ED RUSCHA

Edward Ruscha was raised in Oklahoma City, he was born in 1937 in Omaha, Nebraska,  Oklahoma, where his family moved in 1941. In 1956 he moved to Los Angeles to attend the Chouinard Art Institute, and had his first solo exhibition in 1963 at the Ferus Gallery. In 1973, Ruscha began showing his work with Leo Castelli Gallery in New York. He continues to live and work in Los Angeles, and currently shows with Gagosian Gallery.
Ruscha has consistently combined the cityscape of his adopted hometown with vernacular language to communicate a particular urban experience. Encompassing painting, drawing, photography, and artist's books, Ruscha's work holds the mirror up to the banality of urban life and gives order to the barrage of mass media-fed images and information that confronts us daily. Ruscha's early career as a graphic artist continues to strongly influence his aesthetic and thematic approach.
Ruscha has been the subject of numerous museum retrospectives that have traveled internationally, including those organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1982; the Centre Georges Pompidou in 1989; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in 2000; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in 2002; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney in 2004; the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2004; and the Jeu de Paume in 2006. In 2005, Ruscha was the United States representative at the 51st Venice Biennale. Recent exhibitions include “Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting” (organized by the Hayward Gallery, London, in 2009), “Ed Ruscha: Road Tested” (at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in 2011), and “On the Road” (organized by the Hammer Museum in 2011). “Reading Ed Ruscha” is currently on view at the Kunsthaus Bregenz until October 14.

Stefan Sagmeister

STEFAN SAGMEISTER (1962) is among today’s most important graphic designers. Born in Austria, he now lives and works in New York. His long-standing collaborators include the AIGA and musicians, David Byrne and Lou Reed.

Sagmeister studied engineering after high school, but switched to graphics design after working on illustration and layouts for alphorn, a left-wing magazine.

Sagmeister is a bit of a 'shocker' using nude pictures of himself to promote his business as a graphic designer/photographer. He does present as thoughtful person and appears to balance work and life in general. He use reported as saying I will work 7 years then take one year off. Then I will meditate about life and who I am, what I want to do.

When picturing his work it makes the viewer think, why someone would do such a thing, taking the poster for AIGA lecture in Cranbrook Michigan, 1999 as an example. He actually used a sharp object to cut letters and write on the figure, and then photographed himself. Some the writing is in another language, but the biggest writing is his own name "STEFAN SAGMEISTER" carved across his chest, on the other hand he's got the date on as well as the time it was done. Now I personally don't get whether this was the time it was displayed to the viewer, or it was the time he marked on his body. Yet he's got a cigarette box in his hand, as much as it’s interesting to look at this piece of work, but I don't know what he is trying to get to his viewer. 

Poster for AIGA lecture in Cranbrook, Michigan, 1999

Poster for Lou Reed’s Set the Twilight Reeling, 1996

Shirin Neshat

Shirin Neshat among the best known Persian artists in the western world Neshat left Iran in 1974 to study at the University of California

unfortunately this was at the gone if the Iranian revolution and it
affected her returning to her home country.

She is known worldwide for her images of Muslim woman with Farsi calligraphy superimposed on the faces and hands of these women. It can relate to the symbolism having a background and childhood in Islamic Asia. Neshat is obviously passionate about her art and the identity of women in Islamic culture.

I personally think she is trying to show the differences in gender in relation to this culture. Her film 'turbulent' shows a full audience listening to a male singer concurrent with the silent black outline of a woman facing empty seats. The man is applauded for his emotional singing but in contrast no one acknowledges the woman. Iran does not approve of females singing publicly. Neshat I think is showing the world the social standing of women in this part of the world and the impact Islam has on that. She is perhaps showing woman are stronger than we believe and can and should break Free of Islamic oppression.

Using my skill of writing in modern Persian and Arabic script I will produce some good outcome in response to Neshat's work, I would like to explore her work further in this project, because it's something different that not many students doesn't within the UK schooling system

'turbulent'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2DNMG2s_O0

Shepard Fairey

Shepard Fairey is a controversial American graphic designer and illustrator, he uses photographs people then enhance them using computer software. Fairey was born in Carolina in 1970 and began to draw designs on T shirts and skateboards at the age of 14.

His senior education was at an Art academy and he later studied illustration at University.

After graduation he had an exhibition at the Boston institute of Contemporary Art which featured more than 250 works in a wide variety of media: screen prints, stencils, stickers, rubylith illustrations, collages, and works on wood, metal, photography and canvas.

After graduation he also formed a small company called Alternate Graphics which specialised in t-shirt and stickers. This allowed Fairey the ability to continue pursuing his own artwork.  Fairey created the "Obey Giant" campaign which is still popular today.

Not many people might know that as well as his graphic design work Fairey also DJs at various clubs under the name DJ Diabetic and Emcee Insulin, I think he uses this name because he is a diabetic.

Fairey is well known for the series of posters he created for Barack Obama's 2008 candidacy for President of the United States

Unit 4 Mind Map

Shepard Fairey

Craig Ward

Shirin Neshat

Stefan Sagmeister

Barbra Kruger

Describing a person by work on their face

Shadow of text on person's face

Photoshop

Text and image mixed together 

Color + Black and white text on the face

Shadow of text on faces 

Using different parts of the body

Using different fonts

Doing Graffiti

Self portraits 

Old people's images

Family Photo's

Involving Philosophy

Response to Artists

Pictures of Grave Stones

Symbolism

Banksy

Mixing image and Letters/Numbers

Racism

Society today

Money and Power

Hate in the society 

Dreams

Love

Precious Time

Still life and Text

Craig Ward

Craig Ward is a London based Graphics Designer who manipulates words and letters as a typographic illustrator. He is described as a person who brings to life current headlines, he creates new typographic treatments and continuously explores the notion of words as image

Craig ward has released a book this year entitled “Popular Lies About Graphic Design” he describes himself as having a student kind of mindset and he is proud of that, he feels it keeps his work fresh.. Wards opinion and also those of other is nothing is in the book that someone who has been working for 15 years won't have heard before – but hopefully they'll find something interesting in the way it's written. He hopes people will be able to pick it up and be inspired.

My research on Ward suggests he is an opinionated type of guy when it comes to design. He thinks people (designers) who cannot be bothered to design their own websites for clients but who use templates are basically lazy. He describes himself as using different techniques for different projects or in other words he will do whatever it takes to get a professional look to a product.

Unit 4 (Text & Image) Artists

Artists rating in my personal interests (1 low 5 top)

• Barbara Kruger                            5
• Gillian Wearing                             3
• Jenny Holzer                                 3
• Craig Ward                                   5
• Stefan Sagmeister                        4.5  
• Douglas Alves                               3
• Tatiana Percero                             3
• Shirin Neshat                                4.5
• John Clark                                    3.5
• Gurrila Girls                                   2
• Jim Goldberg                                 3
• Bob and Roberta Smith                  3         
• Juame Plensa                                 3
• Sophie Calle                                 2.5
• Mary Kelly                                   2
• Mark Titchner                               3                                    
• Shepard Fairey                             4
• Keith Haring                                 3.5
• Robert Ryan                                 3.5
• Ed Ruscha                                    3.5
• Saul Steinberg                               3.5
• Roy Lichtenstein                            3.5

Text & Image (chosen question)

The meaning of impact of an image can be changed or enhanced by the addition of text. Photographers and artists, such as Gillian Wearing, Barbra Kruger and Jenny Holzer, have used different approaches to make personal statements. consider this topic, research relevant examples and produce a personal response that incorporates text in some way