How To Be A Successful Artist In the format of an instructional video, Youngman exposes the art world as a culturally white, male-dominated environment, impenetrable to minorities.
How To Be A Successful Black Artist Similar to "Art Thoughtz: How To Be A Successful Artist", this video by Youngman also takes the format of an instructional video. This work differentiates itself by exposing the success of black artists to be reliant on conforming to stereotypes as hyperbolically as possible in Youngman's opinion. Youngman claims the white supporters of art do not want to be able to relate to works created by people of color. In the video, he uses a variety of images, including video footage of pit bulls fighting, video footage of
Rodney King being beaten, a photograph of
Emmett Till in his coffin, the scene from Spike Lee's
Do the Right Thing when Radio Raheem is choked to death,
Couple in The Cage: Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the West by artists
Coco Fusco and
Guillermo Gómez-Peña, a photograph called
Hottentot Venus by artist
Renée Cox, a screenshot of Alf from the television show
ALF, a video clip of comedian
Richard Pryor performing to a white audience, a photograph of former Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, a painting called
How Ya Like Me Now? of a white
Jesse Jackson by the artist
David Hammons, cats dressed in costumes, paintings by artist
Kehinde Wiley, cut paper silhouettes by artist
Kara Walker, and the painting
Dogs Playing Poker.
Beuys-Z Youngman introduces his Internet audience to the concept of "
Personal Mythology" by comparing the work of artist
Joseph Beuys and
Jay-Z. By paralleling Beuys's story of being shot down in the Crimea when he was a fighter pilot with Jay-Z's tale surviving several shots fired at him at point-blank, among other examples, Youngman is able to establish a commonality between two otherwise disparate artists.
On Beauty Under the premise of answering a fan's email, Youngman addresses the art and philosophy topic of
aesthetics, more specifically
beauty. Youngman looks at the contemporary works of
Vanessa Beecroft, Leslie Tonkonow,
Laurel Nakadate and
Will Cotton through the analytical lens of 'beauty.' He directly contrasts the artists' works to
photojournalism while disregarding possible contextual analysis through feminism or political interpretation. By applying a superficial analysis of the contemporary works through attribution, Youngman questions the current value of beauty and its role in art.
Grad School Through the format of an infomercial, Hennessy Youngman voices his opinion on spending large sums of money to attend a graduate program for an MFA. Youngman speaks of his concern with the usefulness of art theory in the post-university job market. Youngman also comments on the usefulness of studio visits, presenting them as an inconvenience to the visitor and void of any real critique. == References ==