Identity?

There have been significant shifts in art, artists that critique and interrogate perceptions of the human body. This however has been embedded and immersed not only in the content and ideas surrounding the work, but also the way in which the art has been formed in ways of canvas, brush, frame and platform.  Physical and mental limitations as a stable and finite form of self has been progressively eroded, which artists have investigated the contingency, temporality and instability of the body.  By exploring the human body we are immersed in ones identity, whether being notorious or concealed, we become oblivious to the problematic formality of identity. 

Identity, which is not an inherent quality, rather it is acted out within and beyond cultural boundaries. Therefore identity is never static, it is always changing and corrupting as humans change and develop into age. It becomes a problematic status in which an artist will never capture the true identity of one at that exact time, and an increasing gap immerses, as the artist’s own perceptions and decisions interfere with capturing that identity. In contemporary practice artists prolifically use their own bodily existence more commonly within performance, which lets the viewer capture and immerse in the identity of the artist performing at that exact time and space with no extrinsic or material interference. 
Warr, T. (Ed.). (2000). The artist's body. Phaidon.

Andy Warhol

Artist Andy Warhol (1928-1987), one of the 20th century’s great pop art icons. Warhol exhibition brought to New Zealand’s Te Papa Museum, in Wellington recapitulates the impact and drawing on what remains an enigmatic figure in contemporary art and art history, even 25 years after his death.

Questions may arise how I am influenced by his work in relevance to my immediate practice. Seeing the exhibition in flesh encapsulated emotions towards the desire to reflect on the immediate effect he has on my contemporary practice and also reflect on the Warhol exhibition and the significance of his work on society. 

Te Papa’s Warhol: Immortal exhibition features the artists portraits and self portraits accrues various means of media including drawing, photobooth, snapshots, polaroids, paintings, screen prints, installations, and films. 

Warhol's featuring self portraits  appear glitteringly public yet intensively private. And openly gay yet quietly devout. Astronomically successful, yet painfully. The works which appear constantly changing and shifting between telling us nothing or telling us all. Precipitating emotions that fluctuate between a vulnerable and invulnerable, both superficial and profound. Throughout the exhibiting works we see him adopting different roles that appear playful, yet fraught in the exploration of his identity. One of the exhibiting self portraits appear a consuming jumble as three of Andy Warhol's faces appear overlapping and merging into one another yet slightly altered angles which only one pair of eyes meet the viewers. Self portraits have tradition been considered as a direct impression of an artists character. But for Warhol they were part of  care contrived public persona. 

There becomes an immediate attention to the idea of seriality noted throughout the exhibition.
It becomes evident the the printed reproductions and sources of images of Andy's work appear a misleading representation and impression that the paintings are uniformly flat in colour. But in flesh some of his painting is surprisingly painterly, elusive and shapeshifting.
Warhol said that he painted anybody that asks which he ttys to make people look good in a big yet simple design mostly.
Warhol himself was romantic about the relationship between art and commerce. Warhol craved fame for himself, but he also understood the way in which it could annihilate the person behind the image.”What is Warhol saying about fame, and the way it deforms not on the famous but us?” 

As a reflection from the talk week this year, I had very informative and positive feedback which has precipitated my practice with ongoing and various tangents and ideas to follow through in developing and devolving myself in the ideas of identity and personal embodiment. As a reflection throughout another postgraduate students critique, we discussed the problematic phrase of writing or words in art as a confusing and interference with the art itself. Something which I would like to understand thoroughly and question why it is essentially problematic.
Although we discussed that writing can be problematic, two of the Artists involved in the critique both suggested to take this liberation to the opposite extreme by exploring the relentless possibilities and encounter of the work by exaggerating the diaristic mentality into a physical stream of diaristic words. One that would encounter, spacial facades, installation, time, embodiment, severalty, and conceptual mark making. All of which are conformed in this continuous stream of mark making and diaristic assertion of which we acutely assume is truthfully and accurately displaying the conceptual representation of the artists identity.
The encounter of the work is played in a push/pull negotiation as the viewer is pushed away from the work to encounter the over all play and ambiguity of the size and spacial relations which loose detail to the diaristic writing becoming unreadable. The encounter therefor emphasises the exaggeration of the diaristic form rather than the content which is only played into the viewers conceptual encounter when pulled closely to the work to which segments of the diarist writing are read, rather than the labour some acquired effort to read the whole script which becomes dislodging to the mentality of the desired encounter with the work. The viewer can become equally aware to the conceptual ideas within the diaristic writing by obtaining the key words in a small segment such as identity, mental, disorder, which frame ideas much more abstract than the work itself does.
The work which I also experimented with rotating the work to the opposite side to play with the frustration of words that appear unreadable. This is evident in one of the images above which I have left a partial and controlled segment of the work rolled back, which evidently only exposes that section of script for the viewer to interpret, and leaving the rest of the script visually evident but dislodging and frustratingly unreadable. This may work more superior to the work telling the viewer everything when displayed directly to the front, as the viewer can form their own perspective and idea of there position in the work appearing far more connected than displayed directly to the viewer. This exists because a space is narrated sitting between what is told in this diaristic script and the viewers response and encounter, which appears disconnected.