Cultural producers and consumers are subject to the divide between the pleasures associated with ... more Cultural producers and consumers are subject to the divide between the pleasures associated with art: contemplation, discrimination and transcendent value, and those of porn: motivation, promiscuity and commodification. The distinction between both rely on the definitions of ‘high’ or ‘low’ culture (Nead 89) and the boundaries between porn, and art within modern culture is very intentionally blurred. Porn is part of the mainstream; it has become part and parcel of popular culture and subsequently attempts to distinguish porn from more elevated cultural forms such as ‘high’ art, even when they feature the same content and viewing relations – a male viewer ‘looking’ at a naked female body, for example – reveal the fact that content and viewing relations are not enough to distinguish porn as high art or something of barbarous taste (Attwood 96). It stands that Art and pornography are ‘caught in a cycle of reciprocal definition, in which each depends on the other for its meaning, significance and status’ (Nead 91). Two artists in particular, Russ Meyer’s a filmmaker and John Currin a painter, embody this complicated relationship. Throughout the course of this paper I will compare Russ Meyer’s sexploitation films to the contemporary provocative paintings of John Currin and argue that while they both deal with pornography and comment on women’s roles and positions within society they both take an ambivalent stance towards feminism, misogyny, class, and legitimate culture.
A general fascination accompanied by a multiplicity of associated theories has established monoch... more A general fascination accompanied by a multiplicity of associated theories has established monochrome painting as an important abstract and conceptual practice that provides a critical dialogue between historical practices and contemporary art and ideas. The question becomes how a reflection on historical art and painting practices help a contemporary artist to create new works which relate to the present with their own unique formation (Sturgis 1)? Contemporary artists face the constraints of a medium that sometimes can seem too formal, retinal and dated whilst being subjugated to a market which panders to the ever changing trends and fashions of today (2). Artists such as Jacob Kassay have the capacity to absorb and connect to contemporary social and cultural contexts as well as reflect on the shifting reception of the medium’s historical development by resurging the techniques, ideas, and beliefs of modernism and minimalist painting into performative objects that are essentially interactive (2). My thesis will argue how Jacob Kassay’s electroplating painting work Studio View, 2012, extends the tradition of the monochrome by employing a process of cultural quotation and a recycling of strict reductive strategies employed by modern minimalist artists such as Ad Reinhardt and Lucio Fontana, to reanimate the monochrome, make it interactive and give it new resonance (Brennan 4), as well how this work extends the tradition of painting (Sturgis 2) using spatial limitations to showcase paintings as objects that engage the space around them (Brennan 5) while simultaneously bringing attention to the changing regimes of representation within contemporary art practices.
Cultural producers and consumers are subject to the divide between the pleasures associated with ... more Cultural producers and consumers are subject to the divide between the pleasures associated with art: contemplation, discrimination and transcendent value, and those of porn: motivation, promiscuity and commodification. The distinction between both rely on the definitions of ‘high’ or ‘low’ culture (Nead 89) and the boundaries between porn, and art within modern culture is very intentionally blurred. Porn is part of the mainstream; it has become part and parcel of popular culture and subsequently attempts to distinguish porn from more elevated cultural forms such as ‘high’ art, even when they feature the same content and viewing relations – a male viewer ‘looking’ at a naked female body, for example – reveal the fact that content and viewing relations are not enough to distinguish porn as high art or something of barbarous taste (Attwood 96). It stands that Art and pornography are ‘caught in a cycle of reciprocal definition, in which each depends on the other for its meaning, significance and status’ (Nead 91). Two artists in particular, Russ Meyer’s a filmmaker and John Currin a painter, embody this complicated relationship. Throughout the course of this paper I will compare Russ Meyer’s sexploitation films to the contemporary provocative paintings of John Currin and argue that while they both deal with pornography and comment on women’s roles and positions within society they both take an ambivalent stance towards feminism, misogyny, class, and legitimate culture.
A general fascination accompanied by a multiplicity of associated theories has established monoch... more A general fascination accompanied by a multiplicity of associated theories has established monochrome painting as an important abstract and conceptual practice that provides a critical dialogue between historical practices and contemporary art and ideas. The question becomes how a reflection on historical art and painting practices help a contemporary artist to create new works which relate to the present with their own unique formation (Sturgis 1)? Contemporary artists face the constraints of a medium that sometimes can seem too formal, retinal and dated whilst being subjugated to a market which panders to the ever changing trends and fashions of today (2). Artists such as Jacob Kassay have the capacity to absorb and connect to contemporary social and cultural contexts as well as reflect on the shifting reception of the medium’s historical development by resurging the techniques, ideas, and beliefs of modernism and minimalist painting into performative objects that are essentially interactive (2). My thesis will argue how Jacob Kassay’s electroplating painting work Studio View, 2012, extends the tradition of the monochrome by employing a process of cultural quotation and a recycling of strict reductive strategies employed by modern minimalist artists such as Ad Reinhardt and Lucio Fontana, to reanimate the monochrome, make it interactive and give it new resonance (Brennan 4), as well how this work extends the tradition of painting (Sturgis 2) using spatial limitations to showcase paintings as objects that engage the space around them (Brennan 5) while simultaneously bringing attention to the changing regimes of representation within contemporary art practices.
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My thesis will argue how Jacob Kassay’s electroplating painting work Studio View, 2012, extends the tradition of the monochrome by employing a process of cultural quotation and a recycling of strict reductive strategies employed by modern minimalist artists such as Ad Reinhardt and Lucio Fontana, to reanimate the monochrome, make it interactive and give it new resonance (Brennan 4), as well how this work extends the tradition of painting (Sturgis 2) using spatial limitations to showcase paintings as objects that engage the space around them (Brennan 5) while simultaneously bringing attention to the changing regimes of representation within contemporary art practices.
My thesis will argue how Jacob Kassay’s electroplating painting work Studio View, 2012, extends the tradition of the monochrome by employing a process of cultural quotation and a recycling of strict reductive strategies employed by modern minimalist artists such as Ad Reinhardt and Lucio Fontana, to reanimate the monochrome, make it interactive and give it new resonance (Brennan 4), as well how this work extends the tradition of painting (Sturgis 2) using spatial limitations to showcase paintings as objects that engage the space around them (Brennan 5) while simultaneously bringing attention to the changing regimes of representation within contemporary art practices.