ESSAY TOPIC: Using the works of Joy Gregory ‘Overlooked and Underreported (2017)’ and Chila Kumari Burman ‘Auto-Portrait (1996-2013)’, investigate how the artists explore the notions of ‘Personal History and Cultural Identity’ in these works.
Introduction: Introduce your question and explain your terms (in this case the
terms are ‘Personal History’ and ‘Cultural Identity’), and say why you are
interested in the subject.
These terms must be explained in terms of the context of the works.
Moreover, this is very important: We were given some reading lists by the
school which must be used throughout the essay. Below I am providing you
with these reading lists and links which are associated with the terms
mentioned in the topic of this essay. Please read those and choose wisely
which ones of them are relevant to the topic and thus have to be used.
This reading lists provide us with some sources which have to be mentioned in
the essay but also more external and relevant sources should be mentioned as
well
(Below I am copy-pasting exactly the file of reading lists as it was sent to us):
In addition to the Weekly Reading Lists here are some suggested preliminary
resources based on the essay titles you have suggested so far:
- ‘context’, ‘institutional context’ and ‘Institutional critique’
Simple definition: Institutional critique
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/i/institutional-critique
Sheikh, Simon. ‘ Notes on Institutional Critique,’ 2006, Tranversal Online Journal,
eipcp. http://eipcp.net/transversal/0106/sheikh/en.html
John Berger, Ways of Seeing
http://waysofseeingwaysofseeing.com/ways-of-seeing-john-berger-5.7.pdf
These also might be useful
Linda Nochlin, ‘Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?’
http://davidrifkind.org/fiu/library_files/Linda%20Nochlin%20%20Why%20have%20the
re%20been%20no%20Great%20Women%20Artists.pdf
Lorde, Audre (1984), “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s
House”, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, Berkeley: Crossing Press, pp. 110–
114
https://collectiveliberation.org/wpcontent/uploads/2013/01/Lorde_The_Masters_Tools.pdf
O’Doherty, Brian, Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space, Santa
Monica: Lapis Press 1999. Expanded edition.
http://arts.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/arc-of-lifeODoherty_Brian_Inside_the_White_Cube_The_Ideology_of_the_Gallery_Space.pdf
Fraser, Andrea. ‘From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique,’
Artforum (Sept 2005): 282-3.
http://www.marginalutility.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Andrea-Fraser_From-theCritique-of-Institutions-to-an-Institution-of-Critique.pdf
Smithson, Robert. ‘Cultural Confinement’ (1972) from Robert Smithson: The
collected Writings, edited by Jack Flam. Berkeley: University Of California Press,
1996, 154-156. http://www.berk-edu.com/VisualStudies/readingList/08d_smithsoncultural-confinement.pdf
Bourdieu, Pierre and Alain Darbel. The Love of Art: European Museums and their
Public (1969), Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991.
Lippard, Lucy, and John Chandler. ‘The dematerialisation of Art’, Art International,
12:2 (February 1968).
Or [later version] Lippard, Lucy. Six Years; The dematerialisation of the art object
from 1966 to 1972 (1973). Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ of California Press, 1973.
Buchloh, Benjamin. ‘Conceptual Art 1962-69: From the Aesthetics of Administration
to the Critique of Institutions.’ October 55 (Winter 1990): 105-143.
Berelowitz, Jo-Anne, ‘From the Body of the Prince to Mickey Mouse’, in Oxford Art
Journal, no 13-2, 1990, 70-84 Altshuler, Bruce, The avant-garde in exhibition: new
art in the 20th century. London: University of California Press, 1998.
Rosler, Martha. ‘Lookers, Buyers, Dealers, and Makers: Thoughts on Audience’
(1979) in Brian Wallis (ed), Art After Modernism: Rethinking Representation, New
York: New Museum of Contemporary Art 1984.
http://www.boconnell.org/boconnell/LINKS/CLASSES_PDFs/Sculpture3.2/Rosler.pdf
Burn, Ian and Ramsden, Mel, The Role of Language, 1969, quoted here from:
Harrison, Charles and Wood, Paul, “Art in theory 1900-1990. An Anthology of
Changing Ideas”, Blackwell, 1999. - ‘identity’, ‘cultural identity’, ‘personal history’
Simple introduction: ‘cultural identity’
https://www.tate.org.uk/artist-rooms/collection/themes/cultural-identity
But it is not a simple issue, see the following
‘Yinka Shonibare’s art as an expression of hybrid identity’, Diggit Magazine,
https://www.diggitmagazine.com/articles/playing-cultural-identity-through-art
Jade Montserrat and Daniella Rose King, ‘Some possibilities of) Rural Belongings,
November 20, 2018
https://www.womenandperformance.org/ampersand/28-3-rose-king-montserrat
Also see the bibliography at the end of this text
Tomlinson, J. (2003). Globalization and Cultural Identity. In D. Held, & A.
McGrew, The global transformations reader (pp. 269-277). Polity.
HERE
Fisher, Jean. 2008. “Diaspora, Trauma and the Poetics of Remembrance” in Exiles,
Diasporas & Strangers, edited by Kobena Mercer, 190-212. Cambridge, Mass.;
London: MIT Press.
Weiguo, Q. (2013). Dehistoricized cultural identity and cultural othering. Language
and intercultural communication, 148-164.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14708477.2013.770864
After this, the two works need to be analyzed in terms of:
A) What one can see from the work, how does the work look like, what are
the materials… (a very comprehensive visual analysis for each work). Also two
photographs of each work need to be exhibited and also these photographs
need to include citation. ( Below I am providing you with the photographs of
the works in order to facilitate your research, so that no confusion may arise).
This is the work of Chila Kumari Burman ‘Auto-Portrait (1966-2013)’ which
needs to be citated appropriately throughout the essay.
This is the work of Joy Gregory ‘Overlooked and Under-reported (2017)’ which
needs to be citated appropriately throughout the essay. ( If you manage to find
a better photo of this work online please use it).
B) The works must be used as means, throughout the essay, to exemplify the
key terms of ‘Personal History ‘and ‘Cultural Identity’. How the materiality of
the works arises or conveys these ideas. In other words, the essay must explain
these terms and must investigate how these two works express these terms
and how are these works used in order for these terms and notions to arise.
The works must be use as examples of the theoritical positions. Please divide
the essay in chapters and regulate each chapter for each work.
Word count (4000 words in this case) includes
references and footnotes.
Word count should be declared on the cover page
of the document alongside the declaration of originality.
**If you have any question or queries, in terms of how to construct the essay
or if something has not been very well explained by me throughout this file
please feel free to contact me anytime.