The Artist is Present: Marina Abramovic In the last few weeks, with several tragedies occurring in the world, ethnocentrism is very present and even when talking about social, political and economic issues as well as, art. The term art in the past, has been given the definition of being primarily based on aesthetic beauty, and not focused on the emotional construct that art also possesses. Similarly, gender roles encourage women to conform to their norms the same way society thinks art should just be an aspect of beauty. The emergence on performance art in the late sixties, was a way of challenging painting to add an emphasis on the feeling art gives through performance. Marina Abramovic, performance artist, uses her performances as a tool …show more content…
to test and demonstrate the limits and strengths of the human body. She is able to defy the obstacles of being a female, performing artist in the art industry, and successfully captivates her audiences. Abramovic was born on November 30, 1946, in Yugoslavia. She was born into a Yugoslav Partisan family with her parents both being recognized as heroes in World War 2. According to Abramovic, her parents disciplined methods of parenting inspired a lot of her work throughout the years and her messed up childhood was the cause of her success as she stated in an interview with Deenah Vollmer (“The Artist is Present”; SUNDANCE). However, Abramovic states in an interview with Blazwick that her mother’s disciplined ways became an obstacle while still living in Belgrade, when all of her performance were firstly mentally and physically straining and then she had to be home by ten at night (349). Abramovic’s mother was also a Director of the museum of Revolution and Art in Belgrade and a major in the army (Kalpan 15), moreover, revealing that her inspiration derived also, from her mother’s involvement in the art industry. Though feminism was emerging elsewhere in the world,Yugoslavia’s women were partisans, which indicates that they possessed a lot of power (15) which gave her access to her career as a performance artist after studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade from 1965 to 1970 and finishing at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in Croatia in 1972. Marina Abramovic, the grandmother of performance art, states, “you may have one idea, or if you are a genius, two” (Kaplan 19), which suggests that, generally, an artist uses one main idea than revolves everything else around. For Abramovic, her medium is the human body in which she tests limits (19). In Abramovic’s work, she varies the constant theme of pain from physical pain to psychological pain in order to create different messages about boundaries. In her early series of work entitled Rhythm, Abramovic challenges limits through physical pain. When talking about Rhythm 0, she says it was probably the most terrifying, and she did not want to die, but she jeopardized her body in order to push to new extremes in her performance (qtd. Lasane ). This was one of her first performance where she was interactive with her audience. She laid several object including perfume to a pistol and one bullet on a table, then the audience could do whatever they wanted with her. For six hours, the audience threatened her life by cutting her neck, undressing her and even holding the gun to her throat. Furthermore, she reveals that when she discontinued her performance, her audience could not confront her as a person, they regarded her to a puppet, an object. A more recent one of Abramovic’s work titled The Artist is Present exhibited at MoMA from March 2010 to May 2010.
She explores limits in depth through a mental and psychological struggle. According to Chris Chang, the exhibition of Marina Abramovic consisted of two chairs, a table in between both chairs, herself and her audience lasted 736 hours (73). In this performance, Abramovic sat and stared at people who came to sit in front of her, some sat for a minute and others for an entire day (Cotter). In addition, over the course of three months, she wore a similar dress in three different colours: red, blue and white, and had her hair braided towards the side. While she sat in front of another chair left for audience to participate in,“her routine seldom varied […]There was one variable, a big one: her audience.”(Cotter). This demonstrates that the whole performance relied on her audience and more specifically the people who chose to sit in front her. In the documentary about this whole experience of this work, viewers can see that Marina Abramovic kept a straight face in front of approximately a thousand and four hundred people, except one: Ulay. The moment where Ulay sat across from her, they both started to cry and they said they loved each other and then he departed, this moment unarguably captivated everyone at the MoMA
exhibition. In this piece, Marina Abramovic goes through severe psychological pain in order to go through with this physically challenging task, in which before she had to prepare for through therapy, meditation and other methods. The concept of limits arises in this piece,
Christine De Pizan’s work in The Book of The City of Ladies pioneers a new genre of feminist literature that exposes a time period from the perspective of its female population. Due to this, De Pizan justifiably earns the title of a revolutionary author. However, to say that De Pizan revolutionized the conditions of women in the medieval ages and onward is an overstatement. In her book, De Pizan critiques sexist arguments in order to defend women against misogyny. The change that De Pizan presented in medieval culture was gradual because she was attempting to amend people’s perspectives on women rather than offer any institutional rectifications. She worked to establish that women can be just as mighty as men, and thus, they are not innately inferior. However, her goal was not to ensure that women have equal access to exercise and pursue their virtuous roles. Therefore, if observed
People usually expect to see paintings and sculptures in Art Galleries. Imagine the surprise one finds when they are presented with a man stitching his face into a bizarre caricature, or connected to a machine which controls the artist’s body. These shocking pieces of performance art come under the broad umbrella that is Postmodernism. Emphasis on meaning and shock value has replaced traditional skills and aesthetic values evident in the earlier Modernist movements.
Kate Chopin was a feminist American short story and novelist. She is known as an advocate of feminist authors of the 20th century. Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Brontes influenced her writing. She grew up in a household full of women; including her mother, great-grandmother and the female maids her mother owned. Kate spent a lot of time up in her attack reading.
When I first read about Marina Abramovic, I found her performance art can be both shocking and hold the attention of one. Her work ranges in physical intensity, emotional exposure, and sadness. Marina Abramovic work is about self abuse, self discipline, and unreasonable punishment and great courage. Through the conditions she puts herself and her audience in her performance. In my opinion, I feel Marina Abramovic and my main goal as an artist is not only to completely change the way art is seen by the public, but to push the performance the same line as fine art.
Art is a very important part of humanity’s history, and it can be found anywhere from the walls of caves to the halls of museums. The artists that created these works of art were influenced by a multitude of factors including personal issues, politics, and other art movements. Frida Kahlo and Vincent van Gogh, two wildly popular artists, have left behind artwork, that to this day, influences and fascinates people around the world. Their painting styles and personal lives are vastly different, but both artists managed to capture the emotions that they were feeling and used them to create artwork.
The Feminist Art Movement raised women’s status and the world’s awareness on gender equality through artworks that reflect women’s lives, feelings, and value. Through creativity, feminist artists invited the audience into their daily livings, to understand their strengths and efficiency, and to consider their needs and feelings. The movement expanded the traditional female role in society, such as housewives, to individuals with talents including artists, writers, the working class, and professionals. The female artists used media ranging from traditional techniques, like painting, to non-traditional art forms, such as installation art, performance art, conceptual art, and sculptures to share with the audience their new perspectives.
Also, the essay focuses on the idea of artistic genius, which according to Nochlin, is non - existent. Nochlin highlights the concept behind the reason being a whole system in place that excluded the female gender from creating the type of work that made artists like Raphael and Michelangelo famous artists. Women were excluded from taking classes or drawing nudes, which therefore accentuates the fact of why there are no great women artists today; it is because of the constant struggle with society (Nochlin, 1988). The subject matter in “Women, Art and Gender: A History” focuses on the societal changes that made women stand out in the world.
Pouring over date and number and talking about election and analysing it- Jennifer Agiesta has been doing this for years and years.Although this might come as a shock for you because before CNN Jennifer worked for the rival company rather the arch rival- Associated Press. Don’t know about the discussions that took place but definitely there were better opportunities and why not afterall that is CNN.
Art is a way of people expressing their thoughts, feelings and much more. Art forms vary from drawing all the way to dance to a specific type of music. One specific art form that has overcome controversies throughout history has been fashion, this includes modeling, hair, clothing, makeup and more. Each artist from each of the different types of art forms are impacted differently by their environment, they can be impacted biologically, psychologically and/or socially. Looking at fashion artists like Rose Morgan and Ophelia DeVore, it can be inferred that they were socially impacted, influencing their stand in the fashion industry.
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter, born on the July the 6th, 1907. She was born in small town on the outskirts of Mexico, called Couyocan. Her family lived in a house they built themselves, La Casa Azul, or “The Blue House”. It’s name comes from the structures bright blue walls, and now stands as the Frida Kahlo Museum. At the age of fifteen, Kahlo was enrolled in the National Prepatory School of Mexico, where she was one of only a thirty-five female students. With the dream of becoming a medical doctor, Kahlo studied sciences at the school. But, on Septemer 17th, 1925, Kahlo experienced the fateful accident which changed her life forever. She had been riding on a bus with her boyfriend, Alejandro Gomez Arias, when the vehicle collided with a tram. The accident had left several people dead, and Kahlo with many injuries. Some of which were broken collar bone, fractures in her right leg, a crushed foot and a broken spinal column. The injuries left her in a full-body cast for months on end and was confined to her bed for this time. Kahlo also was left with fertility complications after handrail had pierced her uterus. The tragic event left Kahlo in a world of unbearable pain and also boredom. It was during her bed-ridden recovery where she took up the practice of painting, with herself as the subject. Her mother had made her an easel to paint in bed, where she developed her skills of painting. Her first self portrait, “Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress”, was her first serious piece which she painted in 1926. She painted it as a present to her boyfriend, Alejandro Gomez Arias. The artwork was fairly muted in colour and was quite a traditional European-style artwork. But, as Kahlo continued painting her works transitioned from the acade...
Pesaro Madonna, painted by Titian from 1519 to 1526. Pesaro Madonna is a 16 by 9 feet oil painting commissioned by Jacopo Pesaro, who was the military leader that defeated the Turks in the retaking of Santa Maura, 1503. In the painting, the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus are sitting on top of large marble steps leading out of the painting at the base of a large column. Mary is wearing a bright red and a navy blue robe with a white mantle on her head. She’s holding Jesus who is nude and playing with her mantle.
What is art? That is the debatable question. Does the piece present a message? Does it have to be complex? Does it have to create an emotion? Is aesthetic appeal the only requirement? This paper consists of several opinions as to what art is.
Eva Luna is the story of the main character, Eva Luna and the people and events in her life that shape her. Born to a servant in a South American country, Eva lives a varied life, sometimes exciting, sometimes, frightening, however she never lets adversity keep her down. Eva strives to persevere, and in the end, finds the happiness that eludes so many of her acquaintances through the years.
Jessica Lange’s mission is to immerse audiences in the beauty of music and movement. Her dance aesthetic is very clear and full of volume and fluidity. Her uses of unforeseen props, lighting, music quality and the emotion of her dancers set her apart from many today’s choreographers. To do my research I decided to focus on six of Jessica’s pieces. The pieces I chose were Thousand Yard Stare (2016), Tesseracts of Time (2015), The Wanderer (2014), Lines Cubed (2012), Her Road (2017), and i.n.k.
To objectify the female body in artwork means to strip the subject of some aspects of humanity, reducing her down to fundamentals in order to construct an image based on the desire of the artist and not the personality of the sitter. The Western tradition of art heavily relied on objectification: idealizing, primitivizing, or eroticizing the body to convey messages and explore the psyche of the artist. The advent of Performance art as it is known today reinvented what it means to objectify the body, and through this it fundamentally changed set artistic doctrines. The female body moved outside of the canvas and became real flesh. Performance artwork, particularly that of Marina Abramovic, fractured preconceived ideas of art and notions of the female body through its visceral exploration of the body in art, its physical limitations, and how it is objectified through the performance.