Hamilton, Weems, & Walker

Ann Hamilton is an artist who focuses on large-scale visual items, such as towers, sculptures or boats. Although her work is considered art, it breaks one common stereotype for art; most of what she produces serves a purpose. The Meditation Boat, for example, is a fully functioning boat that can be taken out on the water. I find it much easier to appreciate art that has a use; as such I have a great respect for architects and Ann Hamilton can almost be called one.

Carrie Mae Weems is a very intriguing artist that I found difficult to understand. Her work is entirely made up of slideshows of pictures that tell some kind of story. Some have captions and others don’t. “The Kitchen Table Series” was one which I think I understood on a very shallow level; it appears to be about a woman with a husband who was using drugs and drinking. One day her husband was gone, and the audience can only assume it was from the drugs but this is not explicitly shown. The woman cries while drinking a bottle of wine. She gains some comfort from her friends and eventually has a kid of her own, and in the end turns out to be a strong single mother. Other works appeared impossible to understand, such as the “Sea Island Series.” It also appeared that a lot of her work deals with racial and gender issues, which we can assume is very prominent in her life. I also noticed that she had a child at the age of sixteen, which was very likely to have affected her work; it becomes very personal to her.

Kara Walker is an artist in the “original” meaning of the word in that she draws art. Similar to Carrie Mae Weems, much of her work is racially charged. Very few colors are used, and the ones that are tend to be dark and gloomy; otherwise everything else in her work is black. Unfortunately her art is not the type I can appreciate, because I simply don’t understand what her drawings are about.