The Kiss

In 1902, Edvard Munch completed "The Kiss" using color woodcut. This piece is 18 3/8 x 18 7/8, and it hangs in the museum of modern art. Munch was an influential contributor to the German Expressionist movement. Munch created many works in a thematic vein, including the Kiss, and exhibited them along side each other in what he called The Freize of Life. The themes of the series included love, death, stages of life and jealousy. The kiss beautifully displays a couple in an intimate embrace. The couple appears to emerge as one as they draw closer.

Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: Premonition of Civil War

Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: Premonition of Civil War, 1931 is an oil on canvas by Salvador Dali. Dali joined the surrealist movement in 1929, with his arrival his illusionist technique became the dominant form of surrealist painting. He painted haunting and realistic "dream photographs".I enjoy this  painting because of the realness of the painting. It seems real even though you know that it is not. It has a dark mood to it and has very interesting composition 

The Apparition-Gustave Moreau

The Apparition is a oil on cardboard painting by Gustave Moreau depicting an apparition of the holy spirit Jesus Christ returning to life visiting what seems to be a small group of people in a church like setting. I really enjoyed this painting because of the immense detail that went into the paintings creating. I also liked the way the head of Jesus had a halo floating the backround to signify his presense in the room as his followers glare into his eyes. Overall I truly enjoy this painting and see it as one of the great works of arts vast history.

Evolution by Alexis Rockman

This painting is called Evolution by Alexis Rockman.  It is an oil on wood painting that is 96 x 288 inches.  I found this work very interesting as you can look at it for a long time and always find something new.  There seems to be hundreds of different species of animals. Once you get passed being amazed  at all the details you can look at the big picture and find the meaning behind it.  It shows the water and air that is polluted and how the animals are effected by it.  Some of them end up being extinct.  This painting is Rockman's way of showing us how polluting effects the environment and how bad it really is.   

Alexander Calder

This is Flight by Alexander Calder. It is currently hanging at Terminal 4 Departures level at JFK International Airport. I love this piece because I see it all the time. I worked at the Terminal for two years and loved getting out of the office to look up at it. It moves without moving. It's abstract but not. I really love how it looks like a bird so it belongs in an airport.

Hannah Höch

Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany is a collage of pasted papers made by Hannah Höch in 1919. It is currently being held in the Staatliche Museum, Berlin. Höch was a German Dada artist. She is best known for her work of the Weimar period, when she was one of the originators of photomontage. I chose this because I was looking for a collage because it is what we are doing next, and this one just stood out to me. Many of her pieces sardonically critique the mass culture beauty industry, at the time gaining significant momentum in mass media through the rise of fashion and advertising photography. Her works from 1926 to 1935 often depicted same sex couples, and women were once again a central theme in her work from 1963 to 1973. Höch also made strong statements on racial discrimination.

Portrait (Futago) by Yasumasa Morimura

This is Portrait (Futago) by Yasumassa Morimura, a Japanese pop artist. When I first looked at this painting, the first thing I thought of was Manet's Olympia. The resemblance of the overall composition of this painting to Olympia is uncanny. I also found it interesting that the two subjects here are actually Morimura himself playing both the lady laying down and her servant. Originally, the subjects in the Manet's Olympia are both females but Morimura blurs the gender differences by using his mastery of make-up and prop placement to make himself look like a woman. Honestly, if he didn't have the chest of a man, he would have had me fooled.