Semiotics

My ideas on Semiotics 

Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt was born July 14, 1862 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. In 1876, Klimt was awarded a scholarship to the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts. 

Gustav Klimt is an artist I actually like, this stemmed from my mother who has a budding collection of his work. My sister and I always argue over whose going to inherit her collection of Klimt, once she pops her clogs. Klimt's paintings are elegantly erotic; the women are always clothed in fanciful gowns to conceal their nakedness. His paintings are whimsical and pretty with flowers in the hair, stylised and extravagant hats, exotic people and animals; canvases covered in spirals and curves, whirlpools and bright shapes. There is just so much detail in his paintings, that one must admire his skill with a paint brush. 'The Kiss', is one of Klimt's most famous of pieces, and also one of my favourites. The painting is of a couple embracing in an intimate lock. It pulls at my heartstrings to see a tender moment depicted like this. In my opinion this is called art. Not splattered paint on canvases, like Pollock which anybody could recreate.  

 The Kiss 1907-1908 

References:http://www.gustav-klimt.com/ (Accessed: 15 March 2012) 

Hottentot Vensus Women

The sad story of Saartjie Baartman, whose life has influenced black artists. She was a Khoikhoi woman who was persuaded by an English doctor, William Dunlop to travel to England where she would make a  fortune, instead she was paraded around England as a sexual freak, for the public to gawk at,  " the stage two feet high, along which she was led by her keeper and exhibited like a wild beast, being obliged to walk, stand or sit as he ordered". She was then taken to Paris in 1814 where she continued to be exhibited and humiliated, she became a subject of medical and scientific research where they named her genital condition the ‘Hottentot apron’. The saddest part of Baartman’s life is that she died alone in 1816, the muse de l’homme in Paris took a death-cast of her body, removing her skeleton but pickled her brain and genitals in a jar; even after death she was subjected to public scrutiny and humiliation. 

However artists such as Lyle Ashton and Renee Valerie Cox recreated the image of the “Hottentot Venus 2000”. In my opinion Harris and Cox are  identifying themselves with their African culture and understanding the meaning of being an African women in the 21st century.  Harris discusses  the meaning of the image and what it depicts “reclaiming of the image of the Hottentot Venus is a way of exploring my own psychical identification with the image at the level of spectacle. I am playing with what it means to be an African diasporic artist producing and selling work in a culture that is by and large narcissistically mired in the debasement and objectification of blackness.  And yet, I see my work less as a didactic critique and more as an interrogation of the ambivalence around the body.” Inevitably  the artist wants the viewer to scruntinize her body and   ignorantly   stereotype her as a black women who is provocatively dressed, instead of  seeing it as a political statement to people who prejudice against African culture and sexuality. Her pose displays strength and power that instantly grabbed my attention, admiring her courage which  shines a mirror on our prejudices and ignorance as a society .

References: http://www.southafrica.info/about/history/saartjie.htm (Accessed: 24 February 2012)

http://confederatearticles.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/article%C2%B7of%C2%B7inspiration-renee-cox/ (Accessed: 24 February 2012)

Cindy Sherman

Sherman (American, born 1954) is an intriguing photographer, who masquerades as a myriad of characters and personas that expose the stereotyping of modern women in society. She really is a multi-tasker; to create her images she plays the role of photographer, model, makeup artist, hairdresser and stylist. Though the images are of her; she transforms herself completely to the point of being unrecognisable. Whether portraying a career girl or a fussy housewife, she always plays a role, but never depicts Cindy Sherman the person. She depersonalises the images, which is interesting for a viewer to see. I've really become a fan of Sherman,because she's a fashion icon who has her own creative style, where as people like Lady Gaga copy it. And designers like Balenciaga gave her the honour to showcase a series of six self-portraits, in which she wears Balenciaga, that feature quotes from interviews and reviews of Sherman.

References: http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/fashions-night-out-in-pictures/
(Accessed: 10 April 2012)
http://www.cindysherman.com/ (Accessed: 10 April 2012)

Sonia Boyce

Boyce is a black British artist born in London 1962. Boyce studied art at the East Ham College and Stourbridge College of art until 1983. Boyce is a unique artist who has a finger in every pie; her medium includes photography, installation, text, drawing and also painting. Her work questions racial stereotypes in the media. In her early days as an artist she used chalk and pastels drawing  her friends and family, often including wallpaper patterns and bright colours which she associated with the Caribbean, and connected with her own background. Through this she examined her own position as a black female living in Britan (e.g. Lay Back, Keep Quiet and Think of What Made Britain so Great, charcoal, pastel and watercolour on paper, 4 parts, 15.25×6.50 m each, 1986; AC Eng) 

From Tarzan to Rambo: English born 'Native' considers her relationship to the constructed/self image and her roots in reconstruction 1987






References :Sonia Boyce (exh. cat., intro P. Ntuli; London, Air Gal., 1987) [texts by Boyce]
The Impossible Self (exh. cat. by B. Ferguson, S. Nairne, S. Boyce and others, Winnipeg, A.G., 1988)http://www.iniva.org/library/archive/people/b/boyce_sonia (no date)
(Accessed:25 April 2012)
http://www.artfortune.com/sonia-boyce/artist-129487/ (no date)
(Accessed:25 April 2012

Damien Hirst Con-man or Genius?

Damien Hirst is a peculiar man obsessed with preserving dead bodies of animals. I honestly don't know how this man is one of the richest living artists. He's had dead sharks and sheep put into a tank of formaldehyde, an assistant to paint coloured dots on canvases and a room full of medicine boxes displayed on shelves. Hirst is a lazy con artist, who has other people to do his work, in his own words "I couldn't be fucking arsed doing it" so what does he actually do apart from thinking up ideas. I'm not a fan of conceptual art; consciously placing inanimate objects around is not a form art.  Hirst hasn't actually taken the time to create something, as an audience we appreciate the artists work because we know we couldn't make it ourselves with Hirst that’s not the case. Looking at a dead shark in a tank is interesting but it doesn't evoke any emotions, and to be honest what’s the purpose of this shark, how does it represent his views and emotions? Instead you have pretentious art critics blowing smoke up his ass ranting and raving how Hirsts shark addresses 'the big issues of life and death'. How has Hirst inherited the status as a great artist of our time? An, accolade that was once occupied by actual greats such as Lucien Freud, Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso.Anyhow enough with my rant, Hirst will be exhibiting his so called artwork at the Tate modern in London.The art they exhibit is supposed to be the best in the world, so be prepared to see skilfully painted dots and perfectly stacked medicine boxes. in Hirst's mind these objects represent death; but in my opinion they are just ready made objects placed in a room. 

  

                                            

The physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living
This shark made Hirst a rich man, he didn't even have the audacity to catch it himself . 

References: Julian Spalding (2012) 'Con art the genius Damien Hirst', 31 March 2012. Daily Mail online. Available at:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2123346/Con-art-The-genius-Damien-Hirst.  (Accessed:1 April 2012). 


Hirst, Damien and Burn, Gordon (2001). 'On the Way to Work'. Publisher: Faber and Faber (November 5, 2001)

Banksy in a Burka

The Burka-clad women, female graffiti artist Shamsia Hassani, spray painted in Kabul mean she risks being arrested or even worse executed. Yet she's determined to highlight the oppression felt by women in the war-torn Afghanistan through her art. Her activism to highlight women's rights comes as Afghan Clerics announce repressive new rules that state women are subordinate to men, should not mix in work or education and at all times have a male guardian when they travel, it seems we have not made Afghanistan a better place as it reverts back towards Taliban policies and we plan to leave. "I wanted to do something about women's rights," says Shamsia, 24, an associate professor of fine arts at Kabul University. "I felt like no one was doing them justice. I wanted to mix modern style of my painting with their past life to show what kind of life women have in this age." 

One of her most celebrated murals shows a woman in a Burka sitting on a concrete step with her head bowed. 'She's wondering if she can get up, or if she will fall down.' 

Hassani now faces being arrested for working with a male colleague, as well as it being illegal to graffiti on public buildings, it's especially dangerous walking around the street sharing her art and with it her political message. "In three decades of war, women have had to carry the greatest burdens on their shoulders . Women in Afghanistan need to be careful with every step they take." Women like Shamsia Hassani are the artists we should be looking up to, not the nut jobs like Tracey Amin who take back charitable work she donates. Her work is the kind that inspires as well as grabs headlines across the world in a time when most papers and news outlets are downsizing their foreign news departments. Reminding us that while we'd prefer more reality shows than another episode of Panorama, such ignorance and disinterest in the world around us makes for a fertile environment in which atrocities tend to occur. Shamsia Hassani not only highlight's women's rights in Afghanistan but reminds me of all the other women currently struggling across the globe for recognition. These spray paintings are not just symbolising oppressed Muslim Burka-clad women but representative of the many women's movements such as the denunciation of female genital mutilation in Africa, campaigners advocating rights for divorced and unwed mothers in India, stopping forced marriages in Iran.

Barbara Kruger call me an Anti-Consumerist!

Barbara Kruger 

Barbara Kruger is an American conceptual/pop artist. Her work is heavily influenced by Andy Warhol, which she is now internationally renowned for. 'Kruger finds images from mid-century American print- media sources with words collaged directly over them'. Her artwork is politically motivated by corporate greed, gender, sex, racial stereotypes, consumerism, feminism, politics and power. During the 1980's Kruger created her own unique style, 'using cropped, large scale, black and white photographic images with ironic aphorism, printed in bold deep red text bars across the images'.(Art history archive)In my opinion I don't think Kruger's work is particularly special, there's nothing really shocking about her images or that original. Her work tries to be a radical commentary on modernity, but in fact looks like kitsch merchandise you can purchase in small shops or even Urban Outfitters, a store which is the epitome of materialistic mass consumerism but frequented by the 'oh were so unique and cool' pretentious East Londoners that have invaded Brick Lane. Like them her work is a paradigm of trying too hard and ultimately failing in gaining the credibility that is so obviously craved. Not to mention her artwork is a contradiction in itself as she shamefully defiles consumerism, whilst people pay a small fortune for one of her pieces. It's an ironic twist that her existence is paid for by the values she esposes to revile. She is not unique, she is just another copycat artist, attacking easy targets such as greed and consumerism which she perhaps fails to realise are not such awful realities especially for Americans like herself. For if it were not for America exporting (I actually mean jamming down the throat) it's consumerist ideals to Latin America (where they could hardly afford it) then where would all that revenue to fund state education, as well as probably her own, in America have come from. On second thoughts if it meant that I wouldn't have to see another tired, unoriginal, conceptual artist's work again then take my Vogue, cut up my credit cards and call me an anti-consumerist!

Available at: http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/feminist/Barbara-Kruger.html (accessed:28 March 2012)

What To Read....The Modern Century

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1928-2004) His work in the early 1930's helped emerge the creative potential of Modern photography. His work expands over twenty- five years, an accomplished painter who then discovered the Leica camera, which changed his entire life, and began a career as a photographer, whose   uncanny ability to capture life on the run made his work synonymous with “the decisive moment”. Cartier-Bresson  had an extraordinary life, he was taken as war prisoner during 1940's which he escaped on his third attempt in 1943, and the joined a underground organization to assist prisoners and escapees. He then went on to photographic reportage, capturing events such as Stalin’s death and the Soviet Union and the liberation of Paris. During World War 2 Cartier Bresson Co-founded the Magnum Photo Agency, which benefitted photojournalists to reach a wider audience through magazines such as LIFE while retaining control over there work.  Cartier-Bresson, images are attractive, dramatic, sombre, lively and comical. He had a photographic eye "which could grasp the social sense of any circumstance and distill it into an image made him one of the most accomplished illustrators of the twentieth century.” In the book Cartier-Bresson explains his approach to photography; "For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression."

 

References: Clement, Cheroux. "Henri Cartier-Bresson (new Horizons)." ( Publisher: Thames& Hudson, 24 Nov 2008)

Dominis the Great

John Dominis was born June 27, 1921 Los Angeles, attending the University of Southern California. After graduating he became a freelance photographer, during the 1950’s he became a photojournalist for Life Magazine and covered the Korean and Vietnam War. John Dominis is a photographer who has seen it all, he has witnessed historical events such as John F Kennedy giving a speech at the berlin wall, to then hanging out with movies stars like Steve McQueen and frank Sinatra, he spent three months trailing Sinatra to witness him in his natural element, among swank drunk stars. Dominis captured the most intimate pictures of his subject, which is endearing to see. Looking at his work, one can see that all the emotions of the subjects are natural and are not staged. Dominis has photographed everything to big cats, big stars and big dinners. Dominis has captured the most iconic moments of our time. Majority of people have probably seen his work but are unaware of the man behind the lens, which is more the reason to look at his work. 

This is one of the most iconic moments  in sport history. Tommie Smith and John Carlos gave a Black Power Salute, 16 October 1968. This was in the amidst of the American Civil Movement. As the national anthem began to play both men raised one gloved hand, and shaped it into a fist, the fist represented  the unity of their movement. Because of their defiant act, they were stripped of there olympic medals and furthermore ostracised from the sport and political community. "If I win, I am American, not a black American. But if I did something bad, then they would say I am a Negro. We are black and we are proud of being black. Black America will understand what we did tonight."

 Dominis hanging around with Steve Mcqueen and his wife   Neile,Hollywood,1963. “That’s my technique with people. I’m sort of a fly on the wall. You try not to interfere, hang around, hope that they don’t even notice you, and if they do, they don’t care.” When photographing people Dominis stalks them, he will sit and wait for the right shot, which probably helped him when photographing big cats. Patiences  really is a virtue, which Dominis has honed as a skill. 

References: John, Loengard, Gordon Parks, Life Magazine . "The Great Life Photographers" (Published: Thames and Hudson 30/11/2009) ( pp106)