26/04 1pm-3pm The Changing Image of the Artist. LEVEL 2

Hi to LEVEL 2, hope you are all back in UK after battling volcanoes etc.

This Monday, 26/04, 1pm-3pm, we will meet for the PM Speculecture at Wilsons.

The theme will be: The Changing Image of the Artist.

A book by Kris and Kurz, titled: 'Legend, Myth and Magic In The Image of The Artist' concludes with the suggestion that artists pursue what the authors call 'enacted biography', which I interpret to mean, the sense of living out a famous destiny or a life and lifestyle worthy of note i.e. not living a life, but living out a biography.

Another book by Wittkower -'Born Under Saturn' -assembles a range of citations to illustrate the idea that artists might be 'saturnalian' i.e. moody, dark, blown about m by the will of the muses etc.

When we think of the image of the artist Jeff Koons' earlier self-portraits might come to mind, or, alternatively that of Rodchenko in his overalls, Ana Mendieta's body-shape burned into the ground or Ryan Trecartin's You Tube farces etc.

There are an enormous variety of examples and this allows us to presume that the image will continue to change and that we have a part to play in changing the current image of the artist.

To do that we might need to think, to picture and shape the current image and consider whether we aspire to that, or challenge it perhaps, whether we could possibly fit it, or must necessarily forge a new image of the artist as a vehicle for our own practice and identity.

On Monday I will make a brief presentation of a paper designed to provoke a further discussion on this important theme. I will again use a historical approach to loosen current and contemporary preconceptions about our responsibilities in this regard.

To prepare you could look at the sources above, or simply re-think about sources and resources you already use (such as 'Art In Theory', 'Art Since 1900', Bourriaud's writings, 'Unmonumental' etc. all through the 'filter' of the image of the artist.

In Freud's important writings 'On Art and Literature' -collected by Penguin- you can find one his account of Leonardo. Meanwhile, the classic Vasari text 'Lives of the Artists' continues to be an important text with which to be familiar, particularly as the Renaissance saw so many significant changes to the image of the artist with which we still contend today.