Core studies week 4

Picture-wise, this will be a rather dull post - but the class was far from dull, once we got past some exercises on research methodology -and essay structure -
which will be helpful in writing The Essay (due 20 Nov).

This session was on "Identity" and our first exercise was to list as many artists as we could in one minute. Then we counted how many were female; black; and not from USA/Europe.
Sure enough, most artists on everyone's lists were white western men...

Cue the missing artists - and issues of gender, sexuality, ethnicity. Much discussion, especially about a key extract from John Berger's 1972 book, "Ways of Seeing", which has been an eye-opener for many people -- the notion that "men act, women appear - women watch themselves being looked at" got plenty of interest and discussion, as did the next exercise, looking at a series of images to determine the subject's role, our assumptions about them, and how the images differed -
Was David Beckham being objectified (in the way that Marilyn Monroe was), or did his status as a sportsman make him so masculine that he could push boundaries? Was the "thinking" man sensitive, or merely passive; what difference would it make if the photographer were female?

Artists mentioned: Judy Chicago, Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, Guerilla Girls, Ghada Amer, Orlan, Robert Mapplethorpe, Nan Goldin, Wolfgang Tillmans ... and on issues of ethnicity and nationality, Steve McCurry's Afghan girl, Kara Walker's silhouette installations on the subject of the slave trade, Vanessa Beecroft's installations questioning stereotypes of the body, and Chris Ofili's "Afrodizzia", in which the elephant dung jolts the viewer out of the pleasure of the pretty image.

In the afternoon - how to register with UCAS online (next step: find out which universities to apply to, and fill out the application - for those who want to go on to an art degree), and continuing with the "100 drawings" project - here is the same bunch of grapes done tonally in 6H, HB, and 6B. They should all be "life size" but since drawing big and bold in my sketchbook I seem unable to go back to smaller sizes -
The box of grapes got passed around and eaten at the end of the class.