Exercise 2.3 : My current position

Take a look at these pieces of art work, some or all of which you might have seen before.

Write down your thoughts about each one. Try to answer the following questions:

• 
  What do you think was the artist’s intent?
  
• 
  What does the image make you feel? Does it create any questions or conflicts in your
  
  mind?
  
• 
  Why do you think the artist has chosen to work in this way?
  
• 
  Is this art? 
  
  

A - My Bed, Tracey Emin

•   What do you think was the artist’s intent? 


To show how debilitating mental breakdown can be

•   What does the image make you feel? Does it create any questions or conflicts in your 
mind? 


Makes me feel sad that someone can be so far down in life to have to take to their bed and ignore everything around them

•   Why do you think the artist has chosen to work in this way? 


Perhaps Tracey felt that ‘a picture was better than 1000 words, much more understandable in physical form that a descriptive passage

•   Is this art? 


To me this is art but not in the conventional sense. 

B Convergence, Jackson Pollock www.kaliweb.com/jacksonpollock/images/art/convergence.jpg


•   What do you think was the artist’s intent? 


From the website http://willsavive.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/jackson-pollocks-convergence-is-all.html the following explanation is given: ‘At the time of the painting, the United States took very seriously the threat of Communism and the cold war with Russia.  Convergence was the embodiment of free speech and freedom of expression. Pollock threw mud in the face of convention and rebelled against the constraints of societies oppressions.  Convergence was the embodiment of free speech and freedom of expression’.

I hate to admit this but I can’t see what the artist was trying to show/say with this painting. In fact I get the impression of a landfill site where someone has tipped all the rubbish from the town together.

•   What does the image make you feel? Does it create any questions or conflicts in your 
mind? 


Makes me feel confused as to why an artist would paint such a conflict of colours.  There seems no rhyme or reason in the construction.

Why do you think the artist has chosen to work in this way? 


From the same article Pollock is quoted as saying: ‘When I am in my painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It's only after a sort of ‘get acquainted’ period that I see what I have been about.’

•   Is this art? 


Who knows, but when it was painted it was generally accepted as a way of expressing freedom of speech.  Whether it’s art is another matter completely.

C Hell, Jake and Dinos Chapman http://lpbrull.home.xs4all.nl/digipage/digipage/HELL/hell_overview.htm


http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jun/16/jake-and-dinos-chapman-how-we-made-hell

•   What do you think was the artist’s intent? 


To show that not only the PoWs abd Jews were in a situation of hell over which they had no control but that the German general population were also in the same situation

•   What does the image make you feel? Does it create any questions or conflicts in your 
mind? 


Makes me feel revulsion, partly that some one wanted to create such a thing and partly that they wanted to display it.  I can only be thankful that I was not born when these atrocities were committed and I do feel it’s important to remember them, but it does seem that however much publicity is given to these crimes, there are those who perpetuate them and take their brutalities much further.

•   Why do you think the artist has chosen to work in this way? 


I don’t know, this whole piece of art seems to have been created in one person’s mind then regurgitated into the most spectacular mess.

•   Is this art? 


To me this isn’t art, it’s just other people’s pain and grief displayed for the artists’ gratification

D Bram Stoker’s Chair, Sam Taylor-Wood www.chairblog.eu/2010/08/10/bram-stokers-chair-series-by-sam-taylor-wood/

•   What do you think was the artist’s intent? 


Firstly to represent the female form but not in a totally nude way, going against convention in displaying the female form.  By dressing in a simple top and shorts the female form can be clearly seen but not in any way can be interpreted as vulgar.

By the use of Photoshop the photographer also links into the idea that Bram Stoker (Dracula as a vampire) had no shadow.  This set of images gives the female figure a shadow – denoting that she is in fact a human figure - but the chair has no shadow inferring that it is not human.

•   What does the image make you feel? Does it create any questions or conflicts in your 
mind? 


I’m completely at home with a nude female form and how artistic it can be, especially photographed creatively with the careful use of lighting.  These images make me think about how they were created as they couldn’t be straightforward images, they had to have been created from several different images.

•   Why do you think the artist has chosen to work in this way? 


The photographer could well have wanted to show a different side to nudity.  Rather than the conventional one of everything ‘on show’ the discrete wearing of the model’s clothing makes the model more alluring.

•   Is this art? 


To me in a strange way it is art but not as we usually accept things being ‘art’.  The figure, the shadow and the chair form an