I LOVE this package design! it's amazing! but kinda creepy too :)

Cai Guo-Qiang

Cai Guo-Qiang was born in 1957 in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, China, and lives and works in New York. He studied stage design at the Shanghai Drama Institute from 1981 to 1985 and attended the Institute for Contemporary Art: The National and International Studio Program at P.S. 1, New York.
His work is both scholarly and politically charged. Accomplished in a variety of media, Cai began using gunpowder in his work to foster spontaneity and confront the controlled artistic tradition and social climate in China. While living in Japan from 1986 to 1995 he explored the properties of gunpowder in his drawings, leading to the development of his signature explosion events. These projects, while poetic and ambitious at their core, aim to establish an exchange between viewers and the larger universe.
For his work, Cai draws on a wide variety of materials, symbols, narratives, and traditions—elements of feng shui, Chinese medicine and philosophy, images of dragons and tigers, roller coasters, computers, vending machines, and gunpowder.

Cai Guo-Qiang

So when I first saw this online, I didn't actually know what it was. It's was just kinda like, "oh cool" and shrug my shoulders. But then I found out what it was made of--wolves. WOLVES! That's so freaking cool! I love it! How he has them start outside the door, then run in that arc to hit the glass wall. It's amazing!


99 life-sized replicas of wolves and glass wall; Wolves: papier mâché, plaster, fiberglass, resin, and painted hide

Artists of Our Day

I think that some artists probably are making fun. Some are mocking commercialism, some are mocking the audience, and some are probably even making fun of themselves. But I think that some are just doing things out of defiance. You know how when you're a little kid (or for me it's when I'm an adult) and someone tells you that you are not supposed to do something, you want to do it even more. I think that is how some artists are reacting. Artists are met with some kind of expectation for how they are supposed to do things, what they are supposed to do, and who they are doing it for. But (being an artist myself) I can understand not wanting to meet any of those expectations and just doing whatever it is I want. In some ways, maybe, doing the exact opposite of what is expected simply because it is expected. Like I said earlier--defiance. Defiance of the normal, defiance of standards, defiance of money. But because we are humans, that rebellion of sorts is viewed as genius. So, rebellion, in a way, promotes progress. That rebellion moves the artists into different ways. It causes people to try new things and view things in different ways than before. This is what starts new art movements-- this is what makes art art.

Marla Olmstead

I think it's really awful that 60 minutes ever brought the suspicion up. I can't believe they were so willing to destroy a 4 year old girls reputation, and dissect an entire family. Of course she's not going to do her best work in front of a camera!! She is SHY!! Not many people can just ignore being watched over the shoulder. Geez, the media is all lies. Do I think Marla had some coaching? Well, of course she did! Mozart had to be told that a piano was a piano, someone had to show him music before he could master it.
Also, concerning the questions of what is art. I think that art is the same as beauty-- it's in the eye of the beholder. Even if no one but the artist believes it's art, it is art because it was their way of expressing themselves. I don't think it's right that it's any persons job to decide what is art and what isn't. Why must there be a standard? Why must there be expectations? That's the beauty of art--it's subjective.

Jessica Stockholder

Jessica Stockholder was born in Seattle, Washington in 1959. She studied painting at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and received an MFA from Yale University. Stockholder is a pioneer of multimedia genre-bending installations that have become a prominent language in contemporary art. Her site-specific interventions and autonomous floor and wall pieces have been described as “paintings in space.” Stockholder’s complex installations incorporate the architecture in which they have been conceived, blanketing the floor, scaling walls and ceiling, and even spilling out of windows, through doors, and into the surrounding landscape. Her work is energetic, cacophonous, and idiosyncratic, but close observation reveals formal decisions about color and composition, and a tempering of chaos with control.

I love Jessica's pieces! She uses so much color and most pieces are done on a very large scale. She knows how the manage chaos by bringing it under her loose control. She creates composition so beautifully.

Penelope Thompson Raintrees installation

Oh, I thought this piece was so cool!!

In "Raintrees" - the artist wanted to express the feeling of the heavy, cool raindrops of the summer rainy season in Korea.

The materials used were clear plastic tubing, partially filled with water and air. These giant raindrops were tied to the branches of trees, and suspended a few inches above the ground. The audience could walk under the trees between the raindrops swaying in the breeze. This installation remained hanging in the trees of the park for two weeks.

Sandy Skoglund installtion

These are some pieces I found online by a woman named Sandy Skoglund. I absolutely love it!! I'm ALL about color--and I love what she has done to use the colors.

Cristo and Jean Claude

Cristo and Jean Claude are kinda funny. My biggest reaction to them was "How the heck do they pay 21 million dollars for a piece that is only up for 16 days?!!!" I think that's just crazy, but kinda cool too. I have to appreciate them, just like every other type of artist. They have their own way and they go for it! I honesty like the pieces I've seen. They always seem a little ridiculous and hokey, but in the end, they're good. I really liked The Gates. I wish they would've left them up longer so I could go see them. I also think it's funny that people didn't like them--they go to the park for trees and grass. lol!

Matthew Barney

I have to admit that the Matthew Barney movie we watched was a little bit of a disappointment. To be honest, I was expecting a little more shock and awe. Now don't get me wrong, the scene where they're cutting each other up is ghastly. However, the rest of it is slow-going and all I could do the whole time was try to find the meaning behind everything. The entire movie was not what I was expecting. Maybe I'll like some of his other pieces. But props to him for getting people to give him so much money :)

Andy Goldsworthy

I loved Andy Goldsworthy! At first, I had thought it was kinda boring. But the more pieces he did and the longer we watched the movie, the more I appreciated what he was doing. It seems weird to me that he didn't mind his pieces not being permanent. I would've liked to make sure that mine would be around for a while. However, he did all of his pieces knowing they could be gone in minutes. I loved what he was doing, and the way he saw the world.

Paintjam Dan Dunn

Contemporary Installation and Performance Art

My favorties were Janine Antoni, Ann Hamilton, and Cai Guo-Qiang. (I also liked Kara Walker's stuff but I have seen her stuff before.) What I like about Janine Antoni is that her piece a lot of people might not consider "art". But I loved it because she took something that is somewhat ordinary and turned it all around to make the viewer see it from a different angle. You're looking at something that we see all the time and forcing the viewer to see it differently than they ever have before.
For Ann Hamilton, I just love the thought and the idea behind the entire thing. I love how she made the fuscia powder to randomly fall to show the the stains in our history. I love how it showed words in braille. Plus, the whole thing was quite beautiful.
Cai Guo-Qiang- I thought his piece was really cool. I really liked how it wasn't just one tiger but an entire room full of them that you could walk into. The whole thing seemed over-the-top and I thought it was great!