Works of Gillian Wearing & Vanessa Beecroft

Pieces of VB 08-36 ---Vanessa Beecroft

Two Images from Signs That Say What You Want Them To Say and Not Signs That Say What Someone Else Wants You To Say---Gillian Wearing

In the world today, there are so many artists that create great works of art. We know of the works of earlier artists as well, such as Claude Monet and Vincent Van Gogh. However, these historical artists are known by many due to their impacts on the art world. Two artists that may not be know by many people are Gillian Wearing and Vanessa Beecroft. Both artists are very talented, and both relate their work to the public in some way or another. By comparing these two, it helps to create a better understanding of what it is they are trying to convey to their audience. Gillian Wearing was born in 1963, in Birmingham, but moved to London to attend the Chelsea School of Art. Her works emerged among various art exhibits in London, and came to help people discover more about individuals in society. Vanessa Beecroft was born in 1969, in Genoa, Italy. Her art seems to focus more on women, and is a type of performance art. Through her work she fuses conceptual issues and aesthetic concerns. Both artists attempt to introduce more characteristics of certain issues and those individuals and of those individuals that may be involved with those issues. However, it could not deal with any issue, but just the individual.

The early work of Gillian Wearing consisted of a variety of photographs picturing people holding up signs with some sort of writing on them. The piece was called Signs that Say What You Want Them To Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You To Say. This series of photographs did not receive recognition until 1993, however, when it did get displayed; large numbers of people took a liking to it. Wearing picked these people at random, and asked them to write their thoughts on a piece of paper, and then proceeded to take a picture of them. By doing this, Wearing is in a sense challenging the stereotypes of society. She is introducing new things about individuals to show that not all people fall into their common stereotypes in society. Wearing says herself, "A great deal of my work is about questioning handed-down truths." She is introducing things about people that the public as a whole doesn't recognize in their stereotypes of people.

Vanessa Beecroft's work focuses primarily on women. A lot of the women portrayed in her works are nude. Almost all of Beecroft's works focused on women, from her early works to her later ones as well. Her earlier works, referred to as VB 08-36, are presented in a book and focus on female models. She attempted to introduce people to the fashion culture that exists in the world. Fashion is something o importance to women, and she tries to convey that to people. The majority of women being nude help to exemplify their appearance and get people's attention. When people view her work, they raise questions about female representation. She is attempting to put women in a light, in a sense, superior to males when it comes to fashion and representation. Even her later works, such as VB 45 nd 48, focus on women and their sense of fashion.

Both Vanessa Beecroft and Gillian Wearing attempt to introduce the viewers to new characteristics of certain individuals. Although Beecroft focuses primarily on women in her work, she is still very similar to Wearing in what she is trying to convey to the viewers of their work. Beecroft is showing how women are important, and even better than men in things such as the fashion world. Women represent it much better than a man would, which totally goes against the stereotype of women, that men are superior in strength, knowledge, etc. Therefore, Beecroft is introducing people to the fact that women can be superior and do something better than a man could. Wearing says herself that she is attempting to go against the stereotypes of the world today. The images she takes of random people holding up their thoughts is her way of showing people that stereotypes do not always pertain to those people believed to be included in that particular stereotype. In her quote stated above, she states that her work is dedicated to questioning "handed-down truths," or stereotypes of the world. Both of these artists in their own way are presenting the stereotypes of society as wrong, or false. They show people that not every person falls into those given by society; that not every person has to fall into a stereotype pasted down to them throughout history either.

Custodians of Culture: Schoolyard Art, The Mona Lisa Curse

The piece that was listened to, which is titled "Custodians of Culture: Schoolyard Art: Playing Fair without the Referee" by David Hickey is very similar to "The Curse of the Mona Lisa" by Robert Hughes, the piece that we viewed in class. The Mona Lisa piece introduces the aspects of art, and how people dedicate their lives to finding the best work of art, with the most value. People want to find the "true value" of certain pieces of art. The Playing Fair without the Referee piece elaborates that there are many people out there that truly value art far more than money. Money is something that is very important to many, however, like the Mona Lisa video shows, people truly like art more than the money they have. Those who enter the art world are not entering it for the money they may receive from their works of art. They enter it because they want to create pieces of art that will truly mean something to somebody in some way. This is the reason why people buy works of art, the pieces they purchase has had some sort of effect on them as people. Both pieces, stated above, also mention in some way or another that creating art strictly for money is pointless. If you are not true to your artwork, and believe that it trully has value, there is no point in attempting to sell it. A piece of art with no good intention will have a pretty good chance at not selling in the art market.

Money has emerged as something that is hated amongst true artists that believe in the true meanings of great works of art. The speaker of the podcast, Dave Hickey, refers to the fact that money has extraordinary benefits, however, he sees no reason for it to be so important in general, especially in the art world. The speaker in the Mona Lisa Curse, Robert Hughes, agrees with such a statement, he makes this very clear in his video. Hughes hates the fact that price for a work of art has become more important then the actual meaning behind the work. Art was created to convey some sort of meaning or feeling, it was not created so that people could take it and manipulate it to be worth money. Hughes stated that "The price has to do with promotion and publicity, and not with the quality of the works themselves." He reassures that nobody cares about the quality of their works these days, they only care about the money they receive for them. By the beginning of the 1960s, starting with The Mona Lisa, buying art was not for meaning, but for financial gain. Hickey mentions the same things in his lecture, that being an art dealer today simply consists of sitting around waiting for a piece of art to come in, and simply giving it a random number to sell at. It consists of creating value, however, no "real" value.

Dave Hickey mentions in his lecture that art is no longer determined to have value by museum staffs, but by the communities. The people in the community decide what they believe to be valid, meaningful art. The community gives works of art "public virtue." However, he goes on to say that the ties between the museums and communities have been broken and no longer exist as much today. The reason for this in his opinion, much like Hughes' reasons in the Mona Lisa Curse, is what is referred to as "non-commercial" art. Examples of this would be arts like performance art and installation art. "Non-commerical" art means non-object based, which in turn means that the introduction of these types of art leaves the rules of value irrelevant. This meaning that no value rules can be applied to something that is an immaterial object.

The value of art is very important to men referred to above. Both Robert Hughes and Dave Hickey strongly disagree with the direction the art world has taken. The movement away from value and virtue to money and financial gain is poisoning the art world we know today. Art should be created solely because people want to have some sort of influence on those that view their pieces, the want for money should not be the contributing factor to art work.