Still Lifes and Commodities (original) (raw)
Related papers
In Visual Pleasure, Laura Mulvey describes how human curiosity and the desire to look intermingle with a fascination with likeness and recognition: the human face, the human body, the relationship between the human form and its surroundings, the visible presence of the person in the world. 1 Mulvey's analysis of scopophilia, deriving pleasure from looking, emphasizes recognition and misrecognition in objectivity and self-image. " The image recognised is conceived as the reflected body of the self, but its misrecognition as superior, projects this body outside itself as an ideal ego, the alienated subject." (Ibid., 17) Consequently, this misrecognition is caused by the gendered difference in spectator and image representation. Mulvey argues that there is a "determining male gaze" in mainstream cinema, which "projects its fantasy onto the female figure," creating a split between the active male and passive female. 2 For this reason, the scopophilic pleasure in looking by way of cinematic forms continues to determine the female body as a sexual object.
The Vanity of Painting
Oh, capricious muse of the pictorial arts, what fleeting shadows you imprison upon the canvas, binding ephemeral visions in motionless silence! By what unfathomable sorcery do you persuade the human soul to cherish what it scorns in its natural state? Behold, the withered branch transforms into a masterpiece under the master’s brush, and the humble donkey grazing beneath a leaden sky ascends to majesty in paint. How can one not marvel at this paradox, where man’s fragile, vain artistry elevates that which nature, in its eternal splendor, leaves unadmired? Consider the portrait of a simple peasant, his face etched by toil, his calloused hands bearing witness to a life of hardship. In his living presence, laid bare and unadorned, who would pause to admire him? And yet, place that same rugged soul upon the canvas, rendered by the deft strokes of the brush, and suddenly crowds gather, emotions swell, and the magnificence of realism is exalted. Oh, the absurdity of the senses, which revere the imitation while neglecting the original! Painting, like a sly lover, adorns whatever it touches. It cloaks the mundane in mystery, transfigures the ordinary into the epic. The dull sky of a rainy day becomes, under the artist’s spell, a symphony of gray and silver. And man, the astonished spectator, stands in awe of what he once dismissed as trivial. Thus does the brush bestow upon the commonplace a dignity that nature itself could not claim. Is it then illusion that rules our hearts, or does man, a slave to his own imagination, seek to exalt what he cannot fully grasp?
Postgraduate Journal of Aesthetics, 2014
It is generally agreed that Edmund Husserl's theory of depiction describes a three-fold experience of seeing something in pictures, whereas Richard Wollheim's theory is a two-fold experience of seeingin. The aim of this article is to show that Wollheim's theory can be interpreted as a three-fold experience of seeing-in. I will first give an overview of Wollheim and Husserl's theories of seeing-in, and will then show how the concept of figuration in Wollheim's theory is analogous to the concept of the image subject as the depicted object in Husserl's theory. I will claim that our experience of non-figurative pictures is a two-fold seeing-in, while that of figurative pictures is a three-fold seeing-in.
(Re)thinking the IMAGE (Curatorial Essay)
Since the advent of photography the phenomenon of the image has redefined the human experience, both taking us deeper into, and further away from ourselves, blurring the lines between subject and object. The work of these six talented emerging artists calls the image back into question, both stretching and problematizing its definition. Implicit in this action, is challenging the link between the image and how we see/know our human selves.
The Philosophy and Psychoanalysis of the Image: A conversation
Public Seminar, 2017
On the occasion of Totem & Taboo, an exhibition of new paintings by Daniel Horowitz at Tillou Fine Art (running through January 21), philosopher Chiara Bottici and psychoanalyst Jamieson Webster discussed the role of the image in philosophy and psychoanalysis. The exhibition is accompanied by a series of salon-style interdisciplinary conversations and performances during monthly Saturday Salons, a platform for cross-disciplinary conversations and collaborations that includes lectures, performances, concerts, and panels organized by Ella Marder. The group began with the questions: Is the image more real than reality, or the epitome of fiction? Is the image politically conservative or subversive? What is the difference between what is imaginary in an image and what is creative in imagination? The conversation tackled those questions, while focusing on the question of the image as it relates to art and other forms of culture.
The Disquieting Image: Tracing the Visual Essay
Artistic Research Strategies for Embodiment, 2015
Artistic research is still a relatively new field and therefore the publication of this anthology constitutes a significant moment. This volume presents an abundance of approaches to artistic research and demonstrates the breadth and variety of such research. It does so from the viewpoint of several disciplines, encompassing the performing arts, dance, voice work, fine art, drawing, film, video, architecture and philosophy.