[Artist Research Report] Sandy Skoglund and Her Simulation of the Reality

The first moment I see Sandy Skoglund’s work, I know something is calling me to do more research on this amazing artist. With the goldfish flying inside the boy’s cyan color room, I am embracing the mix of a colorful nightmare. With my first desire of wanting to be emerged into Skoglund’s installation work, the moment that I realize this is actually physical objects in the real world breaks the pure personal imagination I have in mind. With the thesis of “The beauty of Sandy Skoglund’s art is that while the viewers are seeing everything they need to see within the frame, they are holding an unreachable wish to explore the potential possibility outside of the frame”, I presented Skoglund’s most well-known works to the class with her most recent personal reconnaissance on her instagram during the pandemic.  The contradictory perception of wanting to know more but never able to get more from the tableaux art forms this special relationships between the viewer and the art work.

I claimed during the presentation that instead of having any interpretation of the story in Skoglund’s work, I have gained enough from just looking at the image and feel the specific mood when viewing her art. While I decided to focus on exploring the meaning behind two of her major works (Radioactive Cats, Revenge of the Goldfish) for the report, I wish I could also discuss the growth of her artistic style through time. 

Something I did not get to mention during the report is that for her artwork Winter, there is an exhibition in museum where we actually get to see part of the installation. However, the impression of its piece is way less shocking without the deliberate camera angle choice with the live model perfectly being in the frame. Of course, the actually experience of viewing the exhibition is unknown for me until I visit one of her work in a museum! For now, this viewing experience really tells me that for the installation art, in order to have the perfect engagement, the artist needs to not only placing the props appropriately, but also consider the atmosphere, the overall environment, and the point of view for their art piece.

Winter, Sandy Skoglund