Looking at the body

Abstract

This thesis explores the role of the body in contemporary art and how it is perceived in society. My research encompasses the art forms of painting, photography, fashion, performance, film, sculpture and installation. The body becomes the canvas, whether it is physically constructed in oils or cut-up, to transform into a Botticelli goddess. Painting, performance, film, video and photography all document the body’s transformation into an artificial, mechanical entity of the digital world. In contemporary art, the model can be by–passed. The artist can digitally construct the body/the subject for the painting. A photograph can be taken of a painting after it has been completed to become a digital painting. This digital work depicts the iconic, artificial body of contemporary society. The body is just as relevant in contemporary art as it was during the Classical Greek and Roman periods. However due to the power of fashion, film, theatre and television the body has become a commodity. The multi–faceted renderings show the body as the subject, the object and the viewer. Today’s body represents society’s fixation with aesthetic excess. Digital media swamps pop culture with products and gadgets to assist our fixation with perfection. The contemporary, beautiful body is not only female. The male body is also under pressure to conform. Many of the artists discussed in this paper for example; Orlan, Vanessa Beecroft and John Currin, are revealing the contemporary obsession with digital transformation. Each work explores the relationships between the artist, the subject and viewer, the private and public space, reality and fiction. As technology advances, these relationships edge closer and their boundaries disintegrate, as can be seen in the work of Matthew Barney, Hans Scheirl and Genesis Breyer P–Orridge. These artists question the boundaries of gender. Ron Mueck explores hyper–reality in his depictions of the body through the use of scale. When viewing these works the spectator begins to question the borders between reality and artifice. The viewing puts into question our own body. Forensic and reality television, the internet and social networking are simultaneously breaking down and blurring the distances between the private and public space. As a contemporary artist interested in painting and the body, my work is influenced by all the artists studied. Although my work is primarily based on painting and photography, for my practice to remain relevant it must be informed by other mediums to exist within the contemporary digital world. Photography, fashion, performance, sculpture, installation, film and painting are no longer rigid disciplines. The body has, always and remains an integral part of these genres. As Orlan says: “This is my body…This is my software…” In this digital age we can design our own bodies into artificial, idealised creations. Hans Scheirl and Genesis Breyer P–Orridge provide the platform for the freeing of the constraints of sexuality. Their works give the contemporary body freedom to be whatever it chooses to be. We now have a choice to construct our own identity and body through the tools of cosmetic technology. Egon Schiele, Ron Mueck and Julie Rrap’s use of the mirror highlight the dissolving of the private and public space. Through the mirror the body is no longer a private body but a social one. This social body has now become both the Classical Greek ideal and the digital cyborg, the artificial and the real, the male and the female body. Contemporary artists now have far greater freedom to create images of the body that reflect the world around them. They describe the demise of the body as flesh into the body as image.