Duality: Confronting Contemporary Perceptions
Visiting the Level 6 symposium was informative and gave me a chance to listen to level 6 art history students discuss their contemporary viewpoints on a range of interesting topics, many which are relevant when discussing contemporary art.
Hypocrisy and hope
One student, Francesca discussed three different marketing campaigns, lynx, Dove and fair and lovely, all of which have an underlying message revolving around beauty standards across the world. The use of comparison between campaigns in Britain and India, allowing her the chance to compare beauty standards promoted by advertisements for a range of different types of women. The presentation as a result had more of an edge as it provokes discussion on the different target audiences for these campaigns but the overall narrative of oppression and the preying of marketing companies on insecure women.
I like how Francesca discusses how an organisation like Dove which is meant to promote ‘real beauty’ and empower women is still in some ways in its ads showing a small range of the women in the world. I don’t think she fully showed how stark the contrast is between the Dove beauty campaign and the Lynx campaign, discussing how both are oppressive and objectifying. However, in these cases the Lynx advert is much more extreme in terms of these two things. The sexual objectification of women is something that appears throughout many marketing campaigns especially those for perfumes or beauty products because companies want to profit by promising fulfilment and beauty. I found it interesting learning about the difference between our beauty standards in the Uk versus in India and how in India there is a quest to maintain white beauty. This ideal has been engrained within Indian society and these ads exploit this.
It is vital to continue to penalise marketing campaigns for promoting unhealthy standards of beauty and instead promote self-love and equality, moving away from the racist and sexist undertones that have been a huge part of advertisements.
Humanity and hyperrealism
Under the sub-category of ‘humanity and hyperrealism’ Clare Todd discussed Art using poetry in museum and galleries. Her passion for poetry came out during her lecture and I like that she had looked at both the way artists are inspired by poetry and why it should be implemented into galleries.
I like the idea of enhancing a visit to a museum or gallery by creating different ways to interact with the art, this is especially important when promoting the arts to younger children in order to possibly make the works more comprehensible for a range of people. Clare Todd suggests poetry as a way of increasing learning and comprehension. Bringing a variety of media into play in order to convey a more succinct message behind works of art, as well as allowing a ‘more inclusive emotional experience’. Clare used David Hockney as an example for the importance of poetry in art showing his works and how he was inspired by poetry.
Personally, I love poetry and it is a brilliant way to express inner thoughts and imagination, despite this, I don’t feel it is necessary to display art and poetry in a way that places an interpretation on a work of art. Art is powerful, and a great piece can speak for itself. I see the importance of poetry for inspiration for creative thinkers but don’t see the necessity to use poetry to enhance artworks that already stand out on their own. This does not mean I do not support the creation of works that combine both artistic practice and creative writing.
Location and Interaction
I was particularly intrigued by Isabelle Melnik’s lecture on Street art and social media, as it is something that is relevant today, the link between social media and art is important as due to social media artists can spread their works around the world digitally. Street artists especially can have their work permanently online even if the original work is changed or destroyed. Isabelle discussed the debate between whether graffiti is vandalism or art, a topic which interests me as I feel street art really makes up a cities’ personality. She was able to link this back to Liverpool, discussing the rising tourist attraction that is the Baltic Triangle and the relevance of its street art that appears on its walls. She also presents the use of street art by companies such as Adidas and Gucci which in turn shows the importance of street art in today’s culture and its true artistic value.
I fully agree with Isabelle that graffiti is extremely beneficial to art, despite it sometimes having a bad reputation with its association to anti-social behaviour. In my opinion street art has developed into a beautiful form of art that is now less so associated with criminality and more so with creativity and individuality with unique art pieces characterising cities around the world. The thing that makes graffiti even more interesting is that it tends to not be displayed in galleries, with the exception of Banksy, generally making it more temporary and difficult to preserve. Street art like ‘for all Liverpool’s liver birds’, Paul Curtis, promotes interactivity with artworks through social media and encourages the growth of support for street artists instead of the negative connotations that come with painting on the world’s streets.
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