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I was going through the pictures I took at the exhibition “Implicit Tensions: Mapplethorpe Now” at Guggenheim Museum in New York last February and thought of how he used his models exclusively for aesthetic purposes. This is actually what I am trying to explore with my research for the FML unit.

I rewatched the documentary “Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures” (2016) and collected a couple of quotes and images where he degrades his models to the status of a mere object.

“I’m really not a model anymore. I’m just, you know, an object” – David Croland, Mapplethorpe’s model, also his first homosexual relationship.

“I mean, that’s a sculpture to me, and that’s sort of one of the points of making photography. It’s like inventing a sculpture myself with the camera. All I know is that it’s physically attractive to me. Visually it’s also attractive” – Robert Mapplethorpe

“I don’t think it is necessary to tell you who is in the photographs because if the pictures are good then, they will transcend who they are and it wouldn’t matter” – Robert Mapplethorpe

The first woman in this list is in the previous post where I talk about the references Vicky gave me last week, Shae Detar.

The next two women were suggested by Ellie in my tutorial earlier today: Amanda Charchian and Katrien de Blauwer.

I literally just got out of my tutorial with Ellie Tsatsou and I feel really inspired with the feedback and references she gave me. I am gonna write a post to collect them all and explore how I can use them for my project.

https://www.phasesmag.com/ – Online magazine that focuses on international contemporary photography publishing a weekly selection of 3 portfolios on an irregular basis.

Mark Borthwick’s books. Experimental filmmaker, photographer and musician, well known for his award winning avant-garde fashion photography.

https://research.ellietsatsou.com/ – beautifully curated research journal

“How can such a seemingly neutral medium as photography address the incredibly nuanced complexities of gender portrayal? Spanning the Victorian, modern and postmodern eras, the works of Julia Margaret Cameron, Florence Henri and Francesca Woodman provide answers to these questions.

Despite their differing formal approaches, their portraiture evinces a common stance that affords the viewer a journey through the photographic representation of femininity.

The women in their photographs demand to be acknowledged, making photography the space in which identity may be put to the test, where objectification may be escaped and subverted. This book provides a fascinating potted history of the depiction of women by women, across three epochs.”

Julia Margaret Cameron, Florence Henri, Francesca Woodman: The Art of the Feminine

A Female Pheromone Hotbox

https://www.dazeddigital.com/photography/article/38678/1/see-what-the-world-looks-like-from-a-female-perspective

https://frieze.com/article/female-gaze

These two questions are where I am focusing my research at the moment. On one side, for the fashion media lab, I am interested in gathering references on how I can manipulate and experiment with stills and get mixed media LARGE scale prints.

How to combine stills and moving image together and make a project in which both complement each other is the question for the outcome of my final major project.

Talking about stills again, I have been looking into Shae Detar’s work, referred by Vicky in the last week tutorial. She adds layers of paint to her photographs to exaggerate colour, create textures and add surreal elements to the images.

I used to attend painting lessons as a kid and I would love to experiment with the techniques I learnt or new ones on the photos I took for the FML shoot.

Continuing on with my research on representations of the body figure I found this german movie, Wege Zu Kraft Und Schönheit (Ways to Strength and Beauty) (1925) directed by Nicholas Kaufmann and Wilhelm Prager. It was used as a government culture film in the years after World War I.

“German modern dance movement attempted to present the nude body as a sign of a modern, liberated identity in the age of mechanical reproduction“ – Empire of Ecstasy. Nudity and movement in German body culture 1910 – 1935

I am interested in the usage of the human body in fashion photography, how it is subordinated to the aim of creating abstract visuals and, somehow, the body is
dehumanized.

Brendan Baker, photographer from the still life photographic duo baker&evans, describes his interest in the ‘body as an object’ in the book Fashion Photography Next by the writer and curator Magdalene Keaney. The body is used, as he says, to create something visually exciting that is simply a joy to look at while also retains some kind of substance and esoterism.

I visualize this concept as a photography series in which the model is considered as a statue and not as a human, where the importance is in the shapes and movements of the body and not in the identity of the person that is in front of the camera.

Claire Bauroff​, german dancer photographed by Austrian-born American photographer Trude Fleischmann.

I went to see Mark Leckey’s installation at Tate Britain a couple of weeks ago and I found it fascinating and really inspiring. The piece mixes video footage, still images, music, off-voices and a game of lights that directs the spectator through the installation.

It was a great example of how to combine still and moving images to create a unique piece. As a visual creator, I am really interested in exploring different ways of displaying my work, and the way this exhibition was curated gave me some ideas I would like to explore and potentially use for my final project.

For this project, Fiorella and me tried to find a connexion between a vintage camera and an embroidered sock withing the fashion discourse.

The camera is a similar model to the one that belonged to Vivian Mier – full time nanny and secret photographer on her spare time. We thought about how nannies, grandmums or anyone taking care of kids, would sew their names on their clothes so they wouldn’t get them lost.

We started looking into the practise of embroidery, how it’s also been considered an activity for women, how it can be used to add identity to pieces of fabric and clothes and how other artists use the tecnique in their work.

 

The video piece we presented to our peers was just the first draft of the idea. The images below are the references we have for the final video that hasn’t been filmed yet but hopefully will in the next few weeks.