim Steinbach, Ultra Red #2.
1986. Mixed media.63 x 76 x 19
inches. Sonnabend Galelry, New
York, NY.

5. Damien Hirst
The Physical Impossibility of Death in
the Mind of Someone Living, 1991
Tiger shark in a glass tank of
formaldehyde.
Damien Hirst
• stands out of all “young
British sculptors”.
• was born in Bristol in 1965
and grew up in Leeds.
• was not an academic
student, he failed most of
his exams.
• studied at the Leeds College
of Art and Design although
he was rejected on his first
application.
• while he was a student, he
worked in a mortuary which
influenced his interest in the
theme of death.

6. Damien Hirst
For the Love of God (2007).
the only surviving human part
of the original is the teeth.
The piece is a platinum cast
of an 18th century human
skull covered in £15,000,000
worth of diamonds.
• Hirst is a leading member of the UK
postmodernist art group known as
Young British Artists.
• He jolted the artworld in the 1990s with
his series of dead animals preserved
and floating in formaldehyde.
• Influenced by Francis Bacon, his most
famous works of avant-garde art
include A Thousand Years (1989), a
glass case with maggots and flies
feeding off a rotting cow's head.
• Another important piece is The
Physical Impossibility of Death in the
Mind of Someone Living (1991), a tiger
shark in a glass tank of formaldehyde

7. CoLab, Ahearn, and Osorio
Colab
• is the abbreviation of the New York City artists' group Collaborative
Projects;
• Included artists of various disciplines.
The artists who came together to form Collaborative Projects Inc., NYC
(aka Colab) in the late 1970s/early 1980s are:
• John Ahearn,
• Charlie Ahearn,
• Diego Cortez,
• Jane Dickson,
• Jenny Holzer,
• Joe Lewis,
• James Nares,
• Tom Otterness,
• Kiki Smith,
• Betsy Sussler
Postmodern Arenas

8. Ilya Kabakov
The Man Who Flew Into Space
From His Apartment, 1981-88.
Mixed media
Ilya Kabakov
• born in 1933, is an American
conceptual artist of Russian-
Jewish origin.
• When WWII broke out, Ilya’s
Jewish family was forced to
evacuate to Uzbekistan.
• Kabakov worked in Moscow
from the 1950s until the late
1980s.
• His exhibitions were small
and risky because the Soviet
government did not tolerate
art.
• Kabakov now resides in
Long Island.

9. • The Man Who Flew Into Space From
His Apartment is one of Ilya Kabakov’s
most famous installations.
• The installation, presents a fictitious
hero, one who did the impossible and
flew alone into outer space.
• The hero felt so alone, one day he
used a makeshift slingshot, and flew
through the ceiling of his apartment.
• The depressing room and primitive
catapult unveil the truth behind the
Soviet utopia of cosmic visions and
political goals as being indestructible.
Ilya Kabakov, The Man Who
Flew Into Space From His
Apartment, 1980. Mixed media

10. • Kabakov used fictional
biographies, mostly inspired by his
own life, in trying to understand
the rise and fall of the Soviet
Union.
• Many of Ilya Kabakov installations
during the 1990s appear as
"metasystems" of Soviet
civilization in the form of metaphor,
as in "The Red Pavilion" (Russian
Pavilion of Venice Biennale, 1993).
• Despite the metaphoric starting
point of many of Kabakov’s
installations, and despite their
roots in Soviet culture, they
acquire other universal meanings.
Ilya Kabakov. The Red Pavilion,
1993. Mixed media

11. Christian Boltanski
Untitled, 1988. Mixed media
Christian Boltanski
• was born Sept 6, 1944,
Paris, France. He lives and
works in Malakoff near
Paris.
• his dominant theme is his
own life story, both actual
and reinvented, which he
tells through collections of
photographs and objects.
Since the 1960s, he worked
with the ephemera of the
human experience.
Artworks in his signature
style include obituary
photographs and lights.

12. Viola
• video and installation artist
known for exploring
themes of existential
introspection;
• considered a pioneer of
new media art
• is interested in technology
as a means to convey his
ideas;
• pursues timeless themes
like birth, death, and
extremes of emotion.
Bill Viola. The Theater of Memory,
1985. Video/sound installation.
Orange County Museum of Art,
California

13. Tony Cragg
• made artworks installed
on the floor and wall
reliefs out of broken
pieces of found broken
objects;
• focuses on how materials
and forms affect our
ideas and emotions;
• does not imitate nature;
he is concerned with why
things look like they do
and why they are as they
are.
Strangely Familiar: British and
American Sculpture
Tony Cragg, Britain Seen From the
North, 1981;

14. Richard Deacon
• contemporary Welsh artist with
an interest in the process of
fabricating shapes with visible
structures;
• known for his writhing abstract
drawings and sculptures.
• works with a variety of
materials, including steel, wood,
ceramic, vinyl, and foam,Richard Deacon, Tall Tree in
the Year, 1984.
Galvanized steel, laminated
wood, canvas 123 5/8 x 98 ½
inches. Private collection,
London

15. Martin Puryear
• combines abstraction with
traditional woodworking
techniques;
• creates metaphical works
which explore the subtleties
of culture and identity;
• After completing his studies
in United States, he went to
study at the Royal Swedish
Academy of Arts in Stockholm
• there he focused on the
austere aesthetics of modern
design.
Martin Puryear, Old Mole,
1985. 5 feet 1 inches × 5 feet
1 inches × 2 feet 10 inches.
Philadelphia Museum of Art.

16. Judy Pfaff
• was born in 1946 in London, United
Kingdom and moved to the United
States at the age of 13.
• creates large installation by
combining sculpture, painting, and
architectural components to create
complex environments.
• considered an early participant in the
Process Art movement of the mid-
1960s
• received her BFA from Washington
University in St. Louis and her MFA
from the Yale University
Judy Pfaff, 3-D” mixed media,
installation view, ctsy: Holly
Solomon gallery, NYC, cm x
cm , 1983

17. Nancy Graves
• established herself as an
artist in the late 1960s
• has an interest in science
and history.
• has a strong affinity with
the Pop art movement of
the 1960s
• combines ordinary
objects, such as plants,
• C-clamps, and drain
spouts into large
sculptural compositions
Nancy Graves, Wheelabout, 1985
Bronze and stainless steel with
polyurethane paint
92 3/4 x 70 x 31 1/2 inches
Modern Art museum of Forth Worth, Texas

18. Donald Lipski
• is a sculptor living and working in
Philadelphia since 2006.
• is best known for altering of
found objects to create poetic
artworks
• has in recent years created many
public sculptures.
• focusses on sculptural
explorations of landscape and
interior space;
Donald Lipski. The Starry
Night, Razor blades on wall
Installation at the Capp Street
Project, San Francisco 1994

19. Representing Art History
Yasumasa Morimura
• is a contemporary
Japanese appropriation
artist;
• his artworks work consist
of faces and bodies
inserted into portraits of
historical artists and
celebrities;
• his work is similar to
American photographer
Cindy Sherman, using
extensive props and digital
manipulations.
Strangely Familiar: British and
American Sculpture
Yasumasa Morimura. Portrait (Futago),
1988. Photographic chromogenic print
with acrylic paint and gel medium
6’ 8-3⁄4 × 9’ 8”

20. Anxiety and Artistic Influence
Matthew Barney
• was born in San Francisco in 1967;
he is a sculptor and filmmaker;
• is best known as the producer and
creator of the Cremaster films, a
series of five works created out of
sequence
• The films generally feature Barney in
different roles, including characters
as a magician, Harry Houdini, and
the infamous murderer Gary Gilmore.
Matthew Barney. “The
Apprentice,” Cremaster 3
2002. Video to film
transfer 182 mins.

21. Matthew Barney
Richard Serra as “Fifth Degree,”
Cremaster 3
2002
Video to film transfer
182 mins.

22. Cutting Art History Down to
Size
Raymond Pettibon
• is a contemporary American
artist known for his stylized ink
drawings
• he combines images and text;
• blends historical content with
consumer culture as critiques of
contemporary society.
• uses comics, cartoons, and
other pop culture
iconographyas sources of
inspiration.
Raymond Pettibon,
No Title (Vavoom, you see...),
1989. 14 x 11 inches

23. DIY In the Artist’s Studio
Charles LeDray
• is a New York-based sculptor
• has created artworks using
sewn cloth, carved bone, and
glazed ceramics;
• is a virtuoso of materials
manipulation to create familiar
objects that engage the
collective memory.
Charles LeDray (b. 1960),
Overcoat, 2004. Mixed media,
25 x 20 x 11 in. Collection of
Tom and Alice Tisch, New York.

24. Reorienting Art History’s
Centers and Peripheries
Kara Walker
• focuses on the brutalities
of the past;
• joins racial stereotypes
and decorative arts;
• creates static vignettes
that become hyperactive
cinematic panoramas
through their large scale.
Kara Walker, Insurrection! (Our Tools
Were Rudimentary, Yet We Pressed On).
2000; Cut-paper silhouettes and light
projections; dimensions variable.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New
York

25. New Perspectives on
Childhood and Identity
Sally Mann
• incorporates black and white
photographs of her children,
which are presented with
“ordinary moments of
childhood, suspended in time
and transformed into aesthetic
objects, takes on a distorted,
even uncanny quality”
(Arnason and Mansfield 719).
• focuses on gender
assumptions
Sally Mann, The New Mothers, 1989

26. The Art of Biography
Carrie Mae Weems
• is a contemporary American artist;
• is working in photography and video;
• her work focuses on
• issues of racism, gender,
politics, and identity;
• using the visual language of
documentary photography;
• creating a narrative of fictional
scenes to challenge her
audience’s preconceptions
• affecting political and social
change.
Carrie Mae Weems, Untitled,
from The Kitchen Table Series.
1990-99. Gelatin-silver print.
29.25 x 28. 25 inches.

27. Lorna Simpson
• is a photographer and
filmmaker
• was born in Brooklyn, NY
and began her career as a
documentary photographer;
• traveled through the United
States, Europe, and Africa
during the late 1970s.
• her conceptual works blend
photography with text and
video
Lorna Simpson, Guarded Conditions,
1989.
18 color Polaroid prints21 plastic
plaques, plastic letters. 91 x 155 inches.
Museum of Contemporary Art, San
Diego.

28. Nan Goldin
• is a photographer known for her
candid portraiture;
• Her subjects are captured many
times putting on makeup or
clothes in front of a mirror;
• creates images that act as a
visual autobiography
documenting herself and those
closest to her,;
• is Influenced by the fashion
photography she saw in
magazines.
Nan Goldin, C Putting on Her
Make-Up at the Second Tip,
Bangkok, 1992. Cibachrome
print, 30” x 40”. Edition of 15.

29. Jonathan Lasker
• abstract painter best known for
incorporating biomorphic shapes and
geometric patterns, in his artworks
Roni Horn
• is well known for her text-based
sculptures and rubber floor
installations
• explores the poems of Emily
Dickinson
Fiona Rae
• is a British painter known for her
work involving
• abstract forms in bright colors,
• and psychedelic designs
Meeting Points: New Approaches to
Abstraction
When Dickinson Shut Her
Eyes – For Felix
Solid cast plastic and
aluminum. 62 × 2 × 2 in