Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American photographer and film director of Office Killer, best known for her conceptual portraits. Sherman currently lives and works in New York City. In 1995, she was the recipient of a MacArthur Award. She is represented by Sprüth Magers Berlin London in Europe and Metro Pictures gallery in New York.

Allan McCollum

Allan McCollum is a contemporary American artist who was born in Los Angeles, California in 1944, and now lives and works in New York City. He has spent over thirty years exploring how objects achieve public and personal meaning in a world constituted in mass production, focusing most recently on collaborations with small community historical society museums in different parts of the world.^[1] His first solo exhibition was in 1970, and his first New York showing was in an exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery in 1972.^[2] In 1975 his work was included in the Whitney Biennial, and he moved to New York City that same year. In the late seventies he became especially well known for his series, Surrogate Paintings.

Kara Walker

Kara Walker (born November 26, 1969) is a contemporary African American artist who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence and identity in her work. She is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes.

Paul McCarthy

Paul McCarthy misleadingly is often considered to be influenced by the Viennese Actionism. Although by his own statement the happenings of the group were known to him in the 1970s, he sees a clear difference between the self-injurious actions of the Viennese and his own performances: "Vienna is not Los Angeles. My work came out of kids' television in Los Angeles. I didn' t go through Catholicism and World War II as a teenager, I didn' t live in a European environment. People make references to Viennese art without really questioning the fact that there is a big difference between ketchup and blood. I never thought of my work as shamanistic. My work is more about being a clown than a shaman."

Jeff Koons

Jeff Koons (born January 21, 1955) is an American artist known for his giant reproductions of banal objects such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces, often brightly colored. Koons' work has sold for substantial sums including at least one world record auction price for a work by a living artist. Critics are sharply divided in their views of Koons. Some view his work as pioneering and of major art-historical importance. Others dismiss his work as kitsch: crass and based on cynical self-merchandising. Koons himself has stated that there are no hidden meanings in his works.

James Turrel

He is best known for his work in progress, Roden Crater. Located outside Flagstaff, Arizona, Turrell is turning this natural cinder volcanic crater into a massive naked-eye observatory, designed specifically for the viewing of celestial phenomena. His other works usually enclose the viewer in order to control their perception of light; a James Turrell skyspace is an enclosed room large enough for roughly 15 people. Inside, the viewers sit on benches along the edge to view the sky through an opening in the roof. He is also known for his light tunnels and light projections that create shapes that seem to have mass and weight, though they are created with only light.

Conceptual Art

Questions for Conceptual Art by Tony Godfrey

1) Why is the "viewer" an important element in conceptual art?
-Because of viewer's mental participation. Conceptual art relies on the effect of thought and question from the viewers.

2) Why was it so difficult for people to accept the "fountain" by Duchamp, as art?
-Because it was not accept as a sculpture before the fountain. Everyone thinks that art has to be something beautiful and pleasing to look at. It was also ready-made.

3) What question did Duchamp pose with his "ready-mades"? Explain with examples.
-"Can this be art?" was his question. For instance, the Fountain by Duchamp presents the statement, "this is urinal" as a question Can this urinal be artwork?

4) Why is it difficult to categorize Conceptual art in the context of traditional art?
-It's difficult because it's not art that is based off of tradition or culture. Conceptual art is viewed the same way Duchamp's fountain was viewed.

5) Choose a quote fro mthe article that you find interesting and explain.
-(page 7) if work of conceptual art begins with the question "what is art?", rather than a particular style or medium, one could argue that it is completed by the proposition 'this could be art': 'this' being presented as object, image, performance or idea revealed in some other way.

I chose this one because this tells you how conceptual art is represented.