I was really excited about reading Eleanor's essay on Art and the Body, due to a new found love for all things performance art (which of course, revolve around the body) and a deep love for all things feminist (also, the body... I'm a huge fan of the body!)
I was really surprised by the huge difference between the use of the body in the 60's and 70's and now. It seems that when exploring the body Contemporary artists are very interested in the banal (such as a number of photographs of their foot) and it is almost microscopic, rather than using the entire body as an object. It feels to me like a far more conservative use of 'medium'.
Which I'm not saying is a bad thing in itself, I mean when everything's been done, when scrolls have been removed from vaginas and arms have been shot and so on and so forth, what is there really left to do? I guess I'm just disappointed that I missed the 'extreme body in art' bus, because it's something I've been interested in for a really long time.
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Hey, good point.
I'm fairly sure shock value may factor into this somewhere. Maybe with such extreme stuff being done in the 60s and 70s, contemporary audiences are more dismissive? Or artists just want to try new approaches?
Who knows?
I don't know if I agree. I mean, I do realise that shock value would have factored into this, but when you look at certain Contemporary artists and their practice (ahem, Damien Hirst) shock value is still a huge factor and trying to shock will probably always be around in the art world. It just doesn't seem to be prominent in regard to the body. But then maybe, as you said, what was done in the 60's and 70's was so full on that the banal, or the mundane- such as a series of photographs of one's foot (as opposed to naked people wedged in doorways) is actually more shocking to an audience expecting the extreme...
Man I sound like an art wanker.
Back to you, Meg...
although we would hate to admit it in recent times we are starting to convert back into a consevative ociety... think of the fuss about Bill Henson recently, he's been making work like this for years but for some reason the public was shocked and even digusted at these naked young girls and boys... why?
perhaps it comes from the constant need to rebel against previuos generations... and since the 60's and 70's was so... dare i say it, sinister and naked... the only way to rebel is to become more conservative...
then again i personally get a lot more from works like having to walk through two naked people than foot photography... so here you go georgia, there's a nice opening for you.. go for it!
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