Body of Art: 0000

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Ultimately, part of what you must consider is what you want from your art. Some people in this community have a desire for creative play and explore for the pure joy of exploring. If art is a tool for stress relief or is about fun, that is an awesome and important focus that does not need the pressure of a body of art. As critic Amelia Jones puts it, "Schneemann extended her sexualized negotiation of the normative (masculine) subjectivity authorizing the modernist artist, performing herself in an erotically charged narrative of pleasure that challenges the fetishistic and scopophilic "male gaze"." Over 400 artists are featured in chapters that explore identity, beauty, religion, absent body, sex and gender, power, body's limits, abject body and bodies & space. Works range from 11,000 BC hand stencils in Argentine caves to videos and performances by contemporary artists such as Marina Abramovic, Joan Jonas and Bruce Nauman... Its fresh, accessible and dynamic voice brings to life the thrilling diversity of both classical and contemporary art through the prism of the body. More than simply a book of representations, this is an original and thought provoking look at the human body across time, cultures and media. Specifications: Practice makes progress. This is so important I’ve included this idea in our community pledge, the pledge we all should make to our art. On the other side of things, throughout our time organising exhibitions we’ve consistently had the audience thank us for creating an art space that is unpretentious and community-focused. We always have our artists present throughout the shows and try to facilitate a welcoming atmosphere. The understanding that these kinds of environments are missing in the art world further informed the development of ‘Projects’ – the community aspect of this and the involvement of the audience is as important as anything else.”

Our new book is the first to celebrate the ways artists have represented and utilised the body over the centuriesGroups of art are shown together because there is a common thread… where is the common thread in your art? OR, if you tier of seascapes, what other media and ideas do you want to explore? What about digging in and committing to at least 5 works in a single style? Natalia LL, Teoria głowy / The Theory of the Head [w:] Natalia LL. Teksty Natalii LL. Teksty o Natalii LL, Galeria Bielska BWA, 2004, pp. 121, 375. When talking about Natalia LL, most people immediately think about the series of her photos depicting naked women in provocative poses, with various objects/food products. Photographs constitute Natalia’s most recognizable cycles: Consumer Art and Post-Consumer Art. Both series were created in the early 70’s, during the groundbreaking period of Natalia LL’s creativity shaping.

Early in Rebecca Horn's career she contracted lung poisoning from repeatedly inhaling toxic materials in the making of her art. She was sent to a sanitarium for two years to recover and during this time she became fascinated by the hospital setting and the limitations of the human body. She began experimenting with making "body extensions" as a coping strategy in which she would use medical materials such as bandages, trusses, and prostheses to create wearable sculpture. Horn said about her debilitating experience, "you crave to grow out of your own body and merge with the other person's body, to seek refuge in it." These pieces were manifestations of the desire, which allowed Horn to explore her personal space and how the body could interact with its physical environment. Body art has its roots in the Performance Art movement, which sprung up among avant-garde artists in the late 1950s when artists such as John Cage and members of the Fluxus group were staging "happenings." These were performances that accentuated a content-based meaning with a dramatic flair instead of traditional performances meant for purely entertainment purposes. An interest in performance as an alternative means of artistic expression began to spread through the US, Europe, and Asia where collectives like the Viennese Actionists and Japan's Gutai Art Association sprang up to produce live-action artworks that erased the need for an end product or commodity. In many of these progressive new performances, the artist's body became subject of, or object within, the overall piece, creating a literal embodiment of the artwork. Horn was also interested in mythology, which shows up in Einhorn. The piece may be read several ways. Historian Skye Alexander argues that the "strap on" horn "recalls the unicorn's link to chastity" and the many complex sexualized associations evoked by a woman's naked body in classical art. But the single horn can also be seen a phallic symbol co-opted boldly here by a woman to offer a new model for empowering the female body, which embraces its own sexuality and lays claim to its own sexual power. In either case, Einhorn explores how the body (and particularly the female body) can be both enhanced and restricted by art. Countless famous artists investigated many ideas, techniques, and styles over time. Picasso is a great example of this. Look up Picasso cubism versus Picasso blue period and you will see what I mean.

An extensive survey of unique and diverse representations of the human body... guaranteed to impress art and anatomy lovers alike.' – Interview Magazine Body of Art is the first book to explore the various ways the human body has been both an inspiration and a medium for artists over hundreds of thousands of years. Unprecedented in its scope, it examines the many different manifestations of the body in art, from Anthony Gormley and Maya Lin sculptures to eight-armed Hindu gods and ancient Greek reliefs, from feminist graphics and Warhol's empty electric chair to the blue-tinted complexion of Singer Sargent's Madame X. It is the most expansive examination of the human body in art, spanning western and non-western, ancient to contemporary, representative to abstract and conceptual. A body of art is more like a portfolio accumulation of artworks that share the same style and overall message. If our caricature artist continued to do portraits but of people other than political figures, or across different countries, the new work AND the political series could be considered a body of work together. In fact, multiple series together could be considered a body of art. Body of art has a more overarching view of artwork where similar use of color or mark making may be the tie that holds all of the works together. Body art covers a wide range of art from about 1960 on, encompassing a variety of different approaches. It includes much performance art, where the artist is directly concerned with the body in the form of improvised or choreographed actions, happenings and staged events. Body art is also used for explorations of the body in a variety of other media including painting, sculpture, photography, film and video. As Guggenheim Senior Curator Jennifer Blessing writes in the introduction to this fascinating new book: Its chapters and juxtapositions pose questions about why men - and more recently women - have created images of the body. "Why has this subject endured over centuries, and, especially, how has it been radically re-visioned in contemporary art?”