Ex 2.2: Artistic Styles

Exercise 2.2: Artistic styles

Write up to 150 words about an issue that you feel worthy of comment. It can be immigration, finance, social deprivation, domestic violence or any contemporary issue that you feel strongly about. Then make an image that expresses your concerns in one of the three artistic styles listed below. This is not an easy task and you may have to do some research before you start.

Once you’ve completed your first image, have a go at a second image in another style. Try and make time to attempt the third style – or at least make some notes outlining how you’d go about it. You could then come back to this exercise later and put your ideas into practice.

Q: What are contemporary issues?

A contemporary issue can be defined as any event, idea, opinion or topic in a given subject that is relevant to the present day. Contemporary issues can be found in almost any matter of interest.

One social issue that I feel strongly about is that on equality of the sexes.  For too long women have been seen as inferior in society and right back to the 19^th century they have been pressured into managing the household budget, child raising and supporting husbands or siblings.

During and after WW1 and WW2 women proved themselves capable of holding down complex work situations.  Women over 30 were given the vote in the 1920s and gradually the voting age for them became lower and lower.  Now, similar to men, the age for voting is 18 and it’s now under discussion to reduce it for both sexes to 16, an age when people are considered capable of choosing to marry or smoke, etc.

Some things have changed for the better in that both sexes expect to receive compulsory education up until their 18^th birthday.  Whether they want to pursue further or higher education is now up to their own expectations and financial situation. 

Women still have to make a decision as to whether they want to follow their dreams and make a name in their chosen career and wait to have a family or choose a lesser job and follow their hearts into marriage, family and paying off  the mortgage first.  Some women choose the option to have a marriage and a family early in their lives and then develop their chosen career later when their families are adults.  Whilst all women think things have changed, it seems that history repeats itself and we go round and round the Ixiom wheel repeating the same pattern of life in perpetuity. 

Exercise 2.2: Artistic styles part 2

Then make an image that expresses your concerns in one of the three artistic styles listed below. This is not an easy task and you may have to do some research before you start.

Once you’ve completed your first image, have a go at a second image in another style. Try and make time to attempt the third style – or at least make some notes outlining how you’d go about it. You could then come back to this exercise later and put your ideas into practice.

Constructivist: Produce a composite image from several images that you feel fully express your argument or position.

Surrealist: From the same position statement, produce an image based upon surrealist notions of how the issue stands from your position. Why or how do you affect the issue? Is it ‘unconscious’ – just instinct that things should be different – or is it ‘repressive’ in order to provide what you see as a natural order of things? Produce an image that delivers your feelings from a surrealist viewpoint. (Re-read pp.281–82 in your reader if you need a reminder about what these terms mean.)

Conceptual: The issue you’ve written about may be able to furnish you with a concept. Try making a précis of it in about 15 words. Once you’ve realised your concept, plan a way of expressing this in an image. Think in either a literal or non-literal manner – logically or illogically. Anything goes provided that your methodology visually supports the concept and the idea is illustrated through the imagery. 

I've put this image together showing a woman endeavouring to puncture the 'imaginary' glass ceiling that men say doesn't exist.

 

Imaginary Glass Ceiling in Conseptual style

I need to produce an image using the surrealist style so I have gone for the same subject but included a stylized Barbie doll face as men seem to feel that blond women have no more brains than said doll.

I had a bit of fun with this image and tried to make it look as though the woman was actually breaking through but included some stylized imaging as well. See what you think?

Breaking through the glass ceiling

Write the three tasks up in your blog alongside illustrations of constructivist, surrealist and/or conceptual photography

Exercise 2.5: Every day icons

Choose a range of items that represent feminism as you see it and make a collage from photographs of your chosen items. Play with scale, perspective and colour. Black and white – spot colour – it’s your choice.

Feel free to use text to illustrate, i.e. as image rather than text. You can use parts of found images as long as the concept and major images are your own. 

Produce one photo collage digitally. 

Produce a second photo collage in a different, more tactile and responsive manner. Re- photograph the result.

Your collages should be 2:1 ratio, i.e. twice as long as wide. 

Write up the experience in your learning log or blog and comment on how well the two production methods worked.

This is my first attempt using 'everyday icons'.  I thought of womanly bits and pieces such as make up and hair prodicts using the L'Oreal adverts 'You're worth it' but, in the end that was too flippant.  This image incorporates two of the iconic women who work for liberty and feminism in the modern world.  I added the words' libety, equality, fraternity' epitomise how the world is feeling today as a result of the bombings and shootings in Paris recently.  The bullet holes add an extra dimension to the words.

I closed it down and when I reopened it the next day realised it was too 'busy' and needed to be refined to give over the message more simply.

 In my second attempt I wanted to make it much simpler so removed the three words for the text 'True Feminism'.  I thought by blending the two faces together it would show that generation of women joined together to fight for women's rights which are still being denied throughout the world.  The Iron bars behind the faces with bent bars represents how women have won the battle in some areas but have still to win the war for true equality.

Martha Rosler

http://martharosler.net/photo/index.html 

(c) Martha Rosler self portrait

  

I’ve just been looking through some pictures and montages (for which Martha is well-known) and found them very interesting.  Some of her montages are obviously put together with very little skilled melding but they show what she was trying to see.

Her images on ‘Bringing the War Home’ certainly strike a cord with one’s conscience on fighting a war and the consequences of said war.  Her dioramas show concern in how those ‘left at home’ avoid the effects of those brought home injured and with multiple amputations.

Her work on American life gives an insight to how some women want to play a serious part in trying to show how life can be grim for the have nots and luxurious for the people who have money to ease them through life.

Martha’s work has certainly made me think about a woman’s situation in the civilized world, where we are still bashing our heads against a glass ceiling even though men say there is no glass ceiling in the first place.

Exercise 2.4 continued: Stereotypes

 

Produce a set of three images, two false, one true. Show them to as many people you can and keep a track on the results. Can people spot the genuine image? Look for a pattern. Do people want the person to be something other than what they actually are? 
 

The aim here is to get people to question what a doctor or a student or a politician looks like.  

Write around 250 words in your learning log or blog reflecting on what you’ve found out about stereotypes and our need to ascribe characteristics to particular roles.

 

I'm finding this difficult to set up as most of my friends and acquaintences work or lead active lives, but not in paid roles.  I've been trying to think up which ones would be willing to help me cover this exercise of dressing as what they normally do and other roles which they wouldn't normally cover.

That's only half the work as I'll then have to trawl the images round to other people asking about which job my pictures show is the one that this person really does.

I found a friend who was willing to particpate in this exercise, thanks Rosie and Daisy her daughter.

Hooligan

House agent

Nurse

I've produced 3 for the purposes of this exercise.  I'll take the images out tomorrow to see what people think.

30th November Sample
I've been asking people I know and those who were strangers to me and the consensus of opinion was that the first image of this person dressed as a hooligan was way out of character for the person.
The majority of people, ie, 8 out of 12, asked thought that picture 2, the estate agent, was the correct job for this person.  Reasons given were that:

• she was smartly dressed
• looked like she was holding an appoinment book which would be essential in this job
• gave the impression that this was her job

Picture 3 of the nurse was given 4 votes and the reasons given were:

•  that she was dressed for the job and had the necessary equipment
• she looked caring

I know it's not a very scientific study but enough to show that wearing the correct clothes the majority of people can pass for something they are not but that they might aspire to.  American humorist Mark Twain said, "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society." Twain has a point. Often, before others know anything else about you, they judge your outward appearance.  It's often said that job applicants can win or lose a job in the first 30 seconds of an interview, just on first impressions.

Exercise 2.4: Stereotypes

Research point

Do some research into the work of three important women artists of the twentieth century: Hannah Höch (1889–1978), Tamara de Lempicka (1898–1980) and Frida Kahlo (1907–54).

I did assignment 4 critical review in Progressing with Digital Photography on how women photographers have evolved since photography began.  I researched several famed women photographers of today including Cindy Sherman and Lee Miller and feel that they are quite right in that women are objectified in pictures and these in themselves give impossible ideals for the girls and women of today to live up to.  In fact, it can have quite the opposite effect in that they go to extreme lengths to copy what they see and make themselves ill or near death (ie anorexia, bulimia) to feel good about themselves. 

Hoch, Lempicka and Hahlo are new to me but their work certainly shows what the average woman would aspire to.  Richard Billingham, Larry Sultan and Tina Barney started out showing their worlds as they were but eventually went to arranging their images to suit their ideas.

Today many magazines and fashion houses are severely criticized for using and portraying models as stick sized women claiming that their designs can only be shown successfully on a very thin person.  Some model agencies now only use models with more acceptable figures but every so often the industry is found to have regressed to the very thin ideal.  Cases of anorexia and bulimia have risen since the onset of the flat chested thin teenage girls as models causing much concern about ideals that cannot be achieved.

Articles are easy to find which cricitise this tendency towards unnatural body shapes :
  
The Sun ran an article recently

As did The Telegraph

And the Daily Mail

But still the industry fail to take much notice of these concerns !

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   

Off again with new research

I'm back to studying the manual to get as much background research into different photographers and it suggests looking at the work of Richard Billingham and Tina Barney.

Richard's work seems to be a haphazard docmentary collection of his dysfunctional family in a tower block flat.  He saw many strange things happening in his home but, as he knew nothing different, thought this was the norm way that families were.  He tried to isolate himself from outside influences and it makes you wonder if he was severely depressed cutting himself off.  In a YouTube video he even makes mention of creating a film featured in a prison cell.

Tina Barney on the other hand features upper class Americal families who still display dysfunctional tendancies but with better more afluent situations and toys.  I felt drawn to Tina's style of photography and the way her images were linked together although listening to a talk of her's she must put together her scenarios unconsciously and only identifies the links after she had printed up her large five feet by four feet prints.  See Tina Barney lecture here

Neither Richard nor Tina have embraced the digital age and continue to use film cameras.  Richard says that when he uses digital cameras he is contiually striving to better his last image but when using film he has to be content to wait until the film is printed to see what he has captured. View here

Tina feels that digital images miss the finer points which are only seen when an image is printed up and can be examined at leisure.

I feel that I have more in common with Tina Barney's work, and not as she is a woman photographer, but with her style of pictures.  I want to catch that ad-hoc moment with people whatever their situation to give a real look at who they are.