Barbarous taste project 9 contd.

Barbarous taste project 9 contd.


I agree with the concept with regard to people's unease when posing for a photograph, generally most do except possibly the professionals who expect this as part of their profession and on occasions will play up to the camera, whereas others are uneasy when put in that situation and so cannot relax in which the end results become force.

Eltnocentricity- based on the attitude that ones own group is superior

Are we conditioned as to what is considered as beauty by the media etc? Is Keint saying that some believe that every image has to perform a use in peoples lives i.e. as selling a product i.e. in advertising, newspapers etc.  Are we expected to believe that because so and so says that this painting, sculpture, prose, make of goods etc. is the best and that you should look no further thus being dictated to?   If so with regard to some modern works I am inclined to reject as I find it difficult to understand what the artist is saying and why some times the work has to be so explicit It seems as though in their wish to become known they have to shock the onlooker.  But one cannot expect all works of art to perform to our own tastes, as everyone has their own likes or dislikes.  (I recently watched a program on David Nash (sculpture in wood) found it very interesting in what one can achieve with wood  and enjoyed the end results).

Quote from Pierre Bourdieu " Photograph's which take too many liberties with the human body provoke unease and or indignation: `If you are going to take it you might as well take the whole thing mightn't you? The face is missing its irritating.' ` It isn't bad, but I would like to see the expression in the face.  I'd have taken the face as well' (hands of a peasant woman 'these hands mean work' Russell Lee Untitled, from The Family of Man' exhibition 1955) though in this case I do find this picture interesting as in my opinion it shows an older person whose hands show that they have worked hard.  And one could imagine the facial expression  as that of a hard working person with a story to tell.

Quote from Sheila Hancock (watercolour program watched recently)  "These days we seem to look at everything though a lens  i.e. camera film etc.  Whereas watercolours oils etc show emotion and pain of the world though  the effort and time taken to observe".

Project 9 Barbarous taste

Photography can been seen as a true picture though according the `Encyclopedie Francaise' any work of art reflects the personalty of the creator .  Photographs record an image but not the original subject as seen by the naked eye.
The artist's sincerity is measured by his or her effort and sacrifice to the work of art where as in some cases the photographic image is produced with less effort and study of the subject.

Aesthete  - one devoted to the principles of whatever is beautiful.

Pierre Bourdieu seems to be saying that in some aspects photography is a lower form of art - using a machine to obtain the desired  effect.  The camera is subordinate to the artist- but the outcome is without a doubt that photography fulfills the expectations that the working class seeks (could that not apply to any class of people?)

With the camera a photo  can be taking instantly with  the right conditions where as with a painting you have to sketch, note colours  prepare canvas etc before you even begin to produce your painting.  

Project 8 The work of art in the age of mechinical reproduction

Project 8 The work of art in the art of mechinial reproduction

(see V& A post re camera-less photographing)

Tautological -repeating the same thing

Walter Benjamin 1892


Works of art can be reproduced in large numbers so become assessable to all, these come in many ways as postcards used in advertisement's in this case helps to sell a product, wallpaper etc.

Walter Benjamin states that the process of picture reproduction was freed from the artist and accelerated as the camera lens could capture instantaneously.  While authenticity perquisite to the presence of the original is outside technical reproducibly the reproduction process i.e. the photo makes it independent from the original.  This means that a copy of the original photo can be used outside its original contexts, although then the quality of the original is depreciated.

The aura is natural to art work mechanical reproduction of artwork eliminates this from the reproductions.  Society is passionate to overcome the uniqueness of reality by accepting reproductions Benjamin states

"To pry an object from its shell to destroy its aura is a mark of perception whose ' sense of quality of things' has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object be means of reproduction ".

I think that there is no substitute for a visit to a gallery to experience the real work even if it is not in its original setting in a way it is a kind of pilgrimage for those unable to travel to see the works of art  that are kept in private collections and galleries in other countries.


The improvement in reproduction methods and possibilities through technological advancement strengthens Benjamin's arguments making his ideas more relevant today. 

The failure of the Soviets experiment does not alter the validity of Benjamin's case I think his ideas are applicable today though human perception, capitalism has changed because of historical circumstances (Marxism has not become obsolete with the collapse of the Soviet Union).

John Berger's 1926 case was a lot easy to understand, it also helped to look at the T.V. programs that I managed to see on U.Tube, although I did read  Benjamin's essay 3 or 4 times being able to watch  I found to easier to understand. Combined with reading both theories, In some aspects I think that being able to purchase copies of art gives you more scope to be able to study individual paintings and or artists at your leisure, also these days you are able to access galleries etc though the Internet.  In some respect a work of art being removed from its original site either grows or fades in the meaning it subverts.  It is no longer where or of whom the work of art was made for to it losses some of its uniqueness. Also when a camera reproduces an imagine of the work of art it destroys and thus its meaning is altered and multiplied.

Nostalgia comes to the for in art because of the camera - familiarity breeds apathy.  The reproduction is used to suppress, it is used politically and commercially as mentioned before in advertisements etc.  When it is used with a background of music or words  it can change your perception of the painting etc as in Berger's example of Van Gough's  Wheat field.

John Berger " Seeing comes before word, a child looks and recognises before it can speak" (Way's of Seeing)

Shadow catchers at V & A london

Shadow Catchers at V and A London

Five international artists have changed the assumption that the camera is necessary to make a photograph. By casting shadows on light sensitive casting paper or chemically manipulating its surface the artists seem to capture the presence of objects, figures or glowing lights, giving exciting images and ofter surreal or abstract effects and symbolic content.  These camera-less photo's were explored at the beginning of photography and have recently been re-discovered so I would imagine with a little help from modern technology the artists were able to achieve the end results.

Images made with a camera imply a documentary role, in contract camera-less photograph show what has never existed as they are always the 'the orginal' because they are not made from a negative.

The artists involved in this exhibition are Pierre Cordier, Susan Derges, Adam Fuss, Gary Fabian Miller and Floiris Neususs.   

thoughts of the subject of modern art (10/01/2011)

When you see an object, photograph, plant, etc and you look at the shape and not the subject itself. You may think I could use this in a painting drawing etc. Does that subject become a means to an end, by changing the composition of the painting so that the object becomes something different.

i.e.  when using the outline of the object chosen, lets take a tree trunk the outline of which could become a part of a subject I am painting ?? i.e. using the shape as part of another drawing a part of a sculpture.

Project 7 The Flanneur

Project 7 The Flanneur

 Definition  stroller -lounger-saunterer - loafer



Charles Baudelaire 1821-1867

French poet art critic (portrait painted of him by Courbet 1848)

Charles Baudelaire - his definition of flanneur was that of a person who walks the city in order to experience it - this does not limit the word to someone committing the act of a peripatetic stroll in the Baudelaire sense but can include a complete philosophical way of living and thinking.  After the French 1848 revolution the empire was re-established with bourgeois pretentious of 'order and morals' .  Baudelaire turned to art saying that traditional art was inadequate for the new modern life.  Social and economic changes brought on by the industrialisation demand that artist immerse themselves in the metropolis and in Baudelaire's phrase `a botanist of the sidewalk`  

Walter Benjamin 1938 wrote an essay on flanneur as part of an analysis of the Paris poet Charles Baudelaire  "The Painter of Modern Life" in which he showed a poetic and poets vision of public places and spaces of Paris coining the term "motility" Benjamin was himself associated with a left wing group of Marxist intellectuals (the Frankfurt School) in which he used Baudelaire's poet or the figure of a flanneur as a metaphorical device for understanding the cultural impact high capitalism had on Parisian's in the mid 19th century.  He turned his mind to the arcade or in his words' the original temple of commodity capitalism'.   the glass covered passageway filled with shops commodities, consumers and prostitutes provided the flanneur who in defiance of high capitalism would stroll and observe the intoxicated consumers.

The Works of Art in the age of Mechanical Reproduction 1935 acknowledges that change often occurs in ways that artists can neither predict or control.  19th century innovations in techniques or reproduction (photography and film) transformed the experience of art in such a way that Benjamin calls "the decay of aura" this meaning that a work that processes an aura (an effect of distance) must be unique and remain inaccessible to the audience.  He insists that aura has a ritual function that can makes itself useful in cults (fascism ' Fuhrer cult' ) as a modern ritual that changes art for reactionary means yet film and photo made it possible  to make endless copies of works of art therefore depriving it of its aura (if you see too many photos etc of a famous work of art it becomes the norm not original masterpiece ( i,e,at an art gallery).

For Baudelaire the role of the artist was to express modern life and human emotion which was to engage with the outside world  Schwarzback (1979-.1) suggested that 'modern life is city life' (the city is a playground of inspiration and a perfect setting for the artistic expressions of modern life

Schwarrzbak (1979.23) also suggested that Charles Dickens had an 'attaction of repusion' towards city life seen in his novels "places and people" in London are used in Oliver Twist to show a nightmare vision of a city of death (dark,evil, fear and suspense for both the characters and the reader.  Dickens walked the city (playing the role of the flaneur) which would act like a tonic and enable him to take up with new vigour the flagging interest of his stories and breathe new life in the them. 

Street Photography  The flanneur term tendency towards detached but attuned observation

One notable application of flanneur of street photography comes from Susan Sontag 1933-2004 American author literary theorist and political activist in a 1977 essay, In the book On Photography as well as her view of the history and present day role of photography in capitalist societies in the 70's  she describes how, since the development of hand held cameras in the early 20th century the camera has become a tool  for the flanneur.

visit to Tate Britian Oct 2010

visit to Tate Britain 2010


Paintings

Paul Nash 1889-1946 English landscape artist- surrealist notably war artist considered one of the most important English artists of 1st half of 20th Century

His painting of Totes Meer 1940 (Dead Sea) painted during his time as war artist (2nd world war)  From a distance you think you are looking at a rough landscape it is not until you get closer that you see the planes like a plane graveyard which I guess it is one of the affects of war.  Nash was said to say 'Death is the only solution on how to fly'.  was also known to sometimes work from photographs.

John Linnell 1792-1882 English landscape artist and naturalist 

Kennsington Gravel Pits 1811-12  oil on canvas  this painting with its observation of textures for the ground bright lighting and the vivid sky was developed from a study of watercolours previously painted by Linnell

Peter De Wint 1784-1849  English landscape artist

Children at Lunch by Cornstock 1810  oil on canvas

This captures the children taking a well earned break from the hard labour working at a young age on the farm they are captured completely unaware of being observed.

David Wikie 1785-1841 

The Village Holiday 1809-11 oil on canvas

This painting has so much to see  and say on the moral and humorous study of everyday day life this is on the theme of virtue and vice - (drink)  a man hesitates between going home to the wife or staying for another drink the wrong decision is shown by the collapsed drunk, even the dog was ashamed of him.

There were two paintings by William Mulready (1786-1863)

The Rattle 1808,  The Last 1884 both so clear and detailed the rattle, The Rattle, the father offers a rattle to his child and the man's face reflects the child's delight   The Last,  fully detailed  story of boy arriving late to school and the consequences of this!

Thomas Webster 1800-1886

Late at School 1834  another artist who shared with Mulready the interest in subjects concerning childhood and education.  I like the look on the two children's faces at the entrance you can read what they are thinking! and the child  inside looking out at them.

Duncan Grant 1885-1978

Bathing 1911   the male nudes represent the continuous movement of a single figure and the bodies like the water are stylised to heighten the effect of the decorative image

Definition    Mezzotint is printmaking - technically a dry point method

We looked at many modern pieces in the gallery

Rachel Whiteread 1963  untitled Black Bath 1963

Damien Hurst 1965,  (artist room Tate Britain) 

Trinity Pharmacology, Physiology, Pathology 2000  showing the anatomy of various parts of the body and the development of child in the womb all displayed in wall length glass cabinet.

In the main entrance were two works by Fiona Banner--- impressive the 1st was the Harrier, suspended vertically floor to ceiling wall to wall, mimicking the bird a harrier hawk it had hand painted feather markings, its cockpit was the eyes and the cone was the nose the beak looking like a trussed bird.

Behind this in the next part the the main entrance was the Jaguar  which was belly up on the floor, stripped of paint showing a highly polished surface which becomes a mirror reflecting back its surroundings beautiful work.  Fiona was born 1966 English artist short listed for the Turner Prize 2002 

Note  While reading though book received for Christmas (A Brief History of Art) came across L.H.O.O.Q. Mona Lisa with a moustache 1919/1930 Artist Marcel Duchamp.   Duchamp would purchase everyday items and re-appropriate its use as an art work either by defining or defacing it in some way as in the Mona Lisa this he did by inscribing it with the letters L.H.O.O.Q. and drawing a moustache on the face!!! the letters when spelt out in French read phonetically as Elle a chaud ou cul (she's got a hot arse)  I do not agree with defacing a masterpiece. But I suppose it is one way to catch the public eye and to make them think.