Gabriel Orozco
Gabriel Orozco is a Mexican artist who was born on April 27, 1962. Orozco was born in Veracruz Mexico, and was an artist by birthright. His Father, Mario Orozco, was a mural painter and an art professer at the Veracruz University. Although being apart of an already artistic family, Gabriel still attend the Nation School of Plastic Arts and at the Circulo de Bellas Artes, two very renowned art schools in Mexico and Spain respectively. As you can tell, Gabriel moved around a lot and this way of life would start to influence his art style. In some ways his art almost seemed like it was trying to not be apart of mainstream art, and he always did the opposite of what mainstream artists would do. An example of this would be how he would usually work alone or with only a handful of assistants while many other artists during the time would usually have sets full of assistants. Gabriel still is an active member of the artistic community and has come out with a few pieces within the last few years. I am actually a pretty big fan of his artwork because of how unique he was for his time. A lot of his art seems to depict a deeper meaning that even I can't decipher sometimes and I like that because it allows for a greater interpretation among viewers for his art style.
Krzysztof Wodiczko was a Polish artist known for his projection art. He was born on April 16, 1943 in Warsaw Poland and much of his artwork is centered around war, conflict, trauma, and other troubling ideas. His process is known as Interrogative Design and it combines artwork and technology to highlight issues that he has chosen to create art about. The ideas that he has shown in his artwork come from the issues he faced growing up, He was born during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and lived in Poland during Soviet control. Even in these conditions, he ended up studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 1967, starting his career as an artist. Throughout his career he taught at many different schools starting as a teaching assistance and eventually started teaching at the Warsaw Polytechnic Institute until 1976 when he emigrated to Halifax, Canada to start a two-year artist-in-residence program at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. He would continue climbing the social ladder of teaching at many schools until he settled at MIT in 1991, where he still currently works. My view's on Wodiczko's art are all positive, as I like the way he is able to not only blend art and technology together, but to also incorporate architecture and other surrounding objects for him to project his art onto, making those objects that much more interactive.
Nam June Paik was a Korean American artist who was born on July 20, 195. Paik was a multi-talented individual who was not only a great artist, but he was also a talented classical pianist. Paik was known for many unique works that involved electronics like televisions and music. In 1964, Paik teamed up with Charlotte Moorman (a famous cellist) and they worked on a piece together called TV Cello. This artwork was a bunch of televisions that were stacked up in a pile to resemble the shape of a cello. Paik also had some non-musical pieces including Something Pacific which he made in 1986. This was a statue of sitting Buddha faces on top of a closed circuit television. Many of Paik’s works are fascinating, and for the time they were revolutionary. The use of electronics in art wasn't very popular at the time, and Paik has incorporated it into modern art. This is why he generally considered the father and pioneer of video art. I think Paik’s works are breathtaking masterpieces. Without such innovative artists in the community, the world of modern art would be very dull. Unfortunately Paik died in 2006, 10 years after a stroke had left him paralyzed on his left side.
Willliam Morris is an American glass artist from the state of California. He was born in Carmel, California on July 25, 1957 and is still alive today. It's interesting how William Morris became involved in his glass artwork. It all started when he was working for the Pilchuck Gkass School in Stanwood, Washington. This was his first introduction to glass. Soon after he would learn the art of glassmaking and become an instructor at the Pilchuck Glass School. This is what allowed him to start his career off. Early on he worked as the head gaffer for Dale Chihuly, another American glass sculptor, until the mid 1980s when he started making his own work. William Morris has received praise for his work because of its interaction with prehistoric history. In a way, he combines art with archaeology and has created ancient objects that resemble bone and wood from ancient civilizations like the Egyptians and Native Americans. I have mixed feelings about his artwork. I like how well he seems to be able to mimic this ancient items using a glass medium, something completely different from what was actually used, but it also upsets me that he has little artwork solely dependent on the qualities of glass itself. William Morris retired at the age of 49 in 2007.