nude brooke shields at the tate causing furor
Spiritual America by Richard Prince
Richard Prince’s image of Shields shows her from the knees up, naked, oiled and wearing make-up, looking directly at the viewer. It is hung in a special room at the south London gallery with a notice on the door warning visitors they may find the image “challenging”.
Prince himself described the 1983 work, which is in fact a photograph of a photograph taken by another artist, Gary Gross, as “an extremely complicated photo of a naked girl who looks like a boy made up to look like a woman”. The picture was originally shown anonymously in a disused shop in a run-down area of New York, and the Tate show is believed to be the work’s first appearance in a UK gallery.
[From Gallery to display nude picture of 10-year-old girl | IOL]
This controversy is a bit different, it’s a challenging subject with an interesting legal history.
the original Gary Gross photograph is a very sexualized image appearing in a very sexualized context. It was arranged by Shield’s mother and was published widely in magazines
Brooke Shields posed for him both as a normal young girl and in the nude, her body heavily made up and oiled, receiving a fee of $450 from Playboy Press, Gross’s partner in the project. Her mother signed a contract giving Gross full rights to exploit the images of her daughter. The series was first published in Little Women, and then in Sugar and Spice, a Playboy Press publication. Large prints were also exhibited by Charles Jourdan on 5th Avenue in New York.
Brooke Shields tried unsuccessfully to get the negatives back when she was 16. Embarrassed by the photographs, she attempted to contest the rights that her mother had given to Gross for the distribution of the photographs.
11 years after the legal battle started, artist Richard Prince purchased the rights to the photographs from Gross. Prince is well known for his reinvention of other artist’s photographs by photographing the originals and changing their feeling. the re-interpreted work is darker, more ominous and seedier- but somehow does change the original image. is it still sexualized? yes, but this time it doesn’t appear to celebrate the fact. the Tate is correct, it is a very challenging piece. it’s uncomfortable and disturbing. but I find the original more so.
The context that the piece is presented in also changes the perception of it. The exhibition Pop Life: Art In A Material World opens at the Tate modern in London on October 1 and runs through to January. there are a number of sexually explicit works from many different artists, making this a very contentious exhibition all up. strangely nobody is talking about the images of penetration or works created from porn. I think it is brave of the Tate to put on an exhibition of this nature and I will be interested to hear more as it opens.
Jack Bankowsky, the exhibition’s co-curator, said he hoped the artistic interest in ‘Spiritual America’ would not be overshadowed by controversy over its content.
“I hope that people respond to what is provocative and understand what the artist was trying to achieve,” he said. “If it turned into that kind of brouhaha it would overwhelm the work and become a monosyllabic conversation.”Prince wanted the viewer to respond to the “eerieness” of Gross’ original image, Mr Bankowsky said.
A spokesman for the Tate said they had given careful consideration to the work and the reaction it could provoke before including it in the exhibition.
“As with any artwork that contains challenging imagery, Tate has sought legal advice and evaluated the situation,” the spokesman said. “Tate has taken measures to inform visitors of the nature of the work, providing information outlining the intentions of the artist. “This is an important work by Richard Prince which has been publicly exhibited on a number of occasions, most recently in Richard Prince’s major retrospective, Spiritual America, at the Guggenheim in New York.”
[From Gallery to display nude picture of 10-year-old girl | IOL]
I want to go into my personal opinions about the work more in a later post.
the sketchbook Library
I’m currently working on an international project called the sketchbook project. it’s a really nifty idea and I’m pretty excited about it. The concept is that they send out a moleskine notebook to the artist with a theme and a due date. our job is to fill that notebook up with our responses to the theme and send it back. All the notebooks are presented in a roving exhibition throughout the US, then are housed in a permanent collection and library where they are carefully catalogued and anyone can look up works by theme, content or the artist.
I like this for a number of reasons. first, it’s a project with a deadline that I can work on – even if I am lying down. I work best with deadlines. second, it’s always good to stretch my mental muscles and work to a theme, especially one I haven’t worked on before. and third, the scope of this project is huge! the exhibition schedule and permanent collection are very exciting. the final reason is that I love the idea of someone going there in 10 years or so to look at my sketchbook and my processes. I think in our hearts all artists yearn for that.
my theme is over the top. like any good project manager I started off with a mind map and I will be showing how I go from an idea to a sketch to a 3D image to (hopefully) a painting. I have a lot of ideas for the theme which I think may even spawn some new show ideas and series. it’s all about inspiration and the biggest inspiration of all is the thought that maybe one day it might inspire someone else.
Beautiful nudes created from hardcore porn
.jpg "Hydra 2008 by Jonathon Yeo")
What do George Bush, Paris Hilton and Hugh Hefner have in common? British artist Jonathan Yeo (Juxtapoz #103) has made porn collages of them. Yes, we said porn collages. Hear him discuss the origins of his technique, process, and unique finishing touches he uses in each of his cubism meets porn collage pieces in a video interview.
Somehow, Yeo has been able to de-sexualize porn via his perfectly pieced collages, which originated after the Bush regime asked him to create a portrait of President Bush. The team eventually pulled out (no pun intended) and Yeo decided to try out a concept he’d been toying with: making collages out of porn magazines.[From Juxtapoz Magazine - Let's Talk Porn Collages by Jonathan Yeo | Current]
It’s interesting to see how his original concept has changed and progressed. while the content of the linked article is very glib I remember writing about Yeo’s original George Bush collage in 2007 – Is my face red? President Bush Covered in Porn
what has struck me about Yeo’s work from the beginning is the wonderful technical skill involved. the nudes he is now creating show no less talent. Originally I believed the porn was just a gimmick, now I see deeper meanings in the creation of very beautiful and non sexual nudes through the use of collaged porn. while this is still not family safe it does highlight, to me anyway, how porn is sexualized but nudes are not, and even the inclusion of highly sexual content does not have to make them sexual objects in themselves.
a rock and a hard place
Ova – 24×30 acrylic and gesso on canvas
I’ve been moping around, feeling sick, feeling tired and sore and blocked. the sick, tired and sore part is due to being pregnant and it has taken a toll on my being able to work for decent periods of time. I’ve also been lacking inspiration and drive. these are the more disturbing factors. I realized today as I went over my financial year records and taxes what some of my problem may be. I’m caught between a rock and a hard place. I promote quite a lot online, I get my work out there, I network, I paint and I do everything “right” except that everything is a dichotomy.
the galleries don’t want you if you sell online – but they want a consistent seller
they don’t know you exist unless you promote – but if you promote too much you are a threat
galleries in australia don’t want to touch nudes – but they are what is in my heart to paint and creating without passion is pointless.
I know that representation isn’t necessarily the answer, that many self representing artists are very successful. but most of the artists I know who self represent and earn a decent wage have had gallery assistance in the past to hold shows, meet collectors and build their networks.
so I have been torn, my subject matter is too contentious for the market I live in, my self promotion may be too much, too little, and I think I am losing sight of my goals. I have to spend so much time on the business side of my art that it is taking over – then I procrastinate and nothing gets done.
but I’m sick of moping – it’s time to suck it up. so I’m going back to a routine. it doesn’t seem very free wheeling and artistic but it does work for me. the project management side of the brain approves of time allocated to do everything. everything in it’s place. OCD? no, why do you ask? so I am going to step up my hunt for galleries in australia and elsewhere. I’m going to stop being afraid of approaching them and worried about making mistakes. I am going to force myself to paint even when I’m tired and sick and sore (I’m always sore, may as well get used to it) and more importantly even when what I am producing sucks. because I’m a perfectionist and don’t allow myself to make mistakes- and making mistakes is important to the creation of art.
so there. </whinge>
Nude of the Week – Expecting
Watercolor and Pencil on Paper
I painted this a couple of months ago, just after I saw those two little lines for the first time. I’ve been waiting, like most people these days, until I hit the second and less risky trimester to tell people online. This is the last, good thing I have painted since I became blocked. I think that the extra work involved in creating a baby has drained my creative reserves. I found it hard to stand at my easel as waves of dizziness and nausea washed over me. this has not been an easy process so far, but I am hoping that my work will pick up now that I am beginning to feel better.
Bio Drive
So I’ve been thinking that my biography is a bit boring, a bit old and a lot dated – in short, I am over it. so I’ve been working today on writing up a new formal biography and a less formal “about” for my websites and stuff. I’d love your input, I’m really terrible at writing about myself (which is why my personal blog is crammed full of stuff about art censorship really). these are still works in progress obviously 
The Formal Bio- These have a format and need to be a narrative of your CV in a few paragraphs, you need to talk about your accomplishments, education and introduce your artwork. it’s 3rd person and a bit of a yawn fest to write. and probably to read.
The human body has held constant fascination for Jennie Rosenbaum, partially due to her studies in art history and anatomy, and partially due to her own relationship with her body, both in image and after a car accident that left her with a chronic pain disability.
Jennie has exhibited her artworks worldwide. Her art has been shown at Miami Art Basel, at numerous Melbourne galleries, in New York and Boston. Jennie has donated works to support bushfire victims and VisualAIDs. Jennie’s artwork has gained rapid popularity online winning awards at barebrush.com a site dedicated to nude art.
Jennie works to maintain the image of the nude in art and writes a blog about censorship in art. She also leads nude advocacy groups and a group online for people with disabilities.
Jennie Rosenbaum excelled in art and art history at school and studied archaeology, painting, drawing and photography at the University of Monash, Curtin and RMIT. She has also worked closely with artist Donald Cameron in his studio and had the opportunity to be part of a specialized life class at the National Gallery of Victoria. Jennie is an American working from her home in Melbourne, Australia.
The informal Bio, about page type thing. this is when I started to run out of steam..
It shouldn’t take being hit by a car to discover your passion in life, but that is precisely what happened with me. In order to quench the pain of my new disability I returned to my first love, painting. Always technically proficient, my works lacked a certain something. But now my new focus allowed me to expand my interest into a new career with a new sense of abandon imbuing my artworks and a new emotional quality that has propelled my vision ahead.
I started studying again, taking classes online from universities like Curtin and RMIT to fill out my prior art education at Monash university. I painted and evolved my signature styles, almost by accident every time. I have worked to get my artwork out online, offline, and into the hands of collectors worldwide. I have exhibited internationally and locally, received awards for my artwork and excellent reviews.
My studio is in my home where I can paint at any time of the day or night. I live with my husband and two cats and rely on my iPod for those late night painting sessions. I also maintain a blog where I write about censorship issues and nude art and maintain nude advocacy groups. It is one of my missions to help change attitudes about the nude in art.
strangely I found it quite a depressing experience, I’m supposed to list my achievements and really I thought by now I would have more. perhaps it’s just me and my changing goalposts, my unrealistic expectations of my career and where I want it to be, but I want more dammit!
The music that has affected my work
My music is a really important part of my work, it influences it to such a point that certain albums can make or break my artwork. It is not necessarily about the albums I love the best, sometimes an album I really like is missing the critical element that translates into my artwork. the important quality seems to be to have excellent and interesting composition and lyrics, complexities in music or story that allows my forebrain to concentrate on the music and my lizard brain to concentrate on the creation of art. being able to sing along is important as well – it’s something else that occupies my forebrain.
sometimes I will get stuck on one album and play it over and over again. if it is a golden album I will get fixated and it is all I can listen to while I paint – on loop, incessantly until the luck wears off. when the album’s magic finally dissipates it leaves me depleted, broken and bereft. it sounds stupid but a lot rides on these golden albums. here is a list of the music that have propelled my work each into new stages, the golden albums for my artwork.
March Of The Falsettos / Falsettoland – William Finn
25th annual putnam county spelling bee – William Finn
A New Brain – William Finn
Brooklyn the Musical – Mark Schoenfeld, Barri McPherson
A Night at the Opera – Blind Guardian
Nightfall in Middle Earth – Blind Guardian
Little Women – Mindi Dickstein, Jason Howland
Bat Boy – Laurence O’Keefe
Rent – Jonathon Larson
Jerry Springer the Opera – Richard Thomas
Passing Strange – Stew
Most of these are musicals because the story occupies my brain and holds it allowing me to move into the zen state the easiest. some of them are very emotional, which also helps for some reason. All have captured my sprit and my soul in some way indescribable. I enter into a relationship with these albums and you can often see the continuity and development of my works based on what I was listening to. when the relationship ends, when the golden moment passes, it’s like the ending of something wonderful – I can return to the albums like you can run into an old lover, and remember what was great to begin with but it takes a lot of time and a long break before I can embrace them again.
I have just ended my long affair with Passing Strange. I have been listening to it solidly for about 10 months – an amazing run. I think, in part, that is why I’ve been feeling a little lost in my work. I still adore it, it still has the power to move me in ways I have never felt before, but I think it is time I gave it a break. the last two pieces I tried to paint to it went…poorly. I will probably return to one of my old favorites for a little while (Bat Boy seems to have perennial magic) while I look for the next Big Thing.
Fertility God’s penis brought to light
They hid the phallus of Priapus. It’s what we call adjustment for modesty, and it’s not uncommon,” said Regina Pinto Moreira, quoted in Tuesday’s edition of the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper.
She suspects the cover-up was made in conservative Catholic Spain in the 18th century.
Ms Moreira, who worked as an master art restorer at the Louvre in Paris for some 30 years, spent eight months alongside two French experts restoring Poussin’s large 1634-1638 painting Hymenaios Disguised As A Woman During An Offering To Priapus.
The 3.71-metre by 1.66-metre artwork depicts Hymenaios, the Greek god of marriage ceremonies, dressed as a woman and dancing with Priapus, who was traditionally depicted with an erect penis.
The painting however once belonged to the Spanish royal family, and Ms Moreira says she thinks this was when the post-production modesty came in.
Censorship is nothing new! but to actually change a masterpiece, well, it pains me to say it but it appears we have made some progress in the last few centuries towards better acceptance of the nude. I am glad to see that the artist’s original vision has come to light finally, it’s about time! by the way, you really have to look to find the offending phallus, it’s actually not that big a deal- you can see it clearly in the detail above but when you look at the full image, well, it does lose it’s importance in the grand scheme of things.
The complete and censored version. the censoring was not particularly well executed, there is a clear shadow that doesn’t quite seem to fit. as always click on the images to enlarge.
Priapus was the ancient greek god of fertility and Hymenaios the god of marriages.
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