Fundamentals Of Art Spring 2014: February 2014

Thread:: No Progress in Pleasure
Post:: No Progress in Pleasure
Author:: Miriam

Posted Date:: February 6, 2014 11:48 PM
Status:: Published

Barbara Kruger's image is a black and white photograph displaying the side view of a woman's face. The subject photographed is a sculpture or statue of a womans head, cutting off the rest of her body just below her neck. It is a stark, close up image with figure-ground organization. Prominently displaying the contures of the womans facial features, the shadowing along the edge leaves a clear- cut, white silouette of her nose, mouth, and chin against a black background. The boldness of her features emanate an impression of strength, confidence, and power. The choices of color and compostion contribute to the image's tone as well. The shallow depth of field with very little background allows the viewer to focus entirely on the face, while a limitted palette of color simplifies the image to bring all out her facial attributes.
As I viewed the photograph, I was automatically drawn in to the both the caption and the title that accompanyed the image and imediately began to reflect on its overall meaning by coupling the image with the text. The title below reads, "No Progress in Pleasure," with an inscription running down the left side: "Your gaze hits the side of my face." My thoughts were brought back to the readings which dwelt on the way women are primarily objectified in art and commercial media. The commentary began with the statement: "According to the usage and convertions that are at last being questioned, but have by no means been overcome, the social presence of a woman is different in kind from that of a man. A man's presence is dependent upon the promise of power he embodies... By contrast, a woman's presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her." The passage went on to describe how a woman becomes reduced to the terms of how her body can be used, rather that what she is capable of, in and of herself. In images, they become objects within the picture, rather than the subject. By contrast however, this photograph displays the woman as the obvious subject. Her persona is bold and powerful, parallel to what has become a typical depiction of a man. Additionally, her postion is not facing the viewer. Her validation does not rely on the acknowledgement or enjoyment from the one who is surveying her. She has strength in herself; a stregth that we can only get a glimps of from a periferal standpoint. The reading discusses how women in pictures are often arranged a way that positions her body as a display for the assumed man who is looking at the picture. In the same way, their face looks directly out at the viewer, with an expression"responding to the calculated charm of the man whom she imagines looking at her." However, the oppostite is true in this image. The face we see does not focus on the viewer, but is rather intent on her own musings and business. She does not look to feed anyone else's interests but her own. This pulls the viewer into her world, rather than drawing her into theirs. What is she doing? What is she gazing so intently at? In pondering this, I was brought to the words alongside the image: "Your gaze hits the side of my face." This could be a response to her gaze; a poignant reaction that compares her look to a physical action. This once again portrays the power of the woman. Who is the woman looking down upon with such force? The title seems to be her statement, just as the other phrase was the response of her audience. She states that there is no progress in pleasure. To me this could be her acting as a role model in the empowerment of women (since the characteristics of her portrayal contradict the subservient female image) and condeming the fact that women are still viewed as inferiors, even after so many years. This sentiment is in echoed in Berger's writings. He primarily described images from more distant eras, and yet the exact same objectification of women was still rampant at the time this image was produced in 1981. And it continues today. Berger wrote, “But the essential way of seeing women, the essential use to which their images are put, has not changed.” In this way we have not made any progress. The woman's statement could be a call to action, that frivolity will not bring about much needed change.

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Thread:: Kruger Photograph
Post:: RE: Kruger Photograph
Author:: Baljit

Posted Date:: February 6, 2014 10:46 PM
Status:: Published

Hi Robin,

I found this piece to be very interesting because Barbara Kruger’s work focused on female statue symbolizing beauty and art at the same time without engrossing into nudity as it was popular work of art as the objective in history. This work of art shows the essential way of seeing women, without focusing on their sexuality.

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Thread:: Bouffant Pride
Post:: RE: Bouffant Pride
Author:: Baljit

Posted Date:: February 6, 2014 10:28 PM
Status:: Published

Hi Kevin,

The image that I found of Bouffant Pride on Google has a higher resolution which shows more details of different types of hair styles. From the clarity of each image, Ellen Gallagher shows specifics of African American stereotypes. As the eyeballs look like glow in the dark toys, these images can be somewhat ghostlike. http://www.clevelandart.org/art/2003.340

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Thread:: The Snake Charmer
Post:: The Snake Charmer
Author:: Baljit

Posted Date:: February 6, 2014 10:16 PM
Status:: Published

The image that I chose to discuss is called The Snake Charmer by Jean Leone Gerome made in 1870 on oil on canvas. This image falls in the category of paintings known as Orientalists, in which historians studied culture and depicted aspects of Middle Eastern and East Asian cultures through writings, designs and art from the West. The Snake Charmer focuses on a naked boy controlling a python while an old man plays a flute. The group that’s watching the naked boy very attentively might be soldiers that are seemingly distinguished, due to their different costumes, perhaps from their tribes, and weapons. This image appears to have mix of primary and secondary colors. The palette consists of shades of blue, gold, and brown. However, the wall seems to be monochromatic with multiple value and intensity of blue. The writings on the wall look to be in Arabic and the designs are repetitive across the board. To my understanding, this composition has one point perspective, where the single vanishing point is the old man sitting on a chair, perhaps a king or higher being, for whom the snake charmer and nude boy are the entertainers. The room is furnished with an elaborate oriental rug and tiles with different shapes and patterns.

One of the references that I found from Ways of Seeing is by what John Berger makes on nudity, how it reveals itself and how nakedness is to be without disguise. “In the average European oil painting of the nude the principal protagonist is never painted. He is the spectator in front of the picture and he is presumed to be a man. Everything is addressed to him. Everything must appear as the result of his being there. It is for him that the figures have assumed their nudity” (Berger: 54). Reflecting to this image, I believe Berger is saying that the painter or artist is the audience.

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Thread:: Bouffant Pride
Post:: RE: Bouffant Pride
Author:: Miriam

Posted Date:: February 6, 2014 2:52 PM
Edited Date:: February 6, 2014 9:50 PM
Status:: Published

In connection with you final comment, I agree that this image can also stand to represent the ideas discussed in Berger's chapters on female objectification. You pointed out that in this piece, the woman is being watched by the faces above her, possibly even representing her own inner examination of herself. However, the roles here could also be reversed, to where the woman is the viewer of the faces on display. In this scenario, the men in the pictures become objectified: their faces pinned to the wall in rows for comparison and scrutiny, while the woman, the most prominent subject depicted, inspects them. In this way, the image could symbolize the empowerment of women and present a contrasting standpoint in opposition to the stereotypical depiction of women.

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Thread:: Kruger Photograph
Post:: RE: Kruger Photograph
Author:: Miriam

Posted Date:: February 6, 2014 3:52 PM
Edited Date:: February 6, 2014 9:37 PM
Status:: Published

I liked your comments about women, when you said that women are unique, smart, and independent individuals. You went on to say that women have soul and beauty "without all the fluff that ment seek or want." I believe what you meant was that men only seek out and value a woman's sexuality. I think this is a major part of the problem with the media's objectification of women. Why can't men seek out or admire a woman's intellect, spirituality, or personality characteraristics? Using a woman's body as a desirous object reduces a woman to a one dimentional item rather than an individual with so many aspects to her being. This then is also the message we are sending young boys in the way they value and interact with women. It is damaging in so many spheres.

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Thread:: Bouffant Pride
Post:: RE: Bouffant Pride
Author:: Robin

Posted Date:: February 6, 2014 8:47 PM
Status:: Published

I went back to look at the image... to get my perspective on the surveyed part of the discussion....

I noticed that there are white spots in the hairdo on the woman in the lower left hand corner. Could that be repeating the white color of the eyes in the several images.

Also, I was curious to understand the significance in the color yellow. I found on www.bourncreate.com/meaning-of-the-color-yellow.

“Yellow, the color of sunshine, hope, and happiness, has conflicting associations. On one hand yellow stands for freshness, happiness, positivity, clarity, energy, optimism, enlightenment, remembrance, intellect, honor, loyalty, and joy, but on the other, it represents cowardice and deceit. In some cultures, yellow represents peace.”

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Thread:: Bouffant Pride
Post:: RE: Bouffant Pride
Author:: Ann

Posted Date:: February 6, 2014 7:29 PM
Status:: Published

Hi Kevin, thanks for your insight. It didn’t occur to me that the woman in the lower left was looking at the other images as a chart. Perhaps she is enjoying a shared experience with the images on the chart that is expressed by their hair which is unique to their culture. Could she also be objectifying the images in the chart? Perhaps she is overlooking their achievements but is solely focused on their physical appearances.

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Thread:: Bouffant Pride
Post:: RE: Bouffant Pride
Author:: Robin

Posted Date:: February 6, 2014 12:55 PM
Status:: Published

Hi Ann,
When I first looked at this image I thought of the artist – Andy Warhol – known for his Pop Art in the 1960’s. He would take an image and repeat it several times using different vivid colors.
Then, when I looked closer I could see that even though the artist used the same color – it was different faces, gender, ethnicity and hairdos. My thought went to the song, “We are the World…”.
It made me think of equality and justice for all. That we may look different because of our gender, age, race and hair, but we are all human beings and should be treated the same.
I thought it represented that we should all be at peace and understanding of different cultures, gender, etc. Why do we have war or prejudices or injustice – that we should be helpful and giving and have prosocial tendencies. Also, that we are all beautiful human beings – that should be proud of who are individually, culturely and universally.

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Thread:: Bouffant Pride
Post:: Bouffant Pride
Author:: Kevin

Posted Date:: February 6, 2014 11:05 AM
Edited Date:: February 6, 2014 11:24 AM
Status:: Published

Bouffant Pride, by Ellen Gallagher, is a handmade collage of drawings and watercolors. It is a fairly small peice, measuring 13.5 inches tall and 10.5 inches wide, and features a limited palette of colors.
When I first looked at the piece it resembled a chart of presidents, featuring portraits of each president smiling and a woman with a unique hairstyle looking back in admiration or curiosity.
This piece has repetition in the portraits of peoples faces, however each individual face is different. The faces include both men and women. Under each face is a rectangle which resembles repetition. It also resembles a plaque, but nothing is written. There are 65 faces total looking back at you, and one woman with a stylish bouffant looking at them. Within her bouffant are multiple repeating toy eyeballs, looking out from within her hair. The faces have bright and vivid hair styles in the primary color of yellow. It is a highly saturated and intense yellow with a definitive hue. They also appear to be smiling, which creates a positive feeling. Their eyes have a high intensity of white with no pupils, so you cannot see exactly where they are looking.
There is no clear vanishing point and the image appears to be flat, which creates a shallow depth of field. I was able to pull up a high-resolution file of the image through Google. With that image, I was able to see that the black bouffant hair style on the woman appears to be raised higher than the paper, which would make this a true three-dimensional work of art. Perhaps it is just an illusion, however it seems as though her bouffant is made out of something that was adhered to the paper. Personally, in the high-resolution image, her hair reminds me of a mis-shapen "Thin Mint" Girlscout cookie.
In contrast, Chapter 3 of Ways of Seeing might suggest the opposite of how I feel. In this chapter, author John Berger explains how women, by nature, "watch themselves being looked at". This turns her into an object of vision where she simply "appears" rather than "acts". By this explanation, perhaps the woman with the bouffant in Bouffant Pride is being looked at, or "surveyed", by the multiple different faces within her life.

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Thread:: Kruger Photograph
Post:: RE: Kruger Photograph
Author:: Ann

Posted Date:: February 5, 2014 3:25 PM
Status:: Published

In No Progress in Pleasure, I think the artist is describing the on looker's gaze as being violent: "Your gaze hits the side of my face". This violence is the objectification of the woman. The woman is avoiding the gazer by looking down. She seems to feel victimized by the attention. The attention, she imagines, is because of her attractiveness and not for her character.

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Thread:: Bouffant Pride
Post:: Bouffant Pride
Author:: Ann

Posted Date:: February 5, 2014 3:01 PM
Status:: Published

Ellen Gallaher's Bouffant Pride, is a collage of cutouts in which the artist incorporated painting and a process called photogravure. The artist uses only shades of black and grey and the primary color of intense yellow. The images are shown in a shallow depth of field with a repetition of faces.

The images are of what, I assume, are African American men and women donning bouffant hairdos. The images look familiar but the use of white bubble eyes has taken away the clear identity of the people. After staring at this for quite sometime, I get the feeling that these are pictures of prominent people such as Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass.

The bouffant was particularly popular in the 50s and 60s with many cultures. The hair was combed up, teased and sculptured to produce "big hair" that was deemed attractive. I have many nostalgic pictures of my mother with the bleached blond version of the bouffant.

In Ways of Seeing, John Berger speaks mostly of the objectification of men over women: "Men survey women before treating them. Consequently how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated." The author also comments that: "hair is associated with sexual power, with passion". In Gallaher's work, however, we gaze upon both men and women seemingly comfortable and prideful of their appearance, particularly of their hair. They meet our gaze and look back at us with confidence--not allowing us to treat them as objects.

The image on the lower left shows a women with an exaggerated bouffant on display for us to both admire and criticize for it's flamboyance. It reminds me of the hairstyles of Diana Ross and the Supremes, the 1960's singing group who were objectified for their sexy looks and admired for their talent.

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Thread:: Kruger Photograph
Post:: Kruger Photograph
Author:: Robin

Posted Date:: February 4, 2014 6:30 PM
Status:: Published

I chose the photograph taken by Barbara Kruger, 1981, No progress in pleasure. This photo is in black and white; therefore, the value from light to dark is the shadow of grey tones. The picture taken appears to be a sculpture of a women’s face and the focus is the side of her face. I would describe this photograph as a shallow perspective – it does not have any deep space.

When I first studied the photograph, I could see a woman’s profile with a slight smirk on her face. She has an attractive profile, and she seems relaxed, but serious. Then, as my gaze went to the figure – there are two blocks as her shoulders and I realized that it looks like a bust sculpture.

When I read the words on the photo, “ Your gaze hits the side of my face” and after reading our assignment, I believe that the photographer is trying to emphasize that when we see a woman we should not see her as a sexual object, but, as an individual. If the picture did have the figure, our gaze would not have been on the side of her face. We would look at her breast, or curves, or legs, etc.

The photographer has taken away all references to advertising sexuality. It is in black and white to take away any type of color or pattern. Also, the face is void of makeup and the hair is very simple. I believe that she is reminding women and men that women are not sexual objects - that women are unique, smart and independent individuals. Women have spirituality and soul and beauty without all the fluff that men seek or want. Sort of saying, can you see and appreciate us for what we are really worth - that we are equal to men.

John Berger wrote, “But the essential way of seeing women, the essential use to which their images are put, has not changed.” (p.64) I agree with him because we still have ads, TV, Hollywood that still focus on the woman as the sex symbols. The women barely wear anything, they advertise in magazines – young, skinny girls displaying their sexuality. The TV shows depict ordinary men with attractive women. So, the focus is still on the women as the object. This too could be because the men still have the control in that industry. Plus – it is advertising – so they have to use the women to sell the product.

I think that we are slowly changing because we have women working and are in more powerful positions – women are getting in touch with their masculine side. Also, men are more in touch with their feminine side as far as being more nurturing by taking care of children and by taking on chores that the women used to do – cook, clean, etc. However, I agree too that, “This unequal relationship is so deeply embedded in our culture that is still structures the consciousness of many women. They do to themselves what men do to them. They survey like men, their own femininity” (Berger p. 63)

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