Tracey Emin

I just wanted to copy a blog post from my personal blog, about our summative assessment. This presentation and Sally's questioning about feminism, produced a spark in my brain that led me to the realisation that the way women are represented in the media at present date, and how artists respond to that, is influenced by the history of the feminist revolution.

In Contextual Studies, Jess, Elena, Shaun and I done a presentation infront of the class about Tracey Emin. It seems odd that when given the chance to present on anything or anyone (so long as we can relate it to art context) we chose Tracey Emin, but there was a logical chain of thought.

We wanted to present ideas relating to the psychology of art, comparing two artist with completely different approaches. We were going to look at Andy Warhol, with his absolute 'depthlessness' and pure surface-meaning that he conveys with his artwork, in comparison to Tracey Emins' severely expressive, personal and intimate art work. We were interested in the metal status of each artist and how that influenced their artwork. However, after talking to Sally, who told us she was a Fine Art Lecturer and not a Psychologist (how could we forget!?) we realised we could easily go off track. We then decided to home in on Tracey Emin, as this was someone that all of us didn't have much knowledge about.

We presented about her life experiences and influences, that play a centre stage in the majority of her work. She has had quite a traumatic time, and she expresses this in a number of different creative approaches. We spoke about ideas surrounding Tracey's high/celebrity culture, yet her low/popular culture that she seems to still embrace. I did a lot of research on her critics and found interesting views and opinions of her work. The most were quite negative, however it wasn't all bad. I did strike up a conversation with Sally and the class about how critics tend to say that because her artwork is so confessional, it makes it hard to judge it. Effectively, critics may be seen as judging her and her personal experiences, rather than the direct piece of art. It must be hard to critique fairly, as when you hear quite traumatic influences that you interpret through her art, it can make you quite bias. I understand that as a professional, it is important to look past that, but I also think that the meaning and underneath reasons for an artist to produce a certain piece of work, is as important as the piece itself. Maybe I don't know enough about the world of art right now though...We also questioned whether she can be considered Modern of Post-Modern, or something entirely different. It was then that Sally mentioned the Feminist revolution and I realised I didn't know anything about it! I wish to research this as part of my next project, maybe drawing it together with my ideas about how contemporary women are represented in the media.

This presentation was a summative assessment, meaning we were not marked. Our next project (the largest part of the module) will be assessed.

Tracey Emin - My Bed

http://www.ireneloughlin.com/essays.html
Here, Irene Loughlin has written an essay called 'Tracey Emin's Installation 'My Bed' as a Marker of Disability and Gendered Identity'. I am yet to read it, but I am storing the link here for a later date.