What is your favorite work of art/sculpture/painting?

Question

I have been given a task by a new art teacher, "Choose a painting/sculpture/work of art. Describe it. Convince me of its greatness."

But most things I can think of are horribly cliched and will already be done... can you advise me of some building, sculptors, artists to look into?

Answer 1

Not a favorite, for me there is no such thing, ever. But one that is intrigues me as of late is Damien Hirst. Hirst has works in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art that are striking and appalling at the same time. These works are reminiscent of church or cathedral stained glass windows, classic in their beauty upon first glance. Yet when the viewer comes closer, to examine the art more intimately, one realizes that the composition is compiled of dead butterflies. That this is death, a gorgeous and beautiful deadly art. We are compelled to revel in the colorful beauty and yet at the same time we are pulled away at our own western fear of such a natural process in our own mortality.

The work forces us to look at our own temporary state of being. And it forces the artist viewer to ask, did he merely purchase the collection of bugs for his project, or did he pluck the wings himself? Did the artist cultivate these creatures for his voluptuous and colorful death composition?

It is frightening and exciting to explore the horror and the beauty of these works.