Examples Of Jenny Holzer's Conceptual Framework
Visual Arts 2014 Practice Essay - Aleisha McLaren - Conceptual Framework DISCUSS HOW ARTISTS USE THEIR ARTWORKS TO COMMUNICATE IDEAS ABOUT THEIR WORLD.
The conceptual framework is used to examine the interrelations and connections between the four agencies of the artworld (artist, artwork, audience, world). Jenny Holzer uses text and language to create powerful, politial statements she shares with a wide audience. Similarly, Barbara Kruger’s background in advertising allows her to create empowering polemics and critical statements to subvert traditional discourses of wider discourses. Finally, Bill Henson’s controversial explorations of transitional phases or ‘twilight zones’ are expressed in his painterly, ethereal photographs.
Jenny Holzer …show more content…
(1950 - ), is an American artist concerned with communication, and the power of words in art to transmit messages she deems necessary to a widespread audience in order to elicit a variety of reactions from them.
In Lustmord (1993 - 1995), Holzer has explored sexual assualt, rape and murder during the Bosmian War Crimes and has aimed to pull a mass audience into the world and discourses of the perpetrators, observers and victims of the crimes.
The exposure of the dark psyche of the murderers, and their realities, contrasting with that of the innocence of the victims highlights the monstrocity of the acts, makes the viewer aware of their own mortality, and forces them to question to roles of such social justice issues in their own lives. Holzer achieves this by printing the series in a full bleed newspaper supplement (using what she calls using the “Western Populist System”, and reaching an audience of 400 000). The image of blood and ink text on skin is shocking to the audience, engaging them, especially because of the widespread fear of AIDs at the time. At first, the audience may not even realise what it is they are looking at, and this element of ambiguity draws the audience in, before shocking them upon realising what has been photographed. The vulnerable and candid nature of the quotes expose the true extent of the horrors - Holzer uses communication via mass media as a way to give voices to those who’ve been silenced; she calls her work “a protest against the fate of women in war torn …show more content…
countries”.
Barbara Kruger (1945 - ), is an American artist, who aims to subvert traditional idealogies and errode the passivity of her audiences. Inspired by mass consumer culture, and social archetypes, Kruger uses her background in design and advertising to portray a dominant narrative, and then undermine the narrative with clever ‘twists’.
“Your Body is a Battleground” was created in support of the 1989 march on Washington to support the rights of women with an emphasis on abortion and birth control rights.
In the work, a traditional 1950s woman is portrayed, an icon of perfected, symmetrical beauty, but her face is split into two segments - a positive one and a negative one, inverted to create a haunting and somewhat disturbing visual. The text “Your Body is a Battleground” is emblazoned across the image in red and white and the use of personal pronoun in it directly engages the audience into the power struggle raised by the image - that is, the struggle between women and men over the right over the female body. Women fight to have control over their physical bodies as well as their places in society, whilst men fight to maintain their ageold dominance over the agency of women, hence the defensive connotations of the text. However, disagreeing with the statement, the woman pictured makes direct eye contact with the viewer, putting up the subversive defense of her livelihood Kruger wishes women in our society would when confronted with the male
gaze.
Bill Henson (1955 - ), is a Melbourne born, Australian contemporary photographer with a background in oil painting. Influenced by Mannerism, Baroque and Romantic art, his works are largely preoccupied with transitional phases, such as that of adolescents, dusk and the wasteland space between nature and civilisation. He doesn’t intend his photographs to be authoritative evidence, but rather to suggest endless possibilities, and to cause people to wonder. He says that he feels he has succeeded if more questions are generated from his photographs that are answered.
The conceptual framework is used to examine the interrelations and connections between the four agencies of the artworld (artist, artwork, audience, world). Jenny Holzer uses text and language to create powerful, politial statements she shares with a wide audience. Similarly, Barbara Kruger’s background in advertising allows her to create empowering polemics and critical statements to subvert traditional discourses of wider discourses. Finally, Bill Henson’s controversial explorations of transitional phases or ‘twilight zones’ are expressed in his painterly, ethereal photographs.
Jenny Holzer …show more content…
(1950 - ), is an American artist concerned with communication, and the power of words in art to transmit messages she deems necessary to a widespread audience in order to elicit a variety of reactions from them.
In Lustmord (1993 - 1995), Holzer has explored sexual assualt, rape and murder during the Bosmian War Crimes and has aimed to pull a mass audience into the world and discourses of the perpetrators, observers and victims of the crimes.
The exposure of the dark psyche of the murderers, and their realities, contrasting with that of the innocence of the victims highlights the monstrocity of the acts, makes the viewer aware of their own mortality, and forces them to question to roles of such social justice issues in their own lives. Holzer achieves this by printing the series in a full bleed newspaper supplement (using what she calls using the “Western Populist System”, and reaching an audience of 400 000). The image of blood and ink text on skin is shocking to the audience, engaging them, especially because of the widespread fear of AIDs at the time. At first, the audience may not even realise what it is they are looking at, and this element of ambiguity draws the audience in, before shocking them upon realising what has been photographed. The vulnerable and candid nature of the quotes expose the true extent of the horrors - Holzer uses communication via mass media as a way to give voices to those who’ve been silenced; she calls her work “a protest against the fate of women in war torn …show more content…
countries”.
Barbara Kruger (1945 - ), is an American artist, who aims to subvert traditional idealogies and errode the passivity of her audiences. Inspired by mass consumer culture, and social archetypes, Kruger uses her background in design and advertising to portray a dominant narrative, and then undermine the narrative with clever ‘twists’.
“Your Body is a Battleground” was created in support of the 1989 march on Washington to support the rights of women with an emphasis on abortion and birth control rights.
In the work, a traditional 1950s woman is portrayed, an icon of perfected, symmetrical beauty, but her face is split into two segments - a positive one and a negative one, inverted to create a haunting and somewhat disturbing visual. The text “Your Body is a Battleground” is emblazoned across the image in red and white and the use of personal pronoun in it directly engages the audience into the power struggle raised by the image - that is, the struggle between women and men over the right over the female body. Women fight to have control over their physical bodies as well as their places in society, whilst men fight to maintain their ageold dominance over the agency of women, hence the defensive connotations of the text. However, disagreeing with the statement, the woman pictured makes direct eye contact with the viewer, putting up the subversive defense of her livelihood Kruger wishes women in our society would when confronted with the male
gaze.
Bill Henson (1955 - ), is a Melbourne born, Australian contemporary photographer with a background in oil painting. Influenced by Mannerism, Baroque and Romantic art, his works are largely preoccupied with transitional phases, such as that of adolescents, dusk and the wasteland space between nature and civilisation. He doesn’t intend his photographs to be authoritative evidence, but rather to suggest endless possibilities, and to cause people to wonder. He says that he feels he has succeeded if more questions are generated from his photographs that are answered.