Welcome to the first issue of Collage! This on-line magazine accompanies the newly started Collage blog, where women who are interested in art, politics, culture and society can debate, share and learn. The magazine will be published bi-monthly and will be packed with articles, opinions, reviews and also showcase the work of contemporary women artists. Esha Mirari and I started this Collage because we felt that despite hundreds of publications being available, there wasn’t one that felt right for us. We’re not trying to be a magazine with ‘something for everyone’ – we love art and politics and we’re passionate about questioning and debating how women fit into today’s society. So if that describes you too then we hope you will come along with us as a part of Collage. We are really proud of our first issue but there’s always room for improvement! Your feedback and contributions are very welcome so please visit our blog at www.magazinecollage.wordpress.com. Thank you for reading ,
Alexandria Welch
Editors
Alexandria Welch and Esha Mirari
Contributors
Lou Baxter
A note on copyright Everyone at Collage magazine is committed to artists retaining copyright over their own work. We have been careful to ensure that the images used in this publication have been purchased or provided to us by the creators with copyright permission, or are copyright free or are being used under the ‘fair usage’ protocol shared over the internet (images are low resolution, attributed to their creator, not for profit and used only to illustrate a relevant article or story). If, however, you feel your image has been used by us unfairly and your copyright breached, please contact us at magazinecollage@ymail.com and we will remove the image immediately.
Sandra Oxley Leila Yusuf
With thanks to
Justin Harris Daisy Parris Marion Smith Hannah Cousins
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Who do you think I am? The Truth and Lies of the self-portrait plus work by Collage’s favourite artists.
14 Professor F.M.Erah Our very own Prof gives a round-up of news, comment and reviews.
20 Collage Showcases This we feature Freddie Robbins, Audrey Walas and Marissa Mardon.
26 An Empty Frame Editor Esha Mirari writes about the absence of portraiture in Islamic Art. Leila Yusuf, gives a personal view.
38 Going Down—the end of art school. With rising fees and fewer jobs, who’ll go to art school now?
40 Be a part of Collage Self-portraits by our contributors
42 The last page ‘The Life model is thinking about…” a poem by artist (and one time life model) Lou Baxter
Plus … news on our next issue.
Venus by Fiona Williams, crocheted sculpture, 2009 3
Self-portrait as Victor by Alexandria Welch (with Carl Webster Dowsing) 4
Self-portrait by Esha Mirari (with Justin Harris) 2012 5
The Truth and Lies of the Self-Portrait
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e love looking at the most talented and bravest women other people; from artists in history. sneaking a peek at The female self-portrait transgresses someone with a and subverts by its very existence. fantastic, or weird, face, in the Within the Western tradition of art, supermarket to flicking through for centuries women were a celebrity magazines to being one of Madonna, or a nude or perhaps a the two million and rising visitors to goddess. Women lucky the National Portrait enough to be named were The female Gallery. Quite often queens, courtiers or courteself-portrait the focus of our sans. Rarely were they the collective gaze is some transgresses and artist themselves. In a celebrity woman and subverts by its world where no woman we become obsessed very existence had the same right as a with how she looks. man to become an artist, We try to find a where it was illegal for women to meaning in her appearance, whether attend life drawing classes and where the triviality of her shoes or a the paintings of successful artists complex subversion of gender. It’s a were gradually re-attributed to their fertile ground nowadays for women male counterparts, any self-portrait to create self- portraits and they are by a woman deserves a little extra treading in the footsteps of some of consideration. How did she break 6
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with tradition and make the statement ‘I am the artist’?
portrait suggests. Artists such as Joan Semmel, Jenny Saville and Sarah Lucas play with the notion of the truth they are giving us, challenging our preconceptions.
Artists such as Artemisia Gentileschi, Mary Beale, Levina Teerlinc, Angelica Kauffman, Elizabeth Vigee le Brun all broke through the ranks of the Old Masters to become admired artists. They recorded themselves at work, proudly displaying their brushes, easels and canvases. In Gentileschi’s case, she even painted herself as ‘art’ in ‘Self-portrait as an Allegory of Painting’ (1630).
Women artists increasingly interweave what may be considered self-portraiture into their work in general. Works such as Mona Hatoum’s ‘Deep Throat’, in which the viewer is taken on a filmed journey through her digestive tract, play with the idea of what a self-portrait actually is. And Cindy Sherman, although using her own physical being throughout her work never gives us a typical self-portrait – she is always in disguise.
During the twentieth century, as the social status of women changed in general, women became freer to work as artists. In 1903 women were allowed into the Royal Academy’s life drawing classes. Since then, there has been a proliferation of women using their own image in their art, whether as a traditional self-portrait or to subvert and play with the notions of self-portraiture. Women artists have been at the forefront of dismantling the tendency to think a self-portrait is the ‘truth’. There is a persuasive notion that self-portraits show the reality of what a person looked like or give an objective historical narrative of their life or even suggest to us an artist’s inner life. But already the outsider, the woman artist is able to play with the ‘truth’ her self-
Possibly the most famous woman artist to be associated with self-portraiture, is Frida Khalo. Her work is often read, simplistically, as a narrative of her own life and indeed it can be a useful starting point when considering her work. The magical realism of her paintings seems to invite us to see and know her inner life and the pain we imagine for her throughout her long life of illness, injury and romantic suffering. But in fixing the paintings with this interpretation we have to wilfully ignore certain biographical details which are at odds with our 8
tragic perception of Kahlo. Her strength, her often joyous personality, her own affairs – all mean we need to re-read her paintings with an open mind.
the work of Guda, the nun to the thousands of women artists creating selfportraits today they are used as a way to explore our relationship with our bodies, with politics, with our race and our religion. They are challenging, beautiful and disturbing. They conceal as much as they reveal and constantly play with our notions of truth. They are art at its most powerful. No wonder we love gazing at them.
It would seem that by necessity, if a woman makes a self-portrait she is also making a piece of art about ‘women’. Any woman’s self-portrait is loaded with social commentary that does not weigh down the self-portraits of, say Lucien Freud. But this is not a burden. From
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Guda, the Nun. Guda’s self portrait, painted in the 12th century, was in the initial letter of a Homiliary (Latin manuscript). It is widely acknowledged to be the oldest signed and dated self-portrait by a woman in western art. It is inscribed with the words “Guda, a sinner, wrote and painted these words”
Angelica Kauffman 1747-1807 A founder member of the Royal Academy of Art in 1768, Kauffman had the great benefit of two supportive men in her life. Her father allowed her to study art, meaning she could improve her skills in the way other talented women could not. Her husband, Antonio Zucchi, was also a painter but recognised her greater skill and supported her work. At the time she was painting it is doubtful that without this support she would have reached the level of success and achievement she did. 10
Gwen John 1876-1939 It is difficult to consider the great works of Gwen John independent of her relationships with two key men. Her brother, Augustus, who was supportive of her talent and the artist Rodin, who was her lover. She modelled for him but was embarrassed about this, preferring to be known for her own work. She achieved some success during her life but her reputation has grown enough to give credence to her brother’s statement ‘Fifty years after my death I shall be remembered as Gwen John’s brother.”
Dame Laura Knight 1877-1970 In 1936, when she was fifty –nine years old, Dame Laura Knight was made a Royal Academician. She was the first woman to receive this honour since Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser were founder members in 1768. She represents a new, modern woman artist. She was commissioned to make the illustrative record of the Nuremberg Trials and turned her Rolls Royce into a travelling studio so she could record life as she travelled.
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Louise Bourgeois 1911-2010 Bourgeois’s ‘Torso/self-portrait’ is one of those works which plays with the notion of what a self-portrait is. An abstract sculpture that on first glance seems to be a spine but is suggestive of male and female genitalia challenges us to reconsider the gender boundaries and the physicality of the ‘self ’.
Francesca Woodman 1958-1981 Between 1972, when she was fourteen and 1980, Woodman made a series of photographic images of herself that are as mysterious and seductive as the iconographic work by Frida Kahlo. Like Kahlo, Woodman’s life and its perceived tragedy (she committed suicide in 1981) cast a shadow over her work. The images often refer to the confines in which she finds herself – her body is always placed firmly within a physical context whether it’s a museum display case, a window frame or doorway.
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Jo Spence 1934-92 Jo Spence initially set up a portrait studio specialising in family and wedding shots. However, her work with the Hackney Flashers Women’s Photography Group led to her development within a fine art context and she was an important creator on two artistically and socially important photographic projects ‘Women and work’ and ‘Who’s holding the baby?’. Diagnosed with breast cancer she developed a treatment called ‘phototherapy’ in which meant ‘quite literally using photography to heal ourselves’. Her work confronts ageing, deformity and disease. In her obituary in The Independent in 1992, it stated “She challenged the myth of the body beautiful, while acknowledging its power. Admitting her terror, she confronted the phantasmagoria of disease.”
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Parade’s End, Christina Aguilera’s latest video, and the new era of female superiority.
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wo books have been published recently suggesting that the era of Woman is upon us…
Yes! We are brilliantly successful - at keeping ourselves in low-paid, part-time, unsatisfying hard work.
We are ‘plastic’ according to Hanna Roisin, the author of ‘The Rise of Women and the End of Men’. This allows us to be flexible and to mould ourselves to the differing social and economic circumstances in which we find ourselves. Liza Mundy, who has written ‘The Richer Sex’ suggests that women uniquely placed to succeed professionally and be wealthier than men. They draw the conclusion we will soon rule the earth. Like the dinosaurs?
And that’s before we think about sex. History has taught us over and again that if there is a section of society who does not walk the hallowed corridors of power and is perceived to be gaining influence and wealth, the establishment will turn on them. How do men turn on women? Through sex. What happens between individuals isn’t the point, it’s how the establishment – the law and the institutions, legislate and react. Zoe Stavvers, who writes the unapologetic blog ‘Another Angry Women’ brings the regular institutionalised abuses of women to public attention. A recent blog discussed the use of vaginal probes on women. Now why would a vaginal probe ever be needed under any circumstances? In Egypt where female political protestors (or sometimes just women out walking around the streets) are arrested and given virginity tests? Or in Virginia, USA where in February a law was passed stating that women seeking a termination have to consent to a vaginal probe first? Both have been described as state sponsored rape.
Of course, in reality, this plasticity could be interpreted as malleability – or maybe stupidity. Our capitalist, patriarchal society won’t collapse so easily and surely women’s supposed ability to be moulded by circumstance only props it up longer? The economy slices away traditional ‘male’ jobs, leaving men unemployed and families on the breadline – but women work out how to keep everything going, even if it makes their fingers bleed. For every woman earning a fortune and welcomed home by her wonderful house husband and four cute kids, there are a hundred women working two or three part time jobs whilst their children look after themselves. 14
Christina Aguilera’s new video for her latest song ‘Your Body’ has caused a furore with its not-so graphic scenes of female revenge fantasy. In it, she plays a variety of ‘available’ young women (slut, tramp, hooker/hitchhiker) who murders a chosen man. One is set alight, another slashed and the third has his head smashed with a baseball bat. Initially I was extremely uncomfortable with this. After all, it certainly doesn’t pass the ‘other way around’ test – can you imagine those nice lads from One Direction being allowed to sing ‘you know you want it’ whilst killing the girl they’d just had sex with in a public loo? But, of course, this isn’t about what works for men because there isn’t sexual equality in the world. And the video plays a clever trick with its use of female iconography to represent violence. The flames are pink like powder blusher, and blood is either candy blue or fluorescent glitter. Visually it’s highly seductive and by the end scene where the classic film noir moment of blood being washed off and running down a plughole is re-invented with pink glitter, I was fully in favour. Combined with the repeated line ’you know you want it’ this video brings to mind all the complexities of sexual violence, revenge, power and how both genders are only superficially represented in the media. The boys in this video aren’t portrayed as bad, just making the best of a good thing that’s been offered to them. The surprised, terrified expression in the eyes of the final victim, which we glimpse for barely a second, makes it clear that although this video is bright, colourful and funny, it is deadly serious.
Meanwhile, there is the famous case in America of Democratic Senator Lisa Brown who was castigated for daring to use the words ‘my vagina’ during a speech. On this side of the pond, we have Maria Miller, wanting to lower the limit on legal abortion. Now, putting aside the weird fact that we have a ‘women’s minster’ at all (is Boris Johnson the unofficial ‘man’s minister’?) and also putting aside whatever you think about abortion I certainly would expect Miller, of all people, to be in favour of women having 100% control over their own reproductive system. If she doesn’t believe in that, who does? (As we finish editing, the Health Minister, Jeremy Hunt’s ‘personal’ view on terminations is getting good press.) Maybe women should stop ‘getting on with it. Maybe women should make a stand like the Dagenham strikers or Jayaben Desai, who led the ‘strikers in saris’ protest in 1976 gaining employment rights for immigrants. Finally, I was recently reminded of Mary Poppins. We all love Mary Poppins don’t we? Like a true angel of the house she swept those abandoned children into her warm, maternal embrace. Where was their neglectful mother? Run off with a French waiter? Joined the circus? In fact, she was a suffragette, out protesting for the right to vote. What a wicked woman…
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fter the last episode of Parade’s End I had a dream… I was writing an essay entitled ‘Christopher’s Blade; How Stoppard’s use of The Borg in Parade’s End reveals our fear of a mechanised society’. I woke up drenched in sweat, although that may have been at the thought of the Cumberblade, but also because I was convinced that this was going to be the most fabulous and insightful essay ever. I was so disappointed to remember, as daylight hit me, that Tom Stoppard had foolishly neglected to insert a cyborg collective from Star Trek into his adaptation of Ford Maddox Ford’s novels.
noted and feared early on by female revolutionaries such as Olympe de Gouges who wrote an unbowed response to Rousseau in ‘The Declaration of the Rights of Women’. Far from there being any kind of ‘natural’ passivity that confined our roles to the private and domestic sphere, it was the great Enlightenment, with its philosophers so keen to throw of the shackles of oppression, which chained women to the kitchen sink. It also cleared the path for the Industrial Revolution to take hold of the world and for the rational, the man-made and the mechanical to rule. Which is where 7/9 and her Borg counterparts come in. No matter how much sexier she looked as a Borg, no matter how strong and successful and rational the idea of the collective may be, all 7/9 wanted to do was return to the flawed, emotional individual she once was.
Of course, for anyone who sat devotedly through the five hours of extraordinary yet flawed television that was Parade’s End, the notion of a cyborg/turn of the century/WWI mash-up is not so crazy. The overturn of what is sometimes described as ‘organic’ society during the 18th century by man-made social order, climaxing in the French Revolution, is something we are still coming to terms with. Chairman Mao’s famous ‘It’s too early to tell’ response when asked his opinion about the French Revolution has never seemed more pertinent. In episode two of Parade’s End, Christopher and Valentine have a firelight chat in which he says he would fight for ‘agriculture against industrialisation’ because ‘land was the foundation of England’. For women, this mechanisation of society enshrined our roles as angels in the house, something 16
There is much debate about how The Borg are representative of America’s fear of communism but this is questionable, not least due to timing. The Berlin Wall had fallen and commie paranoia was long past its height when the Borg made their first appearance. Equally, they were too early to be considered an allegory for Islamic fundamentalism or Al Qaeda (something explored brilliantly in the Battlestar Galactica re-boot). It would seem the Borg are what they are – a representation of our fear of becoming machines. In the trenches of Parade’s End the soldiers tell the difference between types of bombs and fighter planes by the sounds they make. Christopher Tietjens is deeply affected by this mechanical noise of warfare. How resonant this is for the audience, knowing that only a few years after WWI a second war will complete the industrialisation of slaughter. My personal litmus test of the value of a piece of creative work is how long it lives with you, like raw onions, after you’ve experienced it. Parade’s End lingers on, proving it was indeed the opposite of the superficial and disposal (er… no-one mention Downton Abbey). It reminded us of ideas and conflicts still relevant today.
Recognise these breasts? When news broke on Twitter of yet another petition to get rid of Page 3, I felt my heart sink. In my many years on this earth I have seen numerous petitions and protests against the newspaper boobs and yet, they are still here. I’m not even sure if I’m that bothered any more. We are inundated with images of breasts - I am titnotised to the point that I can’t work up any genuine anger anymore. What do you think? Join the debate on our blog (and find out if you guessed the breast correctly.) www.magazinecollage.wordpress.com 17
This month the Prof will be ... Reading The Ancient Guide to Modern Life by, by Natalie Haynes
Indulging in the last episodes of Revenge, on E4. Has there ever been a better wicked witch than Madeline Stowe as the conflicted Victoria Grayson?
Re-visiting the Hayward Gallery on the Southbank to take another look at The Art of Change: New directions from China. Too much to take in all at once!
Going to the Chatham Zoo Show, where Collage’s featured artist Marissa Mardon will be joining Christopher Sacre and Mark Barnes –will they be working inside a cage? 27 October to 8 November at the Nucleus Gallery.
Catching Lindsay Seers’ installation ‘Nowhere Less Now’ at the Tin Tabernacle in Kilburn before it closes on 21st October.
The Prof takes a look at Tracey Emin’s last show and how she’s killing off the self-portrait.
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ntitled 'She lay down deep beneath the sea' Tracey Emin’s show at the Turner Gallery in Margate was a collection of gouache, embroidery, mono print and bronze sculptures. It was deeply resonant of that aspect of womanhood which seems to be linked, atavistically, to water; the Lady of the Lake, selkies, mermaids and sirens are all brought to mind by this work which also provides the visceral gut punch of Emins' destroyed, nude, questioning woman, spilling her fear, love and secretions across the paper. It was beautiful. It was sort of admirable. To be truthful it was a bit boring.
The personal is only political if it functions as a doorway into learning more about life, history and politics. If Emin’s work challenged my preconceptions and blew my mind with its fabulous philosophical concepts, then I would be all in favour of yet another blue gouache scribble. But I, along with probably every visitor to the gallery, have thrown away thousands of little scribbles precisely because they have so little meaning. Emin’s suggestion (made in relation to her 'Unmade Bed' installation) was that ‘it's art because she's an artist and she made it’. But the world has turned and that's no longer good - or interesting - enough.
In terms of confessional art, I can't see how we can go much further than Emin. She puts herself firmly at the centre of her work, confronting us with everything about her, like the high culture version of Kerry Katona. It is fascinating and seductive but ultimately a dead end. The only thing this exhibition revealed was more of Tracey Emin's emotional journey through life. And her journey through life has been very specific so although I have an interest (in the same way I do about Katona or Kardashian - or anyone else who's name begins with K) it's fairly fleeting.
Finally, the physical quality of the work is so questionable - her embroideries (which I'm guessing are made with the help of 'fabricators', those Dobby house elves of the art world) are machine made. It felt cheap and corporate, like being in one of those restaurants where the accountants have measured out how many olives go on the pizza. The big questions must be who is Emin's viewer? Who still finds this interesting? Her investigation into being herself would only keep us coming back if she radically reinvented herself, 18
developing intellectually or perhaps becoming a Scientologist. Meanwhile, her investigations into being a woman are so trite that they wouldn't stand up to a night down the pub with girls. Far from being some kind of feminist icon, isn’t she parading all this fanny art for the boys? It's the 'look at me, I'm a bit mad, I am' act that kooky Emin is no girls think men will find cute. In reality all women live with abortions, miscarriages, still births, rapes, infertility, unequal pay, ugly men pawing at them and the horror that is Grazia magazine. We don't need a scribbly Emin to reveal that to us.
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f all this sounds a little harsh it's because I am disappointed. I wanted better from her, she is so obviously capable. In many ways the work is attractive and charming. But then so is that painting of the Highlands on a tin of shortbread. I'm roughly the same age philosopher as Emin and I wanted her to be my artist, to be the one who speaks for me and my kind. But conceptual art is only as fabulous as the concept and Emin is no philosopher. If you have nothing to say then please paint better. 19
CRAFT KILLS 2002 Machine knitted wool, knitting needles 2000 x 680 x 380 mm
“Craft Kills” is a self-portrait based on the well recognised image of Saint Sebastian being martyred. Instead of arrows piercing my skin I have knitting needles. The title immediately brings to mind the old adage of “dying for your art” but what I am much more concerned with is the stereotypical image that craft, and in particular knitting, has, of being a passive, benign activity. How would it be if craft was considered as dangerous or subversive? Since conceiving of this piece the world suffered the events of September 11th and its aftermath. You can no longer fly with knitting needles in your hand luggage. Knitting is now classed as a dangerous activity. (Statement written for “Flexible 4: Identities” catalogue.)
Freddie Robins is an artist who challenges our perception of knitting as craft. Her work is internationally renowned, her practice crossing the boundaries of art, design and craft. She was born in Hertfordshire and lives and works in Essex and London. She studied textiles at Middlesex Polytechnic (1984-87) and Royal College of Art (1987-89) where she is now a Senior Tutor in Mixed Media Textiles.
the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, USA. In 2005 she co-curated “Knit 2 Together – Concepts in Knitting” for the Crafts Council. She also instigated and co-curated “Ceremony”, an exhibition, workshops and series of public events that explored the role of craft in the paraphernalia and rituals associated with the rites of passage, at the Pump House Gallery in Battersea Park, London. In 2010 she was a selector for the Jerwood Contemporary Makers alongside Hans Stofer and Richard Slee.
She predominantly produces work for public exhibition, most recently Transformations, Smiths Row, Bury St Edmunds, Cheongju International Craft Biennale 2011, Korea, A new Hook. Re- thinking needlework, Museum Bellerive, Zurich, and Art & Fashion. Between Skin and Clothing, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany. She was recently on the UK shortlist for the prestigious Women to Watch 2012 exhibition at
Her work is held in private and public collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, Nottingham Castle Museum, Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum and The West Norway Museum of Decorative Art, Bergen.
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Audrey has dedicated much of her academic and professional career in Contemporary Art studying the technical aspect of ‘‘blurring’’, and its delicate ability to epitomise femininity as perceived by the viewer. More recently, her works has evolved towards the development of chiaroscuro, applying this technique to transform the subject using shadow and pure light. Audrey explores
these techniques to question the whole meaning of the female figure, how simple gestures on canvas can be subtly altered, enabling the subject to express the essence of femininity. Audrey was graduated in 2005 from the University of Toulouse France, with a First Class Masters degree in Contemporary Art . Today, she lives and works in the UK. 22
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See The Light This painting was chosen by Marissa as her self-portrait. Now living in an urban environment after having grown up in Scotland, this painting represents her love of open space and the country.
After previously studying ballet and contemporary dance, in 2007 Marissa Mardon graduated with a first class honours degree in Fine Art. Since then she has sold to clients and exhibited both nationally and internationally. Having grown up in the highlands of Scotland, Marissa's work has always had a strong connection to the nature of her surroundings. Having lived in London and now Rochester, the urban environment has caused her influence to shift.
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Her recent work is inspired by photographic snapshots of reflections. The atmospheric, subtly blurred tones and colours capture the mood and sometimes unnoticed viewpoints of a particular scene. Although her work is presented from a personal perspective, viewers are drawn in by the intimacy of her images and engender feelings of quiet introspection.
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Veiled Woman by Justin Harris, pencil drawing. 26
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P
erhaps the best place to start with an article on the subject of Islam and ‘politics’ is to position myself within its contexts. I come from within the inner faculties of the religion where ‘Islam’ is not relegated to those usual notions of fundamentalism, extremism, terrorism, or any other one of those ‘isms’ which are so carelessly used. My own position in the matter is complex, as it would be for those of us Muslims brought up in settings far from the cultural ‘home’. The west is often regarded as the great enemy of the Islamic world and we so-called hybrids spend a good portion of our lives dealing and contending with those varying and contrasting worldviews. The question of identity and consequently, our sanity, is not pondered once, but several times in the ‘hybrids’ life. We are decontextualized, deconstructed, and recreated, so that at some point or another meaning and sense can be made out of it. It is a sort of self-effacement process which becomes the habitual response to the conflicts of an outside world full of tensions that we occupy.
term but in its depiction through art can help to unveil the imposition of the censored image, even if the real absence is not of image, but of person. When the veil is lifted to reveal the hidden expression of personhood we are able to see politics and the ideals of political hegemony transcend its finite rigidity and there is a process of unravelling, and a journey toward the poetic and artistic expression is envisioned. Aniconism is the proscription against the creation of sentient living beings with its absolute proscription against images of God/Allah followed by depictions of Muhammad and then Prophets and the relatives of the Prophets. It is a common and widely held view among Muslims, especially adopted by the denomination of Sunni Islam. The idea extends to include all living creatures, including animals. The reasons are not limited to simple ideas although the only evidence of that proscription is found in the secondary texts upon which the faith is based – the Hadith, or the collected sayings and teachings of the Prophet – with no apparent evidence within the primary text of the Qur’an.
The identity of the Muslim is a topic that is much debated and one that is not going to be solved any time soon. A much lesser known strand within the idea and perhaps one that could be a more powerful provocation of debate is the unspoken expression of selfhood. This form of expression does not demand understanding on any literal
Partly the reason for this proscription is to avoid the idolatrous worship of beings, much like it is in certain facets of Christianity. Iconoclasm is upheld in places of worship to stand against the worship of anything other than God. In particular, for Islam, images which 28
Shirin Neshat ’Speechless’ 1996. Resin coated print. Photo Larry Barns 29
centralise the Prophet and his family (putting aside those found in art forms which illustrate events) are negated virtually everywhere in the Islamic world. In fact we have so few visual portrayals of Muhammad that the only descriptions and representations of him to be found are written in books or, as is more commonly valued in the Arab speaking worlds, within its oral tradition. However, even a mental portrayal, depicted through word and literature is prohibited, other than of his physical appearance and this is selectively measured to contain a significance of his pious character. Its purpose is to aid the devotee to aspire toward higher ideals – those that are attentive and focused on retrospection of God and the cosmological universe, are the only projections which are to be aspired in ourselves.
encapsulate religious and spiritual meaning has not been a negative influence on the Islamic tradition. If anything it has given rise to the more beautiful and beatific, often decorative sacred art of geometry and calligraphy which the western world has been greatly influenced by. The absence of iconography has not played a negative role but in effect has positively opened up the sacred arts of Islam. Artists within Islam, unlike the modern or postmodern arts of the west, tend not to project themselves outside of themselves. The individual impression plays a smaller, or rather a passive, role, one in which the most pertinent and significant symbols are projected within the substance of a communal value system. Rather than art embodying the personal, the individual tends to enter the sacred realm where she is completely at one with the space that occupies everything within and without. Islamic art aims to create ambience, serenity and peace, where nothing, no idol or image of self or person is able to stand. In that space between a person and the invisible presence, the expression of the infinite, the sublime, and the intangible becomes manifest, thus
As for the description of God, we find the offering of attributes of an immaterial nature such as ‘the compassionate’, ‘the radiant, ‘the holy, or ‘the merciful’, rather than any anthropomorphic ones which again might distort or warp the mind of the devotee from its sole devotion of God as an entity outside of human conception. This turning inward to 30
creating a void and eliminating the turmoil and passions of sufferance in the world.
is only a depiction or the object of our desire, and this desire, this non-reality, the ambiguous falsity of ourselves is not the created being’s choice, to give (or to take) – only the Creator, as antiabortionists would say, has that power.
Another reason, an idea that can be traced back to many cultures of the world, is related to the notion that soul equals life. Any depiction of a living creature with eyes is a depiction of the soul; as the saying goes ‘the eyes are the window to the soul’. The expression that is given within the eyes which capture thought and emotion are in effect, an extension of ourselves and it is this conjecture, that we human beings, who are the created, dare to depict life, dare to capture the essence of soul. In hindsight, this is a rather old fashioned, out-dated mode of thought. Modern medical triumphs have shown us that life can not only be recreated from already existent substance, but can be created from its basic and essential form with the same energy that sparked the universe into being. The metaphysical questions of life are not easily decipherable, indeed how one sees the modern world with all of its virtual realities, has moved us far beyond the questions of life or the substance of life within image. In Islam however, the inanimate being, of our human creation,
It could be said that fine art in the west took a turning towards the abstract when it looked east for inspiration. Part of that movement was a process to liberate the self from being confined to a western ideal of self-expression based on literal or realistic interpretation of the world. It raised the spirit to another level where expression was not contained to a traditional set of orders. It denigrated the idea of aesthetics so that what was perceived as high art was made mundane. It reinterpreted it so that it did not need to fit into a neat niche known within the contexts of beauty or perfection. That ideal of abstraction has always been a part of the Islamic culture and the new modern expression moves along in that vein so that every interpretation is a manifestation of a reinterpretation of its tradition. Islamic art is not lacking, and the figurative, which perhaps has a hard time in the public 31
sphere, still has a strong resonance on a smaller private scale. The point however is that, as a globalised world, we are also immersed in imagery, and perhaps the greater point is that image is a representation of identity, and individuality. Put aside religious dogmatism, or the dogmatism of authority, and allow the opening of the senses, and we find artists such as Shirin Neshat exploring the inner depths of human psychology; of self, of identity, of its deep, dense cultural, historical, and political roots.
expressed as the ghostly, or the Godlike, or the strident embodiment of spirit, soul, and life. The traditions which make the form of the living image absent in their interpretations of culture and identity are certainly not lacking. They are, by not allowing a fruitful production of art in all its forms, perhaps derailing and in effect devaluing something of the human spirit. That is not to say that one needs to believe or accept that the depiction of the self is in some way a negation of aniconism. If the belief is held dearly that the human form is not to be represented or recreated, then self only needs to express its objective reality. Within an ardent order that makes sense in context to its existence, not through its transcendent subjectivity which might or might not, recreate the spiritual form; soul, life, matter: its objectivity is a reflection and a revelation of its deeper workings; its depiction is its subjective and personal truth.
The proliferation of photographic and filmed images is another heated debated, causing all sorts of controversy, with some religious authorities even stating, for example, that all television is unIslamic. It is a pedantic subject which raises hundreds of questions. My personal view on the matter has somewhat shifted over the years. Depicting the self in drawings, paintings and even photographs is not necessarily the objective of my art. Rather it is the questions related to what is considered right or wrong? How, for example, do we filter one thing from another, and why, if we express eyes or image, landscapes or portraits, is it vital to do so? The expression should not necessarily give the explanation, or aim toward the explanation, the centralisation of character is not the epitome of the artistic expression, nor does it need to be
The disadvantage is that artists of the Muslim heritage are limited to producing artwork that is impersonal and distant from their subjective realities, but it is my view that traditional ideas in all sorts of settings are shifting, even if ‘authorities’ on the subjects would rather ignore this idea. It is a fact of contemporary society that those shifts are taking place, in both their ambiguous and their 32
Shirin Neshat, from the ‘Women of Allah’ series 1994 33
non-ambiguous settings. The pillars which once held up the foundations of those so-perceived truths can also be placed within a transitory history as part of the structural make-up of society. Those pillars are the focal objective of postmodernism’s nihilism, the world in which everything is broken down, dismantled, deconstructed and if required, reformed anew. They are merely vanishing sentiments. No longer fixed and ingrained absolute matters of society, they are the transcendental products of a transitional history. Within the contexts of modernity these are fading dogmatic tendencies of prehistoric knowledge. The blurring of cultures and traditions, being an inevitable process of globalisation is an obvious threat for traditional world-views. Within this strain of thought there are endless possibilities and endless hopes, which can if harnessed, give rise to new and meaningful forms of expression. Veiled Woman. Digital photograph by Justin Harris and Esha Mirari
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My love for art and, in particular, figure seemed to have soul, painted by those that drawing goes back to my childhood when I admired, my own images took a life I would sit for hours meticulously trying form of their own and became poignant to perfect skeletal sketches. There was and meaningful. already a fascination with the idea of the It was at this point also that I began to rebody perfect and Barbie had a profound alise what my mum meant when she said impact on me. My world-view revolved 'never draw the human because you will around blonde hair and big boobs on a not be able to give life to it.' Simplistic, I very skinny beige-skinned woman. That agree but for her it had spiritual signifiideal was what I could plan on being, cance. In my mum’s mind it was so literal even if I had brown boobs and black skin. that she believed that on the day of Not that any of this mattered to anyone reckoning God would ask me to implant else around me. Barbie was the last thing life into my drawings, and when I would on my mother's mind. For her it was all not be able to do it, I’d be condemned to very simple and very literal. Barbie was the torturous fires of hell eternally. bad because she was a depiction of the There was a time when I became so human being; a very sexualised one, radicalised in my thinking that I destroyed which would never enter the vicinities an entire collection of artwork that of our home. Barbie symbolised hell, evil, depicted me or the human form. Though and seduction. She also represented eveI don’t regret that (most of it was rubbish) rything that Islam was not. So I never had I’ve asked myself many times after why I a Barbie, though I fantasied about her my felt it so necessary. Was it actual fear of whole childhood long. what could happen to me beyond death? My drawings also weren’t important to On some level, did I believe that drawing my mother. She had very little in eyes, which if idea that I was configuring captured correctly, I became so myself on a model that was would depict the radicalized I destroyed entirely outside of everything I essence of the soul? knew. I didn’t need Barbie to Or, was it something an entire collection of imagine what the perfect womelse, related to polartwork. an looked like. Television did itics and a statement that and I imagined it all for against the western myself: the perfect body, the perfect face, establishment of power, authority and the long beautiful hair, the dress, and of hegemony? I decided it was probably a course the perfect boyfriend who came combination of the two, since the ideas with that perfectly unobtainable perfect which led to the act were political, lifestyle. Having said that, the one thing it but the act could only occur if there was did do was improve my drawings so that some deeply held belief that it was a sin after years of struggle and frustration to to capture a human expression. express myself with the depth and meaning that emerged out of a painting that 35
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After leaving university eighteen years ago I’d expected things to have changed”. But when Becca Williams returned as a mature student to take a foundation course in Art and Design she found the experience of further education to be very different from first time around. “It was a bit of a shock that the tutors, who’d all seemed so ancient first time around, were younger than me. And it was scary that the other students looked like children! But I’d expected that and prepared myself for it. What I wasn’t prepared for were lecturer notes written so poorly that I could barely read them. Or tutors who seemed to judge how successful their day was by how little contact they managed to have with their students.”
teaching. As fees rise to nearly £9000 many prospective students would think twice about getting themselves massively in debt in order to leave with a degree that doesn’t often translate into high earning power. Combined with a general feeling that the standard of teaching does not live up to expectations, the courses barely seem worth last years’ fees, let alone the new, inflated payments. Not everyone is disappointed. Daisy Parris, a second year student at Goldsmiths is happy with her course. She says “I'm lucky to have missed the rise in fees, but even if I had caught them, it wouldn't change my mind about going to university. In terms of value for money, art courses are one of those where you get the most out of it because you get a studio space, visiting artists and art talks and no doubt you'll meet the most interesting people.” Her optimistic outlook could be because she is at one of the best art schools around and so standards are likely to be their highest.
Becca says the emphasis on the business element was tangible. The course leader was often away on round the world trips drumming up overseas business. “Most aggravating of all were the constant interviews for next year’s students. They were plonked in our studio space to wait for their interview—the tutors spent all their time interviewing instead of with us. Fortunately my course was discounted due to my mature status. Quite frankly, it was cheap. But you wouldn’t have wanted to pay any more for it.”
For recent arts graduates, leaving university at this time of economic instability has knocked the edges off their enthusiasm. Sophie Penford graduated last summer from Manchester having received a 2.1 B.A. Hons. in Embroidery. During her course she undertook work experience with Alexander McQueen and in New York with set designer Janine Trott (who works for Vogue and photographer Tim Walker). However, all these stellar internships have translated into very little. “At the moment the only work that’s been offered to me has been more unpaid internships. Why pay a graduate when there is an army of interns willing to do it
Applications to some art schools (or the art and design faculties of universities) have dropped by as much as 30% this year. Tales of students having two minute tutorials on the hoof after flagging down their tutor in the corridor are rife. The fine art students at the beleaguered London Metropolitan University refused to attend their 2012 degree show, in protest at their poor 36
for free? I’ve found that since leaving I’m less employable even as an intern as a company’s view is that graduates who intern expect jobs at the end of it.”
well organised, self- motivated, hard-working etc. but can’t find a job in my industry.” Sophie has taken the route well-trodden by many people with flair and determination during a recession. She’s started up her own business and a year on is building up a successful design company. But it’s been hard work. “Perhaps if the issue was addressed of helping to create students who view the end product of a degree as a means of securing a job but at the moment the emphasis is on creativity. Almost as if while you are at uni you can ‘play’ and then when you leave it is your own problem to sustain yourself in the ‘real world’. The link between art and the ‘real world’ is fragile and contentious. In an
Sophie says much of the course itself was excellent, although there were still some issues with teaching. “Second year was like no man’s land. Barren of teachers and teaching.” Asked if she would be happy to pay the new fees Sophie replies, “At the moment no. As a recent graduate I have yet to reap the benefit that a degree is supposed to give. I have knowledge yes, and I have pushed myself creatively but I would have to say my skills are unemployable in terms of embroidery. I have gained life skills – 37
Self-portrait by Daisy Parris, silver biro, oil pastel and acrylic on card. 38
article for the Royal Academy of Arts Magazine, Robert Hewison interviewed the artist Bob and Roberta Smith, who claims it was when Peter Mandelson moved responsibility for higher education to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The link between fine art and business is credible. After all, there wouldn’t be thousands of people employed making iPads or mobile phones if it hadn’t been for the creative visionaries who thought them up. But that creativity and innovation often needs time and space to breathe – which could often be found in art school. Without them there’s a little less space for the visionaries to innovate.
to ensure university teachers had some form of teaching qualification. But this has effectively ruled out the traditional use of practising artists as part time tutors, cutting students off from the experience of being a real artist. Tutors who are both true artists and excellent teachers are a rare find. So, what’s the future? It is frightening to think that in fifteen years’ time we’ll be reaping the rewards of years where hardly anyone studied fine art for it’s own sake. Or perhaps we will be forced into adopting Cameron’s Big Society approach. Are there enough successful practicing artists to get together and create unofficial art schools that do not require huge amounts of funding but could help young people get a fine art education? Or, most fantastically of all, will Michael Gove and his ilk realise that fine art might, in some circumstances make big money but it should never be big business.
The confusion over who and what is a teacher and university is also a problem. Traditionally university tutors were people of academic distinction. However, sometimes didn’t possess great people skills and it was thought important
Sophie Penford’s design website can be found at Clementine and Bloom
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Self –portraits from our contributors Left Daisy Parris, Photobooth
I spent a whole year in sixth form doing self portraits, paintings of myself but they were never really of me; I just used my face as vessel to explore paint and colour, and that's how it has always been. When one of my paintings resembles its subject it makes me uncomfortable, so I cancel out as much as possible any resemblance of a face. (See Daisy’s self-portrait on p.38). The Photobooth is a different story. It’s an intimate place where I am forced to get to know my face.
Self-portrait, collage
Marion Smith
“I found it really difficult to look at myself. It is so much easier to look at someone else, since you never look into your eyes, only out of them. “
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A boy wearing a thick sweater Asks to open the window. Cold air, sharp with damp, Blows through her. If she were on the train, To Erzerum or Isfahan, Jolting lazily, head lilting, The heat surrounding her so thickly, She’d raise her arm slowly, Through dust fluttering, In the white sunlight. In Istanbul, he bought Her wedding ring, a mean thing With fake stones. She found the Haghia Sophia Such a disappointment. She has a solid gold ring now From a different husband, yet She longs for the Silk Road again. She would like to try again. Once was not enough, there’s pain In knowing. Now it’s done. She always thought she could go back. At break, she wraps up in her Orange dressing-gown. The students eye sideways. She looks at their work And sees they have painted themselves In her pose. She need not be here. She could be ... In Xanadu.
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By Lou Baxter
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