Research Response #5

While doing some research for my artist presentation I came across some work of Ann Hamilton which I found to be extremely interesting and powerful works as well.
I found the work of Ann Hamilton's A Human Touch. I initially saw her photos alone and liked those but once I found out a little bit more about what it was about I thought that it was even a much better piece all together. Using the idea of public health and social community engagement with the building of a healthcare facility for those who are not available to healthcare other wise. Hamilton wanted to use a very personable approach and claimed that for this particular work less is more when showing the portraits. Taking hundreds of photos I think that Hamilton captured the idea of a humanistic approach and creative way of showing the link between healthcare availability and not that is a problem faced by many. I think the photos themselves are powerful without any context added. Without the sharp clarity of the portraits themselves they are obviously photos of individuals that are of different age, gender, race and ethnicity and body types. This much is clear in the work but nothing beyond that which I feel is the point. Nothing of those characteristics should make health care more or less available, yet it does, very much actually. The way Hamilton can express that in her photo series I think is very powerful and important as well.
http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/news/a-human-touch-ann-hamiltons-portraits-at-ut-austin/

Artist Presentation #1: Cecilia Dougherty

Cecilia Dougherty
Cecilia Dougherty is an artist and writer who is mostly known for her video work and exploration of language, sexuality, feminism, human rights, queer rights, critical theory, visual culture, outsider interpretation and perception of popular culture and global politics. Many but not all of Dougherty's work have a focus in one or more of these themes or ones closely relating. She produces her work in a way of exploitation of these themes, a way of showing the importance of what is being said and shown. I became more interested in her work the more videos I found and the more information I was able to gather about her, her work and any reason for her ideas of developing her videos.

One of the videos I chose for this assignment was Gay Tape: Butch and Femme. I chose this because I personally found it interesting out of the videos I was able to see clips of but I also thought that this was extremely closely related to this course and what we have been studying. This video was about women who identify as lesbians talking about what it is like, experiences they have had and expressing some of their opinions about the impact of society on their lives and experiences. The way in which this is conducted seems to be in a form of criticism but in an almost light hearted or understanding way rather that accusing, angered form. I find this to be an interesting approach but also like it would be the most productive and that if it were too forceful the video work would not make the impact it did.

The other work I chose to focus on was Dougherty's Grapefruit. I was a little unsure about this video at first until I re-watched it and looked in to what is was supposed to be about beyond the obvious. Once I realized that I thought that it too worked really well for this class material and was using a cultural phenomenon that is known to most people. I think that how Dougherty used the relationship
of The Beatles and John Legend and Yoko Ono to show something so much more than that. Dougherty was able to manipulate these individuals as characters played to make inferences about the lesbian sub-culture and its relationship to the dominant heterosexual culture which is something that has been plagued with stereotypes and assumptions that Daugherty inherently uses to her advantage in this video.

Gay Tape: Butch and Femme: https://vimeo.com/159292230
Grapefruit: https://vimeo.com/31576479

Research Response #4

This week I spent a good amount of time researching some of the artists and their work but I mostly took a larger interest in some of the work that wasn't actually included in the readings specifically. The Christine Tamblyn article I found particular interesting because I love seeing art work about subject matter that is what I like to focus on in my studies and my own art work even. When I was researching and looking at the work of Cecilia Condit's Beneath the Skin, which I really enjoyed, I came across Dina Kelberman and some of her work. Some of what I found about her work is not what I am typically drawn to but she does something with this over-lapping visual and sound affect and sometimes has multiple video clips going at once which I just found interesting and I thought really shows an organized chaos. I also found another work of Sherry Millner's besides what was mentioned in the text that I really enjoyed, Womb with a View. The title alone was why I clicked on it so there was that already but the video wasn't really what I was expecting. Similar to Kelberman, this work had very conflicting audio to begin with an intense but almost serene audio played with a women screaming which alone shows what I thought was an attempt at showing the range of what childbirth is. I just happened to come across this but I really enjoyed her works of what I saw and they were very strong initially for getting across her messages I thought.

http://www.vdb.org/titles/womb-view
http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/email-exhibition-space-screen
https://zine.electricobjects.com/interviews/dina-kelberman

Reading Response #3

Going into this reading I had already been familiar with the Nochlin article "Why Are There No Great Women Artists?", but reading about it in this way gave room for a different perspective and more of an insight to happen as I was reading. I completely agree with how Nochlin argues that there haven't been any great women artists because of the hegemony of males in the art world so women have always been disclosed from the distinctions of what great art is and who can create it. Almost everything in and out of the art has been previously defined and set by males so the women are left to reach, in many eyes, an unreachable equal goal. I really enjoyed reading about what Bovenschen said about "feminine sensibility" and how women are generalized yet there is not formal criteria for feminist art which I think shows the exact point of how women artists are secluded yet there isn't necessarily a reason to. I think it was very important to include how the "feminine representation" of art changed along with the changes happening within the feminist movement. I view this as any other form of an art movement. Artists, mostly males, would create art that was personal to them often times in relation to what was happening culturally that they relate to and this is the same thing just in relation to the lives of women. Although this is not typically seen as that. This shift has a negative connotation reflecting on women and further secludes them into the box of only feminist artists or women artists but not great artists in general. I think the problem with there not being any notable "great women artists" is summed up perfectly when Gever says "...whether there have been - or even will be - any "great women artist's" have been effectively displaced by the critical voices of feminism."
I think these articles work together because Tamblyn uses specific examples to almost prove the points of Gever's article about women artists and potential of "great" work. The two ideas I was drawn to the most in this article were the idea of "The personal is political" when talked about by Kraus and Millner and the work Beneath the Skin(1981) by Cecilia Condit when talking about the idea of women as "the other". These are both huge ideas to the women's and feminist movement that when they are shown and displayed through work of women artists it adds even more to their merit and the influence they hold for the movement and meaning within the movement.

How do you think the idea of the "feminine aesthetic" plays into how art made by women is viewed by men and other women? Does it matter? Is it different, if so why?

Research Response #3

This week I have begun to do some initial research for my artists presentation. I am presenting on Cecilia Dougherty. I have been doing some initial searching on her video pieces and what who she is and what her work is about to get a better sense when I continue to do my research later on. I found that her website and vimeo were very helpful to see some of her video work and start to compile some ideas about which I might chose to focus on for this presentation. I was also able to find some writings about her work from some museums which gave me another perspective of her work from another point of view which I found very intriguing especially because her work can draw so many opinions that I think reading more of them is going to be in my best benefit, which I am finding it to be so far. I was also able to find some publications that include writings and descriptions about her work. So far I have a much better idea of her work and have been able to see more of her actual work.

http://www.ceciliadougherty.com/videos-2/
http://www.arts.rpi.edu/pl/iear-events/cecilia-dougherty
https://vimeo.com/ceciliadougherty
https://hammer.ucla.edu/programs-events/2012/02/dirty-looks-long-distance-love-affairs/#gallery_d8632ca35125d4a9c888c55e107d674153d21335