gentileschi orlan (1 Viewer)

[lazybum]

i want to review 2 of my artists
might as well post it on the web so other ppl can take a look....

Artemisia Gentileschi
worked during the Baroque period (17th cent)
Baroque times very patriachal and parochialist
women at bottom of social ladder
women definitely not considered fit for artistry
father orazio introduced her into the artworld, helped her to paint
art teacher raped her
some historians maintain that that is the reason why Gentileschi depicts such dramatic displays of woman victorious over man
critics such as Griselda pollock disagree , say one should not focus on her life more than her paintings.

Judith & Holofernes
uses theatrical 'Chiaroscuro' techique to enhance the drama and action
use of diagonals , strong blues and reds
realistic and dramatic technique
depicts Judith & servant Abra slaying the general
subverts reality - woman at top. male at bottom
appropriates 'male gaze' this time the male vulnerable, fearfully looking at audience

Audience and World
As mentioned b4 , gentileschi's world very male orientated
males very critical of her because she was doing a 'mans thing'
nevertheless some ppl admired her eg she was courtpainter to Charles the 2nd
had a medal dedicated to 'Artemisia Gentileschi - the extraordinary woman painter'
art teacher can be seen as raping her bc he was jealous of her achievements as a woman
Mary Garrard notes however that she is hardly considered famous for an artist of such high calibre.
In today's world she can be seen as one of the originators of the feminist art, someone who challenged established social order

anybody got anything else to add? post it !!

Orlan
contemporary artist
can be seen as a feminist, postmodernist, performance artist
challenges established parameters such as the body as sacred
seeks to make the body as representing an individuals identity bc she says 'skin is decieving. ' says our looks don't represent identity
works in response to todays values ie the notion of appearance . Appearance is everything
nevertheless she parodies appearance. Her performance work had made her the emodiment of exceptional beauty yet she looks abnormal and surreal . Thus perhaps beauty isn't everything

Reconstruction of St Orlan'
Her work is a performance work.
In an operating room. Surgeons dressed up in costume. posters on the wall.
orlan reads text and dictates to the surgeons.
acoustics and visuals . these are transmitted to audience outside
Orlan takes only local anasthetic so she can be conscious throughout the performance.
her facial features are made to represent an amalgamation of Dianna, Venus, the Monal Lisa, etc etc

Audience & world
Postmodern plus feminist and technologically influenced artist
she emphasised the seemingly impossible in the world around her

Audience (obviously) is horrified but in different degrees. ie public criticism would denounce orlan for her crazy antics. on the other hand ppl in the artworld might think she is crazy but they recognise her artistic intention.

Dilemma: Orlan constructs her own boundaries
Who is the audience? are they the surgeons? (but can't the surgeons also be considered the artist)
if that's the case who is the artist????
Finally, if the surgeons perform on orlan, can;t she be considered the artwork ? how can she be artwork audience and artist all at once ? (obviously she can!!)

influenced by Jean Baudrillards 'similacra' . She is hyper real ( a copy of something that doesn't exist!!)
could also be influenced by Barthes death of the author ( can that be applied to art?? ) ie she is playing with G-ds creation

i can't think anybody got anything else t o add?

 

[still ill]

thanks for that lazybum, i'm focusing on Orlan also. she's so interesting and fits perfectly with the 'artist and technology' type question.

others i'm focusing on are Yves Klein:
Yves Klein
French, 1928-1962

The son of two painters, Yves Klein was born in Nice, France in 1928. Always drawn to the limitless blue expanses of sea and sky that dominate life on the Mediterranean coast, Klein expressed in his art the obsessive longing he felt for these weightless, limitless spaces beyond the material world. A self-taught artist, he studied Judo (the marshal art) and Rosicrucianism (a mystical Christian sect) in his teens and twenties. Klein believed that "Judo is, in effect, the discovery of the human body in a spiritual space." Klein was also drawn to eastern religions that envisioned the transformation of the world with static dimensions into an age of space and pure spirit. Through fasting and meditation, he felt that he could leave his body and float into a spatial void.

One of Klein's favorite places for meditation was the basement of a business owned by a friend's father. To mask the claustrophobic quality of the windowless room, Klein created a false sky by painting the ceiling blue. This marked the first time he created a monochomatic painted surface using the color that symbolized limitless space and spiritual purity for him. By 1955, after establishing a Judo school in Paris, Klein committed himself solely to art. In 1956, he held his first major exhibition at the Galerie Colette Allendy. There he showed single-hued paintings which he considered metaphysical fields devoid of emotion.

ABOUT THE ART
In 1960, Klein created and patented the ultramarine color known as International Klein Blue or IKB. He invented the paint with the help of chemists by suspending pure, dry pigment in crystal-clear synthetic resin and compatible solvents. Unlike traditional binders, the new colorless carrier did not dull the individual particles of pigment, but left them with their original brightness and intensity. The novel medium was versatile enough to be brushed, sprayed, rolled, or even thickened and built up on a surface. It quickly dried to a fragile-looking but durable matte finish that, like velvet, offered a plush, light-absorbent surface that seemed to dissolve into a dark, glowing liquid depth.

In his body paintings, or anthropometries, Klein wanted to record the body's physical energy. These body prints on canvas reminded him of the imprints left on the judo mat after one participant has fallen in a contest. In creating his anthropometries, Klein used the human body as a "living paint brush." Bathing his models in his signature International Klein Blue paint, he directed them to press and drag their bodies across paper and canvas, leaving impressions of IKB paint. The resulting images are not only likenesses of the models but also represent their temporary physical presence.

On several occasions, Klein created an anthropometry painting before an audience gathered at a gallery. While an orchestra played the artist's one chord "Monotone Symphony," Klein, dressed in a tuxedo and white gloves, directed models smeared with IKB to lie, twist, drag, sit, or roll on canvas or paper until the desired effects had been realized.

Believing that these performances demonstrated a new way of creating art, Klein aimed at aesthetic distance by avoiding the psychological dimension of the artist's touch:


In this way I stayed clean. I no longer dirtied myself with color, not even the tips of my fingers. The work finished itself there in front of me, under my direction, in absolute collaboration with the model. And I could salute its birth into the tangible world in a dignified manner, dressed in a tuxedo...By this demonstration, or rather technique, I especially wanted to tear down the temple veil of the studio. I wanted to keep nothing of my process hidden.
Untitled Anthropometry (ANT 100), featuring an alignment of five figures, is notable because Klein used his own body to create three of the prints, and the body of his future wife, the artist Rotraut Ueker, to create the other two. His own participation indicates that, in contrast to his official statement above, Klein did not always remain at a distance from the art-making process. Representing a double portrait of the artist and his wife, the work bears comparison to more traditional images of couples, from Adam and Eve to the marriage portraits of Rembrandt and Rubens.

that's from http://hirshhorn.si.edu/education/modern/modern4.html, so try to change it a little, i have more info on sheets but don't want to type it up

anyway, goodluck to everyone!