The creations and paintings of today’s world are considered contemporary art. Artists from the twentieth century and beyond take advantage of the opportunity to express their feelings and reflect on issues that are relevant in today’s society. Many contemporary artists tend to paint their experiences from a culturally diverse and technological point-of-view. Contemporary art has no limits on subject, censorship or concepts. Five female artists who have managed to push the boundaries and set the bar high for contemporary art are Vija Celmins, Dana Schutz, Isa Genzken, Rosemarie Trockel and Lorna Simpson.
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| Celmins, Vija. "Desert." 1975. |
Vija Celmins was born in Riga, Latvia in 1938 and came to America with her family in the 1940’s. Celmins attended the John Herron School of Art in Indiana where she studied painting and printmaking. In the 1960’s, she began to paint objects in her Los Angeles studio, including lamps, heaters and other appliances. Soon after, Celmins collected an interest in photographs found in magazines and history books. By the end of the 1960s, she first developed her all-over compositions of waves, rocks, and celestial bodies by using graphite and charcoal instead of paint. She returned to painting in the 1980’s and continued drawings and printmaking in her art. Celmins is well-known for her meticulous depictions of natural imagery, including ocean waves, desert floors, and night skies. Her paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints portray scenes that are limitless and infinite to the eyes and minds of her audience. Her art piece “Desert,” is part of a set of lithographs made from pencil drawings of a day and night sky. It also contains drawings of a surface area from the sea. In her drawings and paintings, the sea, sky or desert is usually represented at an angle, revealing an impression of space and depth while filling the picture plane with a flat print and frontal surface.
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| Schutz, Dana. "Sneeze." 2002. |
Dana Schutz was born in Livonia, Michigan in 1976. While pursuing her degree at the Cleveland Institute of Art, she traveled abroad to attend the Norwich School of Art and Design in England before completing her master’s at Columbia University in New York City. Schutz gained attention in 2002 from her debut exhibition “Frank from Observation” at the Zach Feuer Gallery. It was based on the idea of Schutz as the last painter, representing her last subject “Frank.” Since then, her art subjects have ranged from people who can eat themselves, a gravity fanatic, imaginary births and deaths, public and private performers. Schutz’s next exhibition, “Frank from Observation,” focuses on a middle-aged, pink male. Here the main character acts as Schutz’ imagination, imagining the idea of what the last man on Earth might look like if she were the last observer. The reasoning behind her exhibit is the chance to start over without laws, society, and the power to hold themselves accountable. Schutz lives and works in Brooklyn, New York and is mostly known for her humorous paintings that take on certain subjects or narratives as a moment of realization. Her painting “Sneeze” is a comic take which emphasizes the horror of embarrassment, exaggerating this moment as public ridicule.
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| Genzken, Isa. "MLR." 1992. |
Isa Genzken was born in Germany in 1948. She studied fine arts and art history at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts, while working as a part-time model in order to pay for her tuition. Although Genzken's primary focus is sculpting, she has produced various artworks through media including photography, film, video, works on paper, works on canvas with oil, collages, collage books, film scripts and records. Her contemporary practice draws on the legacies of Constructivism and Minimalism, often involving a critical and open dialogue with Modernist architecture, contemporary visuals and material culture. Genzken's diverse work makes her unpredictable, although she is a traditional sculptor at heart. By using plaster, cement, building samples and photographs, Genzken creates architectonic structures that have been described as contemporary ruins. She further incorporates mirrors and other reflective surfaces which actually draw the viewer into her work. Genzken also uses location placement methods to display emotions into her sculptor audience by making her viewers physically move away from the placement of the sculptures. Genzken’s “MLR” painting series references the work of the nineteenth-century artist Hilda of Klimt and depicts a gymnast’s rings frozen moments after their release in mid-air. The images allow audiences to think about the symbolic act of letting go.
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| Trockel, Rosemarie. "Dress-Stage." 2012. |
Rosemarie Trockel was born in Schwerte, Germany in 1952. She studied at the Werkkunstschule in Cologne until 1978. Trockel’s artwork is very diverse and contains many themes and mediums, including works on paper, knitted paintings and sculptures. Several of her themes are identified and viewed from females roles in society, trademarks and symbols as social signifiers and decorations. Her fascination with ethnographic and scientific studies is also expressed through her sculptures. Trockel is also famously known for her machine-generated knitted paintings, such as “Dress-Stage” which was created with knitted woolen material placed on a stretcher. Her works have expanded past classic, traditional painting and general art-making by challenging feminine roles in society. Trockel also includes popular culture by adding logos, symbols and text, portraying the subject of patriarchy through visual representation. She has numerously exhibited her work throughout the United States and Europe. Trockel has also taken part in several international shows and her work has been featured in multiple publications. Due to her accomplishments, she has been awarded numerous prizes and currently lives and works in Cologne, Germany.
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| Simpson, Lorna. "Double Portrait." 2013. |
Lorna Simpson was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1960. She is a multimedia artist, who specifically focuses on photography and video. Simpson’s work has many themes and subjects, including her African-American background, along with race and gender. Her art is sparked on the issues of Civil Rights and Black Power movements. Besides her interests in documentary photography, Simpson creates photography silk screens on felt panels, installations, drawings and videos. Currently, Simpson’s work mainly includes investigations of race and glamour in her photographs, which feature African-American models opposing the male gaze in traditional Hollywood poses, just like her piece, “Double Portrait.” One way or another, these five female artists, along with many others, continue to use their art to represent stronger issues women face in today’s society, such as racism, objectification and the fight for equality.
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