Part 3.Research. Developing your Enquiry (M.W)

POST TUTORIAL AND RE-DIRECTION AND FOCUS .

Back to Ex. 2.1

Literature Review

Key Theorists to explore and Reading:

Irigaray, L. (1974). Speculum of the Other Woman.

Irigaray, L. (1984). An Ethics of Sexual Difference.

‘A revolution in thought and ethics is needed if the work of sexual difference is to take place. We need to reinterpret everything concerning the relations between the subject and discourse, the subject and the world, the subject and the cosmic, the microcosmic and the macrocosmic. Everything, beginning with the way in which the subject has always been written in the masculine form, as man, even when it claimed to be universal or neutral.’

‘Body Against Body: In Relation to the Mother’, (1993).

‘Each sex has a relation to madness. Every desire has a relation to madness. But it would seem that one desire has been taken as wisdom, moderation, truth, leaving to the other sex the weight of a madness that cannot be acknowledged or accommodated.’

Materiality – Whitechapel Gallery.

Petra – Lange-Berndt. Introduction ? How to be complicit with Materials.

P 12 – 22. ( inc Biblio)

Petra Lange-Berndt’s essay underscores the importance of embracing materiality as a vital aspect of artistic practice and encourages artists to develop a more nuanced and complicit relationship with materials. By actively engaging with materials, recognising their agency, and considering ethical implications, artists can create works that resonate more deeply with viewers and contribute to broader discussions about the role of materials in contemporary art.

‘To follow the material means not to discuss aesthetic issues of quality, expressiveness or symbolic content but to investigate transpersonal societal problems and matters of concern. Within this methodology it is paramount to situate artistic practices within historical perspectives and to open the meanings of the materials used to their everyday or non-art connotations: ‘To understand materials is to be able to tell their histories.? In order to engage critically with the meaning of gasoline in Romuald Hazoume’s installations, chocolate in the work of Janine Antoni, or garbage in the projects of Mierle Laderman Ukeles one needs a reformed set of art-historical tools. Complicity with materials means not engaging predominantly with peers who operate in the same system, but rather, becoming involved with other disciplines according to the topic: botanists, for example, if considering an art practice centred on plants; technologists, if it engages with smart materials;

Dietmar Rubel – Plasticity – An Art History of the Mutable

P94 – 102 ( inc Biblio)

“Plasticity: An Art History of the Mutable” offers a comprehensive examination of the concept of plasticity in art history, highlighting its significance for understanding the dynamic relationship between materials, forms, and meanings in artistic practice. Rubel’s contributes to broader discussions about materiality, transformation, and innovation in art and culture.

‘Adorno’s comment looked extremely favourably upon art’s move away from claims to immortality and its turn towards an ephemeral temporal nucleus’. But for him the processual quality of art works highlights an unresolved ambivalence in aesthetic experience. Since the classic avant-garde conducted their first experiments with materials taken from everyday life it has become clear that the material of art is always subject to changes, whether as a result of interventions or through the dynamic productivity of the materials themselves. Thus the materiality of an art work is never completely absorbed into the representation. As Adorno goes on to write about art works which admit of the ephemeral and where the focus is on the mutable and the transient:‘

Dietmar Rübel, extracts from Plastizität. Eine Kunstgeschichte des Veränderlichen (Munich: Silke Schreiber, 2012) 7-18, 21-23, 307-12, 361. Translation by Philippa Hurd, 2015.

Stephen Johnstone/ The Everyday/ Documents of Contemporary Art. Whitechapel Gallery:

Recent Art ad the Everyday P 12.

P15
‘For Lefebvre the aim of any investigation of the everyday is ‘to grasp a certain quality, to ‘get inside’ it. But what is there to get inside? For the everyday, as Lefebvre goes on to tell us, is what is ‘left over’ when specialized knowledge has been exhausted. In the essay that opens this collection Maurice Blanchot goes so far as to suggest that the everyday exhibits an ‘absence of qualities’, that it cannot be approached cognitively, and displays an energizing capacity to subvert intellectual and institutional authority’. It is ‘inexhaustible, unimpeachable, always open ended and always eluding forms or structures. Moreover, the everyday is the site of a fundamental ambiguity: it is both where we become alienated and where we can realize our creativity. Here Blanchot closely follows Lefebvre, who argues that the everyday is the place ‘where repetition and creativity confront each other’: it is both ‘humble and sordid’ and ‘simultaneously the time and place where the human either fulfils itself or fails’.

P20.

Perhaps this is where Lefebvre’s notion of art as play-generating yeast is useful. Artworks that attend to the everyday are not arguments; they do not offer resolutions or indeed even rational observations. As Messager herself suggested in 1976, an art of the everyday might be nothing more than a modest and highly ambiguous form of paying attention and tinkering:

Kaisa Kontturi – Ways of Following. Art Materiality, Collaboration. ( Open Humanities Press.)

A focus on the materiality of art and the collaborative dynamics of artistic practice, with attention to embodied experiences, interdisciplinary approaches, and critical perspectives on contemporary art-making

KONTTURI, K. (2013). From Double Navel to Particle Sign: Towards A-Signifying Work of Painting. In Bolt, B. & Barrett, E. (Eds.) Carnal Knowledge: Towards a ‘New Materialism’ through the Arts (1 ed., pp. 17-17) I.B. Tauris..

material-relational co-emergence with the matters of art-making.
‘These concepts – not painting but the work of painting, and not a sign but particle-sign – allow us, beg us, to appreciate art as a specific critical process of its own kind, where transformative thinking, new worlds and ways of being co-emerge through working with materials, relating them to each other, allowing them to collaborate. As concepts that enable more complex manners of perceiving art processes, in their material-relational wealth, and given the value of their specificities and capabilities, work of painting and particle-sign might open up possibilities for further collaborations between art and theory, For collaborations surely are more efficient if both parties are valued, encountered in their complexity.’

Elizabeth Grosz’s ( Derrida) – strong reference to :

Grosz argues that art is not tied to the predictable and known but to new futures not contained in the present. Its animal affiliations ensure that art is intensely political and charged with the creation of new worlds and new forms of living. According to Grosz, art is the way in which life experiments with materiality, or nature, in order to bring about change.

Book – Chaos, Territory , Art. Deleuze and the Framing of the Earth ( The Wellek Library Lectures ) Feb 2020.

Susan Sontag – ‘On Photography’

Key Themes
‘Although the chapters of On Photography are self-contained, there are key themes that link them. One is that our familiarity with photography has had a blanketing and numbing effect on us. The omnipresent and
-pervasive nature of photographic images makes them incapable of representing anything other than superficial appearances. They are thus the most contemporary variation of the “usually shady commerce between art and truth.” They even misinform if they are without contextualization.? This theme is set forth throughout the first chapter,
“In Plato’s Cave,” and is returned to enthusiastically in the conclusion.
The intervening chapters, in a very broad way, actively prove this numbing effect through examples and observations of critics, writers, photographers, playwrights, and philosophers. For example, in the second chapter, Sontag describes photojournalist Walker Evans’s* efforts to document the Great Depression* as an endeavour that imposes a moral uniformity: “Each thing or person photographed becomes—a photograph; and becomes, therefore, morally equivalent to any other atrocities wears off with repeated viewings’

Susan Sontag, On Photography, 5th edition (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2011), 75.

Karan Barad – ( Meeting the universe halfway/2007)

Karen Barad, extracts from Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2007) 132-3, 135, 137, 139-41,
183-4

Karen Barad, among others, has phrased it, to engage with materials also means to formulate a critique of logocentrism ( referes to western science and philosophy that regards words and language as a fundamental expression of external reality) and the predominance of written language as a tool to generate and communicate meaning. I would therefore like to propose a methodology of material complicity. What does it mean to give agency to the material, to follow the material and to act with the material?

I propose a post-humanist performative approach to understanding techno-scientific and other natural/cultural practices that specifically acknowledges and takes account of matter’s dynamism. The move toward performative alternatives to representationalism shifts the focus from questions of correspondence between descriptions and reality (e.g. do they mirror nature or culture?) to matters of practices, doings and actions. […]
Matter is neither fixed and given nor the mere end result of different processes. Matter is produced and productive, generated and generative. Matter is agentive,( takes an active role – produces an effect ) not a fixed essence or property of things.’

Judith Butler – Bodies that Matter /1993 – P 120 MATERIALITY – Documents of Contemporary Art.

‘Femaleness’

‘This is the idea that certain things have fixed qualities that define them. For example, essentialism about gender might say that being male or female comes with specific traits or behaviours that are inherent or natural.
Social and Discursive Construction: Butler argues that things like gender aren’t fixed or inherent. Instead, they’re shaped by society and how we talk about them. For example, what it means to be a man or a woman isn’t set in stone; it’s influenced by the culture, language, and norms around us.
Contingent and Context-Dependent: This means that what something is, like gender, depends on the situation and isn’t always the same. For instance, what’s considered masculine or feminine can vary depending on the culture or time period.
Role of Social and Material Conditions: Butler emphasizes that our understanding of things like gender is shaped not only by ideas and language but also by real-world factors like social norms, laws, and economic conditions. These factors affect how we perceive and experience things like gender.
So, in simple terms, Butler is saying that things like gender aren’t fixed or natural but are influenced by society, language, and the conditions around us. This perspective aligns with materialist views that emphasise the importance of real-world conditions in shaping our understanding of the world.’

Judith Butler, extracts from Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’ (1993) (London and New York: Routledge, 2011) xviii-xix, 4-8, 187, 191-2.

Gilles Deleuze – ( Various)

In Logic of Sensation Deleuze claims that too many people mistake a photograph for a work of art because a photograph cannot-by definition-be art. To think that a photograph is a work of art is not, in other words, a question of taste, it is an ontological mistake. As Deleuze explains, “the photograph tends to reduce sensation to a single level, and is unable to include within the sensation the difference between constitutive levels” (Deleuze 2003,
91). The single level is that of representation, which imposes on sensation its conditions of possible experience, the a prioris of space and time, subject and object, and human consciousness. It is in this sense that the photograph is a cliché, and a particularly virulent and ubiquitous one, because photographs are “not only ways of seeing” Deleuze writes, with reference to John Berger perhaps, but “they are what is seen,

https://www.performancephilosophy.org/journal/article/view/145/265

(Deleuze and Guattari 1987, 216-17). It is not enough, then, to be able to dismantle binary oppositions or to be content with getting past the wall separating the subject from the object in just one encounter. So let us get back to the questions central to this chapter. What the encounter with Heaven Machine suggests is that when works of art are seen merely as passive
‘battlefields’ for representation and interpretation, their potential lines of flight, their material-relational capacity to change and move thinking is easily missed. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to what is singular in artworks, their modus operandi, the material-relational movements of art, and not to override material and corporeal intensities with textual and discursive powers. ( Ways of Following – Kontturi)

Iwona Blazwick – discusses Cornelia Parker.

‘While the ready made is essentially psychically indifferent and reproducible in that it is mass-produced, the found object is essentially singular, irreplaceable and both lost and found.” When the ubiquitous readymade, indistinguishable from other manufactured goods, is defined by the artist as a work of art, it is up to us to accept that definition, conceptually. The work of art exists therefore in the mind of the viewer.
By contrast, when a random object is discovered and used by the artist, its relationship is first and foremost with the artist’s own subjectivity. The object has triggered a jolt of recognition. Like a fetish, it fills a void; and like finding the right word in a poem, it offers a vehicle for meaning.‘
( an object ) ‘mean something else’

A fourth category of found object is the fragment. Here, Parker’s interest is essentially forensic.
A set of photograms made in 1997-98 – Up, Down, Charm, Strange (Truth and Beauty) (see Pp. 128-29) – centre on the lightweight qualities of the feather. Taking just one of these six works, Feather from Freud’s Pillow (From his Couch) we can see a different process of making that involves research, detective work and even theft. Here, it is not the intrinsic material qualities of the feather but its function as part of a greater material whole and its role within a historical narrative that interests her. Retrieved from Freud’s couch, which is now enshrined in the Freud Museum in North London, the feather was trapped in a glass slide, placed on an enlarger and exposed on photographic paper. Its image sits alone in black space. It is a witness, just like the white, blind eyed Cycladic statues that Freud arranged on a shelf beside his couch. They have all listened, not only to the great psychoanalyst himself, but also to his analysands as they have delved into memory or dream. The feather functions to evoke a room, an era and multiple subjectivities that can only be imagined.

Francis Morris – discuses Louise Bourgeois –

‘Bourgeois continues to work, driven by a remarkable desire to make objects, words and images; to give tangible form to her Greve memories, obsessions, fears, thoughts and emotions.’

Bourgeois’s own paintings were modest
The artist described them in autobiographical terms as representing the people she missed, whom she had left behind in her in scale and showed no interest in the seductions of surface or native France, thereby fusing the language of personal history gesture, trademarks of the emerging Abstract Expressionism.
Instead, they employed a figurative vocabulary drawn from ar-
with that of modernist art, and pre-empting by a number of
chitecture, the domestic realm and the human body, compre-
decades the kind of approach to the self that is now routinely found in much contemporary art.
Comprehensible, in style and structure, as an original take on aspects of
Bourgeois’s ability to reinvent herself is dramatically de-
Cubism and Surrealism. A number of these early paintings,
monstrated in the body of work that she revealed in the mid-
most notably a group entitled ‘Femme Maison’ from 1945-7 (figs.127-30), created a hybrid of human and architectural at-
1960s, after a period of withdrawal from the art world during which time she had made a number of extended visits to Eu-
tributes, capable, through metaphor, of suggesting layers of rope, undertaken a little teaching, followed several university complex and contradictory ideas around femininity and the courses and run a specialist print and book store. In 1962, the home. A series of engravings entitled He Disappeared into Com- Bourgeois-Goldwater family had moved to the modest brown-plete Silence, produced the same year, also made vivid connec-
stone in Chelsea where she still lives and works, and it was here
tions between the places we inhabit and the people we are, this that Bourgeois evolved a new style. Sprawling on the floor, time by pairing images of strange dysfunctional structures hanging from the ceiling or protruding from the walls, her new reminiscent of a modern cityscape – skyscrapers, water-tow-
pieces were bulbous and swollen, with apertures suggestive of
ers, observation platforms – with accompanying texts: brief,
fissures in the landscape, openings to primitive dwellings or
simple stories of small-scale human tragedy (see fig.143).

In contrast to Donald Judd and Sol Le Witt’s use of hard, pre-
loping studio dictable surfaces, Bourgeois embraced a whole range of more
imposing fluid, less controllable materials such as plaster, latex and wax, which pour and flow before they solidify. In place of a language of construction, her creations begged a vocabulary of evolu-tion, metamorphosis and indeterminacy. Like some kind of eviscerated bodily matter, Lair 1962 (fig.155) is typical of herre-pulsively compelling work of this type. With its snail-like spiral formation, suggestive of the shell of some primitive life-form, it offers itself a place to hide in, to be protected by, but it is also vulnerable, threatened by its own innate instability as a structure, and by the softness of its carapace.

Elizabeth Grosz – ‘Chaos, Terrriory , Art’ ( Colombia University Press – Wellbeck Library Lectures 2007)

. Sensations are subjective objectivities or equally objective subjectivities, midway between subjects and objects, the point at which the one can convert into the other. This is why art, the composition of material elements that are always more than material, is the major —perhaps the only — way in which living beings deal with and enjoy the intensities that are not contained within but are extracted from the natural world, chaos. Art is where intensity is most at home, where matter is most attenuated without being nullified: perhaps we can understand matter in art as matter at its most dilated, matter as it most closely approximates mind, diastole, or proliferation rather than systole and compression and where becoming is most directly in force. Art is where life most readily transforms itself, the zone of indetermina-tion through which all becomings must pass. In this sense art is not the antithesis of politics, but politics continued by other means.

Other Artist voices and perspectives on materiality / feminism/ narrative

Sarah Lucas –

Mary Kelly – Margaret Iversen essay ” Mary Kelly -Phaidon First published 1997)

‘Dirty Nappies!”, they shrieked. In fact, Documentation I of the Document, which is concerned with the mother’s anxieties over the months of weaning her baby from the breast, consists of faecal stains on gossamer nappy liners and are exhibited with pristine elegance. The liners are fixed flat within recessed frames like precious prints on some rare, handmade paper, and the stains themselves form shadowy images reminiscent of the Shroud of Turin. An obsessively careful daily diary of the infant’s solid food intake printed on a sheet of paper and placed under the liner, shows through at the bottom of each composition.‘

The small-scale, box-like dimensions of the individually framed units allude to this fetishization. They can be read as a rhythmic alternation of presence/absence, panel/space, which mimes the mother’s version of the ‘fort-da’ game (My little baby/My big boy).? Yet they also combine to form ‘cinematic’ frames recording the passage of time and the changes occurring in the mother’s relationship with her child.

Doris Salcedo – Mary SchneiderEnriquez)- The Materiality of Mourning YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 2016.

Trained as a painter, Salcedo has chosen sculpture as her medium and the worn objects of domestic life – everyday possessions and materials that are loaded with associations and are familiar across cultures and generations — as her means. She builds complex layers centimeter by centimeter, a veritable skin bearing the wounds and history of political violence.
She melds, rubs, and forces her materials into a surprisingly delicate surface that evokes a silent presence, muffling so much within. The surface, which reveals Salcedo’s exacting process of abrading, suturing, and interweaving diverse materials, becomes crucial to understanding her work (Fig. 2). And the highly detailed, exhaustively repeated actions she undertakes in this process simultaneously suggest an act of violence and an act of release.

explore – Salcedos’ 6 Visual Strategies !

Karla Black – by Siobhan Lisa ( medium.com)

Black’s typically large-scale works show a steady withdrawal from all bodily form in favour of materiality, constructed from a palette dominated by traditional artmaking media, repurposed industrial materials and banal pharmaceuticals.[10] Inspired by early child psychologist Melanie Klein, Black uses pure colour to engage in a playful yet considered response to the spaces in which her works are staged, aspiring to assemble ‘the animal, creative moment’.[1

Black’s work could be said to present the notion of a ‘female aesthetic’.[26] However, this would seem a simplistic analysis as Black has actively disavowed gendered readings of her work.[27] Instead, the work may be better read as a site of resistance: a way of challenging deeply entrenched power relations through repurposing materials, artistic processes and modes of presentation.[28]

As with What To Ask Of Others, but perhaps more explicitly, At Faultforegrounds the process of making. Except for the imprints of Black’s hands, which lend a performative and dynamic quality, she has erased herself in an effort to enable the viewer to enter into a dialogue with the work about materiality.[36] The colour-saturated and balanced form of the work is imbued with the aura of the raw creative moment of making.

It harbours a tension between fragility and endurance that is emblematic of the ‘ethereal lightness with an uncompromising materiality’

‘ In this capacity, the sculpture revisits Black’s predilection for employing ordinary materials in unordinary methods to contest disciplinary boundaries.’

National Galleries -Scotland –Black skillfully draws out and plays with the physical properties of everyday materials such as soap, eye shadow, cotton wool, petroleum jelly, toothpaste and lip-gloss. She uses these in combination with traditional art supplies to invite us to understand them in a new and different way. Although many of the materials used may serve as a reminder of the intimate, daily acts that are commonly associated with women, such as applying make-up and domestic chores, Black does not select them for this reason. Instead her concern is with the physical merits of matter: its texture, colour and feel, rather than any cultural connotations. Similarly the artist’s regular use of pale pastel colours, in particular her fondness for baby blues and pinks, is not intended as a comment on gender.

Karla Black – Conditions exhibition : ( programme ) materials

BLACK ‘I always say that the work seeks to elicit at least an impetus towards physical response. It’s important that the context of the institution dictates that the work shouldn’t be touched, because then a visceral, physical response must be transformed from a bodily experience into a cerebral one. For me, this is what art is—a civilizing of the drives. My choice of materials began a long time ago. I’ve been exhibiting sculptures for 20 years, and before that I was in art school. I love powders, oils, gels, creams, and pastes. I gave myself permission very early on to do what I want to do. It’s difficult enough to make an artwork at all, so I decided not to paralyze myself at the beginning of the process. I operate out of desire, out of unconscious mind at the beginning of making something, before the conscious mind inevitably introduces editing, referencing, and language. It’s also important to note that the bulk of my art-making materials are traditional ones— plaster, chalk, paper, paint. There are little bits of cosmetics and toiletries, but the powder I use is plaster powder mixed with powder paint. The colours play with the mind a little—we can easily be tricked into associations with confectionery, make-up, baby products, etc.‘

‘BLACK – ‘It just shows that those kinds of cultural judgements come from without and not from within. I didn’t know I was a girl until I was told so, and I feel like a living creature, like an animal, rather than having a particular sense of myself as a “woman.” You can’t gender a color, surely, or a material. Of course I am a feminist and it bothers me greatly that only women’s work is gendered, that the “normal” artist is a man, most often a white man, and that work made by anyone else is “other.” It’s insulting to me and to all women when my work is labeled
“feminine” because it’s perceived as slight, ephemeral, fragile, pale. I fail to see how those qualities are “fem-inine.” Franz West made lots of work in powder pinks and pale blues, and Richard Tuttle makes the most fragile sculpture I know. Have you ever heard their work being called “feminine”? My work is mostly very large in scale, utilises tons of heavy materials, requires physical strength and endurance to make. Do those qualities go unnoticed because the works are made by a woman? Are those traits not feminine? I have no doubt that they are.‘

Catherine Bertola –

‘As an artist, I make site-specific installations, drawings and films that address the invisible histories of women, whose roles and contributions to society are overlooked and undervalued. The work gives voice to untold narratives, excavating the past to confront contemporary inequalities that women continue to face.‘ (Bertola)

It’s fundamentally about value. Noticing what goes unnoticed, taking residues and materials that are usually removed and discarded, and making them take up space in a different way so they can’t be ignored. Transforming dust into an intricate wallpaper pattern immediately turns it into something that is beautiful and very visible, and connects to my interest in questioning invisible labour and the overlooked narratives of domestic spaces.‘ ( Bertola) HD film installation with audio, 15 min 24 seconds. Edition of 3 plus 1 AP

‘when feelings take on solid forms‘, is an installation of three film vignettes, that read like chapters in a book. ( room/woman/ washing sheets … !)

http://parapluieart.com/focus-catherinebertola –

‘My first physical encounter with Whiteread’s work was on a trip to Madrid in 1997, where she had an exhibition in a pavilion in the middle of a park. The show included One Hundred Spaces and other early cast pieces of furniture. It was really important and powerful experience at the time, validating the use of domestic references, and giving me confidence to pursue those ideas in my own work, which felt very disapproved of.

Around the same period, I also vividly remember seeing Cornelia Parker’s Feather from Freud’s Pillow (from his couch), a photogram of a single feather take from Freud’s couch. I recall being mesmerised by the way such a small almost insignificant object had been transformed so potently. It resonated with ideas I was wrestling with at the time around ephemerality, found materials and place.’

‘Recent work is also increasingly fuelled by my own experiences and feelings of invisibility, particularly since having children, and the impact that the lack of value and acknowledgment that the cost of unpaid work has on the lives of women.’

‘Although I work across a range of mediums, my practice is rooted in sculpture. Materials are central to the work I make, chosen for how they add meaning to a work through their historical significance, innate physical properties or how they resonate with a particular place. The material often comes first, before I then work out and feel my way through how I am going to use it.

Some materials I return to frequently, like dust, which I have used in numerous drawings and installations. My fascination with this material is in part due to its aesthetic qualities, but also in its forensic value, and associations with time and domestic labour, that further enrich the reading of these works.‘

( Yellow WAll paper – declining mental health of a woman post childbirth – Book )

Quote – Meireles, ‘Places for Digressions’, interview with Nuria Enguita, Cildo Meireles, 1994 – ‘Material makes more than one language possible’

What is the relationship and written practice ?

Material for Stimulus – the dust and detritus collected from materials/clothes/ and domestic fabrics and cloths.

The material will inform my theoretic frame work by the following:

Exploring the narrative of the traditional female work in the home.

Machine made material from the detritus of the every day.

The held narrative in the material itself – an exploration of the waste of the day… what is washed away/what is contained

The material shines a light on the traditional female trope of the domestic worker in the home.

A hidden ‘found’ material of essentially grey matter that encompasses the emotional, physical and mental properties of the female domestic role. Its negative dark connotations, stereotypes and pressures surrounding this role. ‘home maker’.

Every day struggles to maintain a harmony in the home, ( mother, carer, provider, supporter, house manager, wife, … etc ) and maintain artistic practice. Maintaining focus, consistency ….

Selected Text: Article. ‘The Independent ‘

‘Tracey Emin is wrong on motherhood – having children doesn’t mean you can’t be a good artist too’ – ‘“Having a child would be a substitute for my work!“.

“There are good artists that have children. Of course there are. They are called men.”‘ (Emin)

(Margaret Harrison is an exhibiting feminist artist based in the UK. In 2013 she was awarded the Northern Art Prize for her installation ‘Reflect’.?)

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/tracey-emin-is-wrong-being-a-mother-doesn-t-mean-you-can-t-be-a-good-artist-too-9775997.html

I have chosen to look at the detritus from a washer/dryer as a material that is symbolic of the ’every day’. A mundane and hidden throw away item that relentlessly collects and muddies our machine ( minds) it’s the throw away detritus that comes from the new and cleansed washing that we are struggle to find the equivalent to mentally – we do not start each day with a cleansed, washed uncluttered mind to work through our practice / day / life. We bring the past with us to our practice. The material is a symbol of what is unobtainable for most of us. ( PEEL AWY THE LAYER OF DETRITUS TO START AFRESH ) We carry our crap with us … tea cup, murmuration etc everywhere !

The artists I have chosen to include in my essay have an essential link to issues concerning the female narrative and use a selection of diverse and unusual materials to explore these themes. Working with materials that offer up a deeper sense of enquiry and questioning.

Project 4 – Finalising your research Question

SUGGESTED STRUCTURE:

TITLE: Narrative, Materiality and Femaleness: Exploration and negotiation of Material Practice through the Female lens.

Introduction : The aim of this essay is to explore the practice employed by female artists negotiating the material qualities of the every day object in relation to the complex qualities and responsibilities of ‘femaleness’. Considering the conversations and discussions relating to the material narrative through a female lens.

I will seek to examine the essential and more unusual material qualities present in visual artworks by three principal women artists working today with reference to artists work from the past whose works implore and encourage the viewer to look beyond the evident and enquire into the supposition of immersive meaning and relevance.

Doris Salcedo ( 1958 – ) has pushed her focus and commitment to materiality to new extremes over the course of her practice from permanent material to that of an ephemeral fragile nature, verging on the absent to inquire into violence and loss. Mary Kelly ( 1941 -) whose Post-Partum Document (1973 -7) retains a strong influence today as a seminal piece investigating the unexplored notions of motherhood, child development and loss informed by a feminist viewpoint. Karla Black ( 1972 – ) practice involves materially abstract sculpture using some more traditional female mediums like make -up and powders and essentially the work is immersed in its material qualities of fragility and existence. Black work directly expressing her sense of self and exposes the physical and mental attributes she brings to the work. Catherine Bertola ( 1976 – ) looks for the hidden narratives found in the residues and detritus around her typically in the home environment. She ‘questioning invisible labour and the overlooked narratives of domestic spaces.‘ ( Bertola) Observing the female trope of domesticity, traces of time, historic narrative and a sense of re looking and resurrection.

Louise Bourgeois’( 1911 – 2010) early work from 1946 “Femme Maison’ explored the woman and home relationship, with sculptures and drawings that show the women’s heads replaced by houses, ultimately isolating their bodies from the outside world and keeping their minds domestic. Bourgeois went onto to explore many personal emotional states with a variety of material and mediums using the art as a mouth piece to explore her deeply held trauma.

Investigating the interconnectedness and historic references of material and practice the essay will research the conversation the artists are engendering with the objects, what they achieving and realising and what does their every day practice support and uncover?

In reference to this I will consider how and why these artists practice speaks to my own and delve into the theories that support, define and conflict with the narrative of materiality and ‘femaleness’. Enquiring into the discussions and essays by Petra – Lange-Berndt, Iwona Blazwick, Elizabeth Grosz, Judith Butler, Kaisa Kontturi and Dietmar Rubel underpinned by pertinent supporting quotes from the theories of Jack Derrida and Giles Deleuze.

PROJECT 4

Finalising your research question

EARLY OUTLINE

Title 1 – Narrative, Materiality and Femaleness:

‘Exploration and negotiation of material practice through the lens of ‘femaleness’.

Contents 2

List of Figures:3

List of Appendices 4.

Introduction. 5

INTRODUCTION.

The aim of this essay is to explore the practice employed by female artists negotiating the material qualities of the everyday object in relation to the complex qualities and responsibilities of ‘femaleness’. Considering the conversations and discussions relating to the material narrative through a female lens. The context and definition of ‘femaleness’ broadly depends on perspective and context. For the purpose of this essay it refers to the characteristics, experiences and identities associated with being female or woman- aligned within the framework of gender. Noting that gender is a problematic, multifaceted construct that extends beyond biological sex. Within the discussions surrounding feminist and gender studies ‘femaleness’ is considered a social and cultural category moulded and dictated by societal norms and expectations . Culturally ascribed expressions, behaviours and identities define the diverse notions of ‘femaleness’ influenced by historical contexts, class, religions, sexuality and identity offering diverse, explorative and fluid definitions. This diversity of definition and its narrative will be explored and exploited differently by each artist pertinent to their experienced context.

The material practice employed by the artists will refer to the everyday object or ready-made objects incorporated into the artworks with particular attention focussed on the material qualities chosen, its appropriation, conceptualisation, consideration and transformation and how it relates to the artist notions of ‘femaleness’ as an individual, mother, home-maker, provider, carer, etc. How does the practitioner illuminate their concerns and narrative through their material practice.

Chapter 1. – Literature and Resource Review.

In reference to this I will consider how and why these artists practice speaks to my own and enquire into the theories that support, define and conflict with the narrative of materiality and ‘femaleness’ considering the discussions and essays by:

Petra – Lange-Berndt

Iwona Blazwick

Elizabeth Grosz

Judith Butler/Luce Irigae

Kaisa Kontturi

Dietmar Rubel

Chapter 2 – CHAPTER 2: ( to include in all studies of artists )

(Secondary Research) Who addressed it before (theorists, academics)
(Secondary Research) Who is addressing it in their work and how?
(Primary Research Optional*) How are you addressing it in your work?

Doris Sacedo – Doris Salcedo (1958 – ) has pushed her focus and commitment to materiality to new extremes over the course of her practice from permanent material to that of an ephemeral fragile nature, verging on the absent to inquire into violence and loss.

CHAPTER 3 . – Mary Kelly (1941 -) whose Post-Partum Document (1973 -7) retains a strong influence today as a seminal piece investigating the unexplored notions of motherhood, child development and loss informed by a feminist viewpoint.

CHAPTER 4: Karla Black /Bertola

Karla Black (1972 – ) practice involves materially abstract sculpture using some more traditional female mediums like make -up and powders and essentially the work is immersed in its material qualities of fragility and existence. Black work directly expressing her sense of self and exposes the physical and mental attributes she brings to the work.

Catherine Bertola (1976 – ) looks for the hidden narratives found in the residues and detritus around her typically in the home environment. She ‘questioning invisible labour and the overlooked narratives of domestic spaces.‘ (Bertola) Observing the female trope of domesticity, traces of time, historic narrative and a sense of re looking and resurrection.

Chapter 5. – Louise Bourgeois (1911 – 2010) early work from 1946 “Femme Maison’ explored the woman and home relationship, with sculptures and drawings that show the women’s heads replaced by houses, ultimately isolating their bodies from the outside world and keeping their minds domestic. Bourgeois went onto to explore many personal emotional states with a variety of material and mediums using the art as a mouth piece to explore her deeply held trauma.

underpinned by pertinent supporting quotes from the theories of Jack Derrida and Giles Deleuze.

Chapter 6. Evaluation, Analysis, Synergy,

Optional: How it directly relates to your own work and experience can be a thread running through if you wish, with time taken to explore also your own practice and explorations into the research question.

Conclusion 7.

References: ( alphabetical listing by author surname of any texts and resources read.accessed or used in the text0 – Harvard ref System)

Bibliography :

Lange-Berndt, P. (Ed.). (2015). Materiality. Whitechapel Gallery: MIT Press.
Rubel, D. (2012). Plasticity: An Art History of the Mutable. Translated by Philippa Hurd. 2015.
Kontturi, K. (2019). Ways of Following: Art, Materiality, Collaboration. Open Humanities Press.
Unknown Author/Editor. (2020). Chaos, Territory, Art: Deleuze and the Framing of the Earth (The Wellek Library Lectures).
A Macat Analysis. Sontag, S. (2017). On Photography. Macat International Ltd USA.
Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that Matter. In Materiality: Documents of Contemporary Art (p. 120).
Blazwick, I. (2013). Cornelia Parker. Thames and Hudson.
Morris, F. (2008). Louise Bourgeois. Rizzola/Electa. USA.
Grosz, E. (2007). Chaos, Territory, Art. Columbia University Press.
Kelly, M. (1997). In M. Iversen (Ed.), Mary Kelly. Phaidon, London.
Salcedo, D. (2016). The Materiality of Mourning. Yale University Press.
Unknown Author. (Year unknown). “Karla Black” [Online article]. Available at: www.medium.com (accessed Feb 2024).
Johnstone, S. (Ed.) (2008). The Everyday. Documents of Contemporary Art. Whitechapel Gallery, MIT Press.
Dohm, K. (2020). Karla Black Conditions. Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Germany.

( Glossary )

EXERCISE 1.

RETURN TO YOUR CRITICAL INVESTIGATION TO YOUR STUDIO PRACTICE!

What is the work made of?

My work is made from the domestic detritus found in the collecting vents of the tumble dryer/washing machine.

How has it been made? ( Processes actions) – The collected fibres are moulded into a felt like material inside the machine, dried and pushed into specific areas to be regularly collected by the user to allow ventilation to occur. It also stop the fibres splling into the drains causing blocking and pollution. My work focusses on the manipulation of this found domestic material.

My processes have so far included: gluing the felt pieces onto varied surfaces to create the effect of a solid shape. Pin-felting them onto wire mesh, and then manipulating the the mesh to create new forms. Pin felting them to each other and using traditional felt rolling with soap to create cohesion , mass, volume and the ability to bond the small pieces together.

Is the process of making the work visible in the work itself? How? The making process is visible in the work – as the material is heavily altered in size and shape from the small flat pieces taken directly from the washer/dryer.It has been stiffened, folded, threaded, rubbed and moulded and manipulated. The size of the original pieces has increased adding volume, depth and height and width.

What are the various qualities of the materials used? Pliable, rigid, liquid, solid, resistant, permeable and also fragile ? The material is very malleable with potential for it to take on new form and presence. It s soft and fabric like with out the rigidity r structural integrity of bought felt of other materials such as cotton. It s a mix of many fibres ( including some hiar hair, dust, fluff ) that is a constant by-product of washing clothes made fromall manner of material such as natural fibres and man made.

How is colour used in the work? I would suggest it is a mono chrome palette – or ’50 shades of grey’. There are variations with a deeper blue, darker grey and whiter elements but over all the tonal colour is the same. The colour differences are subtle but also an important factor in th ework. The colour variations are essential in offering up the narrative of time – as in each new colour way depicts a new day ,a new wash load and a new story.

What part does composition or construction play in the work? Both are important factors in the work. The composition is a culmination of the coloured felts, merged and entwined to create a larger work than their original size. Emphasising the volume of this material produced is pertinent to the narrative of that production. ( continued domestic activity and work load.

How does the work occupy or use space? `the work can be hung or stand freely in a space. The stand will e ideally self supporting. Alternatively it can be attached to a wall in a more traditional gallery format. The space should be clear of their conflicting opposing colours or works, in good natural light to allow the subtle colours of the felt to be seen.

Does the work have a relationship to time?? Ie making the piece takes a long time because of the process used, does it only exist for a period of time, will the material change over time, does it refer to past or future events? The work is closely related to time. There is a minimal time that that the felt takes to materialise. A min of 2 days with numerous ‘loads ‘ of washing placed into the machine during this time. Post this initial production there is considerable time taken to use the felting processes to combine the materials, shape and mount it. The work refers to domestic work from the past, the days of ‘washing’ and domestic toil. The future is part of the narrative regarding change. A change in the acceptance and previous dismissal of the domestic toil and its a-typical female domain.

How is scale used in the work? For example what physical relationship is there with the viewer? Physically many might recognise the grey monotones of the felt detritus – remoulded into the new forms. animal pelts, clothing, draping blankets. This familiarity will generate an individual response dependant on viewer context. This might come in the form of feeling repelled or disgusted by its highlighted presence. It may unlock a humerous element within individuals so used to uncovering and disposing of this material with little or no thought to it and its inherent material narrative. Perhaps also a deeper enquiry into the monotonous tropes of domesticity.

How des this work relate to other works you have made or a re making? Is it part of a series or singular? This work enquires into the notion of ‘femaleness’ and the traditional role the female occupies in the home. The very negative and subservient role overseen by a patriarchy and the continued battle to shift the focus to a more even playing field. Previous work ‘Traces” and ‘Home’ also enquired into this narrative.

Does the work refer to / deal with real or imagined space? No. The space refers to the notion of home – the female carer, provider and worker within the toil of domesticity.

Does the work involve other people? If so how/ why ?- the work is not collaborative but will relate to the wide audience of individuals (females ) involved in the work of the domestic .

If the work has a title how does the title function within the work? For example is it descriptive , does it address and audience does it locate the work with in a sequence of works? – The work ‘overall’ will be called ” Domestic detritus’ (TBC) – part descriptive and non specific to the female role traditionally involved in this work . It will address the work to a specific location, ie the ‘home’. and will be part of a range of works – this being the overall title.

( Revert back to critical investigation for additional consideration to other artists)

Bullet Point content – summary of relationship between studio practice and critical investigation.

My critical investigation focusses on the detailed material practice of 3 key female artists.
These artists have been chosen specifically for their strength in material practice and the layers of narrative they uncover with the work. Their practice resonates strongly with my own enquiries into use of unusual materials and the underlying narrative these represent.
These artists are concerned by notions of ‘femaleness’ in regards to response, reaction, emotion and physicality within their work. the female narrative and the trope of the domestic work load in relation to ‘home’, ‘ feminism’, ‘suffering’ and ‘motherhood ‘.
The artists work present narratives of strength and empowerment. Often looking back to the past to bring forward themes of the patriarchy and female repression.
The artists I have chosen to include in my essay have an essential link to issues concerning the essentially female narrative and use a selection of diverse and unusual materials, and practice to explore these themes. Working with materials that offer up a deeper sense of enquiry and questioning.
The theorists I have chosen to underpin the work of my chosen artists plus my own practice include: Judith Butler, Donna Haraway, Elizabeth Grosz and Karen Barad. These seem to have the most pertinent theories that relate to the female narrative and to material practice in todays Anthropocene.
Their theories overlap to some extent but remain pertinent and relevant to the emotive and visceral practice of key artists I have chosen to research: Louise Bourgeois, Doris Salcedo and Karla Black ( potentially adding Catherine Bertola ).

750 Word text to define and support key arguments settled on :

The proposal and theories I have settled on to support my own work and the critical investigation surround the material practice and concerns of the female artist. With possible investigation into the notion of ‘femaleness’ rather than just the concept of the ‘female’ aware of the complex dynamics and definition this may engender. I will enquire into the theories of 4 eminent female academics whose concepts are well considered and documented and concern the following ; gender, identity, and the entanglement of materiality and discourse. Plus 3-4 key artists that embrace and engender these concerns in their practice.

Judith Butler is renowned for her theory of gender performativity, which challenges the notion of gender as ‘fixed’. She considers artistic materials and practices can be seen as performative acts that question established gender norms and identities.

Donna Haraway’s work blends feminist theory with science and technology studies, introducing the concept of the cyborg which unsettles boundaries between human, animal, and machine. Her theories encourage viewing materials not merely as inert substances but as active participants in the art-making process influencing and transforming the narrative and meaning.

Karen Barad’s framework of agential realism introduces the idea of intra-action, where entities and their agencies emerge through their relationships rather than preceding them. Barad’s theory supports an approach where materials are not passive but are dynamic and integral to the formation of meaning. Encouraging artist to recognise and harness their potential in their artistic narrative.

Elizabeth Grosz’s work is deeply influenced by Deleuzian philosophy, focusing on bodies, cities, and art from a strong feminist perspective. Grosz argues that art is a way of experiencing and expressing the intensities and sensations that material practice provokes. Arguing that material is not merely as a backdrop but forces that have the potential shape lives and cultures.

These theorists provide a strong theoretical foundation for investigating how female artists utilize material practices, and express ‘femaleness’ or the ‘female’ within their practice.

ArtistLouise Bourgeois’ work explores themes of sexuality, family, trauma and other psychological emotions. Her use of diverse materials, ranging from fabric and wood to marble and latex material is a visceral metaphor expressing the intricacies of human feelings and memories. She examines the feminine psyche through various works using everyday objects and fabrics that comment on women’s identities within domestic spaces and reflect a continual struggle with anxiety, trauma and gender.

Karla Black’s workEmphasizing the fluidity and impermanence of materials, Black’s installations make extensive use of ephemeral and unlikely substances like cosmetics, toiletries, cellophane, and plaster. Her works are interactive and sensory that can create environments that invite viewers to contemplate the physicality of the materials and their own societal relations to it . Black challenges traditional notions of sculpture and gallery space pushing the boundaries between material practice and the environment. Her use of materials commonly associated with femininity and personal care critiques gender norms and highlights the performative nature of identity.

Doris Salcedo’ssculptures and installations are intensively used to articulate collective grief and loss, particularly within the context of political violence and torture. The materials in Salcedo’s work such as furniture, clothing, concrete, are recontextualized to convey profound narratives of absence and memory. Her intense material discourse speaks to the fragility and resilience of the human condition.

The combination of these theories/theorist and the material practice of my chosen artists will be a gateway from which I will build up on my own enquiries concerning my own practice. My use of every day materials and found objects can be supported by a rich premise of context.

My current studio work involves machine detritus and is concerned with the female as the dominant, domestic worker. This societal and patriarchal view connects with concerns of identity and gender primarily but is also underscored by notions of mother, carer and home and what this necessitates and entails in today’s Anthropocene. How can we use material enquiry to explore these trope and widen its enquiry?

Exploring my chosen material and pushing its boundaries will also bring about new ways of seeing and engaging. I will continue to use a range of methods and processes to explore the hidden the language of the unseen and discarded perhaps being visually part of this process in final renderings. I work in the moment as a maker and an artist that responds to material qualities directly with an urgent interconnectedness that fuels my intentions and process.