One day my English professor asked me whether or not I liked art.  At that time I could not answer, because I did not know enough about it. All my knowledge of art were narrowed down and generalized. For me, art was a piece of painting or a sculpture. However, after having seen the artwork of Janine Antoni, I totally changed my point of view about art. The artist exposed me to the kind of art that differs from others. She made me feel more interested in art. Now, if I were asked again if I liked art or not I would definitely know the answer and my answer would be yes.

 Born in Freeport, Bahamas in 1964 Janine Antoni earned her BA from Sarah Lawrence College in New York, and received her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. She has had the exhibitions of her work throughout the world, for example, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, S.I.T.E. Santa Fe, and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. Moreover. Also, the artist has received a few awards including a John D. , and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship, and the Larry Aldrich Foundation (Art:21, PBS).

In the article “Janine Antoni: Bitting Sums Up Relationship to Art History” by Laura Cottingham , Antoni says that the early feminist art is very influential for her development as an artist. She states: “The humor, the process, the emphasis on performance, the intensely visceral quality of their work. It was necessary for 80s feminists to exist for me to ‘return’ to the 70s.”.The feminists artists of 70s have inspired her to express feminine issues using women’s body (Lindner).

Janine Antoni mostly focuses on process while creating her pieces. In many of her works, she literally uses her body as an essential tool. She mops the floor with her hair (as in “Loving care”), she is submerged in a tub of lard (as in“Eureka”), or she has her Rapid Eye Movement read while sleeping (as in “Slumber”). Practically, performing her piece, she lets the viewer to feel her physical presence and bring the viewer into the art. Her artwork includes sculpture, performance and installations (Williams).

One of the most recent works of the artist is her sculptural installation "Tear", which has been exhibited in 2008 in NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith at P.S1 Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans. The artwork of Janine Antoni may be seen in Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York. (Visiting artists and designers).

My favorite work of the artist is “Touch”, 2002. She produced “Touch” in the Bahamas, her childhood home. For this performance the artist has learned how to walk tightrope. So, on   beach the artist walks along the rope that is leveled right above the horizon. Thus, it makes the viewer believe that Antoni is actually walking on the water. “Touch”, as many other artwork of the artist involves the physical presence of the artist (The art institute of Chicago). According to Antoni, the horizon is “a very hopefull image, it’s about the future, about imagination, but it’s not a place that actually exists” (Art: 21, PBS). Antoni says that humans strive for perfection and balance (The art institute of Chicago).

As for me, I enjoyed working on my research project about Janine Antoni. She is an extremely extraordinary artist whose artwork evoke a wave of emotions in me. She makes a viewer look at simple, everyday routine processes, such as sleeping, walking, eating, etc. from different side of you. She is amazingly open with the viewers, building the oneness and sameness with them. And when she says that she is in love with a viewer, I somehow believe.

In the essay “Art on my mind” the author Bell Hooks states that art should defamiliarize a viewer making him or her look at something simple and well-known in a different way; however, according to Leo Tolstoy, art ought to evoke emotions in a viewer. I think that the artwork of Janine Antoni exactly fulfills both of the statements, even though the two concepts of art may seem contradictory.

Antoni’s artwork “Touch” fits Bell Hooks’s ideas of what art should be. Hooks writes that “art is necessarily a terrain of defamiliarization: it may take what we see/know and make us look at it in a new way” (Bell Hooks). In other words, defamilirization of one’s point of view is a primary mission of art. In her installation “Touch”, Antoni walks a line that is leveled to the horizon, making viewers believe that she walks on the water. Indeed, the artist illustrates the constant people’s struggle for a balance in their lives, and she uses something as trivial as a horizon line to make viewers think over the meaning of horizon.

Moreover, Antonis’ artworks certainly confirm the Leo Tolstoy’s point of view about what art is. Tolstoy writes that “the activity of art based on the fact that a man, receiving through his sense of hearing or sight another man’s expression of feeling, is capable of experiencing the emotion which moved the man who expressed it” (Leo Tolstoy).  I believe that watching a woman balancing on a tightrope may evoke various kinds of emotions and feelings, such as fear, sense of instability and disequilibrium.

Another Antoni’s work “2038” can also be considered as something that defamiliarizes one’s opinion. “2038” is a performance when the artist is bathing in a tub that is actually a feeder for cows. It appears that Antoni will nurse the cow, who is in reality a producer of the milk on every grocery shelf. Playing the maternal role for a cow, Antoni makes the viewer as an unthinking consumer contemplate the process of the production of the goods; thereby, Antoni fulfills the Bell Hooks’s idea of defamilirization.

In the essay “What is Art” Leo Tolstoy states that “if only the spectators or auditors are infected by the feelings which the author has itself, it is art,” which suggests that art should infect others feelings. Janine Antoni inserts a lot of imagination into her work, thus her every piece whether it is a sculpture, performance or installation is somehow infectious for the viewer. In particular, in  her artwork “2038” the artist creates the feeling of compassion and regret.