The Production and Critique of Institutions

Aim: Examine historical development of practices of institutional critique in relation to corresponding development of the modern art gallery.

Work becomes an object ...external existence. If your paid by someone else to do the work, when see products of your labour and get money for it you feel disconnected from work you have done. Sell labour for a wage.

Maintenance of class was false conciseness. Core idea of ideology ...not free to think through ourselves our position of the world.

T J Clark: Ideology ...particular social classes in conflict with one another try to naturalize situation.

Marx: social institution play important role within society
New social institutions
French Society 1796: promote core values of new french state. New public art museum. Create spaces devoted to celebration ...matched ambitions of new french republic. Development of Louvre. One of the first Art museums. Bringing individuals together and making them aware of their presence within society. Free and equal access.
Promote values of new regime: Eugene Delacroix, Liberty leading the People, 1830.

Belief in progress. Condensed French cultural life in single space. Freed from poverty.

Material circumstances generate/reproduce ideological constraints.
Social existence determines consciousness. Place in world generates our beliefs.

Portfolio Task 5: Hyperreality

http://jezebel.com/5426296/photoshop-of-horrors-hall-of-shame-2000+2009/gallery/1

http://www.photography-colleges.org/celebrity-photo-shopping-revealed-16-pics-of-celebrity-photoshop-blunders/ 

Hyperreality is a condition where reality is replaced by simulacrum. Simulacra is the current stage of simulation; it is a representation of the real. One form of hyperreality is a magazine cover showcasing celebrities which look picture perfect. The cover designs portray celebrities to have perfect shiny hair, flawless skin and amazing figures, although this often is not the case and it is the use of photo enhancing software which aids the production of these images. These enhanced images then become simulacrum of the real person; they do not actually look like this but this is the image of the person that is portrayed to the real world. Due to this perceived image, the person featured may even be passed in the street without the realization that they have previously been seen on a magazine cover. This media manipulation that is believed to be real then leads people to want to look a certain way, be a certain person, have the perfect lifestyle. People become insecure about their own features, believing there ears are too big, nose is not the correct shape, breasts are too small and will consequently turn to drastic measures, such as surgery, to change what they see as imperfections in a strive to become a copy of the person they see on the magazine covers; closer to the hyperreality. The reality of what a real person looks like directly juxtaposes the images on magazine cover designs. These perfect images that people measure themselves against are not reality but instead hyperreality. Reality is far from the world of hyperreality and can very rarely be reached.

Women and the Gaze

 Titian's Venus of Urbino, 1538

Manet, 'Olympia', 1863

Ingres, 'La grande odalisque', 1814

Manet, Bar at the Folies Bergeres, 1882

Jeff Wall 'Picture for women' 1979

Coward, R , 1984

Eva Herzigova, 1994 'Hello boys' - Wonderbra

Cindy Sherman

..I had a little look at these images mentioned to us in our 'The Gaze and Media' lecture in order to help me complete task4.

Portfolio Task 4: The Gaze

‘according to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome - men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at’ (Berger 1972, 45, 47)

Alexandre Cabanel, ‘Birth of Venus’, 1863

 Berger’s above quote is clearly demonstrated through Alexandre Cabanel’s ‘Birth of Venus’ painting, 1863. Berger insinuates that men and women hold different roles within society; he alludes that male figures haves higher social presence than women. Men are valued by the amount of power they hold, whereas a woman’s presence signifies what can or cannot be done to her. Alexandre, a male, has painted the female body in a way that allows the (male) viewer to enjoy looking at it. The body is presented to you  surrounded by ideological apparatus to give the notion that she is ‘The Goddess of Love.’ Her hand is raised across her face to cover it; this positioning also suggests that she may have just awaken from sleep or is just about to sleep. The gaze the viewer places upon the woman is not returned by the female figure, this allows the viewer to objectively view the woman without being seen. There is no dialogue apparent. A sense of being appreciated by men replaces her own sense of being; she acknowledges this role and presents herself as the subject. This gives way for people (men) to look without anyone ever knowing; it is only when a gaze is returned that you are forced to look at someone as a subject not an object. This is a subsequent example of men looking at women and women becoming objectified; the target of someone else's gaze.

 

Sophie Dahl, Opium, 2000

The gaze is concerned with power. At the core is a male fantasy of domination over women, she is there to be taken. These social ideologies of men are then played out to society. We live in a culture where these images of women are played out over and over again to the extent where it becomes the norm for men to view these images of woman. It is a visual reminder to men that women always take the submissive role in society and that men are dominant figures. This recent image of Sophie Dahl for the Opium ad campaign illustrates the degree of sexual inequality which is still present within our society today. This unequal relationship allows males to continue to view the woman with power over her. As with the oil painting, the gaze is not returned by the woman and the body is positioned in a suggestive manor.

Common to both these images is the sense of the woman being watched and the gaze not being returned, making it acceptable for the (male) viewer to look upon her as and when they wish. Nevertheless, Berger makes the following distinction:

‘To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself. A naked body has to be seen as an object in order to become a nude.’

Still today this nude can be seen in the media and is predominately there for the male viewer to enjoy.

Seminar// The Gaze

Men looking at women and women being objectified. Being objectified is being the target of someone else's gaze. In our lives we are the subjects. We categorise people as objects.

'men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at'
Berger (1972)

Panopticon: You are looked at but you don't look at anything.
Our society is one big panopticon for women. Women are looked at, men have the power to change.

Hans Memling, 'Vanity' (1485)

We are looking at her, she isn't looking back at us. There is no dialogue.
Our gaze is never challenged ...we are always allowed to look without anyone ever knowing that you are looking. When a gaze is returned you are forced to look at someone as a subject not an object.

The painting is called vanity. Jokes that she is so vain she is looking at herself. Lets us then look at her in the same way.

The only people who brought art when this was produced is men. Men dominated: own property, businesses, farm, run army, Kings etc. Dominant in base ...produce superstructural forms.

Culture emerges than naturally reflects dominant men. Excuses/legitimises behaviour.

Pseudo/pornographic function. Allows other men to view them in their own homes.

More and more of these nude paintings emerge (copy copy copy) people see all the time so become justified as a study of beauty. Original meaning lost.

Self-perpertuating

Visual culture has always been dominated by men.
400 years later, same images being produced...

Alexandre Cabanel, 'Birth of Venus' 1863
Manet, 'Olympia' 1863

Cabanel: gaze is one way. Surrounded by cupids. Fantasy scene. Body presented to you. Surrounded by ideological apparatus. The Goddess of love.

Manet: caused a scandal, seen as shocking. Returns the gaze ...unimpressed. A challenged gaze returned. body language. Reality of above. Prostitute. Body on display. On available at a price. Body more guarded. Forced to confront the reality that the nearest you come to the fantasy women is that you  have to pay for her. Real sexual relationships.

Both: naked.

Manet takes composition of Titan's Venus of Urbino, 1538 and copied it. Titan's gaze is met, there is an intimacy. More laid back/inviting position. Less assertive. Dog on bed rather than cat: dog more dependant. Maid looking after children in background awaiting the return of the mother.

The gaze is about power, the core is a male fantasy of domination over women. A reminder to men that they should be dominating women. She is there to be taken. A fantasy. Not a reality.

Social ideologies of men played out. Culture where this is played out over and over where it becomes the norm.

Women always take the submissive role.  Men are dominant.

Marx: things produced because men rule society. Super-structual form.
Situation where these images become acceptable/institutionalised. The same relationships played out. Creates situation where women are given constant instructions on how to behave... a self-regulatory nature (a huge panopticon) the gaze of an entire culture onto the woman. Images then become hyper-real.

Seminar //Jean Baudrillard and Hyperreality

Plato's Allegory of the Cave: metaphor for how society operates. Prisoners kept in cave by slave masters. Prisoners born in cave, sit shackled in deepest darkest part. Stay in there until they die. Real world outside never seen. Can only see shadows cast on the wall of the cave by light which seeps in through cracks or of the slave masters from the fire. The only images they see. Prisoners take images cast on wall of cave to be reality. This allegory displays our society in advertising. Shadows on wall of cave = TV news, mass media. This is an image world from which we take construction and take as fact.

Baudrillard ...the gap between representation of things and the reality of things. How one masks the other.
How commodity culture (capitalism) create alternative realities which make reality impossible to express. Commercial images change the nature of our world and understanding of it.

To use this example: Hadddon Sundblom. Employed by Coca Cola 1930's. wanted image of father xmas, western, outfit tie in with brand image of Coca Cola ...red and white. Keep using this over and over again as xmas campaign. Emerges at a similar time every year. Coca Cola take one story of santa claus, this has become the reality of santa claus. Origins of our culture are lost and replaced by copies of copies of copies, so much so that you cannot find the origin.

Baudrillard... how to get to the real, to the origin. How corporate consumer culture creates images that mask our real. Also, how advertising images affect us as people. How these images that make a commodity look more special affect reality.

Reality is replaced by images of reality which then change reality.

www.popmatters.com/pm/post/133316-/

Coke //Pepsi Challenge ...it is the commercial branding actually affect the way we feel and think about things

Post-structuralism: Baudrillard, Foucaul, Derrida, Cixous.... part of group

Guy Debord// Society of the Spectacle: described situation where society has become unreal. A society that lives around exciting spectacles of life rather than the real.
'The speactacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation amoung people, mediated by images.'

People are increasingly investing in fake realities.


THE SYSTEM OF OBJECTS (1968)

Marx:
Commodity central to everything in society ...it has a 'use value' and and 'exchange value.' Ex value greater than the use value because workers are being exploited.

Baudrillard: gap between use value (a watch to tell the time) and exchange value (what it is worth) is the 'sign value'. This is the ascending factor in our lives. It is the various different things it connotes (Rolex doesn't just tell the time: shows wealth)

Society getting more and more dependent on images of things rather than the reality. Rolex worth £30,00 when real worth is only £1,000 (when melted down)

SIMULACRA: a copy of something that almost supersedes the original or makes it difficult to tell the original from the copy in one way or another. Coca Cola father xmas is a copy of the santa claus.
SIMULATION:

What happens when a copy becomes so good that you cannot tell the difference between the copy and the real. What happens to our reality?

Hyper real ...impossible to access the real.

The copy is not produced by the real any more, they are produced by a copy. They begin to affect reality. Reality is produced by simulacra rather than simulacra being produced by the reality. The real slowly fades and that remains.

Example:
Sleeping Beauties Castle, Disneyland Park, California.
Disney took inspiration from real caste in Prague (Bohemian architecture) Made drawings of this (simulacra) added more aesthetic. People then visit the castle in Prague as they knew it was inspiration for the Disney castle. The copy is informing their experience of the real world.

Christmas Market. Started to market Germany to get more people to come over here. So made a fun light-hearted version of the German christmas market. Made it a bit sillier (cliches of Germany for UK tastes. To make it seem more charming) Begun in Bham and Manchester, now so popular that every major city has one. Bham one is now 3 times bigger than the actual German market in Germany.
The link back to it's reality of Germany is lost, it becomes the tradition for all major UK cities.

Baudrillard all our lives are lived through images of things. It is impossible to access the origin of things. We invest in sign value as reality.

New York Skyline... think is a romantic view because seen it in many romantic films. It is a simulacra. You approach it through the copies of it.

Can you ever get an original feel for New York or are we always living through what we have seen.

Ribena//flavour =artificial flavour. Doesn't represent a blackcurrent. The copy has replaced the current.

Does society instruct you to feel a way based on what you have seen.

The sign value of the wall, we would rather stay in the image world than face the real world.

The origin of our reality is an imitation of our actions.

Deleuze & Guattari & Creativity