Text Notes for Wenda Gu and Daniel J. Martinez

Wenda Gu
3 questions.
1. Why why why?
2. Is that real?
3. Whats the purpose?

-Celebrates common aspects of human experience as the physical origins of life
-Mission is devoted to reconciling contrasting cultural practices, thereby promoting universal accord
-Gu seeks unity through art
-Devotes his art career to unifying a planet beset by quarrels and conflicts
-Envisioning international reconciliation required an art purged of evidence of any nation tradition
-the magnitude, medium, and presentation are all global
-Language separates populations
-All people share knowledge of their body and its functions
-First installation: Oedipus Refound
Different attributes to menstruation:
-embodies evil spirits/ embodies benevolent spirits/ celebrated/ dreaded/ reviled/ revered/ taboo/ and accepted
-Gu got sixty women from different nationalities to participate with Oedipus Refound
-The Oedipus myth conjures the situation in which a person succumbs to one's destiny and then suffers the agony of its consequences.
-United Nations piece borrows language from English, Hindi, Arabic, Chinese, and so forth.
-No one can decipher them so it puts all viewers on the same level
-Creates pseudo-scripts to imagine the universe which is beyond the reach of human knowledge.
-Dedicated to creating a world in which political alliances and social harmony replace violence and strife.
-Language and knowledge are artificial. The human body is authentic and natural
-There are cultures that believe that human vitality and life force are located in their hair.
-Impregnation Piece- to impregnate one women from each continent so the art will "live on"
-He describes himself as living on a horizontal axis between Marxist and capitalist ideologies.
-The vertical axis extends from his Chinese heritage to his acquired international attitudes.

My thoughts:
My boyfriend and I had lots of discussion on this artists and whether he was actually getting the message to everyone. You think of the average Joe and what is he going to get out of a pillowcase with bloodstains and tampons in a framed box? I totally understand the concept and why he is making this art but I believe in the Renaissance style also where if the majority of viewers can't get what the image is about without having a class on it, is it really that effective?

Daniel J. Martinez
3 questions.
1. Is the Quality of Life piece shown in Beverly Hills or Long Beach and Manhattan or the Bronx?
2. What is the race of this artist?
3. What are the minis signs he made the Second Movement from?

-Prefers not to be known as an artist
-Instead he prefers to be known as a Tactical Media Strategist
-The tactics and strategies he employs falls into two categories: Martinez defies rules, and he disrupts conventions
-These methods are designed to expose insidious concentrations of social, political, and economic power.
-The gap between privileged and privation persists
-"the production of hatred and division is a disease that is killing this country"
-Success is determined by his ability to shame the offenders and empower the victims.
-Martinez only exhibits when he receives an official invitation to present his work.
-"I take small opportunities and turn them into something important.
-He used the strategy of confusion to get what he wanted at Cornell like Hannibal with the Romans
-He wanted to keep The Castle is Burning a permanent fixture but the university turned him down probably due to the controversy.
-He considers it one of his most successful pieces because its effects still reverberate on campus.
-"From artistic standpoint, it is to create absurdist situations to show people how they have been socialized to see things in a certain way. I show them how ridiculous that is."
-He grew up in tiny Mexican neighborhood in L.A.
-Grew up worrying about gangs making him join or thinking he was a snitch. Also had to worry about all the harassment from police because of race and gender.
-Public impact is the goal of his adult activities.
-The Museum Tags were very successful in that they stirred up so much discussion. Martinez didn't care if it was good or bad just the fact that people were talking about it and creating conversation.
-Since the late 1990's he has been creating graphic photographs of himself with virtual wounds

My thoughts:
I think this artists has a lot of courage to put his images out to the public the way he does. I like the fact that he is pushing the envelope way over what is allowed and then is denied but told he can "tone it down" and end up getting what he wanted originally. Playing with the system is an approach that more artists should use because their are so many of us and very few positions open as far as employment, galleries, studios, shops, and respect.