This is a sculpture created by Jeff Koons in 2008. It is made of stainless steel, and is very large, as you can tell by the people in the photograph. Jeff Koons is controversial, because he often designs his sculptures, but then does not physically create them. He created an orange version of this that sold for more than any other living artist has sold his or her art for...$58.4 million dollars!

Is this what you think of when you think of art, or is it more like the art in the background of this fancy museum? Is it art? What kind of art is it?

This is a type of sculpture called installation art. The artist Do Ho Suh sews these sculptures! They are life-sized replications of actual objects in his home.

This one is called StaircaseIII, from 2011. What is the difference between a real set of stairs, and this installation? Why would he recreate his stairs? What details do you see? Why would this be considered art? How will people react to it? What else do you notice about it?

http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/tateshots-do-ho-suh-staircase-...

This is one of the most famous works of art, and you probably recognize the painting AND the artist's name. DaVinci was a painter, a scientist, and an inventor. His artwork is well know by art historians, but is also part of popular culture.

This one, called Mona Lisa, from 1503 - 1506, is considered slightly mysterious. Her captivating smile makes us wonder what she is thinking about. There is also a lot of questions about who the model was, and if it could have actually been DaVinci himself.

The painting is actually quite small, (2'6" X 1'9") and people line up to see it in person.

http://www.britannica.com/topic/Mona-Lisa-painting

The Thinker by Auguste Rodin, created in 1903, is also a famous work of art, both within the Art community, and also throughout popular culture. This sculpture departed from traditional sculpture, because it actually showed the personality of the subject, rather than simply being an idealized version of a man. He is both strong and powerful, but also thoughtful and aware.

He was initially created as part of a larger sculpture that Rodin created, but then also was cast as an independent work. The original purpose was as part of Rodin's Gates of Hell, and The Thinker was the poet that wrote Dante's Inferno.

http://www.musee-rodin.fr/en/collections/sculptures/thinker

Vincent VanGogh painted Starry Night in 1889. He is one of the most famous artists in the world, but he was not famous while he was alive, although he was a very prolific, and extremely talented painter.

Creating art is a way for many people to express themselves, to show their emotions, and to interpret the world around them. VanGogh had significant struggles that he was dealing with in his life...does anyone know anything about that?
-He cut off his ear to send to a woman he liked.
-He sadly committed suicide.
-The closer to the time that he killed himself, the more ravens he placed in his paintings.

Jackson Pollock was an abstract expressionist painter. He used his whole body to paint by pouring and splashing the paint, and his paintings were often huge. This one is almost 8'X12'.

This type of painting was also called action painting, and relied on rhythm and movement to create the artwork. It was completely abstract, and was very expressive. How do you think this painting would look if he was sad, angry, happy, in love, etc?
Our government loved Pollock's work because it was so free and independent that there was no chance it could be part of communism. :)
This particular painting was done in 1952. Pollock died young in 1956, at 44 years of age in a single car accident involving alcohol.

http://www.jackson-pollock.org/convergence.jsp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Pollock

Andy Warhol was a Pop artist, and started to look at the way that art is affected by commercial products, and vice versa. He looked at mass production of products, and even called his studio "The Factory". He made this one in 1962.

He crossed boundaries between what people thought art was (very old realistic oil paintings) and was art could be. His screenprints of Marilyn Monroe are some of his most famous, which combine an iconic actress from popular culture, the mass production capabilities of screenprinting, and bright, unrealistic colors of advertising. He also used repetition of images, and explored many famous people in his artwork. He is the person that coined the phrase "fifteen minutes of fame."
The first real work of art that I saw in person was on an "art train" that came through my little town, Newaygo, in Michigan. There I saw one of Warhol's works, the Brillo Pad boxes. I think I saw the Cambell's soup can's also. Now, as an adult, I have actual soup cans that no one is allowed to eat, because it has Warhol's art printed on the outside to pay homage to him.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, another famous artist, created this painting in 1881. He was one of the founding members of the Impressionist movement. These artists wanted to capture the feeling (the impression) of everyday life, and tried to capture the feeling of light and movement in real life. Renoir was one of the most loved impressionists because he painted such beautiful subjects.

He continued to paint until he died, even when his hands barely worked because of arthritis.

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/augu/hd_augu.htm

This was created by Roy Lichtenstein 1964, As I Opened Fire. Lichtenstein also liked to blur the line between fine art and mass-produced art, and is part of the Pop Art movement. He used actual comics to inspire his paintings, but although the actual comics were printed and produced by machines, he hand painted all of the dots and lines himself by hand.

http://www.stedelijk.nl/en/artwork/1141-as-i-opened-fire