Rebecca's Fashion Magazines

Self-portraits 01.2012

2012-01-07T23:40:00.000Z

Self-portraits 12.2011

2012-01-07T23:38:00.001Z

2011-12-29T23:15:00.002Z

Shadi Ghadirian

2011-12-11T22:33:00.002Z

Jacques Derrida on Photography or why he didn't want to be photographed.

2011-12-08T21:47:00.001Z

Interview found on Andrew Jackson's blog Written By Light.

H&M Puts Real Model Heads On Fake Bodies

2011-12-06T12:14:00.000Z

From website Jezebel

The bodies of most of the models H&M features on its website are computer-generated and "completely virtual," the company has admitted. H&M designs a body that can better display clothes made for humans than humans can, then "dresses" it by drawing on its clothes, and digitally pastes on the heads of real women in post-production. For now — in the future, even models' faces won't be considered perfect enough for online fast fashion, and we'll buy all of our clothing from cyborgs. (This news sort of explains this.) But man, isn't looking at the four identical bodies with different heads so uncanny? Duly noted that H&M made one of the fake bodies black. You can't say that the fictional, Photoshopped, mismatched-head future of catalog modeling isn't racially diverse. [Aftonbladet]

"Don't mix up feminists fighting the corporate media with rightwing attempts to police sex."

2011-12-02T16:22:00.000Z

Moral panic? No. We are resisting the pornification of women

Gail Dines and Julia Long · 01/12/2011 · guardian.co.uk

"Sexualisation" has become a much-debated issue in recent years, and a noticeable feature is the assumption that feminists who oppose sexual objectification are generating a "moral panic". Ever since sociologist Stanley Cohen introduced the term in 1972 it has been used as a shorthand way of critiquing conservatives for inventing another "problem" in order to demonise a group that challenges traditional moral standards.
So apparently feminists are now the conservatives fomenting unnecessary panic about the proliferation of "sexualised" images while the corporate-controlled media industry that mass produces these images is the progressive force for change being unfairly demonised. What a strange turn of events.
To suggest feminists who oppose the pornification of society are stirring up a moral panic is to confuse a politically progressive movement with rightwing attempts to police sexual behaviour. We can, of course, identify just such a conservative strand in current debates in Britain: interventions of the coalition government include calls for girls to be given lessons in how to practise abstinence and attacks on abortion rights. But feminists who organise against pornification are not arguing that sexualised images of women cause moral decay; rather that they perpetuate myths of women's unconditional sexual availability and object status, and thus undermine women's rights to sexual autonomy, physical safety and economic and social equality. The harm done to women is not a moral harm but a political one, and any analysis must be grounded in a critique of the corporate control of our visual landscape.
The left has a long history of fighting capitalist ownership of the media. From Karl Marx to Antonio Gramsci to Noam Chomsky, leftist thinkers have understood the corporate media to be the propaganda machine for capitalist ideas and values. By mainstreaming the ideologies of the elite, corporate-controlled media shapes our identities as workers and consumers, selling an image of success and happiness tied to the consumption of products that generate enormous wealth for the elite class. Alternative views are at best marginalised and at worst ridiculed.
No one in progressive circles would suggest for a moment that criticism of the corporate media is a moral panic. Chomsky has never, as far as we know, been called a "moral entrepreneur", yet those of us who organise against the corporations that churn out sexist imagery are regularly dismissed as stirring moral panic.
The industry-engineered image of femininity has now become the dominant one in western society, crowding out alternative ways of being female. The clothes, cosmetics, diets, gym membership, trips to the hair salon, the waxing salon and the nail salon add up to a lot of money. Even in these dark economic times, when women are experiencing the most severe financial hardship, the UK beauty business is booming.
Women's self-loathing is big business, and supports a global capitalist system that, ironically, depends heavily on the exploitation of women's labour in developing countries. Adding insult to injury, many of these underpaid women are spending a significant proportion of their wages on skin-whitening products that promise social mobility out of the sweatshops.
In the west, cosmetic surgery is increasingly normalised. Last year in the UK, almost 9,500 women underwent breast augmentation surgery, and the number of labiaplasties has almost tripled in five years. One plastic surgeon helpfully explains on his website that labiaplasty "can sculpture the elongated or unequal labial [sic] minora (small inner lips) according to one's specification … With laser reduction labiaplasty, we can accomplish the desires of the woman". If this is not evidence of living in a sexualised culture, what is?
The emotional cost of conforming to hypersexualisation is enormous for girls and young women who are in the process of forming their gender and sexual identities. We construct our identities through complex processes of interaction with the culture around us, but today images of hypersexualisation dominate. Where is a girl to go if she decides Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Rihanna or Britney Spears aren't for her?
An American Psychological Association study on girls' sexualisation found that it "has negative effects in a variety of domains, including cognitive functioning, physical and mental health, sexuality, and attitudes and beliefs". Some of these effects include risky sexual behaviour, higher rates of eating disorders, depression and low self-esteem, and reduced academic performance. Of course, there are girls who resist, but there are real social penalties to be paid by those who do not conform to acceptable feminine appearance.
This weekend feminist campaigners are hosting a conference on the pornification of culture. In the buildup, mass protests were held outside the London Playboy Club and Miss World beauty contest to highlight the relationship between corporate interests and the objectification of women. The fight against the increasingly narrow and limiting image of femininity is inextricably connected to the progressive fight for democratic ownership and control of the media. This is a political struggle. Feminists are rightly concerned, but we're not panicking. We're organising.

2011-11-20T23:45:00.000Z

Image found on Facebook ....

Mamie Wata in African Music

2011-11-17T11:06:00.001Z

Bembeya Jazz National - Mami Wata- 60s in Guinea
In the aftermath of the Guinean Independence in 1958 and through the cultural policy of "authenticite", which encouraged cultural pride, numerous bands were created throughout the regions of Guinea. Guinea's President, Ahmed Sékou Touré, disbanded all private dance orchestras and replaced them with state-supported groups, such as Keletigui et ses Tambourinis and Balla et ses Balladins. The most popular was Bembeya Jazz National, formed in 1961. Specializing in modern arrangements of Manding classic tunes, Bembeya Jazz National won 1st prize at two national arts festival's in 1964 and 1965 and were crowned "National Orchestra" in 1966.[2]Initially an acoustic group, featuring a Latin-flavored horn section of saxophone, trumpet, and clarinet, Bembeya Jazz National reached its apex with the addition of lead singer Aboubacar Demba Camara. The group toured widely, and became one of the most well-known groups in Africa. Among their biggest hits were the songs "Mami Wata" and "Armee Guineenne".

Singer N'Deye covers the famous Bembeya song with Sekou Bembeya on the guitar.

2011-11-07T22:23:00.000Z

2011-10-27T15:48:00.002+01:00

"Skin" - peeling

2011-09-22T13:51:00.003+01:00

"Skin"- video trial - 2011

2011-09-22T13:37:00.005+01:00

Rikke Lundgreen - stills from video

2011-09-22T10:50:00.001+01:00

Changing Places, Phil Sayers and Rikke Lundgreen

"Cross-purposes – Looking again at Victorian collections." Sheila McGregor

The implied link between sexuality and death in Segantini’s painting (The Punishment of Lust – 1891) points to one of the most curious and remarked upon aspects of Victorian portrayals of women: the tendency to show the fallen or damaged woman in a state of trance-like immobility. This pictorial and sculptural elision of sexuality, sleep and death has intriguing psychological connotations, hinting as it does at the capacity of women to sustain an interior existence beyond the control and understanding of men. Driven by extremes of experience into a state of emotional retreat, women are simultaneously the victims of male oppression and the agents of their own emancipation, which they often achieve through an act of extravagant self-destruction [as Ophelia and the Lady of Shalott examples].

Nowhere perhaps is this theme more strikingly manifested than in sculpture, where the inherent inertness of the stone or marble contrasts with the sinuous realism of the sculptor’s modelling of the female form. Edward Onslow Ford’s Snowdrift (1901) in the Lady Lever Art Gallery personifies the spirit of winter as a naked woman who lies in a pose of exhausted abandon on the icy ground. Conceived in the tradition of funeral sculpture, it is an image that seems to hover uneasily between life and death. Lundgreen explores the thematic ambiguity and erotic languor of the sculpture by re-creating the pose and overlaying images of her own naked body with the original, thus intermingling reality and representation in a way that underscores the virtuosity of Onslow Ford’s sculptural achievement, while also revealing its weirdness as a metaphorical description of winter.

"To pass, Passing and to Come." Lindsay Smith

In [Lundgreen’s] Slow Fade (…), inspired by Edward Onslow Ford’s Snowdrift (1901) we encounter a paradox of of stone (marble) that harbours metamorphosis, change within petrification. The symbolist sculpture made from green onyx, lapis lazuli with silver mounts and black marble achieves its own polychrome, while Lundgreen juxtaposes her own body upon it in polychromatic form. The video morphing of flesh and stone wherebya white marble hand and foot spills out as flesh, is configured with flesh, engenders a simultaneously life-like and yet deathly form.

Self-portraits - September 2011

2011-09-22T10:32:00.000+01:00

2011-07-08T12:03:00.004+01:00

Self-portraits - June 2011

2011-07-03T15:41:00.002+01:00

Gloria Swanson by Edward Steichen

2011-06-21T21:27:00.003+01:00

Workshop

2011-06-20T21:36:00.003+01:00

Today I have been offering a mini photographic studio space to a group of women, mainly from Eritrea (Africa). Every Monday, they come to St Paul's Church and leave their children at the Nursery for a couple of hours to study English and do some other activities. I shared the workshop with my friend Mirela Bistran who was showing them how to make some cake decorations.

I had planned a "high tech" interactive installation, for them to be able to see themselves in a TV monitor while taking the pictures. I wanted to offer them a private space to take self-portraits while having control over their own poses. Something similar to my own self-portraits in mirrors. The main idea for me here was of "self-empowerment" : giving them the intimacy of a space and time where to feel confident enough to choose poses and select the images of themselves that they prefered.

One side of the installation, the other being a tripod with the photo camera.

The technical side of the installation was actually a bit ambtious for a first workshop and I ended up in the photographer's role. However, the idea of an enclosed and private space prooved to be necessary as some needed their friends not to be watching them.

It was the first time that I was in the role of a photographer with model. It was a bit intimidating for them and for me and they were a bit shy at the beginning. They were chosing their poses and I was turning around them, taking the pictures. Then we had a look at them together and they deleted a couple. I was very pleased with their reactions : they seemed to be surprised of the results, in a very positive way ! as if surprised to see themselves beautiful ! It was very rewarding.

It is not often that we get to be given beautiful images of ourselves and that was the point of this workshop for me ....

Nakedness, exposure and vulnerability.

2011-05-31T10:07:00.001+01:00

Judith Mackrell guardian.co.uk, Monday 30 May 2011 21.30

Fears and fantasies … Un Peu de Tendresse Bordel de Merde!

Photograph: Dave St-Pierre

When Sally Marie was told she had to strip off in the name of contemporary dance, she was happy to oblige – in theory, anyway. The British dancer had been cast in Dear Body, a 2009 work by Luca Silvestrini that satirised the hard dieting, gym-bound madness of body beautiful obsessives. Marie approved of the work's politics, which she felt applied to her own profession, too. "I'd been arguing for ages that we needed a greater variety of bodies and ages in dance," says Marie, who readily admits to being a stone heavier and a decade older than most of the other dancers. "It felt like an important statement to be on stage showing my tits."
But in practice, when it came to getting naked, Marie was petrified. "When you're in a sauna, it feels completely natural. But on stage, you're really exposed." Ironically, by the time she came to perform Dear Body, she was much slimmer. "I'd been too frightened to eat."
Javier de Frutos, the Venezuelan-born choreo-grapher, understands her terror. In the 1990s, his own compact buttocks and bobbing penis became a familiar sight to audiences, in works such as the solo Gypsy and the trio Grass. Yet at first, De Frutos found crossing over into nudity traumatic. "When I was young, I was the guy at the gym who had to wait until the changing room was empty before I could take off my clothes." His mentor, the US dancer and choreo-grapher Sara Rudnor, persuaded him to change. "Sarah told me I needed to explore as many emotions as possible on stage. She told me to do what I feared most. For me, that was being naked."

De Frutos and Marie may feel some sympathy with the cast of Un Peu de Tendresse Bordel de Merde!, which arrives in Britain this week. A Little Tenderness for Crying Out Loud!, in its English translation, was created by Canadian choreographer Dave St-Pierre. It's a work exploring the fears and fantasies of 22 characters as they search for love in a brutal world. But it's also a work in which the dancers have to perform naked for much of the time; in fact, even more exposingly, they have to bring their nakedness right down into the auditorium, clambering over the stalls and fighting in the aisles – with their breasts, genitals and buttocks in wobblingly close proximity to the audience.

What's the justification for such aggressive nudity? St-Pierre, who is fascinated by taboos and the breaking of them, is trying to create a raw physical intimacy between dancer and audience, and he wants to make us laugh, too. Michael Watts, one of his dancers, says most people find the naked scenes funny. But, he adds, "we're being very childlike – we're behaving like six-year-old boys, and we get a lot of taps on the bottom from old ladies". They do occasionally encounter angry resistance, though. "One woman just hid her face completely," recalls Watts. "She put her jacket over her face. Another man got up and tried to run away. And a few dancers have got hit or pushed."

Choreographers may have many serious motives for nudity – be they political, aesthetic or psychological – but what some people find beautiful and expressive, others will inevitably find titillating or arousing, and others embarrassing or disgusting. What is certain, though, is that the issue of how much flesh a dancer shows has always been controversial. In 1725, when ballerina Marie Camargo shortened her skirts to ankle length to gain extra freedom of movement, there were many who went to the Paris Opera not to applaud her virtuosity but to catch a flash of calf or thigh. Camargo was credited with inventing an early form of knickers to preserve some modesty as she danced.

For Isadora Duncan, the American who began performing her radiant, radical dance recitals around 1900, the body was sacred. When she abandoned corsets, danced barefoot and occasionally let a bare breast spill out of her loosely draped tunic, Duncan wasn't simply serving the cause of dance, she was celebrating the human spirit. And her inspiration, as well as her notoriety, led to more dancers stripping off in the name of high art. Canadian Maud Allan became a superstar of Edwardian Britain thanks her near-naked Salomé routine, and Josephine Baker was dubbed the Ebony Venus when she danced in Paris wearing nothing but a belt of pink feathers or a tiny skirt of fake bananas.

When stage censorship laws were relaxed during the 1960s, however, even a coy veil could be dispensed with. The cast of musicals such as Oh! Calcutta! paraded their bodies with joy, while avant-garde choreographers began to explore the gamut of what nudity could signify. Yvonne Rainer, in 1970s New York, danced naked in front of a US flag to protest against the Vietnam war. And veteran British dancer Diana Payne-Myers developed an entire second career when choreo-graphers such as Lloyd Newson started to explore the potential of putting a much older, naked dancer on stage.

Since the late 1990s, Payne-Myers's tiny, wrinkled, supple form has evoked images of survival, defenselessness and even the joy of supposedly inappropriate elderly behaviour.
For De Frutos, as he explored the feelings of vulnerability created by dancing naked, other issues arose. He became fascinated by his audiences' natural voyeurism and by the ways he could deflect it. "I wanted to take their attention away from my genitalia to all the small muscles in the body, and show how eloquent they are. There is something irreplaceable about the sensual reality of skin, and the beauty of light falling on skin. I was always thinking how that could best be achieved."

Visually, De Frutos was inspired by none other than Caravaggio and El Greco. But in real life, the human body can be an unruly beast: it gets rashes and bruises, it's subject to weight gain, hairiness and menstrual cycles – as well as other kinds of normally private activity. De Frutos swears he never worried about getting an erection on stage when performing with other nude dancers: "Dancing naked," he says, "is the least sexy thing I've ever done." And Sally Marie was convinced that all the men in Dear Body were "very anxious. During contact, everyone was trying to keep a distance between their pelvises. It was very funny. "

For Arthur Pita, the London-based choreographer of the pastoral comedy Camp, the issue was simply his own vanity. He hadn't expected to dance in Camp, but when he had to take over from an injured cast member he went straight into an intensive regime of "squats and press-ups" to prepare for his naked scene. "I really didn't want anything to be wobbling for the audience."

Pita envies the lack of self conscious-ness shown by Payne-Meyers, with whom he has worked. "She knows full well she is an 83-year-old woman, but she is completely committed to her art and completely unembarrassed. Her body is amazing to look at. It's only skin and bone and muscle, but it's very old skin and bone and muscle. I admire that healthy, honest approach; it's something all dancers should be inspired by."

Tendresse comes with a guidance rating of 18, and all its publicity contains warnings of "explicit adult material". What's more, Michael Watts is keen to point out that if anyone in the audience obviously hates what the dancers are doing, they won't get picked on. "We can usually tell how people are feeling," he says. "They won't actually have a hairy man in a wig clambering over them."

maurizio anzeri

2011-05-18T21:34:00.002+01:00

“I’ve been collecting old photographs for a long time. A few years ago I was doing ink drawings with them and out of curiosity I stitched into one. I work a lot with threads and hand stitching, and the link to photography was a natural progression. I put tracing paper over the photo and draw on the face until it develops. Sometimes the image comes straight away, suggested by a detail on a dress or in the background, but with the majority of them I spend a lot of time drawing. Once the drawing is done, I pierce the photo with a set of needle-like tools I invented and take the paper away; the holes are obsessively paced at the same distance to convey an idea of geometry. When I begin the stitching something else happens, drawing will never do what thread will – the light changes, and at some points you can lose the face, and at others you can still see under it.” Link

drawings

2011-05-14T23:14:00.007+01:00

for some more of my drawings, click here.

the process of seeing ....

2011-04-30T22:29:00.001+01:00

I am interested in machines that tell you what it is to look, that make you aware of the process of seeing, make you aware of what you do when you construct the world by looking at it; but more as looking and seeing being a metaphor of how you understand the world.

William Kentridge in "Anything is possible" - documentary.

Elizabeth Winnel

2011-04-25T23:33:00.002+01:00

"Working with multiple mediums, including ink, acrylic,

charcoal, pastel,spray paint and other materials,

Elizabeth Winnel’s self portraits,

while utterly figurative, are gorgeously abstracted."

WEBSITE

Wim Wenders/Pina Baush - Pina - 2011

2011-04-22T18:04:00.001+01:00

Thoughts - reflexions ...

2011-04-18T23:47:00.002+01:00

Since the last show where I exhibited a series of my "self-portraits in mirrors" and since the interview with Claire, I have been thinking about one important aspect in them : the fact that the main subject is not ME, but the mirror/reflecting surface. When taking the picture, in the reality, the camera takes the picture of the mirror itself.

I think that, for me, one of the most important idea in the questions Claire asked me is this one :
CT – so it’s the actual process of looking that you are trying to emphasise thorough the use of the mirror?

CSD – yes. I’m trying to understand something that cannot be understood.

And this is bringing me back to the residency "Eyes, windows to the soul" I did in 2010, which was following a period of research. Studying the process of vision, on different levels and trying to draw parallels between the physical and the psychological (or rather spiritual) aspects of vision ...
The physical particularities of the shop where I was working both helped me to emphasize some sides of this but also made it even more complex at the same time.

Projection installation where a photograph of outside of the shop

is projected inside it.

Photograph through a window showing the indoor market

while a reflection is showing the window

and sky from inside the shop to the outside
To me, there is a direct link, from these images/installations to some of my most recent self-portraits.

A couple of nights ago, I also dreamed that I was by a wide container with water and that I understood that the next step was supposed to start taking pictures from under the water ... This lead me to take new types of images :

Self-portraits in Mirrors, 2011 - photographic installation for "With Myself in Mind" curated by Claire Taylor at the Crocus gallery, Nottingham

2011-04-15T21:48:00.004+01:00

Installation made of 36 photos taken between 2004 and 2011

Interview with Céline Siani Djiakoua, by Claire Taylor (transcription)

CT – First of all this exhibition is centred on the theme of identity, your sense of self and your artistic practice. So what brought you to come and practice in Nottingham?

CSD – Well I arrived in Nottingham in the summer from where I was living in Stoke on Trent . In Stoke I was doing a degree in Fine Art, part time. Once I had graduated I was quite lucky to get into some projects. Straight away I got offered a bursary from Longhouse (Multistory – West Bromwich) to do an Action Research. However, I felt like Stoke was not “feeding” me anymore, that I needed new challenges and also in my personal life I felt like I needed to move to a big city.

CT – Apart from this series, is most of your work directly based around yourself? What is it that particularly interests you about self portraiture?

CSD – That’s just one part of my work. I think the self portrait came as everyday practice. I write diaries and have been doing so since the age of 12. The main parallel between the two (self portraits in mirrors and diary practice) is the “reflection”. You have the reflection in the mirror and the individual reflection, the self -reflection. But also my primary interest lies in psychology and psychoanalysis because I got an MA in that, in France, and personally I did a lot of psychoanalysis. One of my hopes is to one day become a psychoanalyst.

CT – Your work seems to be made up of dozens of photographs in one series, in one body of work around one concept. What draws you to working in this way?

CSD – I didn’t know I would show that work, I didn’t even think of it as work. For me it was just everyday practice and a photographic exercise. It wasn’t a knowledgeable choice to create this work, it was just over several years, over seven years, I would take lots of pictures, most days. Now I have selected about 100 of those but I have taken many more than that.

CT – So what brought you to thinking about this body of work as art then because you said it was just like everyday practice and it wasn’t made with the intension of being an artwork. What changed your mind about it?

CSD –I’m a single mum of two so I can’t afford to not work from home. I do a lot of work and research at home. There’s a blog I have that is called ‘Rebecca’s Fashion Magazine’ and it started as a blog about high fashion. I had never been interested in that except for the aesthetics of it and I wanted to know more about that. It grew out of feminism and what feminism means nowadays, so my interest developed in feminism and self-portraiture. I started to use the pictures as references so now, at this point, it really makes sense to show them. Another thing is that my confidence grew. I don’t call myself a photographer because I don’t have training in photography but I use photography in my visual work and my confidence in my photography skills has grown. I have also had some good positive feedback about my photos.

CT – So what does interest you in photography if it’s not the technical side of things?

CSD – For the Self portraits in Mirrors the photography is a good way for me because it is as if I can have a camera instead of eyes. I also like that the self-portrait can be very spontaneous and instant. I like the spontaneity of taking the work and seeing something beautiful – I just click and it’s there...

CT – so it’s the documentary aspect that appeals to you?

CSD – Yes collecting images. But there’s much more to photography than that. What I really like about the picture is that, even though it is spontaneous, the more you do the more you get trained. I mean, the self-portraits that I do, I have complete control over because I’m watching myself in the mirror. Decisions are made about what frame is the best and what light, what colours – it’s a balance of all of that. The thought side is very important...

CT – I can see that they are actually very considered images. As you say the portraits span quite a long time frame – seven years? But it’s not about documenting seven years of your life. Could you talk about that a little?

CSD – Yes I didn’t see it as a documentary of my life. It is just a collection of precise moments. At that moment, what do I look like, what am I thinking? What is my mood? Every second I’m changing. The self-portrait makes sense of your identity, which is made of fluctuating moods. You can’t say this is “me”.

CT – so to just show one image couldn’t explore or show your identity?

CSD – never, not even 10, 000. I really think if you want to show yourself in this way the photograph is really not the best way. Using video would be better because the video is live and shows movement. Movement shows so much more of you than a flat, 2-D image. Photography is a construction and it can be used in a very clever way to say something. I take spontaneous pictures but there’s an awareness of what I want to give so there’s a tension between the two.

CT – In your artists statement you associate identity as how people see us. Could you elaborate on the importance of how people view you in relation to your identity?

CSD – That’s difficult, especially because I have backgrounds in Psychology and Psychoanalysis so there’s a lot of studies in that area. I’m interested also in Phenomenology , which looks at how you experience the world, right now, through your senses and the awareness you have of that –that you are not just a body and a mind separated but you are more than that. You have a position in space. You are in a situation, you are surrounded by people, buildings, you can’t separate yourself from that...

CT – so you believe identity is not from within? It’s affected in so many ways by society and experiences.

CSD – Well, it is very complex. And you were given a body when you were born. I’m looking for beauty and I think it very important to start with yourself. It’s important to look after yourself and to try to get the best, I mean depending on what you want to communicate. It’s important to look for beauty in yourself. What I mean by beauty is not so much what follows the stereotypes we are surrounded by but more finding harmony and having a kind and balanced relationship with your body and your appearance.

CT – Although your work may appear like snapshots you were talking about how they are actually considered images. Could you discuss the construction of your images?

CSD – I think there are some constants aesthetically. I am obsessed with circles and frames. I like a balance of colours. What is interesting when I was looking at the pictures is that, because it is me and it shows how I dress and they are taken in my house, my aesthetic taste and design is shown. The balance of shapes colours, light – you can find it in my images, in how I dress and in my house.

CT – There are multiple reflections of your personality then by showing these?

CSD – yes definitely

CT – Through the images you are choosing how people see you and therefore constructing an identity. We spoke a little about this but could you talk about the truth that you’re communicating or choosing not to communicate through these photographs?

CSD – They are true in the moment they are taken. I take it like that because that’s what I want to show. So I’m being true to myself in that sense. But it is all about communication. Some of the photographs are very aesthetically built and they are beautiful and could be for fashion magazines. But they are also actually addressing that element of truth. The mirror is a very important element. The image that you see is not the direct image taken on the subject. It’s a reflection. The idea of the truth – I was saying first there is a layer and there are lots of layers. The mirror is a layer but you may not think about that when you look at the picture. I like that you can always see the camera. Another very important thing is the mirror as a tool. Sometimes you are very aware that the image of me is through the mirror because you can see the frame and you can see some of the wall. There are some images that are very important in the series - where the mirror is a dirty mirror. There’s one specific photograph which is very beautifully balanced with the light and I look lovely as a model, but the mirror is dirty. I am showing the process. I’m showing that I’m taking a picture of myself. There is this multilayered complex process. By showing the dirt on the mirror I’m also saying ‘don’t be fooled. That’s where you should look. You should question these things

CT – you are helping the viewer realise it’s a construction...

CSD – yes and that images are only images and not the truth at all

CT – We’ve touched on the use of mirrors as a core aspect of your work. Mirrors do carry a weight of significance within art history. It’s used as a tool. Are there any artist or concepts that you are applying by the use of the mirror?

CSD – for me, being interested in Psychoanalysis, Lacan and his theory about the ‘mirror stage’ is a core reference in the construction of the identity. It’s really interesting to read and consider but since then there has been a lot of development around concepts of the body and the image. So the mirror in Psychoanalysis and the body is more than Lacan originally said. That is my big reference. As a visual tool it’s a very interesting thing to use that I can’t quite grasp. I have done video works and performances about space and frame. I was filming myself but looking at myself at the same time in a TV frame. What I was doing was drawing with my fingers the border of the frame. So reflections as a tool are very interesting and I will keep working on that. There is an analogy and that is another big part of the research for my bursary – I called the project “Eyes, windows to the soul”. The interesting thing with the digital image is that you can see the result while taking the picture. There’s a physical side of how the reflection works and that is my parallel and metaphor. I was interested in using reflections and filming where you have control of your body. When you think about your vision and what you experience through your eyes in a Phenomenological approach, it’s so complex that when I read the writing of Merleau-Ponty (that’s some writing I particularly like) I can’t take in more than one page because of its density. It touches upon something that you can’t quite grasp or understand. Seeing is not just a physical thing. The example he uses is, when you think of your two hands touching – you feel that in both one and the other. When your eyes are looking at the outside world, the light is going into the eye. You cannot just say you are looking at it – you are touched by the world around you. That is complex. And now when you think of someone looking at you and you see the gaze of that person on you it gets rather complex.

CT – so it’s the actual process of looking that you are trying to emphasise thorough the use of the mirror?

CSD – yes. I’m trying to understand something that cannot be understood.

CT – we have discussed your physical representations in the photograph but I feel that something we need to look at more is the communication of personality through the photographs. Your inner self is revealed and how have you done this?

CSD – I think it is more in the action and experience of taking the picture. It’s a very specific moment.

CT – are you trying to create an attitude through your work? Are you creating a certain position or atmosphere in your work?

CSD – I can say that I built the picture on the moment. I never think about taking the photograph before I take it

CT – You spoke a little in your artists statement and again today about how you write diaries which work as a parallel to your work. How do you feel the relationship between image and text works?

CSD – that is something I have never explored. There is no purposeful thought parallel between the image and the diaries. It is just instead of being a written practice it’s a visual practice. I can remember by looking back at the images and I can remember the mood and this is reflected through the diary but the connection is not what I am interested in. Now I can see the diary and the portrait are different ways of doing things. When I was a child and a teenager, and even after, I liked the practice of writing dairies. Anais Nin said; ‘my writing is my drug, my opium’, and for me that was the relationship I had with my diaries. They were a way to describe something of the world but also I was living in a bubble. I was not living in the real world at all. I managed to get out of that bubble and my relationship with the diaries changed. I think that can be said of the self portrait. I started taking these images and I was not sure why I was doing that and I was uncomfortable because I didn’t know why. I didn’t want people thinking ‘she’s narcissistic’ and that’s it, it was more than that, but I didn’t know what. Because of the quantity, it is more than that. I have noticed lately I have become more interested in what is in my background, rather than outing myself in the middle of the photo so it seems my practice is shifting.

Dark Continent, 2007

2011-04-13T23:19:00.003+01:00

Dark Continent, 2007

"The phrase "Dark Continent" first appeared as evocating Africa in a colonialist context. It was then used by Sigmund Freud to refer to women's sexuality and later discussed by feminist intellectuals, critizising the passive role associated with feminity. In their early revendication, feminists also tended to establish a parallel between the women liberation and the liberation of the Black people from oppression.

On Gilberto Gil's Brazilian music, the present video piece evocates this multilayered subject. In a humoristic and sensual manner, the dance also questions the duality between different types of languages : male and female, mother tongue and foreign language, verbal and non verbal communication.
This is a struggle and a longing for reconciliation, for the Other to be recognized as part of oneself."

video trial

2011-04-13T23:16:00.005+01:00

Positive plaster cast

2011-04-13T23:15:00.003+01:00

Negative plaster cast

2011-04-13T23:08:00.007+01:00

Face cast photos trials

2011-04-13T23:08:00.006+01:00

Face casting with Stephen Jon, Nottingham based mask maker

2011-04-13T23:05:00.004+01:00

Thanks a lot to Stephen Jon !!

Tissue paper sulptures/masks - Polly Verity

2011-04-13T23:02:00.003+01:00

cockroach mask ideas

2011-04-13T23:00:00.004+01:00

one idea ...

The masking-making process I am choosing will include making a plaster 3D reproduction of my face, which I could use indefinitely to produce whatever masks I want. I am thinking of exploring making masks with very basic and unusual materials and use them in self-portraiture or "fashion-style" photographs ...

Pompeii's bodies casts

2011-04-13T22:56:00.003+01:00

"The New Realism: Pompeii’s Living Dead" By Eugene Dwyer

2011-04-13T22:55:00.003+01:00

Brogi 5579. Victim No. 7, in museum case.

From the author’s own collection."Plaster casts of the Pompeian victims, first made by Giuseppe Fiorelli in 1863, have become world famous through post cards, documentary films, and now traveling exhibitions.

Direct exposure to the casts, whether one experiences them in Pompeii or in a museum setting, can be very moving or it can be unaffecting, depending upon the circumstances and expectations brought to the experience by the visitor. To stumble upon a cast unexpectedly in a dimly lighted vault can be a memorable experience.

Fiorelli’s own initial discovery of victims, made by freeing his newly made plasters of the surrounding earth, came as such a shock that he claimed to have “stolen from death” the bodies that had been concealed for more than eighteen hundred years.

In fact, Fiorelli’s process made it possible to see the faces and the helpless gestures of the victims at the very moment they were overcome by the volcano. No one before Fiorelli had seen ancient Romans as “living persons.” Portrait sculpture and ideal or mythological sculpture and painting had been the basis of most people’s acquaintance with the ancients, leading to exalted notions of the beauty of the ancients.

The experience of human remains was limited to skeletons, gruesome but insufficient to contradict the supposed veracity of the works of art. Now it was apparent that the Pompeians had been heavily clothed, mostly well shod, and that they strikingly resembled contemporary inhabitants of the zone. Most noticeably, they appeared to contradict the images handed down in ancient art.

A week after his initial discovery, Fiorelli invited his distinguished colleague, Luigi Settembrini, to Pompeii to view the casts. After a moving visit, Settembrini wrote: “It is impossible to see these three disfigured bodies and not to feel moved – especially the girl with that skull and that body of hers who, being less indistinct than the others, appears to have such grace, that it breaks your heart. They have been dead for eighteen centuries, but they are human beings who are seen in their agony.

“There is nothing of art or of beauty, only bones, the remains of their flesh and their clothing mixed with the plaster. It is the pain of death which has conquered the body and the figure. I looked at the confused mass, I heard the shrill cry of the mother, and I saw her fall and struggle as she died. How many more human beings perished in the same torments and worse!”

“Until now have been discovered, temples, houses, walls, paintings, writings, sculptures, vases, tools, implements, bones, and other objects that roused the curiosity of cultured persons, artists, and archaeologists. But now you, my friend Fiorelli, have discovered human pain, and whoever is human can feel it.”

Where Fiorelli, the scientist, attended to the antiquarian details—the coiffeur, the clothing, the pathology—of the victims, Settembrini, the humanist, recoiled at the evidence of their suffering. Exhibition of the bodies at Pompeii made it possible for viewers to respond individually, and few visitors to Pompeii who recorded their impressions during the late nineteenth century failed to mention a visit to the morgue-like museum.

A growing industry of commercial photography catered to the tourist market, culminating in the picture post cards introduced during the last decade of the century. By then Fiorelli’s casts had become iconic."
in Cultural History,Giveaway,History NF authors,History and Death,History and Nature,History with an H
Eugene Dwyer, author of Pompeii’s Living Statues: Ancient Roman Lives Stolen from Death, was born in Buffalo and attended Frontier Central High School, Harvard College, and the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. After living in Italy for three years, he completed his doctoral dissertation on the use of sculpture in the houses of Pompeii and began teaching the history of art at Kenyon College, where he is currently Professor.

Cockroaches

2011-04-13T22:54:00.003+01:00

Skin, a porous membrane ...

2011-04-13T22:51:00.003+01:00

"Skin is the surface or the boundary line of the body's limit. The skin is actually this very porous membrane so on a microscopic level you get into the questions of what's inside and what's outside. Things are going through you all the time. You really are very penetrable on the surface; you just have the illusion of a wall between your insides and your outside."

Kiki Smith, quoted in an interview April 21st, 2006

Pakistani Actress, Veena Malik, defies Mullah Accusing Her of Immoral Behavior on an Indian Reality TV Show

2011-04-13T21:27:00.002+01:00

Question to Soofia Asad who is a photographer from Pakistan, living in Bangkok:

CSD : "A couple of days ago, I posted this video on Facebook but I would like to know more about the context of it."

Soofia Asad* : "This video is of a Pakistani film actress. She participated in an Indian reality show 'Big Brother'. On that show, she wore western dresses (like trousers, sleeveless tops and skirts) and got very close to one of the indian guys on the show, as a friend-hugging him, holding hands, sitting very close to him-regular platonic relationship. She received a lot of criticism from the traditional and religious people. People called her a slut and an immoral person who should not be representing the so called Islamic Republic of Pakistan. She in return is saying that she was not representing any country or religion there and went as a regular person. She received death threats as well.

In Islam, women are not supposed to be around and touch men who are not her husband or brother or father. One of our political ministers had to resign because she shook hands with the males of the foreign delegates...such is our hypocrisy."

(Soofia Asad's blog about here current residency: click here)

In the video, there is a mesmerizing moment when in split screen we see both the Mullah and the actress shouting at each other. Their voices are mixed together and the visual opposition of the beautiful (angry) woman and the bearded Mullah is at its maximum effect.

... So now we have a Feminist French governement !!

2011-04-13T20:56:00.002+01:00

"The French government says wearing the veil is a symbol of male oppression."

Showing some of my "self-portraits in mirrors" in Nottingham ...

2011-03-30T22:19:00.003+01:00

"We don’t exist without others. Our sense of Identity comes from the confrontation with other's perceptions of us. What we understand of our secular image is partially made of glimpses of what we can see of us in the eyes of others. It can be intrusive, disturbing, it can be reassuring, comforting. We are caught in the others’ eyes; we don’t belong to ourselves.

Those self-portraits in mirror are attempts to recover an illusive power over my own image. Both the mirror and the screen of the camera allow me to compose a pose and choose a frame and background. In doing so, I regain control over what I think the other will see, turning myself into an active subject. Showing the process of the making comes as a double affirmation of this position.

These self-portraits have been taken over the past 7 years. They are spontaneous and quickly taken but carefully constructed. Offering a view onto my inner life by showing moods, atmospheres and personal everyday surroundings, they are similar to diary entries, attempts to understand something of my own complex identity. We are constantly changing and evolving, made of multiple selves."

Susie Orbach - Therapist Susie Orbach on body image

2011-03-15T14:10:00.003Z

Susie Orbach: 'The whole notion of perfection is a troubling aspect of our society'

Therapist Susie Orbach on body image, the commercialisation of happiness and her 'Endangered Species' campaign.

Beth Lazroe - In our faces

2011-03-14T23:05:00.002Z

"IN OUR FACES : Visual Assault is the only term that can describe the experience of viewing the degrading images of women, shown as objectys of sexual use and fantasy, that daily bombard the residents of Prague and other Czech cities."

Text and images from Beth Lazroe's website (best to be seen in her website).

Self-portraits using laptop

2011-03-14T22:14:00.004Z

I've started using the laptop for self-portraits this winter (see here, here and here). I was interested in pushing its physical limits(you have to be able to reach the mouse and fit in the frame at the time).

Now I have kept this practice for everyday self-portraiture. I'm very interested in the rendering of the light and colours and the fact that the quality is limited too, which means that the end format has to be very small and so more intimate.

01.2011

12.2010

03.2011

You are not yourself - Babara Kruger

2011-03-13T20:20:00.002Z

Mehraneh Atashi : "Tehran Self-portraits - 2008"

2011-03-10T23:12:00.027Z

Show in Quad, Derby, UK - March/April 2011

Tehran’s Self-Portraits explores her experiences of living in a city that is changing quickly. Over the last 30 years Tehran’s population has grown from 5 to 15 million. In the process of expanding and being rebuilt, its cultural identity is shifting. In response, Atashi has tried to enable the city to make a portrait of itself in flux. To do this she tried to look through her Holga camera as if she was a statue, part of the fabric of the city.

I am looking forward to visiting her show in Derby but in the meantime I have found those images in her Artreview page. For more realted to Mehraneh Atashi in my blog, click here.

most recent self-portraits in mirrors - January/February 2011

2011-02-27T21:52:00.002Z

Eileen Cowin

2011-02-27T21:44:00.003Z

Self-portrait in mirror

Ilse Bing - self-portraits

2011-02-27T21:38:00.003Z

Glamour

2011-02-08T23:04:00.008Z

Self-portrait in the kitchen - 2007 ? (1)

(...)
As soon as you think or write about glamour you enter dangerous territory. Are we talking about artificiality and the lure of false values? About gold-digging seducers or women on the make? What about the ethics of fur or diamonds; or cosmetic surgery and the problems of body dysmorphia in the young? Is the idea of glamour exclusively western and white?

(...)
Does glamour empower women, or turn them into objects? It is important to remember that women practise glamour, they are not simply the object of the male gaze. And, historically, glamorous women were just as likely to be seen as dangerous to men as victims themselves. Glamour can represent self-assertion, sexual confidence, playfulness, pleasure and delight. But in the end, nothing empowers women so much as a good education and a well-paid job (2).

Glamour versus feminism? Just look at the images in the media we all adore.
Carol Dyhouse - The Observer, Sunday 21 March 2010
Carol Dyhouse is a research professor at the University of Sussex. Her new book, Glamour: Women, History, Feminism

Note 1 : I can't remember the date and tried to guess the age of my son on the "school-made" silver star photo frame in the background of the picture (by the Christmas tree) ... obviously not far from Christmas, for sure ...
Note 2 : I personally don't have THE "well-paid job" ...

Note 3 : the point is that, so far, in my personal research through feminism etc, what makes most sense to me is what is written here : click the link to my previous post.

Feminism Beyond Hysteria:Reading Feminine Ethics - Kristine Klement

2011-01-29T23:22:00.004Z

Second wave feminism offered women another sort of cure, a new ideology by which to explain their experiences and their suffering, another way of expressing “the problem that has no name.” But so far feminists have not been able to displace the phallic signifier, reliant as we are on the social meanings of sex, gender and sexuality which it structures. Feminist thinkers have often taken either the masculine position, relying on a messianic fantasy of phallic power to come, or the hysteric’s position, blaming others for what they lack. However, what feminism needs to contend with is that the question What does a woman want? has no universal answer because the Woman does not exist. Without a signifier for woman’s desire, each woman is alone to produce her own signifier for herself. She can take the route of the hysteric by looking for an external limit, or she can take this responsibility on herself. Which is why Copjec claims that the ethical act is feminine, because to act ethically is to take responsibility for limiting one’s own jouissance in the face of the absent Other, that is, without the fantasies of love and sex offered by the social world. Acting ethically is not transgressing an oppressive law, or following some kind of morality—that is the masculine logic. It is this feminine ethics that I think may offer feminists a new way of approaching feminine difference and a new politics of women’s suffering.

E-Article

Cockroaches and lace mourning self-portrait

2011-01-24T14:41:00.005Z

- Cockroaches are among the hardiest insects on the planet. It is popularly suggested that cockroaches will "inherit the earth" if humanity destroys itself in a nuclear war.
- In French, cockroache is "cafard" and is used in expressions meaning to feel low, down, to have the blues.

2004 - self-portraits - green clay and make-up - studio trials - Staffordshire university

2011-01-14T23:43:00.004Z

2004 - self-portraits - building a protection - studio trials - Staffordshire university

2011-01-14T23:36:00.005Z

2004 - self-portraits with clay - studio trials - Staffordshire university

2011-01-14T22:55:00.006Z

While working at the "mourning" self-portraits and the trials for mask-making, I remembered these images, from university research, about 6 years ago ... It is very strange to be exploring a similar practice again, as I am going through the same kind of emotional states ...

The idea of protecting-repulsing was already there but I choose these portraits here for the sadness in the sight.

mask making - ideas

2011-01-13T23:29:00.004Z

one idea ...

Mask (trial)

2011-01-12T22:00:00.005Z

Mourning - cockroaches (trial)

2011-01-12T03:36:00.007Z

Mourning - lace 2 (trial)

2011-01-10T00:49:00.006Z

Mourning - lace (trial)

2011-01-08T00:15:00.006Z

Trials - laptop self portraits - trying to cover the background with my hair

2010-12-26T23:02:00.004Z

Trials - laptop self portraits - trying to cover the background

2010-12-25T22:34:00.005Z

Publish Post

Also finding out that there is a physical point (closer to the laptop/lense) where the image regains its more natural colours.

The pictures were taken in semi darkness with a small light in background.

Trials - Laptop self portraits with scarf and mouse

2010-12-23T23:07:00.007Z

Exploring self portrait with a laptop and a non wireless mouse.
I also wanted to hide my background so I used a scarf and tried to see how far I could go. It was quite difficult to .

Here I found it interesting that the poses look quite romantic when this was actually due to the physical difficulty of the task : holding the scarf, going as far as I could, checking on the monitor if the background was covered and clicking on the mouse at the same time

Bearded necklaces series - number 3

2010-03-23T21:08:00.005Z

Untitled (yet)

Chain, felt (Staffordshire sheep)

I Care A Lot - submission

2010-03-23T17:04:00.007Z

Pieces submitted for Icarealot.

"Women's body hair removal is strongly normative within contemporary Western culture. Although often trivialised, (...) the hairlessness norm powerfully endorses the assumption that a woman's body is unacceptable if unaltered; its very normativity points to a socio-cultural presumption that hairlessness is the appropriate condition for the feminine body."

"Gender and body hair: constructing the feminine woman", abstract extract

From my personal experience, this fact is even more true in Middle-Eastern culture, would it also be for hygienic or religious reasons.

The two pieces I am presenting for ICareALot were especially made to take part in the debate about Middle East, from a post-feminist point of view. They are both dedicated to the Iranian photographer Mehraneh Atashi who had just been arrested around the same time when I came across the Icarealot call for submission. The two necklaces were made thinking of the women who could wear them as a passive sign of rebellion against a certain male abuse of power. As the two pieces come as beautiful objects to wear and be proud of, my point here is not to reject the depilation practice but to remind us that this should be chosen as a free act, rather than an act of submission to the male desire, to the religion, culture or to simply the weight of tradition. More internationally, the pieces were made to draw awareness on the fact that we are all still under the pressure of culturally accepted stereotypes about women.

“Sacrificial postiche”

Materials: human hair, red copper chain and findings

Dimensions: chain length : 41 cm- hair legth : 21 cm

“Discrete rebellion”

Materials: human hair of friends, daughter and myself, chain

Dimensions: chain length : 18 cm- hair legth : 22 cm

From an ancient tomb in Iraq (circa 9th century BC)

2010-03-15T13:25:00.004Z

A fleshy corporeality - Céline Siani Djiakoua 2009

2010-03-15T12:53:00.006Z

Jenny Saville "Branded" painting

Vanessa Beecroft "VB55" performance

http://www.vanessabeecroft.com/frameset.html

Pipilotti Rist "Sip My Ocean" 1996 video installation.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1peuM6dvr9o

Introduction

Representing naked female bodies nowadays in contemporary Art can still be a challenge. In a context of Post feminism/third wave feminism, how can the representation of the female naked body by contemporary female artists be understood and perceived?

In the present essay, we will look at the work of three contemporary female artists in the fields of painting (Jenny Saville - J.S. - , Branded, 1991), performance (Vanessa Beecroft, - V.B. - VB55, 2005) and video installation (Pipilotti Rist, P.R. - Sip my ocean, 1996). Those three pieces were chosen as they offer three different types of representation for the female naked or semi-naked body. References to these works all acknowledge their feminist content, not only because of the official feminist position of their authors, but also because of the questions they raise about very much discussed feminist issues such as ‘objectification’, ‘visual pleasure’ or ‘ideal body’.
In the first part, we will investigate how the works respond to imposed-by-society images of the female body and more particularly to the “ideal body”. In the second part, we will look at how each artist chose a particular way of displaying female bodies while showing an informed awareness of the ‘male gaze’. In the third part, we will explore how they take the ‘lived body’ into account.

The ‘ideal body’

Nowadays in Western societies most women live with an “internalised, invisible, psychological and physiological corset”[1] (Carson, 1998:119), which is an ideal slim and healthy body of eternal youth. The three pieces chosen here present different responses to this idea.

This image of beauty is very much conveyed by fashion industries and there is no wonder why V.B.’s “critics accuse her of exploiting women” (Harding, 2005). V.B. doesn’t deny striving for an ideal body as she “(…) usually (…) [has] a very clean, precise, asexual, iconic idea, geometrical, with reference to paintings.” (Beecroft, Kellein, 2004). However, even if VB55 is far from representing all types of female bodies, it nevertheless shows diversity in age (from 18 to 65 years old) for these women who, this time, are not all professional models. When looked at from far, the group of naked women (fig. 1) gives an impression of uniformity and of a large display of skin but soon, as Bishop (2000) says, one finds oneself “inevitably assessing and comparing the women”.

fig. 1 VB55 (detail), By Vanessa Beecroft, photo of the performance[2],Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Apr. 8, 2005

This is a quite natural cognitive reaction when confronted to a collection of elements. Through the comparisons, the heterogeneity of features visually opens the mind to the idea of an heterogeneity of beauties, each body looking harmonious in itself while different to all the others.
When looking at VB55 and at Branded (fig. 2), the viewer is facing a “veritable landscape of naked flesh” (Smith, 2002) yet, in J.S.’s work, this is the huge body of only one person that occupies the whole very large canvas (fig. 2’) and she “makes the fat female body ultravisible” (Smith, 2002:135).
fig. 2 (left) VB55, By Vanessa Beecroft, photo of the performance [2], Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Apr. 8, 2005 (right) Branded, detail, By Jenny Saville, 1991, oil on canvas, 213.4 x 182.9cm, the Saatchi Gallery, London
J.S. shows a painting of “the female body that is not art-historically based” and that certainly doesn’t participate “in the construction and maintenance of the ideal female body” (Hardin, 1999). Smith (2002) actually draws a comparison in the way J.S. frames her subject to how the ‘fat lady’ was displayed in the nineteenth century ‘freaks’ shows. And when looking at the green, purple and yellow colours of the skin, Nead (1994) sees it as “putrefying, rotting” (fig 3 ).

Fig. 3 ‘Branded’, detail, By Jenny Saville, 1991, oil on canvas, 213.4 x 182.9cm, the Saatchi Gallery, London

With these references to abnormality, excess, death and putrefaction, it is not surprising that, as Carson (1998) reminds us, J.S.’s portrait falls into the category of “the grotesque body”, with all the fascination this description can imply. But, as Nead (1994) notes, “Saville’s work is no simple celebration of the transgressive female body; indeed, it expresses a deep ambivalence towards the body (…).”. Even though she is denouncing the societal pressure of the ideal female body, the sense of disgust that comes with this unconventional self-portrait also communicates a sense of “self-hatred” which is deeply disturbing and rather ambiguous.

Compared to V.B. and J.S.’s quite dramatic atmospheres, P.R.’s video installation comes as much more lighter and cheerful. It is described by Williams (1996) as a “quirky, glamorous, entertaining” video. Contrarily to V.B. and J.S., P.R. also seems to respond very positively to the ‘idealised’ body. She doesn’t reject stereotyped female images and, as Williams (1996) puts it in a witty way, she even shows “cuts-out of dozens of other scantily dressed pin-ups to her own devilishly bikini-clad self-portrait, as if admitting that yes, these are pleasurable pictures of near-naked young women; let’s move on to the next thing.” (fig. 4)

Fig. 4 stills from Sip My Ocean, Pipilotti Rist, 1996, video installation, sound, 2 video projections reflected in the corner of a room, audio system, 8 minutes.

On one hand, unlike J.S., she doesn’t denounce the tyranny of the imposed-by-society perfect body but on the other hand, doesn’t strive for a physical perfection like V.B., even allowing herself to show amusing views of her face (fig. 5).

Fig. 5 stills from Sip My Ocean, Pipilotti Rist, 1996, video installation, sound, 2 video projections reflected in the corner of a room, audio system, 8 minutes.
In this video, P.R. proves having complete awareness of the stereotyped ideal female body but also demonstrates a perfect control over this quite narcissistic image. As Williams (1996) says it: “Rist can manipulate her image and the video screen with an ease as pleasurable as a perfect love affair”.

Under the ‘gaze’

Referring to V.B.’s performances, Cameron (2007) is asking : “Do some female artists reinforce male objectification of women’s bodies through their sexualised imagery ?”. We will see how in these works, different strategies can be read that seem to give back to the female body its position of “subject”, while still keeping the viewer in an ambiguous if not disturbing position.

When painting her self-portrait, J.S. is far to let the viewer freely enjoy the sight of a naked female body. The size of the canvas nearly all covered with flesh is imposing. The subject is looking down at the viewer in the same return of gaze (fig.6) which, according to Berger[4] writing in 1865 about Manet’s Olympia, broke “the ideal” of the objectified female body in painting.

Fig. 6 ‘Branded’, detail, By Jenny Saville, 1991, oil on canvas, 213.4 x 182.9cm, the Saatchi Gallery, London
As if this was not clear and disturbing enough J.S. has added a proper ‘message’ on her body : “(…) words such as “decorative” (fig.7), “petite”, and “supportive” (fig.8) are cut into/written onto her breasts, stomach, neck, and torso, marking her with the cultural identities imposed upon the female in society.” (Hardin, 1999).

Fig. 7 ‘Branded’, detail, By Jenny Saville, 1991, oil on canvas, 213.4 x 182.9cm, the Saatchi Gallery, London

Fig. 8 ‘Branded’, detail, By Jenny Saville, 1991, oil on canvas, 213.4 x 182.9cm, the Saatchi Gallery, London

As Hardin (1999) notes, by inscribing such words on such a body, J.S gives us to read “(…) her reading of the female body in Western culture in much the same way as we would read Barbara Cruger’s work.” In Branded, far to be looking at a passively offered female body “we are [actually] made aware of being ourselves assessed, of being caught in the act of staring and judging” (Nead, 1994).
But what about the one hundred women standing in VB55?

In his critical article about VB55, Harding (2005) asks this provocative question: “Is it challenging art or merely soft porn for intellectuals?”. As Ravenal (2002) says about Sip My Ocean, VB55 “could [also be] easily (…) [understood] as a projected fantasy of (male) desire rather than post-feminist statement.” For her performances, V.B. has set a number of rules: the audience (fig. 9) has to keep some distance and stay quiet, the women are not allowed to move, only change position and they can’t look directly at the audience, which, according to V.B.[5] make them appeared “removed and detached from the audience” (Harding, 2005). V.B describes this detachment in a particular way: “You stand there, you are about to be taken, but you are not. (…) Nothing is pleasure. (…) It is life on hold.”. About the audience, writers report its embarrassment (Bishop, 2000; Harding, 2005; Beecroft, Kellein, 2004). “VB does revisit the tenured debate over the effects of the presence of the female body” (Killam, 1997) and by confronting the viewers with an eroticised display of real naked women in a theoretically non-sexualised context, she directly confronts them with their own sexuality.

Fig. 9 VB55 (detail), By Vanessa Beecroft, photo of the performance, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Apr. 8, 2005

As for VB55, with Sip My Ocean, the subject of sexuality is raised. In her essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ (1975), Laura Muvley argues that: “the voyeuristic pleasures of cinematic fantasy constructed women characters and female stars as fetishised objects of a ‘masculine’ gaze irrespective of the spectator’s gender.” (Carson, 1998:121).
By showing glamorous and erotic images of herself (fig.4), P.R. seems to perpetrate this observation as she “might appear to act out a male fantasy uncritically” (Ravenal, 2002). At several times, P.R., looks back at the viewer (fig.5): is it part of a seductive act or is it showing an awareness of being watched, like J.S. in Branded? Ravenal (2002) asks: whose vision are we experiencing here? The dream-like and under water atmosphere alludes to unconscious contents, which gives very much the sense of seeing “into [P.R.’s] mind’s eye” (Ravenal, 2002) and being given access to, as P.R. (2007) points it out, her inner body experience. In Sip My Ocean, P.R. is playing with the ‘gaze’ at different levels. The viewer’s identity, his or her location and his/her relationship to the artist, as mentioned by Ravenal (2002), are questioned.

A “fleshy corporeality”[7]

Writers record a wide range of emotions and physical reactions when encountering the three pieces presented here. Viewers back away from J.S.’s self-portrait (Hardin, 1999), Bishop (2000), going to one of V.B.’s performances confesses that she had “a wave of nausea as [she] registered that all this skin belonged to real women” and Williams (1996) found P.R.’s sound track “almost overwhelming”. In this third part, we will see what provokes such reactions.

When Bishop reports feeling sick as she realises that the naked bodies she sees are of real women, she actually had the expectation of seeing “Mueck or Ray style mannequins” (Bishop, 2000).
V.B. works with real women’ bodies as a material. She describes how she assorts them by colours, textures, “as though they were objects” (Kontova, Gioni, 2008) and, at the performance, she expects them to render the perfect image she has in her mind. Then, “the girls come in, and they’re real, they’re physical, they have hair, heir-dos, make-up, and all that vulgarity destroys it.” (Beecroft, Kellein, 2004). At that point, V.B. has to give up her iconic ideal and the other side of her interest in the women appears:
“Once the girls are there, they soften and humanize the performance. They get tired, they start to look at us (…) That is beautiful. (…) As the girls stand in a group as a piece they liberate it by themselves.” (Beecroft, Kellein, 2004).
Live performances can be very powerful experiences as they implicate strong direct identification with the performers. When V.B. puts the viewer into a sexualised interaction with objects that soon show their humanity, she ambiguously reaches deeper libidinal contents referring to our human condition.

The human condition is certainly also what J.S.’s work refers to, yet on a somehow different register.
The choice of the self-portrait pushes the viewer to identify with J.S. but by painting it in such disturbing way, she faces him/her with “the intimacy and brutal exposure of compulsive confession” (Smith, 2002). The identification is then rejected but compassion has been felt, which may drive Godfrey (1994) to write: “What is most noteworthy is the way they[8] convey the uncomfortable presence of human beings with all their physical grossness and vulnerability.” (Godfrey, 1994). Beyond the female body that would have been traditionally given for pleasurable viewing, Branded, with its cadaverous aspect, reminds us that when facing death, our flesh is not sexualised anymore.

When looking at Branded, Smith (2002) notes that “this body of excess (…) threatens to dissolve into formlessness” as that its “borders and surfaces seem to dissipate” (Smith, 2002). This sounds very similar to how Carson (1998) refers to Luce Irigaray’s symbol of ‘volume fluidity’ : an “open container, [a] volume without contours, as opposed to the controllable closed volume of the female and maternal body of masculine fantasy.” (Carson, 1998).
This image of ‘volume fluidity’ can be applied to Sip My Ocean too : the dream-like aquatic atmosphere evocating P.R.’s inner body experience[9] can also be seen as a metaphor of “mutability and transformation” (Spector, 1996).
The sea creatures, the liquid state and the symmetrical images (fig.10) allude very much to female anatomy and the fluidity in the change from one view to another makes one think of “a body with no boundaries, a body with multiple and autonomous erotic zones” (Spector, 1996).

Fig. 10 stills from Sip my ocean, Pipilotti Rist, 1996, video installation, sound, 2 video projections reflected in the corner of a room, audio system, 8 minutes.
“The pervasive sensuality […] suggests the elusive state of jouissance – unadulterated, boundless, pre-Oedipal pleasure.” (Spector,1996). When considering the scale of the installation (fig.11) and adding the effect of the suave sound track it is easy to imagine how viewers are completely immersed in P.R.’s work. There is no wonder why Spector (1996) says that Sip My Ocean offers “captivating audio and visual stimuli that invite corporeal, if not libidinal, identification.”

Fig.11 photos from Sip my ocean, Pipilotti Rist, 1996, video installation, sound, 2 video projections reflected in the corner of a room, audio system, 8 minutes.

Conclusion

In 2009, “Feminism” has many different voices. In the present essay, I tried to explore my own questions as a female artist using my body in my work. I have found extremely interesting to realize how complex the representation of the female naked body is in Art nowadays. After all the feminists’ fights to take the female body back from objectification and stereotyping, it is very fascinating to observe how choosing to display attractive women in seducing situations has become a problematic challenge in itself.

In the first part, we saw that in her terribly deformed self-portrait, Jenny Saville denounces the pressures of an ideal body while giving an impression of self-hatred at the same time. Vanessa Beecroft and Pipilotti Rist, by deciding to show women responding to contemporary beauty stereotypes, were confronted to critics.
In the second part, all three artworks appeared to be particularly good at blurring the boundaries between subject and object. If Pipilotti Rist plays with her awareness of acting out male fantasy by questioning the location and identity of the viewers, Vanessa Beecroft flirts with controversy and keeps them in an ambiguous situation. As for Jenny Saville, she manipulates the audience with her imposing figure and scale and by returning its gaze.
Finally, in the third part, a new undestanding of the female body was evocated with Jenny Saville and Pipilotti Rist’s works while Vanessa Beecroft’s interest in her performers’ emotions was explored. Beyond any sexualised image, it was also acknowledged that Branded, Sip My Ocean and VB55 reminded us of our human condition: men and women are made of emotional and mortal flesh.

[1] Naomi Wolf quoted by Carson F.
[2] 100 naked women, from 18 to 65 years old, presented barefoot on the stone floor for three uninterrupted hours, wearing sheer panty hose, their heterogeneous bodies lubricated with almond oil
[4] quoted by Carson (1998:121)
[5] quoted by Harding (2005)
[7] Term borrowed from Carson (1998:117)
[8] seven of J.S.’s paintings including Branded, at the Saatchi Gallery.
[9] Interview : “Pipilotti Rist talks about her video installation ‘Show a Leg’ (2001) at the Tramway gallery in an edition of Channel 6 Broadcasting’s television show, ‘Art in Scotland’.” Online resource accessed January 2009 :
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1el2b_pipilotti-rist-show-a-leg_creation

Bibliography

Beecroft, V., Kellein, T. (2004). Vanessa Beecroft : Photographs, films, drawings: published in conjunction with the exhibition held 9 May to 22 August, 2004 in the Kunsthalle Bielefeld. Thomas Kellein

Bishop, C. (2000), “Vanessa Beecroft : VB43”, in Make, the magazine of women’s art no88 31-2 Je/Ag 2000

Cameron, M. (2007), “Dolls without nipples”, Online resource accessed January 2009 : http://theorynow.blogspot.com/2007/11/dolls-without-nipples.html

Carson F. (1998). Feminism and the body. In : Gamble S. (ed). The routledge companion to Feminism and Postfeminism, Great Britain:Routledge

Gamble, S. (1996). Postfeminism. In : Gamble S. (ed). The routledge companion to Feminism and Postfeminism, Great Britain:Routledge

Godfrey, T. (1994). “Jenny Saville at the Saatchi Collection”, in Art in America, May, 1994, Online resource accessed January 2009 :
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_n5_v82/ai_15406328/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1

Killam, B. (1997). “Vanessa Beecroft, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster”, in New Art Examiner 25 55-6 0 ‘97

Kontova, H., Gioni, M. (2008). “Vanessa Beecroft”, in Flash Art (international edition) 41 210-13 Jl/S 2008, University of California Press

Kristeva, J. (1997). “Women’s time” (extract), 1981, in Mary Kelly, London, Phaidon Press Limited

McDonald, H. (2001). Erotic ambiguities. The female nude in art. London: Routledge

Hardin, M. (1999). “Mar(k)ing the Objected Body : A Reading of Contemporary Female Tattoing”, 1999, in Fashion Theory 3 no1 pp 81-108

Harding L. (2005). “Take 100 nudes ...”, 2005, in The Guardian, Monday April 11 2005

Lippard L. R. (1999). “Scattering selves”, in Inverted odysseys; Claude Cahun, Maya Deren, Cindy Sherman, New York, The MIT Press.

Nead, L. (1994). “Caught in the act of staring, Lynda Nead on body politics for the 1990s.”, 1994, in Women Art Magazine, May/June No 58 pp 18-19

Phelan, P. (2001) Opening up spaces within spaces: the expansive art of Pipilotti Rist. In: Phelan, P., Obrist H. U., Bronfen E. (2001). Pipilotti Rist. London : Phaidon Press Limited

Ravenal, J. B. (2002). Outer and inner space. Richmond : Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Smith, S. (2002). Bodies of evidence, Jenny Saville, Faith Ringgold, and Janine Antoni Weigh In. In : Smith, S., Watson, J. (eds). Interfaces. Women/Autobiography/Image/Performance. USA: University of Michigan Press

Williams G. (1996). “Pipilotti Rist”, 1996, in Art Monthly, No 197, 6.96

Spector N. (1996). “The mechanics of fluids”, 1996, in Parkett No 48

Interviews on Internet:

Interview “Behind the Scenes with Pipilotti Rist” about “Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters)” November 19, 2008–February 2, 2009 MoMa, Online resource accessed January 2009: http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/exhibitions.php?id=9760&ref=calendar

Interview : “Pipilotti Rist talks about her video installation ‘Show a Leg’ (2001) at the Tramway gallery in an edition of Channel 6 Broadcasting’s television show, ‘Art in Scotland’.” Online resource accessed January 2009 :
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1el2b_pipilotti-rist-show-a-leg_creation

Jemime Stehli - Strip series

2010-02-22T23:28:00.004Z

Strip No1 Writer

Strip No3 Critic

Strip No4 Curator

Strip No5 Dealer

Strip No6 Critic

Strip No7 Writer

Melanie Bonajo

2010-02-22T23:11:00.003Z

furniture bondage

from the series are all clichés true ? 2007

Janneke 2007

Katja, 2007

Annamarie, 2008

Interview

Irving Penn

2010-02-22T22:42:00.003Z

Cecil Beaton with Nude, 1946

The Irving Penn Foundation National Portrait Gallery

Raphael Danke - untitled works - 2007/9

2010-02-21T20:56:00.006Z

To Mehraneh Atashi ... conceptual jewellery project for "I Care A Lot".

2010-02-20T00:06:00.010Z

About two weeks ago I came across a call for submission for an international jewellery exhibition, I Care A Lot, Middle East portable discussion, which aim is to "raise the discussion about current issues in the Middle East". As I make jewellery, I thought this was a great opportunity to use my craft skills in a more conceptual way, which context could grow from the present blog. This project happened to make even more sense when I heard that Mehraneh Atashi, Iranian artist I discovered some time ago and really loved, had been arrested with her husband. I was very shocked by this news and felt it had happened to a friend, an artist-sister ...

I have friends from Kurdistan, Iraq, men and women and these past years I have heard a lot about this neighbour country of Iran. The wars, the life there, the weight of traditions and religion but also funny childhood memories and such a nice food ...

I don't watch TV and hardly read any news. It's a deliberate boycott, a choice. I think it is not my "job" to connect myself to the world in that way. I feel I am connected to the world on a deeper and slower moving level. My job as an artist and as a person (but there is no limit between the two) is to keep that deep connection alive and running smoothly. I have to listen to other things, less obvious, not so either to grasp, starting with my own inner life, starting from my dreams, for example.

The work I am undertaking is dedicated to Mehraneh Atashi for the inspiration her work has given me, hoping she is (and all the others are) safe. I wish this work to go further than only "Middle East" issues. This research is for me about masculinity/feminity, acknowledging the power fights that occur between those two qualities.

From my personal experience, this fact is even more true in Middle East, would it be for beauty and/or hygienic reasons. It could also be said that hairs are aesthetically not tolerable and even men hairiness has to be under control and is not to go over certain limits.

Photographs taken by Behjat Omar Abdulla

Where is Mehraneh Atashi ?

2010-02-19T22:57:00.004Z

Mehraneh Atashi

video :
BBC News - Photographer Mehraneh Atashi detained in Iran

Grau Wal

2010-02-16T02:01:00.006Z

Grau Wal website

Burqas

2010-02-16T01:53:00.005Z

Khaleejia's Blog

Givenchy 2009

2010-02-16T01:17:00.004Z

http://www.luxist.com/2009/07/16/middle-eastern-inspired-fashion-pushes-buttons/

Middle Eastern-inspired Fashion Pushes Buttons

Jananne Al-Ani

2010-02-15T22:57:00.004Z

"Untitled 1 & 2" by Jananne Al-Ani, Kirkuk, Iraq

Mona Hatoum - artworks with human hair

2010-02-15T22:48:00.021Z

Hair Necklace,1995

Human hair, leather bust, wood, 27 x 21 x 16 cm

Intervention in the collection of the Museum Querini Stampalia

Keffieh (1993-99)

Keffieh, by Mona Hatoum, (1993-99), human hair on cotton, 1993-1999, collection Peter Norton, Santa Monica

Zoe Leonard - Preserved head of a bearded woman, musée Cerfila 1991

2010-02-15T00:06:00.006Z

(picture taken by myself at the show "Elles", Beaubourg Museum, Paris, 2009)

Zoe Leonard's Interview extract

A models-eye view of the end of the catwalk at the BCBG Max Azria show - Photo : Carlo Allegri/Reuters

2010-02-13T21:17:00.006Z

The secret lives of us - The Guardian article&interviews about Iranian women photographers

2010-02-08T12:25:00.005Z

From beauty salons to traditional male strongholds, Iranian women are using photography to show their country in a different light.

Kate Connolly
The Guardian, Wednesday 2 January 2008
Newsha Tavakolian, a 26-year-old from Tehran, points to one of her photographs, a woman in a bright green scarf with swollen pink lips, bruised eyes and a thinly plastered nose. "What do you see?" she asks me. I'm not sure, I say - a woman who has been beaten up, maybe by her husband.

"I met her in a doctor's surgery," she says. "I thought something dreadful had happened to her, but she told me she had had the works done - a nose job, liposuction, the bags under her eyes, even a boob job, all in one go - to make herself more beautiful."
Through her work, Tavakolian hopes to challenge western preconceptions about Iran, and particularly about Iranian women's lives. Far from being a portrait of domestic abuse, her photograph illustrates the national obsession with beauty. "You often hear the saying, 'Kill me, but make me more beautiful,'" she says.
As with all her photographs, Tavakolian has worked to bring out the virulent colours of the bruising and the blood, "to show that Iran is a colourful country, even if the outside view is that it's a grey and miserable place". She shows me another image of a downcast young woman, enveloped in a white cape like a Carthusian monk, sitting beneath the upturned face of a sultry, long-haired beauty. The woman looks unhappy and trapped - perhaps she is about to enter an arranged marriage.
Again, I'm wrong. "She's 27," Tavakolian says, "she's in love with her fiance, but she's been in the beauty salon since 5am, preparing for her big day, and she's simply bored and exhausted."
In the privacy of her own home, Tavakolian says, the woman will take off the cape and look more like the beauty on the wall. "Within our homes, we can be exactly who we want to be. In Iran, there's a big divide between the outside and inside worlds."
Tavakolian has worked for newspapers since she was 16, and last year won a major international award from the National Geographic Society for "indigenous and underrepresented photographers". Along with six women photographers born in Tehran between 1974 and 1981, her work is currently on show in Berlin.

These women belong to a generation that has little, if any, experience of the time before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, but who are nevertheless not fully part of the modern world. The search for identity is central to the work of all of them.
Until a few decades ago, photography in Iran was solely the preserve of men. But in recent years increasing numbers of women, who first began to emerge as press photographers during the Iran-Iraq war, have been graduating from Tehran's Art University.
These women are using photography to investigate aspects of Iranian society, rather than simply to document it - something that has been compared by critics in Germany to the Weimar Republic. In Germany in the 1920s and 30s, many women photographers used the camera as a tool, to help them define their place in a rapidly changing society.
Perhaps the most arresting photographs on show in Berlin are those of 27-year-old Mehraneh Atashi, who offers a highly unusual insight into a Zourkaneh or "power house" - a sort of spiritual fitness centre for Iranian men in which virility, religion and the powerful symbolism of the Persian hero all come into play. Atashi's pictures of sweaty, bare-chested men are not what you might expect from a young female Islamic photographer. Atashi, who graduated from Tehran's University of Art in 2002, gained access after months of persuasion. She was finally given permission to photograph on condition that the men would not be naked. Atashi decided to put herself in her pictures, placing a mirror between herself and her subjects, so that the image we get is of a chador-clad woman watching the half-naked masculine spectacle. The contrast is strange and fascinating.
"It wasn't me, but the power of my camera to freeze them in time that persuaded them to let me in," says Atashi. "I wanted to place myself as both object and subject of the picture, because I wanted this to be more than just documentary. Their narcissism and desire to show off their sexuality, as well as the competition they feel between each other, made it possible."
Katajun Amirpur, Islamic expert at the University of Cologne, points out that Iran is still a society "in which girls can be married at the age of nine, where women can be punished for having pre-marital sex, where they cannot become judges or presidents, they are banned from football stadiums, and where the wearing of the chador is obligatory.
"At the same time, a third of the work force is female, two-thirds of students are women, there are female MPs, doctors, mayors, policewomen, taxi drivers. Karate is the most popular female sport, and 97% of women can read and write. The reality is that women are exceptionally self-confident members of Iranian society."
Despite an active political movement, led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which would like to keep Iranian women suppressed, Amirpur argues that they now play too significant a part in Iranian society to be "brought back to the stove". The reason has much to do with the Iran-Iraq war of 1980 to 1988: "The war led to women taking over many of the roles previously held by men, including that of the photographer," she says. "Women's photography in Iran is part proof that you can't put the lid back on the pot - Iranian women are out there."
Made in Tehran is at the Cicero Gallery for Political Photography, Berlin, until January 19. artefakt-berlin.de

Trials ...

2010-01-14T22:16:00.002Z

Photo by Behjat Omar Abdulla

Nicki Dennett

2009-11-30T22:11:00.002Z

Yesterday I went to the Surface Gallery in Nottingham to sell some of my jewellery . Unfortunately, it wasn't very busy and I only sold one piece ... but I met Nicki Dennett (illustrator and printmaker) and exchanged some jewellery against some of her work.

I really like the print I got from her. It is called "Burger" :

It reminds me very much of my own series of fashion magazines photographs and I am very much looking forward to working more at it again ...

Nicki told me that the print I now have was part of a series she made about a Healthy Eating campaign.
here are some images, taken from her website : they tell the story of a woman who ....

Life Changes

Comfort Zone

Online Shopping

Ditch the Burger

Consequence

The Way Forward

Grow your own

I like this work very much.

Eating and the problems relating to it are much deeper than what we usually say and those drawings speak for themselves.

German advert for underwear using veiled woman

2009-10-31T21:12:00.006Z

(Facebook exchange)

Shwan Dler Qaradaki posted the link :

Click here to view the clip :
German advert for underwear using veiled woman

CSD : What do they say and what is it exactlly ?
Shwan Dler Qaradaki : This is the reclama for sexy underwear from the German manufacturer liaison dangereuse.com. They believe this is provocative? I wish everyone who goes in burka could dressed like that ;)
CSD: Oh, OK, thanks Dler :) Is that the journalist who is talking that is saying it is provocative ? Do they mean that it is offending for Muslims ?
Shwan Dler Qaradaki : Yes exactly. but I think Muslims should be hapy for this advertisement. This is posetiv
CSD : That's very interesting, Dler, thX for that ... I'm going to post this video on (one of) my blog(s) ! :)

Showing my work

2009-09-19T19:25:00.006+01:00

This will be the first time I will be presenting a work coming from the present blog-research, "Rebecca's Fashion Magazines" !

Photographs shown :

Deborah Nicklin

2009-09-08T23:49:00.005+01:00

Just discovered Deb's (who I know) work (which I didn't know).

She studied a BA Hons Fashion Degree at Central St Martins, London.

I really like her work, especially : Bag Lady, American Nightmare, So flippin' Happy, Zelda the perfect mother. I love their nasty-witchy side and the fact that ! I really like this sense of humour. Combined with a fashion style, to me they say a lot about the fashion world and its disturbing aspects ....

So flippin' Happy

Zelda - The Perfect Mother

Bag Lady

American Nightmare

Deborah Nicklin's website

Jana Sterback "Vanitas" 1987 - seen at elles@centrepompidou

2009-08-15T23:59:00.006+01:00

Dress made out of fresh meat, worn by the artist in 1987.

Dress as exhibited.

New findings in Vogue magazine

2009-08-15T22:43:00.004+01:00

Valérie Belin

2009-08-15T22:41:00.004+01:00

Sanja Iveković

2009-08-15T22:07:00.010+01:00

Seen this summer in Paris, elles@centrepompidou.
"Diary, 1976"

Another, very 70's feminist work :

Double life, 1975

"Dvostruki zivot (Double life, 1975) is a series of 66 pairs of photographs where snapshots from her personal album are placed side by side with images of women from women's magazines, paired according to the similarity in their appearances, figures, accessories and situations. The emphasis on the parallelism between the mass media and the private photographs blurs the distinction between original and copy, between model and representation, and invites us to think about the nature and origin of the stereotypes of femininity. Is it the mass media that appropriate expressions, poses and attitudes which are typical of female behaviour or is it women who, under the influence of those media constructs, have ended up adopting them? Ivekovic suggests the influence of the mass media in the shaping of feminine stereotypes and turns them into elements of identity. "

More recent work (Gen XX, 1997-2001) :

"Sanja Iveković's project Gen XX has been realised as advertisements published in various magazines. The women in the photographs are professional models whose faces are familiar to the contemporary audience, while the text accompanying the photos presents National Heroines known to the generations that lived in socialist ex-Yugoslavia, but have been completely erased from the contemporary collective consciousness. The manoeuvre that Sanja Iveković performs within the Gen XX media action consists of appropriating the media talk and subverting it by its own means. Using the media is always a manipulation, a technical treatment of the given material with a particular goal in mind. When the technical intervention is of immediate social relevance, manipulation is a political act (which it is by default within the media industry). Gen XX turns this commonly accepted fact into its advantage, appealing to people's sophistication, addressing a 'target group' that takes pleasure in being taken seriously and should not be left to advertising.(2) Gen XX gives lessons in both history and media dwelling in the imaginary space that shapes the formation of the public. Its subversive tactics do not reside in the practice of provocation but in its accommodation to the social codes and conventions of everyday life informed by mass culture.It is a certain translation from a specialised language into the media code, re-translated by media recipients into their own language of the every-day. The effectiveness of its communication strategy consists of this translation based on the analysis of the moment of performance and transmission of knowledge in relation to the moment of the conception and of the research itself."

http://www.ljudmila.org/scca/platforma3/ilic_krstic.htm

Trials

2009-06-23T23:03:00.004+01:00

Barbara Probst

2009-06-19T17:13:00.005+01:00

Click here to see more + read interview : http://celinesianidjiakoua.blogspot.com/2009/06/barbara-probst-work-and-interview.html

Mehraneh Atashi - "Bodiless, I"

2009-06-19T00:13:00.007+01:00

Mehraneh Atashi's amazing "self-portraits"... I just love them ... ever so inspiring ...

Mehraneh Atashi's Statement :

"The breath of women is religiously prohobited in the Zourkhaneh.Zourkhaneh, a traditional centre of male sport where religion ,tradition,virility and symbol of the persian hero are all mixed.The first day I entered the zourkhaneh with mirrors reflecting the sence all over,I suddenly found myself standing in front of some big and strong men .It was so hard to gain the trust of these extremly religious moslems and their agreement to pose half naked in front of me and the mirror, but magic of photography helped me ,I made sure to be peresent in each photos as a subject among the heroes. "
http://www.mehranehatashi.com/tabid/57/Default.aspx

Tracey Emin's erotic/non erotic drawings

2009-05-25T21:34:00.013+01:00

Tracy Emin talking about a series of drawings she made:

"I enjoyed making this series because I somehow felt removed from it. And even though it is an erotic subject, I even felt distant from the sexuality of the pictures. It was almost like I was trying to get to the bottom of something, understand something - what it means to be a woman, a single entity and feminine. There is no shock or offence intended. They were made for me, trying to deal with something that is going on in my mind. And that's the beautiful thing about drawing: it's intimate, like handwriting, and the dialogue is between the paper and me."

The ambiguity here is all in the fact that she actually "exhibits" those drawings. The subject being erotic, even though her intentions were not, by being seen by others, they become "officially" erotic.

I am very much interested in this moment when the author/artist still has the control over showing or not showing, letting the work be seen or not and in that way offering something erotic or not.

Whatever TE says her intentions were, she is showing her drawings.

Drawings :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/may/25/tracey-emin-drawing-art

David Hoyle - performer - "Magazine" front covers

2009-04-30T20:39:00.018+01:00

"Comedian David Hoyle is no drag - With scary make-up, savage wit and no showtunes,the comedian David Hoyle takes his audiences right to the edge."

CLICK HERE for interview (The Times, April 21, 2009)

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/comedy/article6133256.ece

"How I became perfect" - retouch campaign

2009-04-21T22:20:00.011+01:00

"The media world is becoming increasingly fixated on appearances. And the number of tricks used to achieve the increasingly exaggerated ideals is growing. Many models have plastic surgery and even more are retouched so they appear to have bigger breasts, smaller stomachs or fuller lips.We wanted to show how easy it is to change someone’s appearance in this campaign."

TRY HERE :http://demo.fb.se/e/girlpower/retouch/

"Filles d'Amsterdam" - photographic series - Jean-Luc Moulène

2009-04-15T16:38:00.023+01:00

Jean-Luc Moulene: travail de sape.(Critical essay)
Publication: Parachute: Contemporary Art Magazine
Publication Date: 01-APR-06Author: Delbard, Nathalie

JEAN-LUC MOULÈNE WORKING TO UNDERMINE

" Naturally, Moulène has, once again, taken on an out-of-the-ordinary sort of work, one that gives rise to lively debate; moreover, although we are dealing here with people (Dutch prostitutes) (....)the body is now a body-merchandise, a kind of ultimate consumer object.
(...) in the face of these nude women with their legs spread, with their bodies marked by scars or accessories, and especially with their faces looking straight out at us in alignment with their hairless genitalia, there is no place for the beholder's gaze to seek refuge, no diagonal or intermediary space in which to withdraw. Our gaze constantly wavers between the head and the genitals; it cannot settle on one at the other's expense; it is divided without ever coming to rest. (...)Moulène refuses to separate the head and the sex. This is the major accomplishment of "Filles d'Amsterdam." One might nevertheless object, and rightly so, that this kind of representation is already largely present in our culture's field of images, especially in the pornography industry. And while "Filles d'Amsterdam" is shown in the museum space in such a way as to produce the opposite effect of a private and solitary viewing, (11) because the museum generates an important form of distanciation and forces viewers to confront their responsibility as viewing subjects, we know also that the slightest reproduction in the media (which the artist has, for the moment, authorized infrequently and under strict conditions) tends quickly to "pornify" the images. More certainly, what clearly distinguishes Moulène's photographs has to do with the very nature of the artistic process and, indirectly, with the unusual mode in which these women appear, for these are portraits, or what Moulène defines as depictions "of someone in his or her social relations by means of social signs and their social status." (12) In other words, in the case of the commercialization of bodies, the face--if it appears--must make itself forgotten as a unique object in order to facilitate the selling of the product (by using clearly stereotyped expressions). What is being asked of these "workers," however, is that they address the camera in the light of a social reality that is fully identified as such; they are far from simply putting their heads in the service of their bodies in order to maintain the illusion of the role that is usually assigned to them. It is thus from this site that the "girls of Amsterdam" gaze at us, and this is why their faces impose a persistent presence that is at least equal to the presence of their genitalia--a presence which, in the end, interferes with viewing them as prostitutes."

(11.) Note in this regard the effectiveness of the singular panoptical system Moulène created for his exhibition at the Jeu de Paume, where the thirteen photographs in the series, displayed in the central gallery upstairs, encircled viewers and constantly reminded them of their own gaze through their reflection in the images and the presence of other visitors.
(12.) Moulène, interview with Delbard, op. cit.

Amie Dicke

2009-03-27T20:45:00.012Z

Amie Dicke

Magazine front cover

2009-03-14T21:47:00.009Z