Christine Turner wrote:
Hiya there Christine, just be warned... you did ask :)
> Dear All,
>
> I am a Phd student at Liverpool School of Art researching the
>
> significance/relevance of drawing the human figure in contemporary art.
>
> I would welcome your thoughts on the practice of life drawing in higher
>
> education- does it / or should it continue?
>
>
Absolutely, without question.
> Is it relevant to contemporary art practice?
>
>
It's the difference between looking and seeing and all the philosophical
gravitas that comes with it. A collection of lines/marks can be 'seen
as' a figure, it does not necessarily have to be held within the
constricts of 'realism' as defined by Lyotard. ("Realism, whose only
definition is that it intends to avoid the question of reality
implicated in that of art, always stands between academicism and kitsch.
When power assumes the name of a party, realism and its neoclassical
complement triumph over the experimental avant-garde by slandering and
banning it - that is, provided the "correct" images, the "correct"
narratives, the "correct" forms which the party requests, selects and
propagates can find a public to desire them as the appropriate remedy
for the anxiety and depression that public experiences. /The Postmodern
Condition./) This raises questions about our own ability to 'see in',
and more importantly in today's society, to 'not see in'. We are
socially conditioned to find freedom through object gratification which
in turn is an investment back into the system which restricts us. (Feel
down and low and as though you're not going anywhere? - Buy yourself a
new suit/ car/ make-over which in turn may change your life and get you
that one special person who is attracted by the suit/ car / make-over
etc). Advertising uses past art 'styles' and established 'modes' and
shows objects to be seen as future happiness by accumulation in the
exact same way fat and violent over lords used artists to paint them as
'beautiful' and 'moral' people. Is this abuse of art history relevant
today? God yes because it's still being done, being beamed into our
homes to get us to invest what we've earned back into a vicious circle.
> Why does it seems to be in a marginalised position, when so many images of
>
> the human form are apparent in contemorary drawings?
>
>
That's the very question isn't it? Why am i doing this instead of
getting a 'proper job' in which i can earn shed loads of money, come
home to a plush house and drop out of reality into a computer game in
which i go around slaughtering everything that moves? That's happiness
for today isn't it? Two holidays a year, 300 TV channels so i don't have
to listen to the wife, who can get ebay on the laptop so she's happy.
Why am i 'wired' this way to think? (I use the term ironically). Because
there's perhaps something missing? In a certain proportion of drawings
of figures, in photographs of people, certainly in media images,...
there's nothing to 'see'. There's just the appearance of past 'style' or
'mode': 'artlite' 'I can't believe it's not art'. Just empty shells
which look like art, appearance but no substance. As Doris Rohr said,
it's important to be aware of the difference between reality and
simulation. It was the massive failing in the Mondrian survey of
aesthetics. People were asked to compare a 'real' Mondrian with an image
created by a computer based upon a formula generated from Mondrian's
works. However, the 'real' Mondrian's were not 'real' but photographic
simulations. The participants were not comparing the reality of being
before an actual Mondrian but between one mode of simulation and
another, both of which were shown upon a large theatre projector.
Where's the human in that reduction? Do we need human? Does it shout and
scream in glorious technicolor and Dolby all around sound? Does it sell?
Again, see Lyotard quote above.
> Artists who use the figure (not necessarily from within a life room), how and
>
> why do you do so?
>
>
I draw the figure directly because it's vital. It's there like me living
and breathing and moving and feeling and thinking and experiencing life,
experiencing everything which isn't tangible and yet real; and what is
supposed to be if you believe in consumerism. Not sure if you've ever
done a martial art but it's the same, you train and gain a physical
knowledge of other beings which when stressed or within that 'accute
stress response' of Freud's, you react intuitively to them. You react
quicker and more accurately to their actions than calculated-rational
thought and only truly realise what it is you have done after the act of
doing has been accomplished. I do not draw to show a skill, or to record
photographically, I draw to experience and by experiencing gain
knowledge of who i am, what i do, how i think, how i experience, how
others affect me. Drawing is for me a recording of reality but more than
just what is consciously clear. That's why i consider myself a
traditionalist.
> I look forward to your responses.
>
> Thanks
>
> Chris Turner
Thank-you!!
:)
Spike.
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