Victoria VanDyke
I chose Victoria Vandyke, not because I particularly like her artwork or think its successful, but because she is a perfect and obvious example of artwork about conflict. In her case, the conflict is between her current self and her history of sexual abuse. She vents out her anger and frustration towards her past through metaphors, such as guns equaling the penis. Although obvious and not quite resolved, her work is extremely powerful and tells a very clear tale of a disturbed past. She is represented by the Lillith Gallery, an alternative space in Canada.
Blowjob 1, 2006, photo collage, dimensions unknown
Cannibal 1, 2001, photography, dimensions unknown
Victoria Van Dyke is a guest artist at the Lilith Gallery. Her work focuses on ideas of cannibalism, snakes, guns, religion, sexuality and censorship. This is the most complete list of Van Dyke's works ever shown online and is exclusive to the Lilith Gallery. Her works are for sale through the Lilith Gallery.
During 2001 Ms Van Dyke worked with a model and a 35mm Canon camera to create art pieces about cannibalism, censorship and sexuality. The model used in Van Dyke's 2001 works are not images of the artist, but are a model known as Kat.
During 2004 and 2005 Van Dyke created sketches/cartoonic self-portraits of herself with rats and poetic pieces about cannibalism, death and sexuality.
During 2006 Van Dyke started creating digital collages using vintage erotica, old postcards, pornography, photos of guns, flags, etc to create a new series called "Guns, Sex and Jesus".
In 2007 Van Dyke chopped off her little toe, stuck it in a jar and tried to show in an art gallery in downtown Toronto. The gallery in question (which prefers not to be named) refused.
Unknown, "Victoria VanDyke." The Lillith Gallery. The Lillith Gallery. 11 Oct 2008
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Artist 2:
Barbara DeGenevieve
Barbara DeGenevieve represents societies conflict. In her work The Panhandler Project, it appears as if she is recruiting panhandlers off the street and bringing them into nice hotel rooms to take somewhat erotic, but funny, nude photos. The humor is not ethical in my opinion. I chose this series because I feel that DeGenevieve isnt talking about a personal conflict, like VanDyke. DeGenevieve is talking to me about MY conflicts, about where i draw the exploitation/political correctness lines. I am personally offended at the idea of controlling and exploiting people for personal gain (art object or theoretical objectives or pleasure). She says in her statement that this, in the end, is a business transaction. I do not agree with this. On the surface perhaps, but in the end, were still dealing with humiliation and exploitation, even if the men involved signed a model release. If you were starving and homless, wouldnt you take your clothes off too? This piece is opportunistic.
For some reason I am incredibly attracted to this piece, perhaps because i dont know what to think of it. It reminds me of my Glitterdick Soliloquy, where I purposely objectified the male figure as well. THIS woman is an oppertunist.
Gordon
This is the video documentation:
http://www.degenevieve.com/files/GORDON.mov
This ethical and aesthetic dilemma provides the subtext of my recently completed Panhandler Project, a series of photographs and video documentation of 5 male panhandlers from Chicago, all of whom are homeless and African American, who I asked to model for me nude. My process was to randomly meet the men on the street, and through discussion, determine if they were willing to participate in the project. The compensation for spending the day with me was $100, lunch and dinner, new clothing, and a hotel room for the night. The hotel room was the location of the shoot. After the shoot, the model was interviewed and we discussed his reactions to the experience. The man then signed a model release, and was left to spend the night in the hotel. In the morning, I picked him up, paid him in cash, took him to breakfast, and dropped him off wherever he wanted to go. Video documentation took place through the entire photo shoot and into the evening until I left the hotel.
Even though my desire as an artist is to make the photographic images beautiful as works of art, they are actually only the by-product of the process involved in the project. I'm much more interested in the video and the conversation/debate/argument that the two forms of visual representation have the potential to create. It is always easier to argue theoretically on either side about the abstract nature of representation and what images mean. However, my intent is to reconfigure the debate to include the subjects of the photographs and video, who have become the objects in an argument that never directly involves them.
Another subtext revolves around issues of class and race - the thorny problems that make most white folks crazy. Being educated, liberal, hyper-sensitive, and until about 3 years ago, determined to be politically correct, one of my biggest fears was saying or doing something that could be considered racist. In thinking about why I did this project, I found that I was interested in putting myself in situations in which I would have to confront my incorrect political correctness. I wanted to see if my fears and discomfort about "sounding" or even being racist in my assumptions and language had some real basis or if it was fueled by the years of PC training I had undergone in academia. Thus my challenge: to create a work so seemingly politically incorrect that it causes, in fact, demands a response.
Nudity in American culture, particularly male nudity, and in this case, specifically the nudity of African-American men, continues to be a contentious issue - the height of exploitation and humiliation for many being the exposure of the naked body. This project directly confronts that notion through the production of video documentation and photographs of the 5 men I have asked to model for me. I don't make any pretense to create a cross section of the homeless population in Chicago - there are only 5 men and all are black. My intention is to trouble and question issues of race and who is of the appropriate ethnicity to do what to whom. I'm not trying to make a specific statement, but to create a situation in which the viewer is presented with a certain set of questions, some of which are ethical, others of which will obviously be personal to the viewer. The shoots are highly sexually charged by nature of the male/female dynamic, but in the end, the situation is a business transaction - money and goods in exchange for a professional service.
DeGenevieve, Barbara. "The Panhandler Project." Barbara Degenevieve. 2006. 11 Oct 2008
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Artist 3:
Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe caused much conflict within the art world. Unlike Barbara Degenevieve, Mapplethorpe took the idea of conflict, class, gender, sexuality and race and didnt turn it into an opportunistic moment. He made meaningful work about very serious subject matter and pushed societies judgments to the front of their minds, as opposed to leaving them as taboo topics.
Man in Polyester Suit, 1980, photograph, dimensions unknown
Helmut and Brooks, 1978, photograph, diemensions unknown
This is an excerpt from an article written about the NEA's grant uproar regarding Mapplethorps work:
That is not what Jesse Helms intended. He wanted ostensibly to show his anger at a photographic show by the late Robert Mapplethorpe and another photographic work by Andres Serrano, both of which received support from the National Endowment for the Arts. These works offended Senator Know-Nothing, although it's a good bet he has never seen them in the original.
They also offended lots of other people, on grounds of religion or indecency, although they were approved for subsidy by the N.E.A.'s regular peer-review procedures. The House of Representatives already had rebuked the N.E.A., but lightly, for these grants; it cut $45,000 - the sum of the Mapplethorpe and Serrano subsidies - from the arts agency's $171 million budget. But it put no restrictions on that budget.
That was not enough for Jesse Helms. When the Senate considered the N.E.A. appropriation, he introduced his Know-Nothing amendment; and its approval put Congress in the position - as Senator Howard Metzenbaum pointed out - of ''telling the art world what is art.'' That's what Jesse Helms really wanted, and what the Senate's acquiescence may have allowed him to achieve.
Wicker, Tom. IN THE NATION: Srt and Indecency." The New York Times [New York]28 July 1989, natl. ed.
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