Week 2
10 October - 16 October
10 October - 16 October
The
main theme that I took from this lecture was Power. This being the power of art
and its ability to create sub cultures and cult like behaviour around it. But
also whether the power comes from the creations or the select individuals who
decide what is or isn’t “Art”. We therefore explore the elitism amongst
institutions, artists and the audience.
An
attempt for Magicians of the Earth at the Pompidou Centre to be a cultural
display and show that Western Art holds a continuity to Aborigine Art in fact
just eluded to the idea that Modern Western is the eventual end point to
Aborigine Art, undermining its cultural importance. This cultural appropriation
is either a kind gesture of representation from the West, or an accidental
racist commentary where third world culture is hi jacked by the first world yet
again.
In
the same way, we see the same issues portrayed in the past as the present. In
response to female artists not being represented in galleries, The Guerrilla
Girls bought advertising space outside of these institutions with a petition of
“Do Women Have to be Naked to get into the Met?” A report* says that in nineteenth and twentieth century galleries, not even 5% of the artists represented in the galleries were women, while 85% of the nudes were female. This is an example of Art being a weapon against Art.
Similarly,
the expressive and emotive art of Jackson Pollock was employed as a cultural
weapon by the CIA to retaliate against Soviet Russia’s oppression of
Avant-Garde Art. This questions whether Modern Expressionism would have been so
successful without this overriding power.
Why
is it that we allow a select group of people to agree on what is powerful image
making? It is questionable whether the Mona Lisa does in fact evoke emotions in
crowds of people; or whether they want to be involved in a cultural obsession
with this priceless bullet proofed painting. So is it the art or the institution with the
power?
*http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.139856.html
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