Sandy Skoglund facts for kids

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Quick facts for kids Sandy Skoglund
Skoglund in 2013
Born	(1946-09-11) September 11, 1946 (age 78) Weymouth, Massachusetts, U.S.
Education	Smith College University of Iowa
Known for	Photography, Sculpture, Installation
Notable work	Radioactive Cats (1980) Sock Situation (1986) The Cocktail Party (1992) Shimmering Madness (1998) Raining Pop Corn (2001)
Movement	Conceptual art

Sandy Skoglund (born September 11, 1946) is an American artist. She is famous for her unique photographs and art installations. An installation is a type of art where the artist creates a whole environment or space.

Skoglund uses photography to create what is called Conceptual art. This means the idea behind the art is very important. She designs detailed scenes using bright colors and everyday objects. Her art often looks like a dream or a playful puzzle.

Who is Sandy Skoglund?
- Her Education and Early Career
- How She Started Photography
What is Sandy Skoglund's Art Style?
Where to See Sandy Skoglund's Art
Images for kids
See also

Who is Sandy Skoglund?

Sandy Skoglund was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts on September 11, 1946. As a child, she lived in many different states. These included Maine, Connecticut, and California.

Her Education and Early Career

Skoglund studied art at Smith College in Massachusetts. She learned about both art history and making art. In 1967, she also studied art in Paris, France. After college, she taught art to middle school students for a year.

Later, she went to the University of Iowa. There, she studied filmmaking, multimedia art, and printmaking. She earned two master's degrees in art. In 1972, Skoglund moved to New York City. She started working as a conceptual artist.

How She Started Photography

Skoglund taught herself photography. She used it to record her art projects. She also became interested in how advertising looks. She wanted to use these ideas in her fine art. She once said that she loves mixing natural and artificial things in her work.

Today, Skoglund is a professor at Rutgers University–Newark in New Jersey.

What is Sandy Skoglund's Art Style?

Skoglund creates amazing art by building detailed sets. These sets are like real-life scenes or tableaux. She adds colorful furniture and objects. Sometimes, she even uses real people as models. Then, she takes a photograph of the finished scene.

Her artworks often have many of the same object. They use bright, contrasting colors or just one main color. Her art is known for being quirky and unique. One art critic said her work "evokes adult fears in a playful, childlike context." This means her art can make you think about serious things, but in a fun way.

Why She Uses Food and Animals

Food and animals appear often in Skoglund's art. She explains that food is a "universal language" because everyone eats. She likes how food has colors and textures that can be changed. She enjoys sculpting and painting with food. This helps her explore the line between what is natural and what is made by humans.

When she uses animals, she likes to make viewers wonder. She asks, "who is looking at whom?" She is interested in seeing the world from an animal's point of view. She feels that animals help people take a break from thinking only about themselves.

The Cocktail Party and Raining Popcorn

Two of her works show how she uses food as art. These are The Cocktail Party (1992) and Raining Popcorn (2001).

The Cocktail Party* uses many Cheez Doodles. These snack foods are stuck onto human models and furniture. This creates interesting textures. The scene is mostly orange with some purple. It's a clever way to comment on how some social gatherings can feel artificial.

Raining Popcorn* was made in 2001. It shows a forest scene where people and the environment are covered in white popcorn. Skoglund got the idea from seeing endless cornfields in Iowa. She also researched the history of popcorn. It was used in celebrations long ago and is now a popular snack. This artwork shows how corn is connected to American culture.

Repetition in Her Art

Skoglund started using repetition early in her career.

In 1973, she made Crumpled and Copied. She repeatedly crumpled and photocopied a piece of paper.
In 1974, The Holes in a Saltine Cracker showed a single cracker photographed 77 times. The many copies made the image look abstract.

In 1978, she made more art with repeated food items. In Cubed Carrots and Kernels of Corn, carrots are arranged in a checkerboard pattern. They are on a plate and cloth with the same design.

Radioactive Cats

One of Skoglund's most famous works is Radioactive Cats (1980). It shows bright green clay cats running around a gray kitchen. An old man sits with his back to the camera. His wife looks into a refrigerator. The cats were made from chicken wire and plaster. The furniture was used, and the models were her neighbors.

This photograph makes people think. Some people believe it's about how society treats older people. Others think it's about nuclear war and what happens afterward.

Fox Games

Her 1989 artwork, Fox Games, is also very imaginative. It shows a restaurant scene. The tables, chairs, and food are all painted in shades of gray. Bright red foxes are playing around the room.

Revenge of the Goldfish

Another well-known piece is Revenge of the Goldfish (1981). It shows many goldfish floating above two people in bed at night. This artwork was even used on an album cover for the band Inspiral Carpets.

The artwork uses strong colors. A deep blue background looks like night or the ocean. Bright orange goldfish float through the room. The people in the bed are hard to identify, which adds to the mystery.

True Fiction Series

In 1985, Skoglund created a series called "True Fiction One." She used a technique called photomontage. She took black and white photos of street scenes. Then she added color in the darkroom. She cut and pasted parts of the photos to make new pictures. She re-photographed these collages.

In 2005, she updated this series using digital tools like Photoshop. This new series is called "True Fiction Two."

Unique Installations

In 2002, Skoglund designed the men's bathroom for the Smith College Museum of Art. This installation was called Liquid Origins, Fluid Dreams. She created special designs on ceramic tiles. These designs were based on old stories and myths.

In 2008, she started "The Project of the Four Seasons." This series has nature themes.

Fresh Hybrid (2008) is an artificial landscape. Grass and bark are replaced with pipe cleaners and wool.
Winter started as an installation but became a digital artwork. She imagined snowflakes and first made them from clay. Later, she created them digitally.

In 2015, her 1979 work Hangers was shown in New York City. It shows a man in yellow pajamas in a dreamlike room. There are rubber duckies, plastic chairs, and blue plastic hangers on a yellow wall. Skoglund recreated this work for a special display. A performer would even walk around the space during the exhibition.

Where to See Sandy Skoglund's Art

Sandy Skoglund's art has been shown in many places around the world.

Her famous work Revenge of the Goldfish was shown in the 1981 Whitney Biennial. It was also shown at the Saint Louis Art Museum. The Smith College Museum of Art owns the original installation of this artwork.

In 2000, an exhibition of 30 of her works was held in Geneva, Switzerland. It showed her art from the late 1970s to the 1990s. Skoglund has said that for her, the meaning of her work is "really in doing it."

In 2019, a large exhibition of her work was held in Turin, Italy. It was called Sandy Skoglund: Visioni Ibride, which means Hybrid Visions. This name refers to how she mixes different art forms and images.

Her artworks are part of many museum collections. These include:

Images for kids

Skoglund in 2013