Sensationalism Skateboard Project
We were given a plain wood skateboard deck that we are to paint using student grade acrylic paint, acrylic paint pens, spray paint, various gels and molding paste. The design is to be inspired by an art movement that we were given as a prompt. I was given Sensationalism. In the blog post below, you can see my progress and rough drafts to the right (also with some brief explanation behind the symbolism of my design). To the right is my final design
Some Sensationalist Artists!
Tracey Emins
She is a sensationalist British artist noted for using a wide range of media—including drawing, video, and installation art, as well as sculpture and painting—and her own life as the subject of her art. Her works were confessional, provocative, and transgressive
What is Sensationalism?
Sensationalist art is created to be shocking to its audience. It can be related to shock art, which is contemporary art that incorporates disturbing imagery, sound, or scents to create a shocking experience and is a way to disturb "smug, complacent, and hypocritical" people. Sensationalist art is found commonly with Young British Artists and it is done to get the public rather excited or interested in the artist’s work. The Young British Artists are taking the word “sensationalism” by the reigns and creating art that’ll invoke emotion within the audience. ("Sensationalism: Young British Artists.") The Young British Artists (YBAs) is a loosely-affiliated group who met in London in the late 1980s and participated in two of the most shocking exhibits of the late-20th century: Freeze (1988) and Sensation (1997).
In 1999 she became a finalist for the Turner Prize with the installation My Bed (1998), which displayed not only the artist’s actual bed but also rumpled bedclothes. Considered sensationalist art because critics found it uncomfortable to look at it because it was so gross. One critic called “uncomfortably personal debris,” including soiled underwear, empty liquor bottles, and used condoms.
Gillian Wearing
She is an English Conceptual artist and one of the Young British Artists. She is also the winner of the 1997 Turner Prize.
She did a lot of confessional art which is a type of contemporary art that focuses on intentional revelations of private lives, often showing controversial and intimate experiences and emotions as a way to provoke similar emotion, shock, or empathy, in a viewer. She made a series of portraits where she approached strangers that she encountered on the street and asks them to write what they are thinking about on a white sheet of paper. I felt that her art is sensationalist because her art evokes emotion in her audience. The purpose was to show the stranger’s lives and emotions, which attracts viewers because us as humans seems to be very interested in the secrets of others and lives of people we don’t know.
Damien Hirst
He is a successful and controversial artist who emerged as a leading figure in the Young British Artists movement in the late 1980s and 1990s. Hirst is one of the wealthiest artists living today. Below are photos of his piece "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living ".
This was commissioned by Charles Saatchi. It is a 14-foot tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde in a vitrine.
“In keeping with the piece's title, the shark is simultaneously life and death incarnate in a way you don't quite grasp until you see it, suspended and silent, in its tank. It gives the innately demonic urge to live a demonic, deathlike form” - Damien
He is a sensationalist artist because of how controversial his works are. His most controversial works were his collection of pieces with dead animals. Through preserving creatures in minimalist steel and glass tanks filled with formaldehyde solution, he intended to create a “zoo of dead animals”. Many found it inhumane to kill animals for art and his art shocked his audience and made them feel strong emotions, such as disgust.
“Damien Hirst has killed thousands of animals in the name of art. Butterflies, cows, sharks, and pigs do not deserve to be killed to make an interesting art exhibit, especially when those that die of natural causes could be used in their place” - Change.org Petition
My Skateboard! A Women's Burning Words and Actions
I wanted my artist lens for this project to be a feminist lens. I decided to base my design for the skateboard off of the persecution of witches in the old days and how witch hunts are still present today. I wanted my skateboard to show both witch hunts of the past and present. In Europe in the mid-1400s, witch hunts were common and most of the accused were executed by burning at the stake or hanging. The accused were commonly women that didn't fit the social norm. Women that had too many children or not enough children. Women that were too poor or too rich. Women that spoke their opinions or dressed proactively. They were thought to be working with the Devil and filled with lust. Witch hunts also happen today, especially online. With social media, thousands of people can hide behind their screens and anonymous usernames while bullying and bashing women. Just like in the 1400s, women who don't fit the social norm, for example speaking their political opinions or preaching body positivity, are faced with relentless bullying by internet trolls. On my skateboard is depicted a proud nude woman being burned at the stake for being herself. At the top are three shadows towering over her, representing her male accusers. The shadows will have cell phones to symbolize how witch hunts still happen today online. Coming from the cellphones are words used to degrade women online representing the fire used to burn women in today’s world. I started by spray painting the deck black with white at the top. Then I used molding paste for the fire and the gashes on the body. The rest was done in student grade acrylic paint except for the words on the top were done in acrylic paint pens.
