Seminar in Visual Culture 2010: The Art of Murder



Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, Room ST 275
(School of Advanced Study, Stewart House, 32 Russell Square, WC1B 5DN
London)

This series of seminars acts as a forum for practicing artists,
researchers, curators, students, and others interested in visual culture
who are invited to present, discuss and explore a given theme within the
broad field of Visual Culture.

In 2010, the theme of the seminar is 'The Art of Murder.'

Artists and writers have always been fascinated with the violence of
murder and the thrill and sensationalism that comes with it. Many
examine it in critical, theoretical or creative forms of expression
exploring the hidden fears and desires inherent in breaking the most
sacred taboo, the destruction, and thereby for some the renewal, of life
itself.

Thomas de Quincey considered 'murder as one of the fine arts', and the
murderer as artist, in his eponymous satirical article from 1827. W.H.
Auden calls murder 'negative creation'; and like the classical
rebel-poet/artist Auden's murderer is 'the rebel who claims the right to
be omnipotent.' According to legend George Bataille dallied in a more
dangerous fashion with the artistic act of murder.

Today, artworks by serial killer John Wayne Gacy fetch up to $15,000 at
auction. In the Washington-based Museum of Crime and Punishment one can
admire art and craft made by Charles Manson and an online search will
provide opportunities to purchase one of his sock puppets. Marcus
Harvey's portrait of child-murderess Myra Hindley, which was created
from the hand-prints of children, attracted much criticism, but it also
drew the crowds.

When crime writer Patricia Cornwell cut up a painting by Walter Sickert
in her quest to prove that Sickert was Jack the Ripper, the art-world
was outraged. However, whether we believe Cornwell's theory or not,
Sickert's paintings suddenly acquired a new fascination.

This cross-disciplinary seminar series 'The Art of Murder' sets out to
explore visual representations of actual murder in fine art, theatre,
film and literature, as well as our relationship with artefacts and
artworks created by criminals.

Participation is free and open to all, but please email me at
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to reserve a seat.



Programme:

Wednesday 27 Jan. 2010, 6.30pm - 8.00pm

Ricarda Vidal, "A brief introduction to murder"
 From de Quincey to Orwell and Bataille writers have been concerned with
what constitutes a 'good murder' and artists from antiquity to now have
been concerned with how best to visualise it. This talk endeavours to
give an overview of the history of our infatuation with murder and its
aesthetics and thus to lay the groundwork for the various presentations
in the "Art of Murder" seminar series.

Geraldine Swayne, "On Painting Murder"
I've made a lot of work about murders, not because I necessarily want to
make pictures of the act but because I am interested in the atmosphere
of murder scenes; the way terror distorts reality and the moment when
the soul leaves the body.

I became interested in murder as a child and still hold childish
supernatural beliefs about murder being a crime against nature, (and
hence the universe), changing murderers into monsters and turning
blossom to ash.

The resonance of murders, (particularly of young women), passes through
me like a kind of medium. When I paint a murderer, what I am asking is:
once you've killed, have you committed another murder on your own soul;
and if you have, can I see it in your eyes?



Simon Bacon, "The Two Faces of the Murderous Gaze": The Dark Doubling of
Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula as Seen in "An Experiment on a Bird in
an Air Pump" by Wright of Derby and "Triptych May-June 1973" by Francis
Bacon
Wright of Derby's painting was produced over a hundred years before the
creation of our two protagonists and Francis Bacon's seventy years later
but both example the murderous gaze implicit in their modus operandi's.

Sherlock Holmes can be seen as the light of Enlightenment reason
uncovering the traces and motivations of the most devious and diabolical
murderers but his cold scientific gaze is not just his own; in the act
of discovery he re-opens the wounds of the victim to public gaze and
consideration. Dark acts are no longer discrete and individual but
become public property in the light of collective scrutiny.

Similarly Wright of Derby's "An Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump"
(1767-68) shows light being brought forth from darkness; an attentive
audience is invited to watch the death-throes of an unwitting victim all
in the interests of science.

Dracula, even more so than Moriarty, is Holmes' 'dark double'. His
deathly project is hidden and nefarious, guided not by intellect but
emotions; his lust is for life not scientific stultification. His
murders deflect the public gaze rather than wallow in it, an act that is
personal rather than social.

Bacon's "Triptych May-June 1973" (1973) reveals the fleshy nature of
demise, solitary and engulfed in predatory shadows. The artist's brush
slashes and cuts to the bone; in paint no one can hear you scream.

Revealed here are the two sides of the murderous gaze one dissects the
other detects. One deals in light and the other dark; one finds death in
life the other life in death; I'll leave you to decide which is which.



Wednesday 24 Feb. 2010, 6.30pm - 8.00pm

Roger Cook, Murder, Myth and Martyrdom: the Death of Pier Paolo Pasolini

Leila Peacock, " Dis-moi ce que tu manges..." - The Cannibal's Cookbook



Wednesday 24 March 2010, 6.30pm - 8.00pm

Brittain Bright, "The Aesthetic of the Crime Scene Photograph"

Julia Banwell, "True Crime: Looking at Violent Death in Mexican Visual
Culture"



Wednesday 26 May 2010, 6.30pm - 8.00pm

Sarah Sparkes, "Never Afraid - Murder at Crimes Town"

Lisa Downing, "Monochrome Mirror: Representing Dennis Nilsen"



For more information please see: http://igrs.sas.ac.uk/index.php?id=434





Dr Ricarda Vidal

Lecturer in Visual Culture

Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies
School of Advanced Study
Stewart House, 32 Russell Squ, London WC1B 5DN
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phone: 020 7862 8961

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