Honigman Ana Finel - Cult Artists: 50 Cutting-Edge Creatives You Need to Know

50 Cutting-Edge Creatives You Need to Know

ANA FINEL HONIGMAN

INTRODUCTION

According to Paul Gaugin, art is either revolution or plagiarism. The fifty iconoclasts presented in this book deploy art as revolution. Their work spans centuries, mediums, subjects and audiences but shares a radical sensibility. Each of them introduces a singular vision that speaks to broad philosophic, social and ethical concerns. They borrowed and built from each other while creating unique and deeply disruptive work that continues to challenge and change our collective understanding of art, society and ourselves.

The word cult can denote a strictly niche identity, isolated to subcultural significance, or indicate a person whose powerful vision evokes veneration. Some of the artists in this survey have intense underground followings who adore them for beliefs and aesthetics too chewy for mainstream appreciation, but others are iconic for permanently altering the mainstream. holds an almost deified status for artists, especially female artists, who attribute healing properties to her intimate self-portraits. The broad appeal of these canonised artists work makes them into gurus, ushering followers from all levels of cultural literacy and interest into more emotionally invested relationships with art.

The deep subculture significance instead of establishment support for many of the artists in this book highlights systemic prejudices in mainstream culture and the problematic perimeters of the art world. For these artists, cult status can mean that they create from within communities traditionally overlooked by art insiders. For instance, early imagery celebrates the life-affirming creativity of people struggling for survival on societys peripheries.

Similarly, proudly positions her insurgent art as a banner against the conventions and culture of the contemporary art world, crowd funding her work from countless supporters instead of selling to big-budget collectors. Her self-defined identity as an artist for the people is evidenced by her role in the Occupy Wall Street movement, where her art was the visual signifier for a movement threatening capitalism and elitist structures, and claimed an expansive following who felt neglected or belittled by elite art institutions.

In a world where women artists are still under-represented in galleries and paid less than their male counterparts, this survey weighs heavily towards ground-breaking feminist perspectives. The histories of collective support and sisterhood in waves of feminist creativity and activism show that feminist artists often empower their cult followings to become creative agents. demonstrate the feminist adage that the personal is political, turning their loves, erotic adventures and fascinations into templates to validate other womens inner lives. For these artists, cult status enables them to nurture social action and all womens self-affirming expression.

The activist orientation that Crabapple embodies is one of the strongest unifying factors tying together the artists across eras, mediums, nations and identities. The majority of artists presented here created art to fight against systems of social injustice. As Basquiats former girlfriend wrote in her biography about him, everything Basquiat did was an attack on racism. His art, career and legacy remain intensely relevant statements about the intricacies of race and racial discourse in our world. is a pioneer in destabilising and exploding notions of gender distinction, combining an ongoing fight for transgender rights with a philosophical meditation into the nature of all human connection and desire. Nan Goldin has turned the personal pain she documented in her photographs into fuel for activist actions, changing laws and holding powerful predators to account.

An alchemists ability to convert pain into progress art is another quality uniting the artists in this survey. Many were shaped by profound traumas, struggled with mental illness, or died in tragic circumstances but managed to transform their direct experiences into expression that resonates and enlightens others. One of arts essential purposes is empathetic, and the personal psychic pain in her manically exuberant sculptures evokes understanding beyond clinical or even poetic description. Art can compel people to feel another persons inner reality. As Barbara Kruger explained, everything I do is trying to create moments of recognition. To try and denote some feeling and understanding of lived experience.

Few of the artists in this book act alone. Some, like that infused their lives with reciprocal inspiration. Some of the artists shunned art schools and well-marked paths to recognition but forged bonds based on mutual respect and discourse with their fellow creators. These bands of outsiders gathered in New York, London and Berlin during periods in these cities histories where cheap rents, unregulated social systems and progressive reputations made them nexuses for artistic adventurers. Hidden in this book is a story of friendships and love, promoting relationships as the ultimate foundation for progressive creativity. The word cult carries dark connotations because groups led by single narcissistic gurus can suppress followers individuality and agency. In contrast, these artists understood and embraced the importance of input from others as they developed something earth-shatteringly unique.

POET OF THE PEOPLE

Dan Attoes art speaks to and for Americans between Los Angeles and New York. Full of pathos and poetry, his magic realist drawings, paintings and neon sculptures represent rural Americas deeper truths. Alongside his own art-making practice, Attoe heads a group of fellow artists beyond core art-market cities whose bawdy, joyful, shamanistic annual collaborations are cult events in Middle America. Attoes profound understanding of his natural and cultural environment, and his intricate self-awareness, make him a cult figure among international art-world insiders and outsider artists in America.

Attoes art explores peoples struggles to find meaning and significance with the awareness that their lives are small and fragile. Sexy country girls, burly beasts, bewildered men and other archetypes populate his paintings and neon but Americas natural splendour is the main protagonist of his oeuvre. He lives and works in Washington State. His father was a park ranger and he was raised with an intimate connection to nature. His people and their dramas are dwarfed by light-infused landscapes and oceans. In Attoes majestic and haunting paintings, he adds slender bits of text that deepen, instead of dispel, the mysteries of his characters lives and psychologies. The writing in his paintings and drawings have the haunting brilliance of Bruce Springsteen or Kris Kristofferson lyrics. These witty, despairing or insightful sentences usually demonstrate his figures isolation and alienation.