Art Vortex

C  Yoko Ono, " Cut Piece " Kyoto, Japan 1964 Yoko Ono's "Cut Piece"           Yoko Ono is a multimedia artist, performance artist, filmmaker, and musician. She also dedicated much of her time to being a peace activist, which is a recurring theme in her artwork. She was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1933 to a prestigious and wealthy family. Her early years were marked by living in the US and Japan, and she attended prestigious schools. She trained in voice and piano. The family returned to Japan in 1941. 1945 was a turbulent time in Yoko Ono’s life. It was right after the bombing of Tokyo during World War 2 her father was captured and put into a concentration camp in Thailand by the Americans. Yoko and her mother and brother escaped to the countryside. They would peddle their household items for food. After the war, her family was reunited, and their wealth was restored. Yoko went back to school. Her family moved back to New York, and she had a brief stint a...

  Winifred Gill and Nina Hamnett modeling dresses at the Omega Workshops, c. 1913       Great changes occurred in art in the early 20 th century, with the modernists kicking down doors and reinventing how we create and view art. Modernists were often associated with artistic and social freedom and differed from the artists from the century before. Modernism created more inclusive spaces and opportunities for women than 19th-century academies. Modernism brought new ways of thinking about surface planes becoming the carriers for the spiritual content, which defines the “new” art and removes it from the domain of the decorative (Chadwick, 2021, p.85). It is interesting to see how this bending of color and perspective is utilized differently, often outside the ‘static’ painting medium. Modernists explore textiles and clothing as an art form and a form of social change that bent gender and cultural identities.       During this time, groups like the O...

  Elizabeth Jane Gardner Bouguereau The Dove Fanciers c.1883 Elizabeth Jane Gardner Bouguereau’s “ The Dove Fanciers ” is a scene that shows two women, one staring at the other while the other looks at and contemplates the white dove. This seems to be an intimate exchange with disregard for the viewer. The women are barefoot in nature. One woman holds a birdcage, while the other holds a dove. They are a triangle intertwined into each other, with the bird cage as an artifact of change. The painting represents transition. The 19 th century was a transitionary period for women. This was when women were gaining their independence and being freed, like the dove in the women's arms. The woman with the dove is dressed in white and pink and is kneeling before the woman in blue, holding the birdcage. The woman with the dove is the representation of change. She is a renewal of feminine ideologies dressed in white, and she reflects innocence. In comparison, the woman in blue holding the bird...