Experience, Create, Review, Repeat

I’ve been going over ideas for how to make use of the Dapper Laughs ‘comedy’ material and something has come up.

Aims for the work:

– represent the uncomfortable feeling of being bombarded with misogyny
– create a space where the noise of his language is like a never-ending barrage
– symbolise the excess of continuing misogynistic attitudes in western society

Notebook Page

At first it felt to me like the neon sign demonstrating a similar attitude to that expressed in Dapper Laughs’s language links well and could work in the piece as another element.  I imagine a small space (discomforting) filled with loud noise of misogynistic ‘banter’ language (bombarding) and nothing to see but the (perhaps flickering) lights of the neon sign depicting even more misogyny.  Altogether I feel like it would be an almost nauseating experience of what it’s like to understand just a small element of the chauvinism that still exists after such a sustained fight for gender equality.

LESS IS MORE!!!
 
After a really interesting group crit session with a visiting student from the RCA Reika, I started to realise that this idea is exactly the kind of thing I have been hoping to avoid in my work.

why it wouldn’t work so well:

– too many elements
– too ‘in your face’ which is what I want to avoid
– throwing too much in smells like lack of confidence

Reika made an interesting point that just using the sound and keeping the installation as simple as possible would give the work more strength.  If it’s discomfort I’m going for, often a lack of something can be just as discomforting if not more so, than a barrage of it.

Notebook Page
 

I’ve been pointed in the direction of the work of Helen Chadwick and was instantly intrigued.  I like how links seem to pop up just at the right point, when they seem to fit perfectly into this time.  Initially as in the last post, I was interested in her questioning of her own issues in work like Ego Geometria Sum, then the more I researched, the more interesting and varied material I found.

I like:
– The way materials she uses are so conflicting
– the instantaneous repulsion and seduction
– it can be shocking but not gratuitously

Effluvia, 1994,  Helen Chadwick (Installation view from the exhibition Helen Chadwick: Effluvia, Serpentine Gallery), London (20 July – 29 August 1994)
Available at: http://www.serpentinegalleries.org/exhibitions-events/helen-chadwick-effluvia

Loop My Loop, 1991, Helen Chadwick, (photograph of human hair and pigs bladder)
Available at: http://imageobjecttext.com/2012/04/09/sensory-overload/

Both the images above are intended to be repugnant but seductive simultaneously.  I find myself initially, adequately repulsed by the pigs bladder in Loop My Loop, and the awkward shape of the phallus and oozing chocolate in Effluvia, then seduced.  However, although I’m seduced by the objects within the work, the pretty gold hair and the velvety, warm smoothness of the chocolate, I’m also seduced by the concept.  I like what she’s done because I feel like my emotions have been toyed with and then comes a realisation of the idea behind that emotional ride.
Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s her work became richer and more direct in impact. A fountain of thick chocolate called Cacao carried associations both of excessive physical desire and pleasure, at the same time being base and nauseating.
(http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/helen-chadwick-2253)

This quote from the Tate website highlights another element of her work I find exciting.  “her work became richer and more direct in impact”.  I like this.  This is the kind of thing I’m aiming for.  Whether I’m capable of it is a whole other question but I can only try.  It brings me back again to a question that I keep asking myself:

How can I make my work seductive yet repulsive, intelligent and impactful in a similar way????
 
Although, as I’ve mentioned in the last post, some of the ideas that come into my thoughts seem initially repulsive, I’m beginning to understand that that repulsion can be a good thing if dealt with in the right way.  ‘In your face’ feels inappropriate, it’s been done and can easily become cliché.  The brash ‘ladette’ style of feminism has had it’s time and I’m getting the feeling that a more eloquent voicing of opinion is the way to go.

As a direct result of researching the work of Sarah Lucas, I came across the feminist author Andrea Dworkin.  I found that Lucas was influenced by the writings of Dworkin who was an outspoken critic of misogynistic attitudes towards women, specifically pornography.

Reading this work has been another stage in the progression of my journey into this field of research.  It’s pretty heavy going but it’s becoming clear how works like this and the ideas it discusses have been so influential on particularly Lucas’s work.

As I’m reading I keep coming across bits that I can almost tick off as having been a direct reference in Lucas’s artworks.

 

Front Cover of Pornography, Men Possessing Women, 1989, Andrea Dworkin

 

Particular themes are becoming more interesting to me.

 

– women portrayed and widely understood to be objects for the fulfilment of male sexual desires.

– the power of naming being a masculine power

– language being a male tool and the restrictions that places on any feminine stance

 

At one point, a particular phrase struck a chord while I was reading Pornography….

 

“The two poles of her existence as a white woman are underscored:  she is boss, she is total submissive.”

 

It made me think about the decades of fighting for gender equality and ask myself whether I felt any real progression had ever been made.  Dworkin speaks extensively of the objectification of women and with this in mind, a particular artwork by Allen Jones came into my head; the series Hatstand, Table and Chair, 1969, the Table element of which is pictured here.

 

 

Table, 1969, Allen Jones

 

At the time of their creation and even now, these pieces have caused huge uproar because of their overtly misogynistic content.  They instantly intrigued me, and combined with the Dworkin quote made me want to use them somehow in my own work.

 

I decided that a parody of the sculpture, representing the continuing struggle of women against objectification in the modern world was an avenue I wanted to explore and so went about developing a plan for creating my own take on his sculptures.

 

 

 

Video of experimental work 

 

Having found a good sized piece of glass I needed to see how easily I would be able to support it when it rested on my back.  Not being a fibreglass mannequin means not being able to secure the glass to my shoulder blades!  By supporting the glass in order to allow me to crawl under it to then lift it gently with my back I was able to confirm that it was at least doable with some assistance setting up the photo shoot.

 

Although the idea of a performance/installation piece with me displayed as per Jones’s table, in an exhibition setting for audience members to view over a length of time, practicality won and photographs became more attractive a possibility.  (the glass is very heavy and difficult to maintain at the correct angle for long periods)

 

So now, we’re in the midst of writing the dissertation.  The interest I have been developing in addressing issues of feminism through conceptual art has had a huge influence on deciding on my research topic.  Since seeing her exhibition Situation, absolute, beach, man, rubble at the Whitechapel Gallery, my interest in the work of Sarah Lucas has increased.

She approaches several areas of feminist debate in different media throughout her portfolio.

– Objectification of women in advertising imagery as seen in Eating a Banana

– Visual representation of abusive misogynistic language through appropriation of everyday objects (Bitch)

– Direct appropriation of media imagery to accentuate the blatant misogyny inherent in western society (Seven Up)

Eating a Banana, 1990, Sarah Lucas (digital print on paper, 539x596mm)

Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lucas-eating-a-banana-p78443

 

Bitch, 1995, Sarah Lucas (table, melons, t-shirt, vacuum-packed smoked fish, approx 80x100x50cm)

Available at: http://www.wmagazine.com/culture/art-and-design/2013/10/sarah-lucas-whitechapel/photos/slide/3

 

Seven Up, 1991, Sarah Lucas (photocopy on paper, 218.5cmx312.5cm)

Available at: http://www.saatchigallery.com/aipe/sarah_lucas.htm

I love her bold, confident ways of making such unapologetic artworks.  Her subject matter is almost taboo nowadays, I think because having seen several ‘waves’ of the feminist movement, misogyny is still so prevalent.  She doesn’t shy away from that taboo but grabs it and runs right at you.

Things I like:

bold, unashamed of broaching taboo subjects

loud and in your face

so simple but straight to the point

intelligence to her argument despite the frequent brashness and simplicity

How can I go about creating artwork with similarly powerful messages?

I worry that (knowing how my brain works) I will get too deep into research and passion for the subject and end up trying to get too clever!

I guess I want to be clever without it being obvious.

I think that means actually being clever though.

I don’t think I’m clever enough!