Session November 2021
Models in Focus:
Figuring, Agency and Representation
On Monday 1st November he had a conversation that turned the focus on the people represented in paintings and how the very act of representation reverberates with power dynamics that involve the artist, the models, as well as the cultural values of the society both at the time of making the work and the period in which the work is being returned to and revisited.
We will be joined by art historian and curator Adrienne L. Childs whose current book is entitled Ornamental Blackness: The Black Body in European Decorative Arts, and who was guest curator of Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition, and Esther Bunting, founder of Spirited Bodies that promotes body positivism and empowerment through life-modelling, as well as being a performance artist and writer. We explored the ways in which the use of models in art embodies many dynamics of power, often a passive role laden with connotations and denotations of race and gender. We questioned the role that models play in the work and how the process of making allows us to unpack some of these from both an art historical perspective and a model’s point of view. Moderated by Elina Cerla.
