Function of Studios – Davida’s home

I learnt from this trip to Davida’s home that your studio space could be anywhere; a huge, expensive apartment to a spare room in your home. It all depends on what you’ll be needing it for, what type of work you specialise in as well as affordability. A painter might need a lot of space, when perhaps someone who specialises in films might need to temporarily rent out many different locations. This is a lot to think about when it comes to my own work, as I like to jump into many different things all the time. The space I have at home is perfect for editing films or photography, but I love using my university studio space for larger pieces such as my shaped paintings and clay work, making me think that I might need a large place to create work in the future.

Davida balanced work, being a single mother and her art in one household, proving a great possibility for my future creative space. I’d like a separate place to be able to do my work in, but perhaps it isn’t realistic considering realistic financial situations. But seeing Davida’s work space has eased my mind about this, as she lives near Chapter, where she can work in as well as her home space, proving that there are ways around everything.

V&A: Opera: Passion, Power and Politics

This exhibition dealt with so much that I could incorporate into my art, such as sex and eroticism, and even expressionist violence in the sixth opera; Strauss’s Salome, the 1905 Dresden premiere of which took place against the background of the emergence of the psychoanalytic movement and the growing consolidation of feminism. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s aggressive nudes challenge the viewer, and an analyst’s couch, placed beneath a video of the final scene from David McVicar’s terrifying Royal Opera production, turns Strauss’s necrophiliac heroine into a case study. Strauss’s annotated copy of Oscar Wilde’s play, complete with Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations, arouses something like reverential awe, and costumes by Salvador Dalí and Gianni Versace testify to its almost unnerving attraction. A poster for International Women’s Day in 1925 closes the section and leads us towards Shostakovich’s heroine and her sympathetically observed, if catastrophic, revolt against the male world in which she finds herself trapped.

Die Brücke

The Expressionist group Die Brücke was founded by four architecture students: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Erich Heckel and Fritz Bleyl. They favoured woodcuts (which is something I’m using for my pieces) for their raw physicality and pastels as they allowed them to draw quickly. The female nude had a distinct appeal for the young artists. Using their girlfriends as models, they rejected idealised 19th century depictions of women and instead sought to achieve a more liberated sense of creativity in their work. This links to my practice because it’s precisely my aim – to create quick, political art that challenges norms, especially in women. I’m using vaginas for this because they’re the most “shocking” yet most interesting part of a woman’s body.

Ideas – Huguette Caland’s ‘Self Portrait’

I’m hoping to develop this drawing by firstly making similar simple drawings of female genitalia and then experiment with layering, colours, etc. From these drawings, I hope to create pieces that are in between 2D and 3D paintings, perhaps relief paintings? I want to use different materials to create these to highlight the diversity in female genitalia, as well as creating interesting art pieces in their own right. I plan on keeping my ideas as simple as possible first in order to be able to create something completely out of the ordinary in my more final pieces, which is why I initially chose this art piece. Having such a strong message inside such a delicate and simple drawing enables me to do absolutely anything here. Here are a few drawings I created as a response to her drawing;

I might also use myself as a muse, as did Huguette for this piece, by drawing intimate areas of myself abstractly and then create larger, more final pieces based off of them. Using these pieces as activism is the main purpose of this project, but I do also hope to create fascinating and daring pieces that are going to catch eyes in the first place. In the end, I’ll hopefully have a series of these that will all behold similar and different abstractions while all beholding the same ideas under the feminism umbrella.

Material response to Huguette Caland’s ‘Sef Portrait’

I’ve started quite a few drawings of female genitalia, responding to Caland’s drawing. They’re all made from pen and are simple, just like the ‘Self Portrait’, enabling me to generate ideas quickly. I added colour to the lines to see how they reacted together, creating abstract portraits of vaginas that lead me to think about adding different materials together to create larger pieces. Hopefully, some with paint, wood and clay, and other materials. Here are images from my sketchbook;

I’ve now started cutting out boards, ready to be painted and turned into relief/shaped paintings. My idea is to build onto them other materials to create depth and an abstract look, which develops from the original artwork;

I’ve chosen to bring in my Constellation theory from Goddesses and Monsters of dressing the female body up as a fetish. Instead of choosing the entire body, I chose the scariest body part of them all; the vagina. We’re learning about the castration fear theory and its link to misogyny, creating an almost humorous element to the work. Here are the finished pieces alongside a few drawings;

 

Key concept lectures and how they’ve influenced my practice

Andre Stitt’s lecture on site situation intrigued me on how to use my art and where, especially considering his examples on activism art, which is what I’m heavily looking into again this year. In particular, one of the artists he showed were of the feminist Bonnie Sherk and her Public Lunch piece;

Public Lunch was one of Sherk’s most well-known performance pieces. The piece consisted of Bonnie eating lunch in cages with various animals, such as lions and tigers, at the San Francisco Zoo. She did this on a Saturday at 2pm, during normal feeding time and prime spectator watching. “I was let into the cage in the same way as the other animals, from an outdoor cage through a door that opened automatically and then closed again. I was one of the animals being fed on that Saturday, which was a surprise to most of the spectators who had come to see the Zoo animals eating. I had previously placed certain objects in my cage, which I thought of as a proscenium stage: a well appointed table set with a white linen tablecloth and silverware, a chair, a ladder to the platform above, and another small cage, with a rat in it. I paced waiting for my human meal – which I had arranged to be catered by a then-famous SF restaurant. My lunch was served in dishes and delivered from a wheelbarrow by the Zookeeper in the same way that he delivered the raw meat to the lions and tigers. In the cage with me was another cage, with the rat inside. So there was a cage, within a cage, within a cage. So, who’s in the cage? This opened up a lot of other kinds of questions.”

The idea of her eating in a cage with people watching could also be interpreted as a feminist issue, dealing with female entrapment in society. However she was in a privileged situation within the cage, having had a fancy meal, but was still given it in the same way as the animals, which are seen as lower to humans, making it ambiguous but interesting.

I could look into putting up my activism art in public spaces, even by just walking around with them and see how people would react, as I unintentionally did in this photograph;

 

Constellation – Week 2

Castration Fear

Freud: “probably no male human being is spared the fright of castration at the sight of a female genital”

At about 3/4 years old, a boy sees his mother’s genitals for the first time, which is traumatic for him and starts the fear. His natural psychological thought is that she ‘lost’ her penis, making her vagina terrifying; if she lost hers, he could lose his! This means that he sees his mother as different, thus links and relates to father. This difference is a source of anxiety that carries on into adulthood, turning into misogyny.

This difference is shown in horror films/stories that include murderers who target women. For example, Jack The Ripper removed the wombs of prostitutes, thus removing the difference, especially considering the misogyny behind prostitutes/women in control of their sexuality.

Phallocentrism

“the phallus is a signifier of power”

Fetishism

“popular cinema is said to fetishise the female body in order to avoid the threat of castration anxiety”

There is well known fixation on women’s legs. Why? Thinking back to the young boy looking up to see his mother’s genitals, the first thing he would have seen were her feet. They both have feet, so there’s no difference. He then looks up further, and for a longer time, he’s seeing her legs. Again, he’s in a ‘safe’ place because he’s seeing no difference. But then, he sees her vagina and that’s where the trauma begins. Therefore, he goes back to his safe place before that traumatic experience – which were the legs! The longer the better, as it’d take longer to see the vagina. This explains the stiletto shoe (invented by a man), as they’re designed to make your legs appear longer and to change your posture by accentuating your breasts and bottom – both deflect attention from the vagina. The function for both the breasts and bottom are ignored and instead are seen for desirability. The breasts are especially a comfort to men, as it once fed them.

The Phallic Woman

“The phallic woman is created in response to the fetishist’s refusal to believe that woman does not possess a penis”

Phallic power = ordinary man

Phallic symbols are used for this fantasy. For example, Lara Croft is the ultimate phallic woman (again, designed by a man); she wears tiny shorts that show off her long legs, pointy large breasts and a small waist and carries a gun – the ultimate phallic symbol.

 

Veils and Eroticism

“it simultaneously conceals and reveals, provoking the gaze” (Doane. 1991:49)

Desire is wanting and not having. If you can’t see anything, or can see everything, you won’t be interested. This links to Pygmalion’s fetish to wanting to undress his sculpture.

Undoing and unwrapping 

“silk satin bows… the desire for discovery of the body’s hidden gifts”

They’re always placed on dresses over the “safe places” on a woman’s body, such as above the bottom, down the stomach, on the breasts, etc. The bows keep everything contained while still being an invitation to open – you want to touch silk and satin.

Hair is a fetish 

Hair can be the veil that hides thus creating an air of desire and mystery. When Britney Spears shaved her hair off, everyone thought she was having a breakdown – not that she was challenging being objectified. Having no hair meant that she was framed unstable and “out of control”. Because she denied the glamorous rules, she wasn’t desirable anymore and became ‘monstrous’.

 

How can I relate this to my practice?

I’ve been playing with the idea of fetishsim and hair with my shaped paintings, by adding hair to areas where it isn’t acceptable to have it;

I also ‘dressed’ a few sketches to create a fetishised look to the images, corresponding to the Pygmalion myth of only having a peek of what’s underneath. However, my sketches show pretty much everything, creating a sense of irony.

Huguette Caland

Huguette Caland began her career in the early 1960s with erotic abstract paintings and body landscapes and continued to explore the body in a free-spirited way throughout the seventies when she had relocated to Paris. There she collaborated with renowned poets and artists such as Adonis, Georges Apostu and Pierre Cardin. Caland eventually moved to Venice, California in 1987, where her work progressed across a wide range of medium, with her most recent canvases reflecting distorted distance and layered memory, with a playful modernist abstraction. Her work is included in private and public collections across the Middle East, Europe and the US.

I’m choosing her piece “Self-Portrait”, 1971, which is a piece from a series of drawings I saw in the Venice Biennale, which were extraordinarily delicate, intimate ink drawings of female genitalia, for my subject image;

This will influence my studio practice by looking into a different feminist idea, which is also fed from Cath’s constellation group ‘Goddesses and Monsters’, where we speak about how shocking a woman’s vagina is, along with theories by Freud about Castration Fear, Phallic women, etc. I’m looking forward to incorporating ideas from many different areas in order to develop this particular drawing.

Constellation – Week 1

Summary of Pygmalion

Pygmalion is a sculptor in Greek mythology who was bitter about women who were sexually in control of their bodies – prostitutes. Because of this, he remained single. These prostitutes understood that their bodies were a currency and “played the game”, which Pygmalion and Venus were horrified by, since women are “meant” to be in complete obliviousness of their sexual attractiveness to men. They had to be punished for being aware of their effect on men, so Venus turns them into granite; a rough and imperfect material.

He instead decided to sculpt a “genuine girl” out of “snow white ivory”, which has huge connotations of virginity and purity, as well as smoothness and a want to touch, in contrast to granite. Sculptures are also considered “otherwordly” as they’re often made to look perfect and of mythical beings, making this sculpted girl beyond flesh and blood. He made her so realistic that he thought that she was going to move, return his kisses and would bruise by his touch, which might have undercurrents of assault?

He showers her with gifts (other materials) which are shaped to enable the body to incorporate them, thus making them jewellery, only to strip her of the clothing to reveal her naked body: “No less beautiful when naked”. This leaves us thinking that women are only allowed to be sexual for him and his needs, since she’s naked for his eyes only and is “beautiful” but the prostitutes are as ugly as granite. He also felt the need to dress her up in order to be a “real woman” and then play an erotic game of undressing her.

Venus then grants his wish of having his sculpture become a human because she pities him, but she doesn’t just turn her into a human straight away, as she turned the prostitutes into granite; it had to be done through him touching and kissing her.

Ovid’s myth of Pygmalion and constructions of the feminine ideal

• Themes of gender construction and embodiment identified in the poem
• Ovid’s Metamorphosis book 10 investigates themes of sculptural transformation, corporeality and the desire for idealised somatic forms
• The myth offers insights therefore into key tropes relating to gender configuration and discourses of materiality when creating/fashioning representations in visual culture

Plot/theme: Creative Construction of woman into object to be looked at

He carved snow white ivory… giving it shape, a beauty which no woman can be born

• Idealised form from own imagination (no original source as inspiration)
• Idealised form materialised in ivory (flesh-like tone, unblemished, purity and innocence connoted)
• Statue as gendered object/creative, active, desiring male
• Female as passive, silent, stasis – non-threatening sexuality

Had witnessed these women leading reproachful lives and repulsed by the defects nature had bestowed in such abundance upon the female character, he took to living as a single man..

• The defects? – sexual agency – awareness of how to use their bodies as currency, active in the construction of themselves as desirable to men (and must be punished!!)
• ‘real’ flesh and blood women disgust Pygmalion (not perfect, unblemished, beyond his control)

Fashioning femininity: what does it mean to ‘become’ a woman?

Pygmalion is in awe and stokes the fires of passion… for the simulated body… he brings gifts… he adores the limbs with clothes… puts jewels on the fingers… necklaces around the throat..all this becomes her…

• Sexual desire manifested in rituals that heightened sexual consciousness and ‘shape’ feminine identity
• A body adorned and decorated = fetishising  certain ‘parts’ (all female bodies are therefore simulated and disavow ‘naturalness’)

Material Bodies: representing corporeality

yields as Hymettian beeswax re-melts and made pliable by the thumb, it is moulded into many shapes…

• Liminal material – malleable forms
• Reminder of connotations of materials when making objects and representing somatic forms: ivory/flesh, stone and granite, wax and corporeality
• Textures and tactility: shiny, smooth surfaces, tarnished, rough, blemished (and accompanying connotations of ‘real’/’natural’/simulated)

 

Describe  a recent piece of studio work you have done.

Description:

• Vintage type film based of nostalgia/being home
• Used vintage filters
• Radio tuning noise in background
• Political references – “Strong and Stable” voice clips from Theresa May debates and interviews
• Musically influenced
• Lightning strickes

Analysis:

• Used vintage filters to create a feeling of nostalgia to the viewer
• Used nostalgia as a disguise for the political undertones
• Lightening strikes were meant to refer to flashbacks – is nostalgia a good thing? Is is a lie?
• Could use different clips, perhaps more artistic ones that don’t require as much explanation
• Use sounds that I personally feel nostalgic about instead of only using places/general nostalgic sounds

How can I relate this to my practice?

I’ve been looking into dressing up women’s bodies after reading about Pygmalion. I’m stuck between using the whole of a woman’s body or a particular body part, such as a fetishised part. I could use contrasting materials, such as silks and lace against rough wood to signify this myth and patriarchal society.

Venice trip – 5 artists that caught my eye.

Damien Hirst

Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable.

The artist has filled not one but two museums with hundreds of objects in marble, gold and bronze, crystal, jade and malachite – heroes, gods and leviathans all supposedly lost in a legendary shipwreck 2,000 years ago and now raised from the Indian Ocean at Hirst’s personal expense. It is by turns marvellous and beautiful, prodigious, comic and monstrous.

Not only did I find the whole point of this exhibition interesting, but I also enjoyed gazing at the powerful mythological women used it the sculptures, which ties in to the political aspect of my work.

 

 

Senga Nengudi

Exhibition Title: The Elastic Body Image

The shapes and silhouettes created by the stockings call to mind the elasticity of the female body and the transformations it may go through. Nengudi was indeed pregnant with her son when she started producing the sculptures and this explains her interest in exploring these issues.

Stockings were mainly employed because they are economical, practical and flexible and the artist herself wore them before reusing them for her pieces. Swollen or sagging, the stockings remind of buttocks, breasts or even testicles. I and other spectators were able to interact with them as if they were bodies.

Tibor Hajas

Image Whipping and Surface Torture.

Film maker, performance artist and poet, Tibor Hajas produced the majority of his work in the 1970s during Hungary’s ‘closed’ years under the Soviet authoritarian regime.  Inspired by the Fluxus movement, Hajas started to make street actions and conceptual works.  In 1978 he began to undertake ritualistic performances, using his body as the medium. Inspired by the Viennese Actionists as well as Eastern and Tibetan philosophy, he would test his own physical and psychological limits, walking the fine line between life and death in a search for total freedom. “The less you are able to live out reality, even though you are forced to go through it, the more you can experience it in the form of a genre or symbols, that is to say, in art.” [Tibor Hajas]

Although Hajas performed daring actions in front of an audience, the photograph was still a hugely important element in his work: “the lack of photograph is like a lack of water…Communication with the outside world ceases. The story without proof becomes not only private, but a secret story, a hallucination with which one must cope alone.” [Tibor Hajas]. Hajas would plan and arrange the scene, but the majority of photographs were taken by artist and musician János Veto, whom he met in 1974 and continued to collaborate with for the rest of his life. Hajas tragically died in a car accident in 1980 at the age of 34.

 

 

Huguette Caland

Her pieces are on display in the Arsenale section dedicated to the “Dionysian Pavilion”, a space celebrating the female body, its sexuality, life and pleasure. Caland has also included her caftans in this space: “Miroir”, “Tête-à-Tête” and “Tendresse” are indeed on display on her wood dummies.

These surrealist garments on which simple thread is used to recreate symbolical embroideries and trace the countour of a woman’s body, two faces kissing or hands hugging the wearer’s body (while one hand seems to be shutting the dummy’s mouth…) could be conceived as ways to explore the dichotomy between Lebanese conservatism and the Western world so focused and obsessed by appearances.

While these pieces should be deemed as art rather than fashion, there could be space for Caland’s artworks and delicate erotic works in the fashion realm as well.

Michelle Stuart

Flight of Time

Stuart’s original approach to material and process has seen her create large-scale site specific works in the landscape, sculptural installations incorporating found objects, drawings, and audio-visual elements, photographs and drawings and sculptures that bring the material of landscape – earth and rock – into the gallery. Her work articulates a profound engagement with the physicality of space and landscape and the complex entanglement of nature and culture.

A few other artworks that I found interesting: