Last weekend I went on a city weekend break to Amsterdam. Amsterdam is well known for its canals, beautiful three story houses, so called coffee shops. I think there is a particular stigma around Amsterdam, particularly the red light district which happens to be one of the busiest shopping locations in the day. While in Amsterdam I visited The Moco Museum in Amsterdam is a boutique museum with a wide range of inspiring modern and contemporary art. With artists like Banksy, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.
You start at the top of the town house and work your way down, each floor has one or several artists that link with concept or style.
Jean-michel basquiat, uses inspiration from signs and symbols from a wide range of cultural sources. He was fascinated by anatomy from a young age. Heads and skulls became recurring images in basquiat's work in the early 1980's. Recalling the style of his graffiti and his paintings, he renders spontaneous lines, creating a layer of bright colours that really pop against the background. I really like the different layers which make up the piece, the contrast and more dull tones of the different colours work really well together. I think it looks like its representing thoughts within a brain and how quickly it works.
Yayoi Kusama bases her art work around polka dots and particularly has an interest in pumpkins. The artwork itself in this piece uses a large range of different size dots which makes up the pumpkin shape within the artwork. I really like how simple the concept is but how effective the results are. The use of contrasting primary colours yellow and red which really made the wall eye catching and helps draw people in to the art piece.
The museum went on to show a large private collection of Banksy's work. Bansky is a famous anonymous graffiti artist from Bristol, with some of his art pieces selling at 1.3 million pounds. His work is a particular favourite of mine, pushing the limits of society and highlighting how we all conform to a certain degree and asking the questions which people are too sacred too ask, within his art.
This piece in particular is one of my personal favourite due to the connotations it has, the artwork its self represents a monkey with a sign hanging off his neck. This piece makes a point of animal slavery and hightlights the known intelligence of monkeys in particular. The fact that humans so largely share the same DNA structure and that we still see fit to treat them this way. " Laugh now, but one day well be in charge" is a very effective line, adding a element of fear to this Bansky art.
