Assignment 1: Gallery Artists Sanford Biggers and Roy Lichtenstein

Sanford Biggers is one of my favorite Gallery Artists. Being an African American man with Buddhist values living in New York City, he is very passionate about racism in America and how it should be discussed and addressed. His work employs the use of multiple mediums such as sculpture, various kinds of performance art, and even videos and music he wrote and produced himself. Each of his pieces are similar in that they have relatively simple albeit surreal forms, with the meaning of each piece addressed in every detail. For example, take Biggers’ Blossom piece. It is a life sized model of a piano with a tree violently sprouting through it. The piano’s keys move and play on their own, as though a ghost were playing it. Every decision made in the design of the piece further solidifies the meaning behind it. The piece was made in response to an event in 2006 where nooses were found dangling from trees around a Louisiana school famous for its racial tension. The song the piano is playing is called “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday. The lyrics of the song are made in protest to the lynching of black people in the 1930’s. The mangled piano inside of the tree can be a reference to the lyrics of the song, which provide the grotesque imagery of mangled black bodies hanging from trees. Even the tree itself is a model of a Bodhi Tree, the tree that Buddha famously sat under while experiencing his enlightenment. I hope to be able to produce a piece that includes meaning with every detail, causing the viewer to want to know more.

Alternatively, another of my favorite artists is Roy Lichtenstein. With a style so clean and iconic, it’s no secret that Lichtenstein took his inspiration from his peer Andy Warhol and the new medium that had just transitioned from novelty to art form, the comic book. He, along with Warhol among others, solidified the pop art culture in the public eye, influencing styles and art to this very day. I would like to create art in a style that represent who I am and the things I am personally interested in.