Artist as subject : subject as object (original) (raw)
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The Self as Subject and Sculpture
Art Design Creative Industries Faculty, 2008
Conclusion Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the invaluable support and feedback of my supervisor, Dr Dan Wollmering, whose encouragement and academic stewardship through the difficulties of external studies has been highly instrumental in the realisation of this project. I would also like to express my gratitude to my colleagues at QUT Visual Arts, Dan Mafe and Mark Webb who acted as sounding boards for many of the ideas in this paper and whose experience and critical insight was, and remains, a great source of creative energy to me. However, my greatest thanks I reserve for my partner, Dr Courtney Pedersen, whose critical feedback, editing assistance, technical advice and moral support (often under adversity) have been hugely influential to both this project and my practice more broadly and deserve stronger praise than words can provide. And finally, I would like to acknowledge Dr Ross Moore, who provided the initial impetus for me to enrol in the Faculty of Art and Design and enabled me to understand that I had a research topic worthy of MFA study.
“Sexing Sculpture: New Approaches to Theorizing the Object.”
Art Journal 72, no. 4 , 2013
how do sculptural practices uphold or, conversely, equivocate the certainties of gendered and sexual embodiment? Having first broached the issue in our own writings on such artists as Lynda Benglis and Rachel Lachowicz, it seemed relevant to us. in a moment in which issues pertaining to gay marriage. queer suicide, intersexed athletes, and transgender pageant contestants-are increasingly dominating news headlines, to assess whether and how other artists and scholars might be responding. We sought out proposals that interrogated how sculpture, and the unwieldy relations it incites between bodies and objects, figured into these sexual politics. While few of the submissions we initially received for our panel addressed these pressing cultural issues head-on, the contributions we ultimately selected do demonstrate. in a more tacit fashion, a belief in the capacity for sculpture, and particularly abstract sculpture. to enable alternative modes of erotics and embodiment. In drawing different conclusions about the significance of this conviction for both the maker and the audience, as well as for received histories of contemporary sculpture. without exception the contributors we have included here rebuff a common critique that to raise questions of gender, race, and sexuality in nonfigurative artworks is to read too much into them. In their conversation, David Getsy and Jennifer Doyle discuss this very issue at length. As Doyle tellingly remarks: "We do not encounter [art works] in isolation: we bring a history of sensation to them." She cites Senga Nengudi's biomorphic works in this context. In point of fact. the very title of Nengudi's series of sand-and rubber-filled pantyhose sculptures from the mid-1970S, R.S.V.P, is a pointed request for viewers to respond to the work's corporeality. Nengudi's dark, pendulous forms invoke the physical resiliency of the human body as well as the increasing elasticity of gender, sexual. or racial labeling.
Modern and Postmodern Expressions of the Self: Freudian Psychoanalysis of Art
The International Journal of Indian Psychology, 2021
Sigmund Freud's method of psychoanalysis has not only been fundamental for the discipline of psychology, but also for analysing works of art. Freud, beginning with his oft-cited psychobiography of Leonardo da Vinci, introduced the concept of studying an artist and its praxis from a psychic space; a concept that was revolutionary for its society that up until then experienced artworks through a romantic lens. The creation of a work of art was no longer simply the product of an intuitive 'genius,' but also the culmination of psychological factors like suppressed wishes and instinctual desires, familial relationships, childhood experiences, and dream sequences and fantasies, among others. Not only has such psychoanalysis inspired the Surrealist art movement, but also helped scholars in studying works of art, and their artists. In this paper, using Freudian principles, I psychoanalyse eight works of art produced in and beyond the ambit of Surrealism. With such an exercise, my aim here is to examine the creation of the self-portrait (and by extension, the image of an artist's self) as a site of multiplicities. It is a site that is the product of an unconscious that is being constantly shaped, right from the artist's childhood. For every artist, I have provided a small vignette that explains their oeuvre, its influences and aims, and how we can study the subtextual elements of their influential unconscious. With my examination, we can witness the projection of the self in a postmodern world where such sites are by their very nature, deconstructed, transient, and multiple.
The End of Modernism and the Reflection of Human Condition in Figurative Sculpture
2016
This descriptive-analytical paper aimed at analyzing contemporary human condition in figurative sculpture during the end of modernism. It aims at identifying the origins of major and recurrent patterns in the works of contemporary figurative sculptors. The major patterns stem from feeling of being lost and the gap in personal identity, which in turn, stem from the unrepeatable events during the decades of late 20th century; challenges, such as the hasty life in the age of technology, forests and expeditions, illness, poverty, and so on. Unlike bygone artists, contemporary artists no longer see human beings as a beautiful, powerful, and different creature. Rather they consider him as a product of pain, suffering, and personal and social wounds. Since works of art reflect the zeitgeist and dominant thoughts of an era, this paper briefly reviews the elements affecting earlier figurative works of art, such as mythology and religion, which also appeared in the humanism of modernity. Then...
Exhibiting sculpture by women in Britain, 1977-1988:marginalised practices and their reception
2021
This research project explores women artists' relationship with, and contribution to, contemporary sculpture in Britain between 1977 and 1988. This was an era in which the male-dominated New British Sculpture group were singularly promoted as representing the very best of British art, while women's contributions to the developments of sculpture were unequally exhibited, promoted, and critically discussed, and were thus marginal to the mainstream. Sculpture has traditionally been associated with stereotypically "masculine" qualities, including heaviness, permanence, and monumentality, all of which were canonical expectations of a medium that historically prioritised figuration and solid materials such as marble and bronze. Additionally, the most visible sculptors, up to and throughout modernism, were male. However, the British art scene of the 1980s saw sculptural practice become energised with new material and conceptual possibilities. This included a rise in gallery-based and installation sculpture as well as increased use of non-canonical materials and processes, thus making the medium accessible to a wider range of artists. This thesis explores women's sculptural practices from this era, specifically work presented in galleries and in the context of group exhibitions that aimed to address women's ongoing marginal position. Through empirical evidence, including new interviews and archival research, the thesis offers an interjection to established institutional narratives. An examination of women-centred exhibition histories provides a methodological framework through which to explore the slowly increasing visibility of women's sculptural practices and the developing discourse around gendered differences in art production. The beginnings of second-wave feminism and the Women's Movement provide key sociopolitical contexts. However, feminist artistic pursuits are not the focus. Instead, the study addresses a strand of currently under-researched art history, questioning the notion of "feminine aesthetics" within women's work, as well as how women's sculpture was differently promoted and received within the art world. The key findings of this project expose the weaknesses of defining a separate, feminine, category of art, demonstrating instead the richness and complexity of women's diverse art practices. It additionally highlights the stereotypes commonly associated with women's work, arguing that the utilisation of such stereotypes within art criticism was complicit in sustaining male dominance within the artistic canon. By highlighting five key, women-centred exhibitions, exploring their motivations, the work presented and the critical response, this thesis presents research that augments existing art histories, underlining the significant contributions of women artists to developments in contemporary sculpture. My sincerest thanks go to my supervisors at Coventry University, Dr Imogen Racz and Prof. Jill Journeaux for their unfaltering encouragement, support and kindness. I am also deeply appreciative of the inspiration provided by previous teachers, in particular Dr Matthew Partington and Dr Peter Dent, without whom I would not have felt confident in my abilities to undertake a PhD. On a practical note, this project was made possible because of a studentship funded by Coventry University's Centre for Arts, Memory and Communities, to whom I am very grateful. I would also like to thank my wonderful PGR colleagues in the department for all the shared celebrations, commiserations and coffees: Dr
Arte, Individuo y Sociedad, 2019
This paper aims to reflexively tackle a specific artwork: The Widow, the most renowned, yet under-studied, sculpture of António Teixeira Lopes, a prominent artist of the Portuguese nineteenth century. Therefore, the analysis of this piece, based on several inquiring procedures believed useful to all art historians, is converted into an epistemological exercise. Firstly, the Romantic sensibility is characterised, alongside the ponderment of the widow's representational allure. Women and death's perception in the nineteenth century is thus brought into question. Moreover, the social condition of widows and their identity codification is considered so that the relationship between reality and representation is critically appraised. Secondly, the focus shifts to the sculptor himself and his creative process. At the time living in Paris, his potential connections with death experiences, his professional goals and the pressure of the artistic environment contribute to explain Teixeira Lopes' selection of this subject. Finally, the sculpture itself is thoroughly examined, questioning every formal choice and its meaning, searching for secular and contemporary visual stimuli which could have deliberately or unconsciously interacted within the creative process. To conclude, the need to approach an artwork simultaneously as unique and as a historical object in its turn chronologically transversal is stressed. [es] Este artículo analiza pormenorizadamente la pieza escultórica La Viuda de António Teixeira Lopes, que, aunque es una de las más famosas de este autor ha sido, a su vez y de manera sorprendente, una de las menos estudiadas hasta la fecha. Así, hay que señalar que en este texto no sólo se ofrece un estudio analítico de la citada pieza, sino que se presenta también con una visión epistemológica de la historia del arte. La Viuda se caracteriza por su sensibilidad romántica por la elección del tema, del que destaca la consideración de la condición social de las viudas y la codificación de su identidad, pero, al mismo tiempo y de manera crítica, se evalúa la relación entre arte y realidad. Así, se justifica que esta obra, que fue concebida en París, tenga un significado especial en relación a los episodios biográficos del autor y su relación con la muerte, así como sus inquietudes profesionales y circunstanciales del entorno artístico que explican la selección del tema. Para completar este análisis, en este artículo la escultura es examinada a fondo, cuestionándose las autoras el significado de cada opción formal, buscando estímulos visuales que pueden haber actuado deliberada o inconscientemente en el proceso creativo. Para concluir, se enfatiza la necesidad de abordar una obra de arte como única y, simultáneamente, como un objeto histórico cronológicamente transversal.