I'm only into it about 50 pages but its very interesting so far. Cathy loaned me the book after highly recommending it. I'm sure she'll post a comment soon. There is a lot of overlap with how we are thinking about this project. I'll give more feedback when I get further along
I read the whole thing and a few passages several times. page one says something dramatic and informative in terms of the direction of the book. "Ultimately, in the eye's of the avant garde, being undomestic came to serve as a guarantee of being art." (p.1, by Christoper Reed)
At the start it focuses on the transformation of home decorating from high art to something related entirely to female consumerism. From there it traces the use of the domestic space as a studio for many artists, mostly painters, at the turn of the century. In this period the use of family members as models for painting and home or holiday domestic scenes being common. From there the essays begin to unpack modernism's fixation on an absolute right and wrong way to, for instance, build sculpture; a right and wrong material, and that this institutional knowing of right from wrong reinforced rules about making and showing work. This is formally the end of the art salon, the salon's appearing too domestic, too personal. The birth of museums before this period and with this modernist sensibility led to the birth of the white-walled gallery, a supposed neutral space.
And of course we know that the neutrality of a gallery is anything but.
From the establishment of the un-domestic art space the text goes past modernism to look at pop art, the contemplation of pop art being a gay domestic realm, and a time in the art world where men (heterosexual too, think Hugh Heffner) were attempting to understand and experiment with the domestic.
And then through Vito Acconci's work and many contemporary artist's work with the domestic sphere, and/or in domestic spaces.
If you are interested, you should come to ap-ART-ment and read it in our reading area.
hmmm...interesting topic. did you read it? any good?
ReplyDeleteI'm only into it about 50 pages but its very interesting so far. Cathy loaned me the book after highly recommending it. I'm sure she'll post a comment soon. There is a lot of overlap with how we are thinking about this project. I'll give more feedback when I get further along
ReplyDeleteI read the whole thing and a few passages several times. page one says something dramatic and informative in terms of the direction of the book.
ReplyDelete"Ultimately, in the eye's of the avant garde, being undomestic came to serve as a guarantee of being art." (p.1, by Christoper Reed)
At the start it focuses on the transformation of home decorating from high art to something related entirely to female consumerism. From there it traces the use of the domestic space as a studio for many artists, mostly painters, at the turn of the century. In this period the use of family members as models for painting and home or holiday domestic scenes being common. From there the essays begin to unpack modernism's fixation on an absolute right and wrong way to, for instance, build sculpture; a right and wrong material, and that this institutional knowing of right from wrong reinforced rules about making and showing work. This is formally the end of the art salon, the salon's appearing too domestic, too personal. The birth of museums before this period and with this modernist sensibility led to the birth of the white-walled gallery, a supposed neutral space.
And of course we know that the neutrality of a gallery is anything but.
From the establishment of the un-domestic art space the text goes past modernism to look at pop art, the contemplation of pop art being a gay domestic realm, and a time in the art world where men (heterosexual too, think Hugh Heffner) were attempting to understand and experiment with the domestic.
And then through Vito Acconci's work and many contemporary artist's work with the domestic sphere, and/or in domestic spaces.
If you are interested, you should come to ap-ART-ment and read it in our reading area.
muy bien!