Lots of Pictures

Hello again to my blog! I hope you all have had a good week. Considering that I'm almost completely sans congestion, I'm on top of the world.

Physically, however, I was at the museum for much of the past week. Here are two photos from my adventures that I felt absolutely had to be shared:

I unwittingly applied blue paint to my neck. Not sure if I qualify for the Blue Man Group.

An example print I made for a tour that I particularly liked of a hypnotic octopus.

As you can clearly see, what I do there is very serious business. 

However, instead of regaling you all with more tales of my adventures at the museum (helping a girl on the verge of tears because she messed up on her drawing of a fish, fishing popsicle sticks out of glue bottles, etc.), I wanted to use this post to mention a few of my favorite public artists that I encourage you to check out further if you're interested. 

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I picked up a book about Keith Haring at the museum a while back. Coincidentally, his prolific art career sprang forth from his innate desire to create as well as a strong passion for social activism. In fact, he first sparked intrigue on the art scene by painting in subway stations in New York City in order to grasp the widest audience. From there, he began painting murals both in New York and internationally, including his famous "Crack is Wack" mural. He believed strongly that art should be accessible to all and also utilized his artistic ability to inform the greater public about issues such as anti-apartheid sentiments, AIDS awareness (which he tragically succumbed to later in life), and the crack cocaine epidemic. 

Haring's "Crack is Wack" mural.

One of Haring's more iconic images. 

Haring next to one of his subway paintings, this one commenting on the practice of apartheid in South Africa.

Haring's sculpture known as "The Boxers".

Keith Haring was a contemporary of Jean-Michel Basquiat, who also got a start in the art world by way of graffiti before moving on to canvas. 

This one is also a boxer. 

Not everyone is a fan of Basquiat's style, but he certainly left an imprint on the mind of the public before passing at the age of 27 from a heroin overdose. 

The next artist I'd like to mention is Robert Indiana, whose name is not all that familiar but whose sculptures almost certainly are. He is most known for his "Love" sculptures. In fact, we have one right here in Scottsdale! 

This sculpture is right near Old Town Scottsdale, so go take a look if you're in the area.

This is the one in Manhattan.

While this is the one in Philadelphia, which is also the "City of Brotherly Love".

A large segment of public art is the placement of sculptures in public areas, as seen by the Haring and Indiana sculptures above. Below, I'm going to show various sculptures of artists who don't necessarily work frequently with public art but whose work I like a lot. 

"Flamingo" by Alexander Calder, an artist who work primarily with abstraction and mobiles. 

"Maman" by Louise Bourgeois. Creepy but cool.

"Spoonbridge and Cherry" by Claes Oldenburg.

Anyways, I think that's enough images for now. I know there's a lot of public art out there that I haven't even touched on, but I encourage you to be on the lookout for it everyday! 

I'll see you in the next blog post.