The journey is an element that is in everyone’s life without them even realizing. Our journey starts when we are born and ends when we die. Everyone has their own path, they own journey to get through, people that we meet on the way, places that we didn’t though we would end up in. We start journey with expectations for our selves, but usually life throws us in completely different direction.
What is journey?
Journey is life
Journey is death
Journey is people
Journey is an experience
Journey is exploring
Journey is gaining
Journey is failing
Journey is seeing
Journey is feeling
Journey is everything and nothing
Lecture part 1- thoughts
I feel like the lecture was really focus on more literal, realistic type of journey, which is something I wasn’t too focused on, there were some interesting pieces like: “The green line” by Francis Alys in which I liked the green paint, “the mark” that he was leaving everywhere he went, apart from yourself in a way. Or the film “Gerry” had really amazing shots and the concept seems unique, that’s a film that I would like to go back too and watch it all. Although there were some artworks that got my attention nothing really strict me, I didn’t feel much of an inspiration and I had a problem with my drawings, I had to think about what to draw, it wasn’t smooth, and I’m not happy with them. I tried to be open-minded, but I couldn’t truly feel it. The videos had some interesting aspects in them, but I didn’t feel the spark, the inspiration.
Journey in people around us
While thinking about a topic of journey, it’s hard not to think about what journey have people around us. I’m sitting in a coffee shop now and as I look around I start to observe and think what journey have people around me? Why are they here? Where are they from? What they have been through? What will happen to them next? I don’t have answer to these question, but that’s okay because that’s not what I’m looking for, I can write a story to every person around me, I can assume, I can be creative about it. But there are some things about them that tell a story. This semester, I’m trying to explore more photography. I think the most amazing stories are told by street photography and that’s what I would like to combine in my final project.
Artistic research
Carolee Schneemann
https://www.schneemannfoundation.org/artworks/interior-scroll/0
While thinking an exploring the idea of personal aspect for artist and how personal artwork should actually be I stared to explore the artworks of Carolee Schneemann.
Carolee Schneemann was born in 1939 and passed way in 2019 she was an American visual experimental artist, her artworks are focus on aspects of the body, narrative, sexuality and gender. Her most famous works are based on performance, although she started her career as a painter.
“I’m a painter. I’m still a painter and I will die a painter. Everything that I have developed has to do with extending visual principles off the canvas.” -Carolee Schneemann
Her work made a huge mark on modern artists, she wasn’t scared to break all the taboos and truly show herself. She was an iconic feminist artist that at the time was done with masculine heroism of New York painters. Her artwork is really personal, but is it too personal? Because she wasn’t scared to show her body, her sexuality, her ideas in very open-minded way she came across with a lot of criticism.
One of her most know and controversial pieces is “Meat joy”. During this performance men and women were cavorting around in different stages of undressing while also slathering each other in paint and pieces of raw fish, chicken and sausage. The performance was sending a message that sensuality is a different thing than pornography. It was a manifestation about women’s control over their body because they have the same rights to be as open about their sexuality as men. In this work she broke social taboos and begin to break down existing barriers.
“The old patriarchal morality of proper behaviour and improper behaviour had no threshold for the pleasures of physical contact that were not explicitly about sex but related to something more ancient—the worship of nature, worship of the body, a pleasure in sensuousness.” -Carolee Schneemann
The “Interior Scroll” might have been one of the most controversial art works of Schneemann. An artist stood naked on a table and then extended slowly a piece of scroll out of her vagina. This performance had a big impact on feminist art work, taking the scroll out of her genitalia represented moving away from the masculine precedent in art toward a feminist exploration of her body.
“I thought of the vagina in many ways – physically, conceptually, as a sculptural form, an architectural referent, the source of sacred knowledge, ecstasy, birth passage, transformation.” -Carolee Schneemann
“Eye Body” is a series of 36 photographs of Carolee Schneemann in different environments that she created herself, in photographs she’s using different kinds of materials like mirrors or plastic foil. She describes the series as integrating the artist’s self as image and image-maker, melding the two through an improvisational collage in space and time. This series was her first transformation from painting to other sorts of media to show her art. The series is focus on reclaiming the stench of women sexuality.
“Since the female body had always been usurped by traditions of art history and then by Pop art, … I wanted to see what would happen with this energy of sensuality… that I felt.” -Carolee Schneemann
The whole artwork of her is so unique, she wasn’t afraid to break taboos and make her own rules. She showed the way of feminist artwork and wasn’t afraid to speak about women’s sexuality. The journey of this artist is remarkable, she started as a painter and then transformed to so many media. I can see the journey of her discovering pleasure, sexuality, body. Her artworks are very personal and very controversial even now. Because of how much of herself she put into her artworks, she came across a lot of criticism. Was it too much? Or was it just the perfect amount to make a statement? I find something unique in her artwork, not only a meaning behind every piece but also a way of editing photos and videos and her installations. I wouldn’t do something so personal or so controversial, but I really enjoyed researching her artwork.