Aims
This project will enable you to investigate, document, translate and create narratives of Culture, Class and Taste after visiting the Grayson Perry tapestries ‘ The Vanity of Small Differences’ at Temple Newsam House, Leeds.
Your research should reflect some of the ‘narratives’ undertaken by Grayson Perry in his series of films in examining how ‘Identities’ can be translated and understood
The project provides an opportunity to develop specific relationships as artists and illustrators, through the making of objects and images, to ‘Culture’ and notions of Taste acquired through Socio-Cultural and Class contexts.
Areas of research:
political or ideological affiliation
family and community background.
inherited skills and interests
peer group cultures
collective identities and culture
manners, etiquette, social rules
communities and collective interests
fashions
dominant, alternative or sub-cultures
education and social mobility
communication of Narratives through media; films, music, television, Internet, and social media
entertainment
technologies
gender
notions of similarity and difference; culture, race, sexuality, religion
shared community, regional, global values
customs, histories and traditions
hierarchies ; ‘top down’ or ‘bottom up’ influences
personal expression, consensus and individualism
wealth
kitsch
high, popular and low culture
cultural accessibility
re-defining and free-floating markers of taste
Introduction:
Group tasks and discussion: Christian Lloyd, Bob Partridge (T1/06) Tuesday 18 November 11.15am (all Strands)
How does an understanding of Culture and Taste guide the way we acknowledge, interpret, value and understand cultural objects/cultural capital?
How are cultural artefacts and behaviour codified and how do we decode and employ the codes ourselves as artists?
What makes ‘Art’ contemporary and what essential differences exist in recognising cultural or cross-cultural influences on the ‘modern’ or ‘postmodern’ when responding to cultural artefacts and images?
Stage 1:
Define the following terms:
Culture
Taste
Class
Art
(These can become the introductory source of enquiry in sketchbooks and journals as well as ‘umbrella’ terms in the Blog)
Stage 2
With this Research in mind
Choose objects, images, sections of film, graphic novels and comics, wallpaper pattern books, gallery catalogues, interior design magazines, antiques or works of art catalogues, car manuals, DIY guides, ‘household/lifestyle catalogues eg Ikea? Liberty, B&Q, holiday brochures, menu cards, online clothing catalogues, Deviant Art, Tate gallery guide, etc. that determine and refine aspects of your approach to the Culture/Taste.
Make a series of small drawings, colour studies, prints, montages and collages that experiment with the notion of ‘coding’, ‘signifiers’ and the semiotic of groupings. Work from these small works on other scales and in changes of media.
Analyse and deconstruct the ‘iconic’ stereotypical and eccentric in pursuing your own developing interests and reflections on Taste and Culture. Extend this to include video and 3D structures. Use visual art elements –composition, colour, structure, dynamic, line, shape, pattern etc to develop particular ways the viewer might ‘read’ these images, films or objects.
Stage 3
Develop a series of works that demonstrate your understanding, as a contemporary artist or illustrator of the narrative subject matter as a:
Focus
Challenge
Critique
Celebration
Develop an appropriate language that conforms to, extends or proposes alternatives to current paradigms
Consider the context for the output: gallery, book, zine, site specific, lens-based, magazine, internet, collaboration, community, performance
Use sketchbooks, journals, notebooks and Blogs in tracing your development of idea and imagery and the cultural/artistic contexts for this production
The first thing that comes to mind when I read this brief is the stereotypes that surround the different classes. How do we define who is in what class? I know I'm not alone in walking around and categorising people into how rich they are. What I want to know is where these categories come from and if there is actually any truth in them - if there is, what is the reason for them?
Each class faces a negative stereotype somewhere or other. Working class = chavs/aggressive/benefit dependent. Upper/middle class = snobs/uncaring/tax frauds.
I'm going to begin how I begin every project, with observation. I'll go out and sit and draw and take notes on anything I think is relevant.
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