Sachiko Abe

"Sachiko Abe has cut paper for nine years, initially as a private occupation, but now she has taken her practice into the public realm. "

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Slumber

Janine Antoni

Slumber

As Antoni sleeps, the electroencephalograph (EEG) machine records her rapid eye movements (REM) which correspond to her periods of dreaming in the sleep cycle.By day Antoni will use the REM graph to weave the pattern into the blanket she sleeps under using strips torn from her nightgown. Antoni has performed this piece at six other installations, each time wearing a nightgown meaningful to the venue. At MASS MoCA she will wear a nightgown made from textiles printed at the mill when it housed Arnold Print Works from the 1860s to the 1940s. Museum visitors are allowed access to the gallery during the day when Antoni is weaving, but the museum is closed to the public at night while Antoni is doing her dream work.

Coatings

Ana Mendieta

Ana Mendieta (18 November 1948 – 8 September 1985) was a Cuban-American artist famous for her performance art and “earth-body” sculptural, photographic, and video work.

Mendieta’s early approaches to art could be considered revolutionary, even in their roughest forms. She was especially intrigued by challenging the established materials of art – canvas, paint, paper, etc – and instead explored a great range of unused and disregarded materials, such as the human body. The human body had been generally regarded as one of the most important components of artistic works, as a subject. It was Ana who decided to experiment with the human body as a tool for creative expression, where it was not only the objective of the work but also the means of execution itself. The first record of her conscious work as a means of expression is 1973. An incident of rape and murder had occurred on the Iowa campus, and Ana wanted to protest against the campus administration’s approach to the issue (the usual hush-hush approach and, in general, bad PR).

Ana Mendieta’s early artistic experiments (roughly 1972 – 78) involved a lot of cosmetic refinement and elaboration. Challenging both physical expectations as well as throwing subtle hints at gender roles, she would utilise makeup, glass, and sometimes even shampoo to modify her upper body into different and controversial configurations, assuming different personalities and stances throughout her photographed works. Her video experiments are much more theatrical in their span; they feature a symbolic plot and timeline – the life of a particular piece she had conceived.

At the start of 1975 her body-centred art found a new height: the production of the Silueta series, in which she imprints of her own body merged in the landscape. Some critics have drawn parallels between her Siluetas and the early work of feminist artists that sought to re-establish the link between the female form and the Mother Earth figure. Mendieta, however, had a different concept behind her work. She had apparently been fascinated by the concept of ‘Mythical Geology’ as well as the Rupestrian art and it was this that she sought to achieve in her works.

Karen Finley

Honey Dripper: Karen Finley in Shut Up & Love Me

Is Winnie the reason she's wallowing in honey in the new show? She laughs: "Partly. When I roll into it, on a canvas, and dance about, it's fun and it's beautiful."

While we talk, Finley's daughter peeps in, wanting to be tucked in. "You wanna go to sleep, honey?" And, there, I have my answer. Honey.

It's more than the aphrodesiac effect or the look of an Adam-tempting toffee-apple body gilded and dripping in amber. It's about love and affection. About good old fashioned sweetness.

Marina Abramovic : The artist is present

http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2010/marinaabramovic/

watching this becomes strangely addictive after a while.

Kira O’Reilly

http://www.navigatelive.org/kira.html
http://www.tract-liveart.co.uk/Kira%20O'Reilly/Kira%20O'Reilly.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-401165/Its-art-says-naked-woman-wholl-hug-dead-pig-stage.html

Alastair MacLennan

http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/collections/maclennan/interviews.htm
http://www.frieze.com/comment/article/marina_abramovic_presents

Marina Abramovic

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/video/2009/jul/06/marina-abramovic-manchester-festival-adrian-searle

Gabriela Fridriksdottir

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9503EED61F3FF936A3575BC0A9639C8B63

BIRGIT JÜRGENSSEN

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://birgitjuergenssen.com/&ei=7iqBS-XqD4qOjAf65M3DBA&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAoQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dbirgit%2Bj%25C3%25BCrgenssen%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

Daria Martin

http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/harpstrings_and_lava_and_minotaur_by_daria_martin/
http://www.dariamartin.com/docs/texts.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/arts/design/20new.html
http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/406

Lucy Gunning

article

Mona Hatoum

Hatoum, Mona (1952–) - BIOGRAPHICAL HIGHLIGHTS, PERSONAL CHRONOLOGY:, PERSONAL HISTORY, INFLUENCES AND CONTRIBUTIONS, EXPLORING, THE WORLD’S PERSPECTIVE, LEGACY

Yves Klein

"Le Saut dans le vide" ; A leap into the Void

“To paint space, I owe it to myself to go there, to that very space… without illusions or tricks, nor with a plane or a parachute or a rocket ship: [the painter of space] must go there by his own means, with an independent individual force, in a word, he must be capable of levitation.”