Tuesday 6 October 2009

Self Portrait: Influencial Artists III

After researching a little bit more i found this artist, Michael Berube, completely unknown to me, this picture has a particular way to approach the subject by portraying the artist as a man and a woman, using some black square to divide them or even to not do so, i think is a really confrotational way of portraying himself, and in my opinion shows a confusion behind this artist's personality.

2 comments:

tutorphil said...

Interim Review Unit 1: Anatomy 06/10/09

Hi Ruben,

A genuinely interesting collection of artists and images all gathered together in one place; the territories you are exploring - gender/identity - are fascinating and rather bold and I'm looking forward to seeing how you resolve your own portrait in light of your research and investigations. At the seminar, you seemed to suggest that you might play with ideas about your gender too... interesting stuff! I'm looking forward to hearing your rationale.

Thanks too for drawing me attention to Frances Benjamin Johnston; that's the joy of this job and having new, fresh eyed students every September; I learn new stuff too!

Your essay idea is a good one; but you'll need to set the limits on the discussion nice and early; for instance, are you using the work of 'gender-bending' portraits to discuss the constructed nature of gender (i.e. women wear make-up, men wear trousers), or are you looking at it more generally in terms of masquerade; how important is it, for instance, that both Andy Warhol and Robert Mapplethorpe were gay? Are they playing games, not simply about gender, but about sexuality? You might want to consider too, Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray - both of whom dressed as women for particular effect: see below

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article3304163.ece

also Grayson Perry - see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Grayson_Perry_by_Ella_Guru.jpg

Ruben Martins said...

Thank you tutor phil,

about my Portrait project, i'll experiment with changing genders too, but my aim at the end is having a kind of "chimera" of my face and my relatives, composing them, quite similar to Nancy Burson.

about the essay, thank you for drawing my attention to the limits of my subject, after what i understood from my Influencial Artists posts (3 previous ones), they have different meanings for the way they portrayed while men, in my opinion go more for the sexuality area and the masquerade part, women (frida kahlo and F.B. Johnston) seem to use it more as awareness for a men's society.

As i like the controversial side of art, i think i will stick with the idea of the masquerade, also I don't want to raise any false facts so I'll carefully research into the artists intentions,for instance, they can be only doing a exploration of the female features maybe to better find themselves.

Its a really controversial and complicated subject and delicate in some way..

but i like challenges ...

P.s- I really have to research well into the artists background don't want to be a target by the art critics (+) :P