CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Micheal Landy

Some artist engages with memory by trying to erase it entirely as in the case of Micheal Landys performance piece Breakdown was a reaction to the

consumerist society. Over a period of three years he catalogued 7,227 of his possessions before destroying them in a public event.

The items was stripped, shredded, crushed and dismantled over a period of

fourteen days.

Consumerism is a powerful ideology but rarely do humans consider how

facilitating the consumer industry impacts upon the environment, creating

more pollution and waste, The insistent pressures on people to consume

more present in our culture and there is an increasing feeling of discomfort

about how alienating these pressures can be, states (Artangle)

James Lingwood( Co-Director of Artangle) believes that Break Down wasn't simply a attack on consumerism but something more complex about the

relationship between who we are and what we posses and ownership.

Song Doug is a Chinese contemporary artist, active in sculpture, installations,

performance ,photography and video.

Waste Not is an exhibition that displayed over 10,000 domestic objects, ranging from

bottle caps, shoes, blankets, toothpaste tubes, metal pots and toys.

Song doug believes that the history of our lives can be conveyed through objects, one of

many themes covered in the exhibition, highlighted the level of consumerism and

waste in the world. It questions the Throw-away culture we live in , we have developed into Throw-away-society. Increasing waste produced from human activities is taking

a heavy toll on the environment.

'Cold Dark Matter:An Exploded View

"It is a universal condition, that of vulnerability. we don't have solid fixed lives, were

consistently dealing with what life throws at us" ( Cornelia Parker).

Cold dark matter, consisted of a garden shed and its various miscellaneous contents was blown up by the British Army. The fragments was suspended from the ceiling as though frozen in time. In the centre was a light which casted shadows on the walls and floor.

The theme of destruction and reconstruction recurs in parkers work she has the need to preserve the past as well as destroy it, cornelia sees the object as an absorber and carrier of emotional cultural repositories.

Parkers works are compelling because she draws histories and fragments from

neglected or nostalgic parts of life and brings them to the foreground with

intellectual rigor. In leaving much of the interpretation open, she lets her audience begin and end with a fascinating story or observation. Cornelia speaks

of her debt to both Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, whose art and ideas were

formative in her appreciation of what art could be.

Jonathan watkins has argued that, "by blowing up the shed parker is taking away such

a place, throwing doubt on all it represents

All kinds of connections and ideas can be traced through the arrangements of

different objects. these familiar items were transformed by the explosion. In their

damaged state, they can be seen as symblos of transience and fragility

Tony Cragg is one of the worlds foremost sculptors. Constantly pushing to find new relations between people and the material world, there is no limit to the material he might use, as there are no limits to the ideas and forms he might

conceive. His early works present a taxonomical understanding of the world.

Cragg sees manmade objects as "fossilized" keys to a past in time which is our present". Stack consists of a multitude of miscellaneous objects and materials packed. In Stack, different materials, such as wood, concrete, paper, metal and plastic, are piled up neatly in a two metre cube. The layering suggests geological strata, showing how both natural and fabricated elements are

incorporated into landscape shaped over time by mankind .Stack demonstrates

cragg's interests in humanity's impact on nature through industry ,science and

technology, as well as the evolution of both organic and man -made landscapes.

This reference both to geology and archaeology resounds throughout cragg's

career. He identifies as key themes in his work his relationship to the natural

world and humankinds impact on nature

"I see a material or an object as having a balloon of information around it,

materials like wood already have a very occupied balloon. The objects of our

industrial society as yet have very little information attached to them".

what makes him important is his transformation of raw materials into art that

transcends but never allows us to forgot. Many of his works consist of numerous components, methodically arranged to reveal the superficial relationship we

have with the vast array of things that surrounds us.

Mark Dion is an American Conceptual artist whose practice examines the

history of the museums and the presentations of knowledge, best known for his use of scientific presentations in his installations.

Mark Dion and a team of volunteers combed the shore of the river at bankside in front of the Tate Modern their aim was to explore Londons rich history

through its material remains, the artefacts buried within the mud and gravel

of its beaches.Though a rigorous examination and recreation of traditional methods of display, he calls into question the hierarchies of the aesthetics and the conventions of historical proof and reason. "I identify with the mission of the museum, where you go to gain knowledge though things, museums are

capsules.