First used in Asia oil paints date back to the 7th century, being used in Buddist paintings and decorating shields in Afghanistan. It was first used in Europe for decoration in the 12th century but, by the 15th century it had become a commonly used material in art. Known for their thickness and long drying times oil paints are still widely used today.
“Flesh is the reason oil paint was invented”
Willem de Kooning 1904 – 1997
Dutch painter Jan van Eyck who was once mistakenly credited as being the “Inventor of oil painting” due to a quote from Giorgio Vasari has been said to be the first master of oil painting and had a large role to play in the early days of oil painting in Europe. Van Eyck’s work went on to inspire Italian painter Antonello da Messina is said to have introduced oil paints to Italy. Active during the early Renaissance Antonello da Messina studied the surfaces of van Eyck’s paintings and recreated them within his own work.
Arnolfini Portrait 1434 – Jack van Eyck
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Virgin Annunciate – Antonello da Messina (1470)
The use of oil paints did not stop after the Renaissance and were continued to be used in many infamous pieces of work. Vincent Van Gogh used oil paints on canvas to create ‘The Stary Night’. The thickness of the paint allowed for a textured finish.
As the technological world develops its impact has also spread to art. From using robotics and artificial intelligence it’s allowed art to take on a different breath of life. The first instance of technology and art intertwining that I saw was Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s “I Can’t Help Myself” (2016). The sculpture is a robot that mimics a claw or an arm that has a large paintbrush or mop attached to the end. It a disturbingly repeats the action of trying to mop up the ‘blood’ like substance on the floor but creating more mess in the process by the mop slapping too hard on the floor or flipping upwards. It is a very disturbingly beautiful to watch a non-human object portray such a human emotion.
Sun Yuan and Peng Yu – I Can’t Help Myself 2016
Another instance for technology and art combining to create something beautiful is Anicka Yi’s “In Love With The World” which used AI to create aquamarine like floating objects that float through the air following their own path. Much like ‘I Can’t Help Myself’ the objects were able to move in such a flowing and naturalistic way.
Anicka Yi’s “In Love With The World’ 2021 – My own photograph taken in Tate Modern November 2021
Ai-Da is a robot created in February 2019 and by Aiden Meller. She draws with cameras in her eyes a robotic arm and an AI algorithm. Even the existence of Ai-Da challenges the idea of the boundaries of art and the future of human intervention and art. Ai-Da’s creation was inspired by George Orwells 1984 and was her creation was to warn against the abuse of technology.
Ai-Da and her self portrait – photograph taken from her own website
In 2019 we launched the Ai-Da Robot Project showcasing Ai-Da at the University of Oxford, the Barbican, the Tate, the V&A, the United Nations and the Ashmolean. We closed the art galleries to continue to develop this remarkable cutting edge project.
Soon as you step inside the Tate Modern you are immediately immersed by the ‘scentscapes’ of Anicka Yi’s In Love with The World. The work commissioned by Hyundai features large jellyfish like flying objects that float above the people walking through the entrance. Having this piece as the first thing people see when they enter the Tate Modern sets the tone for what is expected throughout the gallery.
Established in 200o the Tate Modern is a gallery located in London and is part of a group of galleries including Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It houses contemporary and modern art from a wide variety of international artists. Entry is free although some exhibitions require payment.
Compared to the visit I had made to Whitewall Galleries I felt very moved by my visit to the Tate Modern. Personally I felt the body of work was more genuine. Unlike Whitewall Galleries the pieces didn’t have the price displayed next to the work and each piece had a summary of the work and the artist behind it. It is clear that the work made for Whitewall Galleries is made to appeal to the masses in a highly commercialized environment where as the work in the Tate Modern was made by the artist to share a message or story.
The first source I looked at was Emotional Bodies: The Historical Performativity of Emotions edited by Dolores Martin-Moruno and Beatriz Pichel. I focused on Part II of the book, Performing Emotional Bodies. This part of the book focuses on the emotional development within children. The beginning of the part focuses on Charles Darwin’s studies on child development. Darwin evaluated the children’s distinct behaviors and reactions, even using his own sons emotional development to further his research. He believed that children lacked the adult human attribute of free will and acted closer to animals, acting purely on instinct.
“The art of screaming…from being service to infants, has become finely developed from the earliest days”
Charles Darwin. (Page 65 of Emotional Bodies: The Historical Performativity of Emotions)
Darwins connection between free will and emotions lead my to my second source “What You Think About Your Emotions Matters” written by Jill Suitte fot the Greater Good Magazine. Overall the article reached the conclusion that giving too much power to emotions, positive or negative, leads to a negative affect on mental health and wellbeing.
Susan David giving the TED talk ‘The gift and power of emotional courage”
For my final source I watched a TED talk given by Susan David, “The gift and power of emotional courage”. The talk focused on emotional agility, the ideology that an individual should accept their emotions as they come. David conducted her own study and found a third of the 17,000 person study judge themselves for negative emotions or believe they should repress their emotions. This way of thinking is rigid and is not sustainable for living a healthy lifestyle.
“Life’s beauty is inseparable from its fragility”
Susan David
It is difficult to find an artist who is not inspired by emotions but I wanted to look at The Scream by Edvard Munch (1893) as it took the instinctive action of a scream and turned it into something engaging and impactful.
Emotions are something that affect our day to day lives. I wanted to research more into the topic because for something that has such a big impact on people I knew very little about them.
The first source I looked at was Emotional Bodies: The Historical Performativity of Emotions edited by Dolores Martin-Moruno and Beatriz Pichel. Dolores Martin-Moruno has 3 other published works and her research project at the time Emotional Bodies was published (A Gendered History of Compassion from the Franco-Prussian War to WWII) was given a Swiss National Science Foundation Professorship in 2017. Beatriz Pichel is a lecturer at De Montford University in Photographic History. Her specialism is in photographic history, medical humanities and the history of medicine. As well as Martin-Moruno and Pichel there were 9 other contributors. Published in December 2019 the book covers the purpose of emotions, approaching the topic from a subjective point of view and pulling on historical and social contexts. I focused on Part II of the book, Performing Emotional Bodies. This part of the book focuses on the emotional development within children and how at one time it was believed that infants and young children were not able to feel emotions or pain. The points made were made from a medical point of view having many different researchers to back up the points being made. It also touched upon the political impact of emotions.
The beginning of the part focuses on Charles Darwin’s studies on child development. Darwin evaluated the children’s distinct behaviours and reactions, even using his own sons emotional development to further his research. He believed that children lacked the adult human attribute of free will and acted closer to animals, acting purely on instinct. I found the idea of acting on instinct very interesting and reflected on my own emotional responses and whether I feel free will over my emotions or if I felt my emotions had more control over me.
“The art of screaming…from being service to infants, has become finely developed from the earliest days”
Charles Darwin. (Page 65 of Emotional Bodies: The Historical Performativity of Emotions)
The rest of the part continued to focus on ‘infant pain denial’, referencing Herr Kinderman’s experiments which tested infants senses and American doctor Lewis Starr who believed healthy children never cried. The chapter moved away from the area of emotions I personally wanted to focus on within my research although I found it very interesting how people acted and invalidated emotions of something they couldn’t understand or relate to. The fact infants were subjected to inhumane treatment just to validate the theories of adults says a lot about the way society and the way we treat people and things that we can instinctively relate to.
Darwins connection between free will and emotions lead my to my second source “What You Think About Your Emotions Matters” written by Jill Suitte and published on January 8 2019 on the Greater Good Magazine. The Greater Good Magazine whose tagline is “Science-based insights for a meaningful life”, translates scientific studies to easily digestible articles for the everyday public. It gives people guidance for everyday life from personal to professional struggles with scientific backing. The magazine is published by UC Berkeley, which was ranked 7th in the world university rankings 2021 by timeshighereducation.com. Throughout the articles there are many hyperlinks to the research or studies being mentioned adding reliability to the article. The author of the article, Jill Suitte, Psy.D, wrote her first article for the Greater Good in 2006 – two years after the publication began. Suitte’s own website (jillsuttie.com) classes her as a “free-lance journalist and a staff writer and contributing editor for Greater Good”.
Over all the article discusses the affects on accepting emotions and if we are powerless to their effects. Overall the article reached the conclusion that giving too much power to emotions, positive or negative, leads to a negative affect on mental health and wellbeing. The article references a study by Ronnel B. King and Elmer D deal Rosa, “Are your emotions under your control or not? Implict theories of emotion predict well-being via cognitive reappraisal”. Published February 1st 2019 the findings found after looking at a group of 335 Filipino college students, those who believed they had control over their emotions and thought feelings were malleable had better emotional wellbeing. The researchers concluded “How people think about the malleability of their emotions seems to be a crucial factor in emotional functioning”.
As someone who often feels overwhelmed by my emotional responses and highly out of control of them I found it very surprising that there is a possibility to gain a sense of control over them. In fact it is healthier to take control over the fact I am not a victim of control. It is important to note that the article didn’t touch upon the affects of mental illness and how that might change the feeling or ability to practice emotional regulation. The article gives suggestions on handling difficult stressors emotions such as mindfulness, which would be more effective for some people over others. Overall I believe that this view on emotions is helpful for everyone to adapt in everyday life but, it is important to remember that for some people struggling with mental illness.
I wanted to continue looking into controlling emotion and the impacts of emotion. For my final source I watched a TED talk given by South African psychologist, researcher and author Susan David, “The gift and power of emotional courage”. Within David’s career she focused and studied ’emotional agility’ which was also the focus of her talk.
“Life’s beauty is inseparable from its fragility”
Susan David
Emotional agility is the ideology that an individual should accept their emotions as they come and embrace them as they change. David conducted her own study and found a third of the 17,000 person study judge themselves for negative emotions or believe they should repress their emotions. This way of thinking is rigid and is not sustainable for living a healthy lifestyle.
ArtReview founded in 1949 is one of the world’s leading art magazines. Relesing nine issues a year, two of which have a specific issue or topic they focus on the magazine is released throughout Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Americas. Alongside its sister publication, ArtReview touches on a wide variety of article types such as commentary of the art world, reviews, and interesting takes on artists and their bodies of work. As of November 2nd 2021, ArtReview has #140 published issues, selling in the approximate bracket of Β£6-Β£9 for a signal issue and approximately Β£84 for a year-long subscription.
The article I decided to focus on was ‘Why now, man?’ written by Jonathan T.D Neil from the October 2018. The article focuses on Bruce Nauman, failure, trauma, race and privilege. The author, Jonathan T.D Neil currently based in Los Angels, CA is the co-founder for Inversion Art and was the editor for ArtReview 2016-2018. Neil also has a website with the header “Consecutive Matters” which is filled with informal collection of his unfinished works.
The article begins discussing the contemporary artist Bruce Nauman and his infamous work and the fact ‘no other artist has so consistently defied the pull of a recognisable style’. Currently 79 years old Naumen’s vast portfolio ranges from sculpture, film, performance, video, photography, installation and almost any other genre. The article references one time deputy director and now Rauschenberg Foundation executive director Kathy Halbreich,’one of Nauman’s devotees’. Halbreich organised one of Nauman’s retrospective exhibitions wrote in her introductory essay to the catalogue ‘surprised-really sideswiped me’ in reference to Nauman’s practice.
A photograph from Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square by Bruce Nauman
Included in the article is a still taken from Nauman’s Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square. The ten minute video shows Nauman doing exactly as the title states. The square on the floor is marked out with masking tape and even though his moves are overemphasised he still steps carefully around the shape. The inclusion of this piece within the article was very deliberate as I feel it describes Nauman and his practice in a very concise manner. It epitomises Nauman’s work, making it a good starting point to discuss the artists fundamental believes and practices and is seen as one of his iconic studio works alongside Walk with Contraposto (1968). Much like Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square, in Walk with Contrapposto Nauman walks moves through the space whilst the camera is in a fixed position. He poses with each step he takes. “You couldn’t see the rest of the studio, and my head was cut off most of the time. … In most of the pieces I made [in 1969] you could see only the back of my head, pictures from the back or from the top.” said Nauman while talking about the piece. (Quote from https://www.eai.org/titles/walk-with-contrapposto)
Walk with Contraposto (1968) – Bruce Nauman
What is trauma except failure by another name – failure to represent, failure to incorporate, failure to work through and to sublimate.
Why now, man? Jonathan T.D. Neil
In talking about Nauman, Neil brings up the point of Nauman’s privilege and the advances he has being a white male. The American choreographer, company director, writer, visual artist and a conceptualist, Ralph Lemon addresses the politics of Nauman’s 1968 Wall-Floor Positions video by stating ‘Here was a particular projection of white-male autonomy taking place concurrently with the exigencies of black civil rights movement, with this culturally defined lack of autonomy… I try to imagine a black body in an art studio, in the United States, in 1965… I cannot imagine it.’. Lemon did his own take on the piece Wall-Floor Positions but with two black live performers instead. It also should be noted that Neil is a white male author so even though he was able to reflect on the privilege Nauman has he would not be able to relate or truly understand the struggle and weight of the work by Lemon.
Ralph Lemon’s take on Wall-Floor Positions (2003)
In conclusion I found Neil’s take on Nauman very interesting. Neil almost questions Nauman’s position within the art world and highlights points that are often overlooked especially by Nauman’s fans. It was intriguing how Neil’s chose of language often seemed to be abrasive and dismissive of Nauman’s beliefs.
Designed by Claes Olenburg and Coosje van Brugeen in 1994, the Inverted Collar and Tie is located in Frankfurt, Germany in front of the Westend Tower. It was commissioned by the Deutsche Genossenschaftsbank in 1993, installed June 14-15 1994 and inaugurated June 21 1994. Standing at 39 ft. x 27 ft. 9 in. x 12 ft. 8 in. (11.9 x 8.5 x 3.9 m) the tie and collar is made from steel, polymer concreate, fiber reinforced plastic and painted with polyester gelcoat. The sculpture weighs 7.5 tonnes but seems to have a softness that gives the image of fluttering in the wind.
“If I didn’t think what I was doing had something to do with enlarging the boundaries of art, I wouldn’t go on doing it.”
Claes Olenburg
The contrast between the fluidity of the statue and the stiffness of the materials captures the feeling of taking of a tie at the end of the workday with the feeling of the next work day looming around the corner. The size of the sculpture is a defining trait of Olenburg’s work – Olenburg is has gone on to create many everyday objects with amplified proportions and placing the outdoors. An example of this is when Olenburg made a large scale ice bag and place it in multiple locations across the United States.
Holly Hendry
Cold and Callous – https://www.stephenfriedman.com/artists/58-holly-hendry/works/18247-holly-hendry-cold-and-callous-2021/
Holly Hendry born 1990, is a British Artist who mostly focuses on aspects of the human body. The sculpture Cold and Callous (2021) features two feet with highly detailed and realistic toes compared to a smooth upper part of the foot. The baby blue colour relates back to the title representing the colour body parts will turn when cold – the colour choice also has a darker overtone possibly relating to death. The piece was created using Jesmonite, pigment and wood and is 75 x 68.5 x 21.5cm.
It was very interesting to look at Henry’s work after studying Olenburg’s as they both approach objects we take for guaranteed or don’t usually think about on a day to day basis and makes it into a statement piece. For example Olenburg scales up day to day objects and often switches the material to be opposite of the original object. Where as Henry takes objects that are often seen to be gory and unpleasant to think about and puts and illustrative spin on them. I personally preferred the look of Henry’s work as it appealed more to my aesthetic. It was also interesting to look at two artists who were working at different times but seeing the similarity they both share.
The first task was to draw around the outline of my body and to try and communicate how my body felt and the emotions I was feeling at the time. I used the side of the charcoal to create ‘shadowy’ spaces within the body shape focused more on the chest area.
Using a long bamboo stick with either a paintbrush dipped ink or a stick of charcoal taped to the end we had 40 minutes to create a life drawing on a large piece of paper. I think I was too hesitant to create bold brush strokes making the image look very unfinished. For example with the face you can only see the faint charcoal lines making the head look very unproportionable. The reoccurring issue with my life drawing and going into my other practices as well is the fact that I am too anxious to take that first step to create an impactful piece meaning that they always seem stiff and timid.
