Free Public Art Argumentative Essay Example

In this essay, three artists - Bruce Nauman, Alexis Smith and Do-ho Suh - are going to be described with the aim to understand what the common denominator of their art is. There seems to be little common ground, actually the three artists share many characteristics of their creation. While Nauman studied art as well as mathematics thereafter learning in the arts and can be considered and abstract painter, who was influenced by Dada movement, who refuses to be confined to particular class of art, Do-ho Suh was influenced by traditional painting of Korean tradition and although he grew up in a Korean house which celebrated tradition, he became an avant-garde sculptor. Smith on the other hand engages elements from different spheres of society as well as from cultural sectors such as pop culture, romance novels, movies and also advertising, fiction works and many writers including Whitman, Stein, Mann or Chandlers. Los Angeles memorabilia are a frequent element within her work, as she considers Hollywood and the film industry a realm of symbols. She is capable of collecting objects from garage sales as well as from thrift stores or results from chance encounters and look for a relation among them which are rather surprising. All three however are dealing the human society in center of their artistic interest. As an example can be seen Nauman’s work with videos and his studies the human body and its expressions, based on the texts of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Austrian philosopher working on the philosophy of language and the search for the truth. Fragments of everyday gestures or simple sentences in many performances and his play with the letters of the alphabet collected from neon installations can considered as very similar topic to those undertaken by Alexis Smith, belongs to those artists that are known for installations that are somehow related to moral lapses as well as to psychology of Americans and whose collages, gallery installation as well as books combine images, texts and object in an original way focusing on leisure and entertainment, recently also growing over to topics related to commerce and fashion. Everyday life therefore belongs to the main focus of their individual interest. Do-ho Suh shares this feature as he is famous for his unique intricate works which are somehow unexpected and unconventional, as if he wanted to break with the family traditions in ordinary life of the common people. He often confronts viewers by exhibiting his work in public spaces. All the three artists are interested in space, physically as well metaphorically, while studying the notions of collectivity, individuality as well as anonymity, in the quest for answers to existential questions, which are applied to his sculptures as well as their installations. Their installations are created in order to address imagery of the contemporaneous society as colorful and vivid as it is. All three abovementioned artists are connected through increased interest of the authors in the public domain. Therefore, their creation is often denominated as public art. Public art belongs to important evolutionary development of art, by planning and executing the stages in public domain, accessible to general public but also discussing or commenting in a symbolic way the public domain. The relationship between the audience and between the content is one of the main characteristics of the public art and also one of the reasons why public art is often considered a controversial domain of art. Which is also what unites the three abovementioned artists, besides their desire to provoke, to create emotional response in broad groups of public and to comment societal processes going on which probably require a particular insight and bold interpretation.