Aesthetic Investigations

Empowered Amateur Posers

Peg Brand Weiser — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Aurélie Debaene cites a lack of aesthetics research on the professional art model, concluding that the artistic enterprise of collaboration or 'partnering' between model and artist can lead viewers to under-appreciate their conjoined creativity and skill. I argue for a collaborative model that extends the notion of art model beyond the professional to the amateur art model/poser/performer. On this model, an artist can achieve success in an artwork by: (1) posing their self in a self-portrait and/or (2) inviting viewers to pose in artworks designed to 'partner' together in creating an aesthetic experience of shared creativity, skill, and pleasure.

‘Used and Amused’

Sue Spaid — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

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.

Introduction to the Special Issue

Aurélie Debaene — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

n/a

Constructing and Using the Portrait Sitting as an Art-Historical Research Object

Dawn Kanter — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Portraiture is said to have evolved from a collaborative social practice to an artist-centric one. I challenge this view by focusing on the portrait sitting. I develop a portrait-sitting ontology, and a portrait-sitting database. I do so with reference to works in London's National Portrait Gallery, because the gallery features noteworthy sitters, leading to rich interpersonal exchanges during sittings. An approach from my portrait-sitting database shows the contributions of sitters to portrait production, calls attention to shared social and cultural ideas behind particular types of portrait production, and supports new interpretations of portraits and new periodisations of portraiture.

Why It Matters Who Poses

Aurélie Debaene — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

I make the case for modelling as a collection of creative practices that work with various art forms as a promising area of work. I achieve this by exploring three questions. First, are models not merely a prop employed by the artist? Using phenomenological considerations informed by my work as a life model, I argue that models often work to vague briefs and are moreover employed precisely because of their unique poses. Second, how do models impact artworks? Overlooking a model's contribution can drastically alter our aesthetic understanding of an artwork. I argue that models contribute creatively and maintain 'model reasons', a formal interest in posing as body-experts. Third, what is the value of research into models and their poses? Deepening our knowledge can constitute a restorative act. Further scholarship will also need to reckon with the realities of changing technologies and working practices. It is especially important, then, to tease out and understand the existing practices of modelling and their interrelations with other artists, artistic media, and technologies.

Gestures of/at Art

Tzachi Zamir — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

An odd occurrence within a live model session is that the model, while nude, is drawn in a way which renders irrelevant the nakedness. Participants may focus on the model's face, or draw the pose while heavily blurring breasts or genitalia—the unveiling of which is, presumably, partly what the model is hired for. Why? If a live model presents an opportunity to study human anatomy or embodied gestures without the interruption of clothing, participants would likely focus upon parts which normally remain private. Instead, it is not rare to see sketches and work which could have been produced while permitting the model to wear swimwear or even substantial clothing.

Nudity's status within the artist-live model relationship will be one topic of this essay. Three additional questions will be (1) the model's motivation; (2) the degree of agency attributed to the model: for some, a mere prop; for others, a full-fledged performer; (3) the role of 'art' in the live model session given how much of it remains incomplete and not displayed.

From Model to Sitter

Michelle Green, Hans Maes — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

This paper focuses on historic anthropological photographs, meant to depict Indigenous individuals as generic models of colonial stereotypes, and examines their later reclamation as portraits. Applying an intention-based account of portraiture, we discuss the historical context and contemporary examples of the utilisation of these images in order to address several questions. What happens when the depicted persons in colonial imagery are treated and presented as sitters, rather than model specimens? Does this change the nature of the image? If a photograph was not originally intended as a portrait, can it come to function as such at a later stage? Regardless of whether they fulfill all the requirements necessary for portraiture, these colonial photographs represent a vital resource for the reclamation of Indigenous cultural heritage. As such, this paper serves as an introductory discussion into the complex issues surrounding the recategorisation, repatriation, and restitution of colonial photographic archives.

Naked, Fat, and Fabulous

A.W. Eaton — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

This paper attempts to bring together two lines of thought that might seem unrelated. The first is the idea that the life class should be a safe space that respects and nurtures the creative autonomy of life models. The second is the idea that it is morally, socially, and aesthetically permissible to be fat and that fat persons are entitled to the same dignity, respect, and celebration to which straight-sized persons are entitled. Putting these two thoughts together, I explore the idea that the life class can be a space for the aesthetic exploration and appreciation of fat bodies and hence an important space for combatting fat oppression.

I would like to issue a warning about content that may be upsetting or triggering for my readers. In section II, I briefly discuss sexual harassment and sexual assault. In section III, I give quite a few examples of the kinds of harassment and hostility that fat persons face.

Streaking in the Museum

Sue Spaid; Clinton Peter Verdonschot — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Thomas Crow, The Artist in the Counterculture: Bruce Conner to Mike Kelley and Other Tales from the Edge (2023)

Mark Harris — Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Thomas Crow’s book The Artist in the Counterculture: Bruce Conner to Mike Kelley and Other Tales from the Edge reappraises West Coast art as enmeshed in the counterculture. The first five of its twelve chapters discuss Bruce Conner’s development as a multimedia artist in San Franscisco and Los Angeles producing assemblages, films, drawings, magazine illustrations, and light shows for rock concerts. The next five chapters expand Crow’s argument by appraising anti-war manifestations, Black and Latino protest work, Land Art, and West Coast conceptual practices as aspects of the counterculture. Moving forward to the late 1970s, the final two chapters review first Conner’s reemergence as a photographer documenting California punk bands and then Mike Kelley’s transplanting of Detroit’s alternative rock idealism to fuel the development of his own radical art practices.