Giger

• Artist: H.R. Giger
• Title: Phallic Duress
• Media: Painting
• Dimensions: 72" X 42"
• Date: 1979

            Swiss surrealist painter, sculptor and set designer, Hans Rudolf “Ruedi” Giger was born on February 5, 1940, and unfortunately dies on May 12, of this year. He was a part of the special effects team that won an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Visual Effects for their work on the design of the film Alien. For most of his career, Giger depicted nightmarish dreamscapes that were inspired by his night terrors. His first paintings were initiated as a form of art therapy (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._R._Giger). Giger challenged his art as a form of healing and balance in his life, and a way to express the disturbing imagery of his own suffering.

            Giger’s work is visceral, bio-mechanical, and challengingly sexual in nature. It is as if the viewer is challenged with both the ugliness and beauty of sexuality at the same time (slowsoulburn.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/h-r-giger-phallic-duress/). He forces us to confront the attractiveness of violent and macabre acts of defilement and penetration, presenting absolutely alien subjects with sleek lines that are undeniably compelling.

            The work presented, Phallic Duress, is a part of Giger’s own attempts to exercise the demons of his night terrors. The painting presents an image that should be horrific, but is somehow sensual and compelling. It is something a viewer might want to simultaneously turn away from, while at the same is challenged to study more fully and in depth. Undeniable, Giger had an incredible talent for exploring the aspects of horror we find most seductive.

            Giger’s challenges the viewer to both be repulsed by, and strangely attracted to his art at the same time. It challenges us to look inside ourselves and ask why we see images of horror and violation as compelling, and it finds a way of forcing us to question our own views of aesthetic beauty.

Alex Grey

• Alex Grey
• Psychic Energy System
• Painting
• Lifesize
• 1979-1989

            Alex Grey was born November 29, 1953. He is an American artist who challenges the world of spiritual and psychedelic—or visionary—art. He is sometimes associated witht the New Age, and his body of work spans a variety of forms. These include performance art, process art, installation art, sculpture, painting, and computer graphics. Alex Grey and his wife, Allyson Grey, are co-founders of The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (CoSM), a non-profit church that supports the Visionary Culture in Wappinger, New York (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Grey).

            Of Grey, the New York Times wrote, “Grey’s vision of a flawed, but perfectible, mankind stands as an anecdote to the cynicism and spiritual malaise prevalent in much contemporary art” (alexgrey.com/). He is a visionary that seeks to challenge the limits of mankind, and mankind’s thinking, through the evolution of art. In Grey’s art, one can see a world that is simultaneously disturbing and beautiful, and challenges the viewer to look inside themselves for a greater meaning and purpose.

            Psychic Energy System is one piece in the larger Sacred Mirrors collection. It is a group of work that is meant to present mankind not only as what it is (flesh and bone anatomy), but also as what it could be (beings of divine energy and spirituality with limitless untapped potential). The piece is presented as a part of The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors in Wappinger, New York.

           Grey expertly challenges notions of traditional beauty by forcing his viewers to confront and overcome initial feelings of uneasiness in order to see a higher meaning and purpose in his work. At the same time, he is challenging his viewers to find a higher meaning and purpose within themselves.

• Artist/Architect: Frank Gehry
• Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA
• Stainless Steel exterior
•  Bounded by Hope Street, Grand Avenue, and 1st and 2nd Streets, and seating 2,265 people
• Completed in 2003

            Based out of Los Angeles, Frank Owen Gehry—born Frank Owen Goldberg on February 28, 1929—is a Canadian-American architect. He is the recipient of many awards, including: the AIA Gold Medal, National Medal of Arts, Order of Canada, Pritzker Prize, and the Praemium Imperiale. A number of his buildings have world renowned tourist attractions. In 2010, the World Architecture Survey cited a number of his buildings as being some of the most important works of contemporary architecture, and Vanity Fair labeled him “the most important architect of our age” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Gehry).

            Gehry’s work falls under the category of Deconstructivism. Referred to post-structuralist in nature, it challenges notions of traditional architecture in such a manner as to subvert its original spatial intention. Gehry’s style can, at times, seem unfinished or even crude, but this is just a part of the challenging nature of his works (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Gehry).

            The Walt Disney Concert Hall began with a $50 million gift from Lillian Disney. The purpose of this gift was to provide a world class performance venue for the City of Los Angles, and to pay tribute to Walt Disney’s devotion to the arts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_Concert_Hall). With the sweeping and gleaming design of its exterior, the building was at onetime jeered for being out-of-place in the Los Angeles cityscape; but since its completion, the building has become an iconic part of the city, similar to the sweeping, sail-like curves of the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia.

            In his design, Gehry presented a structure that challenged the image of an entire city. Instead of compromising to the aesthetic wishes of critics, Gehry went forward with his plan, and challenged his critics, and the City as a whole, to boldly move forward with him. After completion, the building came to be praised as a challenging and groundbreaking addition to Los Angeles culture.

Unmask Group

• Artist: Liu Zhan, Kuang Jun, Tan Tianwei (Unmask Group)
•  Incomplete Horseman
• Stainless Steel
•  Lifesize
• 2011

            Collectively called the Unmask Group, artists Liu Zhan, Kuang Jun, and Tan Tianwei met while studying at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China. They began working together in 2001, producing works in both marble and stainless steel. They employ a style which relies heavily on the use of negative space, their works challenging the viewer with what is absent just as much as they do with what is there (www.juncha.net/unmask/).

            The group’s challenging style is meant to be “Isolated from, if not opposed to, the outside world, forming a negative virtual environment” (www.juncha.net/unmask/). It forces the viewer to complete the art in their own minds, leaving negative space as a blank canvass where the viewer is invited to paint their own image.

            By providing an incomplete image, and challenging the viewer to fill in the missing pieces, the Unmask Group creates a certain intimacy with their audience, allowing them to be a part of the creative process. By presenting a piece that comes as close to a two dimensional shell of their subject as possible, the Unmask Group’s style challenges the traditional three dimensionality of sculpture as a whole.

            Because of their breathtaking and sensual use of negative space in a style of art that has traditionally presented heavy, fully formed works, the Unmask Group has successfully challenged our notion of sculpture as an art form, while simultaneously elevating the style to a new, modern level.