Simen Johan

Still haven't decided what to post on this presentation. I could not decide how to react to the actual presentation, however the art itself is easy to react to. I think the artist was hampered in getting his idea's across via a language barrier. He knew why he was creating the art, but wasn't able to verbalize it in English as well. Which is disappointing, as I believe he could talk about his different series all day.

Overall the art was very dark, especially in the earlier kid years. He seems to harbor a pretty deep resentment towards children that comes across in his earlier work. The mostly composed children portray a very sinister feel, even in some very innocent positions.

I believe he further developed this later in his nature series, though maybe with a little less natural dislike coming through. The pinnacle of the nature series are the statue's. Where beauty and a dark theme combine into several pieces that are beautiful until the viewer looks a little closer to find the slightly darker underside with spiders hiding in the center.

Candice Breitz

I attended the Candice Breitz artist lecture. I thought her work was conceptually stunning while at the same time having more to do with other peoples views on subject than her own. Although she was obviously observing and making statements on modern pop culture, the subjects themselves each seemed to tell their own individual story.

I believe the works besides her Legend, Queen, King, and Working Class Hero was a better representation of just her views on modern society. The isolation of personal pronouns in the Four Duets seemed to bring out the individual artists own feelings on the emphasis they placed on either the You or the I values. I did not see any of them place the same emphasize on both. They either seemed to have more passion about themselves or about others. Atleast thats what I saw, and according to Breitz it's more about what the viewer see's in her work than what she originally conceptualized.