art·ist – noun
1. a person who produces works in any of the arts that are primarily subject to aesthetic criteria.
2. a person who practices one of the fine arts, esp. a painter or sculptor.
3. a person whose trade or profession requires a knowledge of design, drawing, painting, etc.: a commercial artist.
4. a person who works in one of the performing arts, as an actor, musician, or singer; a public performer: a mime artist; an artist of the dance.
5. a person whose work exhibits exceptional skill.
6. a person who is expert at trickery or deceit: He's an artist with cards.
7. Obsolete. an artisan.
[Origin: 1575–85; < MF artiste < ML artista master of arts. See art1, -ist]
—Synonyms
1. Artist, artisan are persons having superior skill or ability, or who are capable of producing superior work. An artist is a person engaged in some type of fine art. An artisan is engaged in a craft or applied art.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/artist
When I was reading about 'art·ist', I came across another word I found absolutely hilarious. The word 'art·less'.
art·less – adjective
1. free from deceit, cunning, or craftiness; ingenuous: an artless child.
2. not artificial; natural; simple; uncontrived: artless beauty; artless charm.
3. lacking art, knowledge, or skill.
4. poorly made; inartistic; clumsy; crude: an artless translation.
[Origin: 1580–90; art1 + -less]
—Related forms
art·less·ly, adverb
art·less·ness, noun
—Synonyms
1. naive, unsophisticated, guileless, open, frank, plain, unaffected, candid, sincere.
—Antonyms
1. cunning.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/artless
or,
art·less - adj
1. free from deceit or cunning: artless generosity.
2. natural or unpretentious. artlessly adj
After finding this I sat for a moment in thought. You see now I'm not sure what art or an artist or the truth really is? Rob said this might happen. Finding something I wasn't looking for. Question one, 'is art therefore a lie?' Hopefully you can understand my concern. If to be 'artless' is to be '...free from deceit or cunning...' and '...natural or unpretentious...' then what are we as artists or at least members of the art society? Well I figure we are in fact un-natural, pretentious, cunning and deceitful, personally none of which I particularly want to be, but anyway I thought a while longer to no avail and then continued.
Artist - 'MICHAEL LANDY'
After studying Michael Landy's work at foundation level, I think he was the only choice for me as I was influenced so much not by his work in general, but in particular one piece which I found incredibly inspiring. Michael Landy's performance/ installation piece 'Breakdown' was something amazing. In this piece as you may be aware, the artist has collected together each and every single one of his 7,226 possessions and listed them in a series of categories.
-art
-clothing
-electrical equipment
-furniture
-kitchen contents
-leisure
-perishables
-reading material
-studio contents
-motor vehicle
What Landy did then was something that I quite honestly couldn't do, and I'm sure many of us couldn't either. Setting up a conveyor belt and platform on the ground floor of an old C&A building on oxford street, equipped with a team of dismantling volunteers, he systematically destroyed everything he owned. For two weeks he performed the process of becoming 'free' and leaving the most sentimental things till the end, he proceeded to simply destroy what seems like his whole identity and existence. Even his birth certificate and passport were destroyed. Some say I'm crazy for thinking this was an impressive piece, declaring that they think Landy was 'stupid' to do such a thing, but I can honestly say that this is personally the most fascinating, inspiring, and without a doubt interesting art piece I have come across, and I have the upmost respect for what he did.
Michael Landy
'Breakdown' - 2001
The reason I have chosen Michael Landy as my artist however is not to find out more about 'Breakdown', or to find out about his previous works but more so to find out what happened to Landy after his performance of 'Breakdown'. Where did he go? What did he do? In particular what was his next work? Since studying 'Breakdown' I have not heard anything about what Landy has been producing. I started online and came across a couple of articles discussing his whereabouts, the links to which follow. I then continued through various books and online to build my archive.
The first thing I found were these images of etchings or prints from etchings of weeds that Landy did in 2002, and the piece he did (below) 'Dragon Fly' which for me are magnificent.
Michael Landy
'Common Dandelion' - 2002
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Michael Landy
'Bristly Ox-tongue 2' - 2002
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Michael Landy
'Nourishment' - 2002
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Michael Landy
'Dragon Fly' (detail) - 2004-05
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I then went on to find what has again backed up my reasoning behind Michael Landy being one of my favourite artists. This exhibition that he did at the 'Thomas Dane Gallery' called, 'WELCOME TO MY WORLD - built with you in mind' (2005) after his earlier 2004 commission piece 'Semi-detached' (image to follow), is one of great inspiration for me and relates perfectly with my manifesto behind drawing, as is what seems to be the case for all Landy's work since 'Breakdown'.
(Unfortunately I couldn't find the names of all the pieces but they were all taken from the same link and I have put them in the Bibliography under the exhibition title, 'WELCOME TO MY WORLD - built with you in mind' (2005), and gallery name ' Thomas Dane Gallery'. Can be found in 'Bibliography - Images')
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Michael Landy
'Daily Mirror' - 2004-05
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Michael Landy
'Barbie comb' - 2004-05
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Although Landy's work since breakdown has been a lot different to what he has done in the earlier part of his career, moving away from the idea of large scale installations, and working with much smaller, drawing type pieces, I did find out about this installation he did for commission at the Tate Britain.
Installation at Tate Britain
Photo © Tate, 2004
Michael Landy
'Semi-detached' - 2004
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This piece for me, again thinking back to how Landy made me feel when I came across 'Breakdown', is something magnificent. The complete house itself, a carven copy of his parents house in Essex, is a fantastic structure, built from original materials and dipicting the exact details of the original house right down to rusty nails in the walls and bird muck on the tiled roof. An amazing explosion of detail blooming with asthetic quality. I watched a film about the making of the installation and something was said in the film that again set me off with a burst on inspiration. One of the people involved in the making of the installation were interviewed and commented,
"...sometimes the difference between a good installation an a bad installation is simply the detail...",
and looking back at the film and images of the installation its clear that the detail is what makes the piece. Quite incredible and although I really like Landy's different drawing type works, I was pleasantly surprised to see he is still producing on such a challenging scale, something I wish to push forward in my work.
I have added below the link to the film should it be required.
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/landy/makingof.htm
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