Task 4

For this analysis I have decided to steer away from modern art and focus on a piece of postmodern art instead.

The artist I have chosen for this is Tracey Emin and the particular piece of work I would like to concentrate on is her installation piece ‘Everyone I have ever slept with 1963-1995’ (1995)

Postmodernism is a late 20^th Century art movement that began after the modernism era, which was dated around 1860-1960.

Modernist artists believed art had a meaning and that life could be made better through art and rational thought. The modernists were obsessed by technique and purity of form and were true to their values such as truth to materials, form follows function, less is more and art for arts sake.

By the mid 1960’s people became more and more disillusioned about the meaning of life and art due to the holocaust and the Vietnam War and lost confidence in the modernist’s values. An onset of crisis in confidence lead to the postmodern era being born.

Postmodernism is often said to be a reaction to the modernists strict rules and can be characterised widely by the introduction of parody, pastige and irony coupled together with complexity, chaos and bricolage.

New image-based technologies such as screen-print, television, computers and video played a huge part in the rise of postmodernism. These new techniques enabled artist to create something fresh, new and different from the art being produced previously, these new techniques also meant they could create works quickly without having to rely on the traditional time consuming craftsmanship used before.

Another huge impact on the visual arts throughout the postmodern era was the growth of consumerism. Entertainment and novelty was now required by the modern consumer and an ability to experience art in a more pro-active way together with a desire to be shocked lead to artists and curators to explore more about art as a product. This was achieved by constructing new ways of viewing art, for example using video and installation and by the creation of new subject matters.

The Young British artists were particularly guilty of using these new ways of creating art and in the case of Emin the subject matter was the key ingredient to her success as a postmodern artist.

The piece ‘Everyone I have ever slept with 1963-1995’ is a small blue tent that Emin appliquéd with the names of everyone she had ever shared a bed with from the year she was born up until it was created in 1995.

People often mistake the names for people she has had sexual intercourse with one review stating 'She's slept with everyone – even the curator'! However this is not the case.

There are 102 names on there in total including ex boyfriends, family members, friends and the two foetuses she aborted.

The use of a tent for this work suggests the notion of sleeping and the shape of the tent could be described as a womb like structure in which a person could curl up into the foetal position to sleep, wombs and foetuses are subjects which appear in many of Emin’s artworks. The shape of the tent is also reminiscent of the Margate Shell Grotto where Emin is said to have spent a lot of her childhood time.

To view the work you have to crawl inside the tent, lie on your back as if sleeping and look around the inside to find an explosion of visual and textual bricolage. This has been created by appliquéing letters to the side of the tent using pieces of material that have meaning to the artist, this could be something given to her by a friend, an old blanket from her childhood or material from an old family sofa, all of which add to the autobiographical aspect of the work.

The work, which Emin refers to as ‘the tent’, is one of two seminal pieces she has created and became quite an iconic piece. It was first exhibited at the ‘Minky Manky’ show at the South London Gallery in 1995 and was later destroyed in a fire at the East London Momart Warehouse in 2004.

Emin has since refused to recreate the piece stating "I had the inclination and inspiration 10 years ago to make that, I don't have that inspiration and inclination now ... My work is very personal, which people know, so I can't create that emotion again — it's impossible."

Wikipedia. (2010) Everyone I have ever slept with 1963-1995. [online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everyone_I_Have_Ever_Slept_With_1963–1995 [accessed 24 March 2010]

Everyone i have ever slept with 1963-1995 (1995) Tracey Emin.

Task 3

Bibliography

Produce a preliminary bibliography (in Harvard) of 5 books, from the Leeds College of Art library, that you think may be useful. Include a library reference also (e.g. MIL 709.12)

Bergdoll, B. & Dickerman, L. (2009) Bauhaus (1919-1933): Workshops for Modernity. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. (library ref: 709.43)

Harrison, C. & Wood, P. (eds) with Gaiger, J. (1998) Art in Theory 1815-1900: An Anthology of Changing Ideas. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. (library ref: 709.034)

Hughes, R. (1991) The Shock of the New. London: Thames and Hudson. (library ref: 709.06)

Kennedy, A. (2006) The Worlds Greatest Art: Bauhaus. London: Flame Tree Publishing. (library ref: 709.43)

Sim, S. & Van Loon, B. (2001) Introducing Critical Theory. Cambridge: Icon Books. (library ref: 306.1)

Task 2

The five key points that the authors are trying to communicate are:

The advent of modernisation meant that massive advances in science and technology were taking place at an alarming rate. This together with the forces of modernity, a social and cultural condition which was a response to the changes taking place around the world, challenged the mental state of the population with some people feeling exhilarated and hysterical with excitement whilst others were left feeling depressed and alienated.

New found wealth and social status coupled with a vast majority of humanity now being ruled by time and the machine, meant that there was also becoming a much more prominent division between the classes of people, with the bourgeois fearing but also needing the working class people. The working class had a shared ideology of a better life for all using the notion of a shared nation, race and culture as their catapult. This was to become known as socialism and it soon became apparent that it was very much a socialist V’s capitalist world.

The effect of modernism on the art world was only really to become apparent once the cubism movement began. Before this there was an attempt for art to be created which was ‘new’ but could also stand alongside the traditional art of the past.

The concept of expression using the notion of the self was explored, however the biggest effects of modernism on the art world were not really felt until after the First World War.

The development of a new pictoral language meant that a concern began to grow in wider social forms regarding art’s realism. Those who were unable to grasp the new pictoral language saw the art for its aesthetic value while others saw that the work remained a signifier and that its duty was to decode and maybe even change the modern world.

This conflict of opinions was rife in the respect of the cubism movement and was to continue for many years to come with cubism marking the turning point for modern art of the nineteenth century and the future of modern art in the twentieth century.

Harrison, C and Wood, P. (eds.) (1997) 'Art In Theory: 1900-90', Oxford, Blackwell, pp. 125-9.

Notes from task 2

Write no more than a few paragraphs but try to include what you se as the five key points the authors are trying to communicate about modernity and various modernist subsequent responses to the condition of modernity.

Include a bibliographic Harvard reference for the text at the end.

Notes from text

First decade of 20^th century saw attempt to create art, which was ‘new’ but also could stand alongside traditional art.

A concept of expression – notion of the self – self-portraiture using nature as inspiration whilst under urban circumstances.

Development of cubism ensued Paris was at the forefront of the forces of modernity.

3 related movements of the modern –

Modernisation – process of scientific and technological advance.

In developing societies the new was overtaking the old at a rapid pace.

Modernity – the social and cultural condition – experience, awareness and adaptation to change. Both a social and inner experience.

Modernism – a reflection upon the representation of the new.

Experience cannot be grasped until it is represented.

Responses to the modern condition.

Pessimism at the increase in population and the urban concentration fuelled by increasing control by the machine. A sense that life was losing depth and freedom – humans were being imprisoned in ‘the iron cage of modernity’.

Some places were at first delayed with the changes but then even more rapidly changed when they felt the need to catch up.

Some people overcome by hysterical exhilaration while others a mix of alienation and apocalypse.

Depression and exhilaration 2 sides of same coin – both responses to the effects of modernisation.

The effect on art before 1^st world war is slight.

Modernisation not totally a technological fact also social – new social relations between people – particularly classes of people (capitalist modernisation)

The culture thought of itself.

Ideology of modernisation – acute and contradictory forms of bourgeois response to bourgeois society.

Bourgeois needed and feared the working class, who had ideologies of a shared nation, race and culture, who were excluded from capitalist wealth – socialism.

Socialists believed art should be used to change that modernity.

Cubism with its still life’s and portrait figures gave little clues to the modern storm brewing, became a thing in itself, rather than depicting the modern life, on first reflection could think it had internalised its modernity.

However this may have been seen by those who were unable to grasp this new pictoral language, the picture still remained a signifier.

Mattered less what subject artist addressed.

Meaning of cubism remained focus for conflict – a decoration of the surface (aesthetic) and the true reality (meaning). Prising apart 2 aspects of cubism – its continued referentiality and an autonomous picture surface. One side – art whose duty to decode modern world, the other – art that transforms itself.

lecture notes on handouts

Lecture notes on handouts