"John Curin"

Written by Boris Staci
Published by Barry N. Abrams, Inc, 2003

The book catalogued John Curin's career up from around the 80's, portraying his ideas and Thoughts on his own work. I feel John Curin's ideas are loosely based around the idea of humour. His style is very much classic and controlled. He has never used modern techniques, Yet there is a beautiful abstraction in his works, which I feel makes light mockery of the Subject. A fluid distortion within the figures he draws. He spoke in the book about his works Being a "metamorphosis" of the past and the present. A merging of the two, both "exhausted categories". Today’s nudes are pushed to be perfect and slim. Tall and slender. We now have diet pills, surgery or even image editing programmes in which we can achieve these goals of perfection. This idea pushed him to produce quite contrasting ideals. Extremely large women, with sagging flesh. Large, voluminous breasts and hips, elongated thighs. Skinny figures, deathly thin.

The book gave me a thought as to how it compared with my photography task. The theme I had chosen Was 50's horror. Something glossy. Something glamorous. Something synthetic and made-up. My Female model was chosen by her slender, full figure. I did not choose someone of a larger frame however, because I felt that it would spoil the idea of the plastic dream world that older films Of their time produced. I needed to play on the thought of stereotypes, and even my 'killer' was of a large dark frame, towering over the 'damsel in distress', of which was a curly blonde, had red lips and long black eyelashes. Thinking of the mere facial expressions in the heat of a murder scene always leaves a smile over my face, because I see an element of humour, and over-exaggeration, compared with today's modern films.

Curin was bringing this to our attention when it came to magazines and mass media. Movie stars and celebrities were made up to be perfect, and everyone wished to be just the same, setting ridiculous goals to become something of a clone. This high contrast for me, made the humour in his paintings come alive. This is what intrigued me the most. The realistic way he paints made the images seem real. True to life. The meaning being that not everybody is picture perfect. We all accumulate flaws over time. And this will never change throughout any society.

Yinka Shonibare MBE

Our recent trip to the Auckland art gallery came as an unusual surprise. A mixture of colourful patterns and traditional European clothing design typical to the renaissance period were present in the works. The capital artist on display by the name of Yinka Shinabore, played on an idea of African fabrics, as we would first interpret them to be, not necessarily as they are. In relation to the fashions of the time period, and the country in which the artist has portrayed in his works through traditional European garments, the fabric is not what they would want in their own fashions. It is African, and too loud for their reserved style. The chunky, bright patterns are somewhat distracting. This is what is ironic about the pieces. Even though they assumed the fabrics to be ethnically African, underneath it was actually made locally in Holland, fabrics which would have usually been made to their liking.

I felt that the sculptural aspect helped to push out the idea of semiotics, as the dummy's weren't the people themselves, they merely stood in for the people who would have worn the clothes, Well dressed Middle and upper class Europeans. Their heads missing, it made us focus purely on the clothing that they were wearing. The fabric was the main signifier to his work. It represented the fabrics used and made in Africa, although these fabrics were not at all made or designed there, they were Dutch.

This was used to symbolise racial harmony between the two groups. White and black together as one. The whole concept of fusion between European make, and African flavour and style was the signified as the fabrics were thought to be what they weren't. The woven garments were only made from something replicated to look authentic, standing for the "Nigerian design", made either locally or in Singapore. After the European colonisation of some countries in Africa in the 18th to 19th century period, the Dutch settlers came and started to sell imported fabrics that were (most importantly) cheap, bright and colourful. This became so common to a point that we made the assumption of the fabrics origin as African.

O Tamaiti

I thought the film that we viewed about the Samoan family was heart breaking because of it being so true to life. Many children in Samoan families expirience this, as they tend to have many brothers and sisters that need care but no one to be there to care for them, leading them to having to run the family themselfs.

The fact that there was no spoken dialogue in the film gave it an edge, which put emphasis on the sound used in the film. Even where there was use of dialogue between the parents and the children, it was spoken in Samoan, without dubbing or subtitles so that we would concentrate more on the audio features of the film. This helped to push the idea that there was nobody of parental age around to be there in the family to help the kids when they needed it. The parents mostly kept to themselfs.

At the start of the film the boys echoeing footsteps, coin slotting into the machine, and the brother complaining about the coke (without spoken word) gave an eerie emptiness to the films mood. Where were the parents? What were the children doing waiting out in a hospital corridoor? The mere suggestion that the older brother had to form a parental role between him and his siblings came from the coke that he had provided for them and shared around. it prortrayed the idea that they all had to fend for themselfs in the world, since they had no one to depend on. And as we then hear the cries of a baby, and see the unsatisfied look apon the older brothers face, we realise then, that there is yet another to be added to the family, to be looked after by the rest of the children.
As we later find out about the baby's passing, it is gut wrenching to think that all of those kids could just as easilly end up like their baby sibling, from being unsupervised. If one were to fall, who would be out there to help? Nobody. No one.

Disposable teens

Marilyn manson's video clip, "Disposable teens" ia a prime example of his own self elaboration, in which he has purposely made himself appear larger than life.

The very first shot of him, emerging from the water is very much demonic in appearance. The pale irises, thin white frame, large black lips and blacked out eyes make him seem almost non-human. This is similar to the many venus statuettes, (the first being found in Austria in 1908 ) as they were of something eye catching, and popular. Key sections of the stattuette were enlarged, whilst some were almost non-existent. This was because everyone looked at large breasts, and large stomachs back in that particular time period as beautiful because it was a symbol of fertility. In todays age, the ever growing want to be thin and made up, (which is NOW considered beautiful) has grown to such an extent that marilyn has created something of himself which over exaggerates this. No normal man could ever look like this non-human "person" naturally, without some kind of drug or surgery. Perhaps this is the reason why many see him as a symbol of Satan himself.

In the BBC documentary they spoke of baby seagull chicks recognising the red stripe on their mothers beaks, tapping at it for food. When faced with a stick with the same red stripe printed over it, they reacted in the same way, if not more when faced with a three striped stick. Like the birds favouring three stripes over one, Manson over exaggerates his looks to draw attention to himself. What he has done is drawn awareness to his own personal image through make-up, wigs and costume. He is the extreme of what people want to be. Skinny, made up and fake.
Standing clad in the robes and mitre of a bishop, he is presenting himself as a religious symbol. Bishops are said to be historically dated back to the original 12 apostles, greek icons of their time. It is an icon that he is trying so hard to become.

This is a strong contrast from the rudimentary begginings of his past, where at highschool he did not stand out from a crowd at all. Now people know him, fear him and worship him as a heavy metal god. Yet, underneath he is really just an average American like any other. People are only drawn to his persona, like the baby birds were drawn to the enhanced yellow stick.

[click on the tape below to see the video]