Choosing an Artist

Having said that this is supposed to be about a contemporary artist, reading the hand out there is no mention of living or dead. So I could choose anyone. My initial thought was to choose Banksy but I could probably write that without research, as I've bought the books and followed his career almost since the start, but that's not why I'm doing this degree. I'm doing it to further myself and my learning, and if I don't then I'm cheating myself.

So here are the first few of the long-list that I'm drawing up:
Tracey Emin
Grayson Perry
Steve McQueen
Gilbert and George
and Simon Starling
4 Turner Prize winners and a shortlister

I've started with these because of the way that although the Turner Prize is probably the biggest and best PR stunt the British contemporary art world can pull off, I always have difficulty relating to it and never agree with the winner. But then if people in general agreed with it would it get as much publicity? Anyway I'll start my long list with these while I also devise my criteria

While I'm here I will put Tate down as the first contender for public Gallery.

With galleries it won't be as hard to decide, until last term I never really thought about them conciously, so I'll just choose the one which piques my ineterest most. However with artists it will be more difficult, should I choose a more obscure one I'm unfamiliar with, with a possibly unreliable amount of information to work from or should I choose a well known artist with lots of info, but which might be a bit too easy or obvious and therefore not stimulating. Either way I think I will try to chose someone as different from me as I can so that I actually learn something.

Again I've forgotten about the "masters" traditional painters and sculpters where the world they lived in shaped their work in ways that are very different from today. I can see this being a very complex decision, but I can't get too bogged down with it, I've got to do the actual research.

Research and Learning

This term the blog has come into its own, it has become a compulsory part of the History of Art course, ie no excuses. I'm not sure how this is supposed to work but we have to research and document several things: An Artist ( I'm assuming contemporary ) their work and career, a public gallery or project, a private gallery, difference between the two remit and direction, and finally an Art journal.

We then have to submit our findings here as our blog, aided and hindered by the instruction of our brilliant if scatter brained lecturer Adrian Rifkin and his trusty side kicks Olga and Rob
So here begins my take on 1906 HAA Contemporary and Critical Writing