1st draft of biobleography essay-

In my thesis I intend to highlight the benefits and drawbacks of viewing the Artwork in a more inclusive, holistic manner. To be concise, I am looking at the centrality of process to the product alongside the other influences in terms of the artist’s biography. Issues such as the artist’s gender, nationality and race are embedded in the artist’s biography. Also of relevance to this thesis are issues such as the artists studio where the work was created and how or indeed if this influenced the work. Other areas of research will be the cultural context of the work; this is of particular relevance to the female artists in this study namely Kiki Smith, Rebecca Horn, Nancy Spero and Louise Bourgeois. For example the work of Nancy Spero can only, in my opinion, be fully grasped within the context of feminist thinking, debates and views of the period it was created.

In terms of broadening my research topic ‘autobiography’ by Barbra Steiner and jun yang is of primary assistance. The main stand point in this book is the impossibility of one decisive, honest and impartial biography. As ‘everyone has a life story to tell, but it is usually closer to fiction than fact’ this view questions the notion of ‘the self’ as a stable and static entity and exposes ‘the self’ as a fluid, ever adapting ideal. This concept is further explored in another of my main texts ‘the symbolic order’ by Anthony Storr which sites jungs concept of the personality….. cont here…

These two texts go hand in hand to expose and challenge to perceived weak points of re embodying the artist in the work of Art. Of particular relevance in this book, which I must stress at this point is all relevant, are the issues of media, race, authenticity, disappearance and gender.

The issue of media is of obvious relevance as we are all shaped and influenced by media in this media age. ‘we are all confronted all the time with images and ideas to aspire to’ we are faced with imagined media identies to a level where it doesn’t seem possible or even viable to try to ignore the power of media. The effect of the media and indeed mediated fashions or ideas not only influence the Artist and therefore the art work but also the viewer and there interpretations, making media impossible and indeed futile to ignore.

Race and indeed cultural identity is also arguably central to a greater understanding of the art work. ‘autobiography can become the story of dealing with discrimination and prejudice.’ In many ways this aspect of identity has changed a lot in recent years in the same manner that feminism has changed the way we view the art work of women. The race of the artist has a tendency to be something that is either largely ignored or overly clichéd in the viewing of the Art object. For example in the work of Tracey Emin , her racial identity is something that has largely shaped her identity, she speaks of this in her book ‘strangeland’ also on the subject of cultural identity Louise Bourgeois ‘s move from France to America greatly influenced her work in …… work statues made on roof…. These are aspects in the lives and identities of many artists that in turn are sometimes dealt with in there works.

The subjects of authenticity and disappearance are the aspects of autobiography explored in this book that are the greatest challenge. On the subject of authenticity I was forced to acknowledge that artists, just like you and I may lie, alter or indeed construct a fabricated identity. Whether as part of there oeuvre, an aspect of there works e.g. Beuys and Warhol or for media gains e.g. Jeff Koons. We cannot take artists projection of themselves as total truth, as indeed we cannot take anyone’s, thus in a sense undermining the whole notion of the possibility of a biography, how can we trust that the artist is not lying? here lies the central problem of viewing the art object in context to the artist biography. People can be misleading. A prominent example of this can be found in the work of beuys in that much of it rests on an autobiographical fact that has been proved to be highly unlikely to be true. The work of Tracey emin for some rings of carefully constructed lies or at a minimum great fabrication of facts. However from this book and the idea of the artist as a social commentary I have come to regard this as beside the point. I argue that the constructed identity is just as relevant to the artists work as the ‘real’ biography as to quote Christian Boltanski ‘I’m a rather constructed person and my reality is disappearing more and more. I suppose it’s partly like that for everyone, artist or not. You decide bit of yourself to show or not’ indeed in argument for the constructed autobiography or indeed the omission of one as put forth in my third central text Roland Barthes ‘the death of the author’ and indeed Michel Foucault’ paper ‘what is an author’ ‘the really interesting autobiographies are those that do not talk about the author but about every reader’

This point I think illustrates the relevance and indeed importance of the artists biography, even as a construct of fiction as nothing can be created completely outside of society or independent of it, as Niklas Luhmann talks about in ‘the work of Art and the self reproduction of art’- expand on it as a text- and therefore it is all relevant, fiction and fact.

My second text as aforementioned is barthes ‘the death of the author’ expands on the idea of authorship and its restrictions. This is a text that is imperative to add a different viewpoint to my thesis and indeed to provide a more rounded argument to my study Barthes argument that ‘ The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture’ is a difficult one to ignore as it both embodies my arguments for viewing the art work in context i.e. The context of the culture of the time and the artwork as a product of that culture to be viewed accordingly with an understanding of that context yet Barthes argues that authorship is simply restrictive on the arts. ‘To give a text an author is to impose a limit on that text....’ this ‘refusal to fix a meaning....’ is argued by Gavin Parkinson in ‘the duchamp book’ as one of the strengths of Duchamps work. In that the ommittence of explanation, the unwillingness or at least reluctance of duchamp to explain his work in any didactic sense and as a result the openness to interpretation in his work and indeed the mystery of Duchamp is a source of great power in his work. ‘…of art history’s attempt to understand and categorise the work of Duchamp, through ‘standard practices and conventions of Art history’ Parkinson states that ‘the discipline can never attain its desired contact with Duchamps work, because it misrepresents it through the very act of attempting to get in touch with it … the game is spoilt’

Indeed this view of the work. The omittence of the author opens up the work of most artists considerably. We are by nature attracted to trying to solve problems as Parkinson goes on to explain however from this text (again the whole text is relevant) I also have come to the conclusion, as did the author, that while any reading of any work has a relevance, external aspects do add dimensionality and aid in getting under the skin of Duchamps and indeed all Artists works. The social ideas of modernity, ‘infra-mice’, alchemy to name but a few aid in the understanding of Duchamps work as they put back it back into context, indeed the idea of the fourth dimension, which was of great interest to duchamp and his contemporise seems quite outlandish and implausible to the modern viewer, yet in order to gain a more comprehensive grasp on the work of Duchamps elusive work these outside and social factors are of relevance.

On a similar note, in order to show the diversity of this argument, the work of Nancy spero is intrinsically linked to the views on women’s art and indeed the women’s movement at the time. It is important to state that I do understand and indeed feel that these works have the strength to stand without context in a vacuum void as art objects however I don’t see the point of excluding these external factors that have obvious intrinsical value unless the point is to cut the artist out of the art production. Exalting the notion of art and the artist in order to limit the artists control on the art object as a commodity… but that is an unproved conspiracy theory is it not.?