Body And Identity In Art Essay
INTRODUCTION
The human body is central to how we understand components of identity such as gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity. People change or modify their bodies, hair, and clothing to; hold up with certain groups or cultures; rebel against social conventions and also; to express messages to others around them. As a result, many artists explore gender, race and ethnicity through representations of the body in their creative process. The purpose of this assignment is to identify and discuss an artist who deals with issues of body and identity in his or her artworks. The artworks will be analysed, to prove their affiliation to the concept of Body and Identity issues in art.
A. BODY AND IDENTITY
i. Definition
Body and identity is the act of altering the original looks of the person’s appearances,
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History of Body and Identity in Art
The 1960s and 1970s were a time of social disorders in the world, considerable among them, the fight for equality for women with regards to sexuality, reproductive rights, the family, and the workplace. Artists and art historians began to look into how images in art and the media, more often than not produced by men, maintained idealizations of the female form (SA History, nd).
Feminist artists reclaimed the female body and depicted it through a variety of lenses and other media. Around this time, the body took on another important role as a medium with which artists created their work. For example, in performance art, (a term coined in the early 1960s as the field was starting to take hold), the actions an artist performs are central to the work of art. For many artists, using their bodies in performances became a way to claim control over their own bodies and to question issues of gender. Now a history of our ancestors ' methods of painting and piercing their bodies over the past 30000 years is on display in a wondrous, imaginative, and sometimes terrifying exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History (SA History,
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879 Words | 4 PagesThe Grande Odalisque is an oil painting from 1814 by Jean Ingres. The painting is of one of the most famous harem girls in the history of art. The girl is young, nude, and beautifully lounging in a luxurious environment with a turban on her head an a peacock feather fan in her hand. This painting is currently located at the Louvre Museum in Paris and can be found in any art history textbook. The word Odalisque in the title is a French term for a woman kept as a sex slave in a Turkish, Persian, or Arab harem.
Berger's Lens
501 Words | 3 Pages[1] Looking at the operation of ideology throughout Western art history and visual culture, Berger points out the unequal relations between men and women as well as the difference between their social presences. Unlike a man, whose presence is tied to “the promise of power which he embodies” (45), a woman is being noticed by how she appeals to men. She is seen as nothing more than a “sight” or an object to please the “the ideal [male] spectator” (64). In Chapter 2, other than many images of women, Berger includes a few photographs of raw meats and soup ingredients (41). What is his intention here?
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A Rhetorical Analysis Of Josie Appleton
109 Words | 1 PagesJosie Appleton’s piece opens with her introducing the fact that body modification has lost its mark of being taboo. Appleton then transitions into describing the different kinds of people that modify their bodies and why they do it. The fact that people used to mostly use tattoos to identify with a group and are now using them to define themselves is heavily enforced. The rest of the piece describes in great detail the different ways people use piercings and tattoos to better understand themselves and mark important milestones. The piece concludes with Appleton claiming that body modification should only be for fashion, because bringing significance to it causes problems.
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