‘Used and Amused’: On Having Been a Real-Life Model, Muse, Performer, Poseur, and Sitter

Sue Spaid

doi:10.58519/aesthinv.v6i2.17414

‘Used and Amused’

On Having Been a Real-Life Model, Muse, Performer, Poseur, and Sitter

Authors

Sue Spaid University of Cincinnati

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.58519/aesthinv.v6i2.17414

Keywords:

model, muse, sitter, performer, poseur, textual account of the sitter, presentation painting, portrait

Abstract

On the occasion of this special issue focused on Models and Sitters, I am presenting what Dawn Kanter (in this issue) terms a 'textual account of the sitter'. With this in mind, I revisit a particular era in my life (primarily 1993-1999) when I regularly served as a model, muse, performer, poseur, and sitter. In fact, there was sufficient material to organise 'Used and Amused' (2000), an exhibition focused on ten collaborations, for which I typically self-improvised. Rather than simply detail these events, I've woven various ideas developed by each of this special issue's contributors into this article, so that my narrative here augments their papers.

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Author Biography

Sue Spaid, University of Cincinnati

Since 1984, Belgium-based philosopher Sue Spaid, Ph. D., has been active in the artworld as a curator, art writer, university lecturer, and museum director. Spaid, who writes regularly for HArt, was on the Contributors Board for artUS, where she published 65 articles between 1997 and 2010. She has organized over 100 exhibitions for artist-run spaces, galleries and museums, most notably “Green Acres: Artists Farming Fields, Greenhouses, and Abandoned Lots” (2012) and “Ecovention: Current Art to Transform Ecologies” (2002). While Executive Director at the Contemporary Museum, Spaid published A Field Guide to Patricia Johanson’s Works: Proposed, Built, Published and Collected.

References

Berger, John. ‘No More Portraits’. In Landscapes: John Berger on Art, edited by Tom Overton. London: Verso, 2018.

Debaene, Aurélie. ‘Posing Skill: The Art Model as Creative Agent’. Edited by Connell Vaughan and Iris Vidmar Jovanović. Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics 11 (2019): 214–31.

———. ‘The Art Model as Performer’. Aesthetic Investigations 5, no. 1 (2021): 7–27.

———. ‘Why It Matters Who Poses’. Aesthetic Investigations 6, no. 2 (2023): 128–40.

Eaton, A.W. ‘Naked, Fat, and Fabulous’. Aesthetic Investigations 6, no. 2 (2023): 174–92.

Kanter, Dawn. ‘Constructing and Using the Portrait Sitting as an Art-Historical Research Object’. Aesthetic Investigations 6, no. 2 (2023): 110–27.

Maes, Hans. ‘What Is a Portrait?’ British Journal of Aesthetics 55, no. 3 (2015): 315.

———, 2023.

Mitchell-Dayton, Caitlin, 2023.

RV. ‘Modelling, an Art Form in Itself’. RISD Bulletin, 1992, 3 and 15.

Weiser, Peg Brand. ‘Empowered Amateur Posers’. Aesthetic Investigations 6, no. 2 (2023): 193–207.

Zamir, Tzachi. ‘Gestures of/at Art’. Aesthetic Investigations 6, no. 2 (2023): 141–57.

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Published

2023-12-31

Issue

Vol. 6 No. 2 (2023): Special Issue: Models and Sitters: the Art and Aesthetics of Posing. Guest edited by Aurélie Debaene, C.A. York, and Hans Maes

Section

Arts & Artists

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How to Cite

Spaid, Sue. 2023. “‘Used and Amused’: On Having Been a Real-Life Model, Muse, Performer, Poseur, and Sitter”. Aesthetic Investigations 6 (2): 208-20. https://doi.org/10.58519/aesthinv.v6i2.17414.