We all suffer shame and disgust. It
is an affect that forces us to confront our own bodily existence.1 The exhibition ‘Behind The Masks We Wear’
is critiquing mainstream social and cultural aesthetics of shame and disgust,
which undermine our desired self-conception. Artists Tracey Emin, Jenny Saville, Andrew Salgado, Jo
Spence and I create an intimate engagement with the viewer imposing our personal
bodily existence in the work, rejecting culturally imposed notions of shame
attached to our body and identity.
The exhibition, held in ARTSPACE
Dubai, a contemporary Middle Eastern gallery, which constructs a
socio-political dialogue between the Western cultural arts exhibited in this site.
This conversation surrounds the theme of identity, and the aesthetics of shame and
disgust, which is immersed in a different cultural structure. Differences between
the customary laws and Islamic laws fabricate problems of male-female
inequality, imposing ethical implications of disgust towards being a female. This
obliterates a females ability to speak or display their identity, which is far
more apparent and significant than Western society.
But one would question why you would immerse these
exhibiting contemporary Western artists in a Middle Eastern gallery?
The exhibition is controversial as it unmasks and
speaks in a candid and frank manner, critiquing the socio-political issues and
universal emotions that define our identity and self-conception. The exhibited work
not only speaks for Muslim women in Middle Eastern countries, but society as a
whole who are suppressed to speak or display oneself in such manner represented
in these artworks.
Each artist explores the concept of identity, creating
dialogue between the viewers and the artist as the dynamics between self and society
explored. The concept of the self is motivated and structured by desire, desire
which is a disposition of immersing in pleasure or satisfaction. These artists
objectify and make prolific the neglected emotions, which are controversial to
desire, consequently why they are denied in self-conception. Both individually
and collectively these artists critique the concerns of habitually confined
socially constructed emotions of self, by which they immerse themselves with
aesthetics of disgust, shame, embarrassment, fear, inequity and isolation embedded
within their work. These artists attempt to liberate themselves from confining
representations of self by speaking of concerns that society does not speak
for.
Interrogating and revealing
autobiographical details from her life, artist Tracey Emin confronts her
audience with shocking, expressive and confessional qualities, which enables
her to establish intimacy with the viewer. Illustrated in Tracey
Emins exhibiting work My Bed, where she
puts her most personal space on display, contained with all her embarrassing
glory. Confronting the viewer with shock of such a personal diminishment reveals
that she is as imperfect and insecure as the rest of us.
Emin situates herself open to scrutiny, uncovering the blunt
and fearless manner of displaying the truth, which can be excruciating to
observe.[1]
This evokes repelling and nauseating sensibilities to the shame and embarrassment,
which is embodied in the frankness of this work.
The work is
notably a multifaceted sculptural installation, condensed with various
contained statements. The installation, which is spilling the edges with
detritus, vomit stains, used condoms, bottles, dirty clothes and anything that
was present in her room, is activated and charged into an artwork.2 Presenting the symbolic qualities to
the progression of life, the bed is a place of birth, death, sex, fertility,
illness and loss.3
Similarly to Tracey Emin, Jenny
Saville examines the aesthetics of disgust, by which she critiques the scrutiny
of beauty and pleasure immersed in Western traditions of aesthetics.4 Interrogating assumptions of beauty,
Saville depicts the female body spilling the canvas with puckered and folded skin,
distorted and foreshortened, obliterating and redefining the symbolic
representations of beauty.
The philosophical encounter and
power of disgust forces the viewer to confront their own bodily existence,
which is contradictory and ambiguous. This encounter of disgust reveals how
society has been habituated to the abstract systems that structure our cultural
perception.5
Savilles exhibits Plan, a self-portrait as a cosmetic
surgery patient. The exaggerated perspective accentuates the pubic area and
expanses of thighs and torso, tilting the head into an ambiguity of the bodily
remarks. The face has a profound
and haunting sensibility to the silent supplication and helplessness as the
complexion of the grey painterly embodiment conjures affective representations
to sorrow, disparity, injury and dismay. 6
Interrogation the preconceived
representation of traditional nudes, exposes that the female body has been
passively displayed provocatively for the pleasure and objectification of the
male gaze. Savilles paintings obliterate this objectified gaze; forcing and
returning the viewers gaze behind their own mask.7
Immersed in the concept of truth
and representation, artist Andrew Salado’s works are highly remarkable because
of the prominent raw emotions spilling behind the fields of figurative
painting. The sensation of such confronting yet emotional and wounded works
activates the viewer to consider the tangibility and impermanence of the body,
but also conceptually questions the fragility of one self and identity. Salgado’s assertive, bold and visually
demanding work convenes the notion of masculinity and personal identity into a
provocative response to his political experience of hate crime being
heterosexual. Salgado exhibits ‘That wasn’t my weakness’ a self-portrait
which he asserts the notion that as individuals we wear masks as disguises to
protect ourselves, which he confronts with concepts of sexuality, masculinity
and identity.8 Salgado uses his
aggressive manner and political structural style of painting as a political
tool to communicate and confront the aesthetics of shame and disgust in being heterosexual.9
Jo Spence an iconic feminist and
socialist photographer artist, deeply concerned with social and political
dilemmas and ambiguities inherent in our everyday lives. Spence immerses her
audience into the traumatic emotions, and confronts the fear of shame and
embarrassment in disclosing her imperfect and distorted breast. 10Documenting
the blunt reality and truth of pain, trauma, illness and death, she invites the
audience in her journey and emotions immersed in her illness with cancer, which
she contrives that art is healing.11 Jo Spence’s exhibiting work I framed my breast for posterity is
attempting to convict her vulnerability, pain and suffering and to engage the
viewer in the experience.11 The viewer is forced to attend his or her
own embodiment as the artist herself is making meaning of hers. Spence’s famed
breast illustrates the divide of her identity before and after cancer. The
frame does not literally cut off her breast but isolates her breast and suggests
nothing outside the frame appears more important.12
In the following work, as with the
previous mentioned artists, I have explored my own embodiment immersed in the
fear of shame and disgust. The exhibiting work Diary Of My Former Self explores the way we encapsulate emotions
and resides the personal experience of purging and anorexia. The toilet acts as
a diary to which the confined emotions where hypothetically flushed away, in
fear of decrementing my desirable persona. The diaristic writing in the toilet reveals the emotions
sacred and encapsulated within my mind, and suggests the lack the ability to
convey how we feel, or lack poise to express our thoughts or dispositions in
fear of shame.
The second exhibiting work hypothetically questions
how social and political constructs would change if emotions appeared on our
skin, rather than immersed in our mind. Would it become apparent that we are
much the same? As humans, we all struggle with fear and indecision of what is right
and wrong. Should we embrace difference in social expectations? Would we know
how to rightfully conjure our own emotions that align with the way we represent
ourselves and experiences?
The photograph of my body is positioned away from the
viewer portraying a sensibility to shame and acute sense of self-awareness. The
prominent and gruelling backbone of my body makes the words appear more
confronting and aligned with the bodily remarks. The exploited body illustrates interest in to the isolation
of the mind, remarked in the agitation and pain of these suffocating raw
emotions. Illustrated within one of the images is the attempt to diminish and
rub away the exposed words convicted on the skin being a detriment to the
mind. There is a tormenting
dialogue between the neurotic and anxious attempt to wipe these emotions away,
which define the contours of my prominent ribs and body, exposing the
conspiring act of the fragmental mind.
The exhibition collectively reflects the theme of identity immersed in
the artist’s embodiment and autobiographical details revealed imposing through
the exhibiting works. The viewer
is confronted with the thematic concerns to consider the aesthetics of disgust
and shame, appearing visually evident in Tracey Emin and Jenny Savilles work
combined with emotively driven work of Andrew Salgado, Jo Spence and myself.
The exhibition subsequently encourages the viewer to consider their own bodily
existence and to interrogate ethical implications that confine ones emotions
with fear of shame and disgust.
Are we entering a changing society where words do not
deem fully capable of capturing the meaning of experiences, rather we rely on
visual domains to confront and manifest our physiological emotions?
1 Meagher, Michelle. 2003. “Jenny Saville and a feminist
aesthetics of disgust." Hypatia 18, no. 4. 1
[1] Emin, Tracey., Elliott,
Patrick., Schnabel, Julian. 2008. Tracey
emin: 20 years. Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland.
2 Emin, Tracey., Elliott,
Patrick., Schnabel, Julian. 2008. Tracey
emin: 20 years. Edinburgh: National
Galleries of Scotland
4 Meagher, Michelle. 2003. “Jenny Saville and a feminist
aesthetics of disgust." Hypatia 18, no. 4. 1
6 Shrage, Laurie J., ed. 2009. You've changed: Sex
reassignment and personal identity. Oxford University Press, USA. Robinson,
Hilary. 2006. Reading art, reading
irigaray: The politics of art by women. New York: I.B. Tauris.
7 Poole, Tanya Katherine. 2000. An
exploration of female physicality and psyche and how these inform art-making.
PhD diss., Rhodes University. 7
8 Simpson, P.2013. “Making sense of sexuality; the
paintings of andrew salgado take the art world by storm.” The Ottawa Citizen,
May 6. Accessed June 13, 2013.
10 Wilson, Siona. 1996. White metonymy: A discussion around
Jo Spence and Terry Dennett's colonization. Third Text 10, no. 37: 3-16
11 Bell, Susan E. 2012. Living with breast cancer in text and
image: making art to make sense. Qualitative Research in Psychology 3,
no. 1 (2006): 31-44.Brand, P. Z. Beauty Unlimited. Indiana University Press. 37
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