selfportrait. to see more go to zaza's blogspot.
posted by Anonymous at 8:02 pm
Thursday, January 25, 2007
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11 Comments:
from malporthorpe , cindy sherman , katerine opie , and many more , there is a huge history of self portraiture , if it is art for you aei espressing your self trugh it then yes is art . don't you think?
by the way ,, i do like it and it is franko x both messages
Hi Zaza,
For me there isn't any question at all about whether self-portraiture is a valid art form, I think it could be argued that all artists create a form of self portraiture in one way or another.
Perhaps the valuable questions are about context, application of the medium, intent and so on.
There are many artists who use self portraiture quite literally in their work, and some less literally, maybe it would be useful for you to research artists who use self-portraiture in ways which interest you and why.
If you have questions about the validity of this process within your own work perhaps you need to examin why you choose to create self portraits, why you offer them forwards as part of your practice, and their relationship with other strands of your practice. this may help you to answer your question.
Rachel :)
Zaza
I am tend to view a figurative/direct self potrait from an artist in a suspicious light - what are they portraying and then what are they hiding? Are they, the subject, more relevant than their message/dialogue/point?
A self potrait always seems a shortcut to something else. What are you telling/not telling about yourself Zaza? Maybe their is a more fluid way of making your point?
I think it is a valid artform as much as any created by an artist - but to what ends?
Rachel sums it up better than me. What is your context. application & intent?
I think self portraiture, and portraiture isn't as limited as the words themselves immediately pass for meaning. I guess I agree with what both rachel and Steven are saying...
I definitely think portraiture, and self portraiture are valid art forms...in fact I would be very interested to hear why one might think otherwise...and to hear that might make me speak more passionately about it.... if I don't already(?)
Most of the time in my own work I use my own physical presence, and for many reasons. A lot of teh time it is because I am there/here already, I know what I want, I want that experience and I don't want to have to try directing someone into a situation because then it would completely change the work- it's more about being in a particular space at, or rather for, a specific time, and what remains after that seems second....
I have heard a few people speak about my work in terms of portraiture, and I am not against that...I agree with rachel to a cretain extent that all artists create a form of self portraiture in one way or another... but I do think intent lies at its core...in that some one may read/see my work as self portraiture, but it doesn't necessarily mean it is that.....
Reading Jon's post one thing that struck me read something along teh lines of 'aren't we all prosituting ourselves by being artists'...(i'll come back to thsi later, as I don't want to misinterpret what it was, and need to read it again...)...I think it has a massive difference, to/for me, where exactly my work is coming from. I don't think when I am making my work I am prostituting myself...essentially I make the work for me...as a way of having something that i lose myself in, that gives a sense of meaning, even though it doesn't...the only structure and meaning it has is what i give it....so yes, maybe my work is self portraiture...this experience i have and then decide to share is abot me, my experience at a particular space, but I think to have a dialogue about portraiture it pulls in massive references that are embedded within this as a subject....
Cindy Sherman is a good example, because now, if an artist has a character, an alter ego, it kinds of moves nearer to that one reference within this field of portraiture....and i think sometimes when art references other art it can be really interesting and exciting...especially when one is not consciously aware of it until after teh work is made and it comes almost like a revelation...
I hope this is making some sort of sense...
I reluctantly agree with steven, in that i feel slightly suspicious of a direct/figurative from an artist....which as i say it sounds completely backwards because that's sort of what I do in my own work....but actually, that's my point....my work is not about putting an image of myself out for all to see...it is not about me, yet it still is....it could be someone else in the work, but for me, it has to be me, because it's for me ultimately....
I am thinking this through as I'm writing.....I could really get into this conversation, and at times like these I wish it was posssible to do right now over a cooffee rather han with only typed words, i miss being able to gesture and stutter and stumble with what i am saying......will post this and come back...
Katherine.
Steven, what do you mean when you say it is as valid as any other art form, "but to what ends?"- I don't understand what you mean by teh but to what ends bit?
I ask because i think what an artist creates is valid, but whether it is accepted and deemed valid by anyone else is another matter. But it's what is valid to the artist that really counts- if i don't think something is valid then maybe i wouldn't do it, or, in my head at least, it would exist as something other than art.....for example, if I take photos when my family are all at home at christmas, these photos don't exists in my head as art, yet what i do on my own is valid......Rachel's right...it's about context and intent and application...
but I also don't think it has to be as clear cut as being valid or not being valid....zaza, if these portraits of yourself feel important to your practice, if you feel they are bringing something to your practice, then keep taking them, keep looking at them and using them....
the images in themsleves might not be teh work but what they allow you to think about....maybe by allowing these images to accumulate, to be able to think something through visually without knowing exactly what it is you are asking is a bloody good thing...maybe that's where your queston about validity is coming from.....?
I disagree though that portraits are always a shortcut to something else- what make you say that steven/a shortcut to what?
I don't think one has to know what one's point is, (i certainly don't know what my point is most of the time!!!!) but in making, allowing teh images to exist and that actually opens up rather than fast tracks to an end....it opens up possibilities because, (and I am talking about my relationship with images i accumulate and gather), it allows me a space to think, to see more ways forward, ideas seep outwards and instead of retracting by giving myself a struture to work within, like 'portraiture', it's just about me and the images and what they mean, what they mean to me in teh context I am making for myself as an artist.
I want to go away and think about this some more before I carry on waffling all night...
It's so good to be back on the blog....I have been sporadically reading, and yes I am guilty of using the excuse of not knowing what to say......but as soon as i start talking about on ething that jumps out at me....another thing emerges that links in on some mental level and it all comes flooding out in a probably no so coherent way.....
even if it deosn't make so much sense, it's a pleasure to be writing it.
I hope everyone is well.
love kat.
As I sit hear reading through the comments on self portraiture my partner commented (a self confessed planning consultant who has an interest in the arts)
"all art is a self portrait of the artists mind because that is where it originates"
he took the words out of my mind before I had chance to speak.
i agree with most of what everyone else has said. i went through a period where i would make self portraits when i couldn't think of anything else to do, but i stopped because it started to get a bit narcissistic. (i don't mean to suggest that the same would be true of you zaza.)
Tom's point - of the narcissistic, is what I was alluding to in the 'to what ends'. If an artist is portraying themselves, or a clear simulacrum, it’s a surface statement, a mirror, a made up face, presented as the artist wants to appear to the viewer. I would question in the first instsance why the artist is portaying themselves as such.
shortcut - portraiture is loaded, as much as landscape or nude body painting (a la klein). Historically it has a place. Cindy Sherman plays with that knowingly.
Katherine, does the above makes sense?
interesting thread... i think that within performance or performative art, self portraiture is maybe difficult to avoid, as the artist's body is often so ingrained within the work.
in my video work (which i myself would not consider as performative, although others have read it as being), i play with visual ideas or things i have found interesting using my own body, face whatever, because thats what's there. i haven't so much thought the work was about me. but then when other people see images with you- the artist in them, they can't separate images with you in them from images of you....that are about somthing else... does that make sense.
i had a book of picassos paintings and the whole back section contained all his portarits in thumbnails, chronologically including self portraits...the paintings of dora Maar fascinated me..he was doing at least one a day at some points. it was a remarkable record of her moods and of her menstrual cycle though this was not alluded to. picasso was capturing her changing daily life.
i see self portraiture as an attempted record of change. the pictures look so fresh and new at first then the become frozen and historical and take their place in a greater sequence of events.
i agree with franco it is valid as art for one simply because you can express yourself through it nad with rachel that the valuable questions are about intent context and so on. self portraits capture many unintended aspects of life too.
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