level 2 work

MoMA | The Collection | Lucio Fontana. (Italian, born Argentina. 1899–1968)

MoMA | The Collection | Lucio Fontana. (Italian, born Argentina. 1899–1968)

Research/poster idea/material for images

Women, Sport and Society in Modern China: Holding up More than Half the Sky - Dong Jinxia - Google Books

It is women athletes who have excelled and they have been accused of using enhancing drugs. Male athletes do not seem to be using them?

Use for poster details gender/drugging and the Olympics.

research web-site address/steroid use

anabolicsteriodsuk.net

Poster information - controversial political /Mexico and Art as part of modern Olympic Games

The Tlatelolco massacre, also known as The Night of Tlatelolco (from a book title by the Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska), was a government massacre of student and civilian protesters and bystanders that took place during the afternoon and night of October 2, 1968, in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City. The violence occurred ten days before the 1968 Summer Olympics celebrations in Mexico City. In response there is a contrast between raised arms at crossing the finish line in the stadium and the felling of protesters.  A photograph of a model crossing the line and then being shot would perhaps highlight the terror caused that day.

Art competitions formed part of the modern Olympic Games during its early years, from 1912 to 1952. The competitions were part of the original intention of the Olympic Movement's founder, Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin. Medals were awarded for works of art inspired by sport, divided into five categories: architecture, literature, music, painting, and sculpture.
The juried art competitions were abandoned in 1954 because artists were considered to be professionals, while Olympic athletes were required to be amateurs. Since 1956, the Olympic cultural programme has taken their place.

steroid abuse photos/ poster

possible sculpture idea for a 'doll'

1- <http//:Flikr.co./photos/muscleMAM>  2- <http//:Flikr.com/Flikrtoys (created with fds)>

This imagery though extreme leads me to a project of a poster as a controversial topic for print workshop or digital art.

 

Controversial now but not in Ancient Greece was the perception of women and the limits to their viewing of and participation(even in doping) in Olympic Sport. My poster would emphasis this by listing the many doping options of Ancient Greece. When women were allowed to compete in ownership of horses or in the Heraea would they also have doped themselves?

* In general, doping issues were played down at this 2012 Olympics. See further research below

poem and textured painting

Oil paint sketch for painting of racer in womens Heraea race of Ancient Greece. Inspired by my own poem :  

Blowing past a static gaze

As if Hera blew her legs
over hero-shadows. Her flying feet,
her pearl-shining momentum
obscures my steadfast stare.

To shame me of my flesh and blood

NB
My interest here is to create an ethereal figure glympsed as someone who mocks me. a 'pearl-like shine'  needs development and the background will be made on board with worked in oil paint mixed with plaster or texture medium to create an opaque interest. I could do glazes over the whole when finished to look like it is farther away. Her strength in this sketch comes out and denies the ephemerel look that I wanted. A further study of glazes and method in painting will produce I hope the 'obscurity' of antiquity. Her image is wholly imagined and it seems(rather I have not found so far)there are not pictures of these racers from the time.

Reference - Collingwoods theory of aesthetics abbreviated in Aesthetics the classic Reading, edited by David E. Cooper. 1997: Blackwell Publishing,Oxford. pgs 261-262

 When Berenson (speaking of Cezanne) speaks of tactile values, he is not thinking of things like the texture of fr and cloth, the cool roughness of bark, the smoothness or grittiness of a stone, and other qualities which things exhibit to our sensitive finger-tips. (bu t) ...but of motor sensations such as we experience b y using our muscles and moving or limbs. ...imaginary motor sensations. ......In short: what we get from looking at a picture, or even stride about the gallery; what we gewt from looking at a picture is not merely the experience of seeing, or even partly seeing and partly imagining, certain visible objects; it is also .....the imaginary experience of certgain complicated muscular movements.pg 261
 

 

Sketch for textured painting

Sketch for a painting series - Heraeas for Life ( title to be finalised later)

This quick sketch catches movement and effort of those movements
Materials would be oil paint on canvas
Size to be determined but large running off the large canvas would be best!

Sculpure (relief) Peplos information

Brain storming

Initial ideas x2

•  1- POSTER -make a visual aesthetic semblance of the paradigm; does the end justify the means?  There is a controversy of taking anabolic steroids to improve performance versus the consesquences of that gain. I envisage making a large steroid capsule or of sketched ideas using the pill within the finished piece. A poster of forms of doping with photoshoped images and conceptual use of words and images.
• 2 - PHOTOGRAPY make a visual photograph series of crossing the finish line - try to visualise the moment in terms of how a personal achievement elevates the human spirit. Can I make a statement visual or conceptual on how the human spirit if it has a significance is highlighted in physical competition. Analogies to failure visual represe ntation of failure could make a comparison. I could imagine consequences of not having the Olympics - does it have a significance?
• 3  - PAINTING/PRINTING/SCLULPTURE  make sketches using the colours of ancient Greek vases and imagined figures painted on them. Paintings of Heraea runners thought to create a shard of ceramic or resin which represents a piece of our history but has a relevance to our modern spectacle of the Olympics.  Comparing  moral and aesthetic aspects of the Ancient Olympic agenda to our perhaps more commercial and now global coverage of the Olympics. This comparison should lead to a visual imagined contrast of form. Research on Olympics
• Plato on Women and the Family chapter Part Six  The Republic,  1987. Translated by Desmond Lee; Penguin Classics, Penguin Books.

doping information website

Incidents of doping fall at Olympics - FT.com

Acrylic painting of a winner of the |Heraea

Painting project - winners of the Heraea were allowed to put a painting of themselves in the Temple of Hera (though there are no existing examples). Resonant of Greek painted sculptures I have  used appropriate colours to make an imagined self-portrait of an ancient Greek winner. They wore their hair loose and flowing, she is  around 13 years old. See notes of research about the race. This could be a model for a bust as well. Winners could put a statue of themselves in the Temple. 

Below: imagined armour for a 'guardian' of Platos Republic. Sited from his chapter Women and Family. Guardians could be women but had to live with other guardians and not in a family. I imagine she could run with armour as part of her war training and could run in an Olympic Race in Platos system.

Oil bar painting on canvas - primed with gesso (in part - I left the area around the armour plain - just as an experiment. This would have to be done in finished painting. Layers need to be built up to get modelling correct. The final layers would be oil paint to highlight small areas where a sheen might be still there. It could also be done as a brand new armour piece in oils or oil bar. More experimentation needed.

Armour could be sculpted in fine mild steel mesh. Chicken wire could be sculpted to be finished in plaster bandage and then painted in emulsion to seal and oil paint or acrylic over that.

(Original in large collected sketchbook)  This painting could also be used for a print series also

Photographic piece - Michaelangelo crossing the finish line

finish line

David Hockney's televised programme of Photography inspired me to take photographs not looking all at once at the subject. Here is an example of taking images from direct samples of the image at a relevant height  so that each is in the middle of the photographic plane. I want develop this with  models expressing the movement of the finish of an imagined Olympic Race.

 

Sculpture sketch for installation 'Scale and no Practical Effort''

Old School Vaulting Horse - Bring It On Home    

Sketch idea for a sculpture installation

This idea is based on my memories at school. Wearing a terrible blue gym slip with poppers on the front and the moment I realised I would not grow any more - smallest of my family -

There was a horse in the school gym which was unreachable for me (as I thought then) I then subsequently found out years later that gymnasts were small and used a vaulting spring to get over the vault!

Scale and my relationship to the physical world seems relevent to Olympic achievement - unobtained by so many.

An interactive element for this piece will include a place for viewers to write down their experiences in school or in further sport activities and their disappointments/successes. As a sculpture I want the piece to come apart to be of different scales

Materials
Polystyrene initially to allow a large scale piece. This could be then fashioned in veneered wood or resins. The figures could be projected around the piece seeming ethereal.

Print idea/ watercolor painting of 'Flame'

Olympic flame inspired print idea

This painting encapsules the spirit of igniting a flame either of ambition, striving for physical excellence or individal fleeting activity of human experience.

Photoshoped image to tidy and add then do a print with digital photo on etched image.

Painted image  with real gold leaf applied to acrylic paint on paper. Research best way to used gold leaf ie with oil, acrylic before or after application of the later. This could be a printed piece either etched and acquatint with gold painted over, or digital print.

local photos torch procession/newburgh (see sketchbook)

olympic dopping info

Kristine Toohey and J.J.Veal The Olympic Games: A Social Sciencd Perspective. 2007: Biddles Ltd, Kings's Lynn, Norfolk.  (Chapter8 - Doping and the Olympics)

1. constant advantage sought by Olympians since early history  - sketch the most bizarre of them?  wrestlers ate 10 pounds of meat per day to increase strength (sketch or purchase 10 pounds of meat?)
2. sesame seeds thought to give increased endurance
3. Olympic horses given 'hydromel' oats honey and water to increase staying power
4. heroin and cocain in 1865 Dutch canal swimmers
5. First death reported of a cyclist from doping in 1886 when Arthur Linton died from stimulant trimethyl (Parisotto, 2006)
6. 19th century -  caffeine tablets (FR) breathing oxygen and taking cocaine (British)  (Goldman and Klatz, 1992)
7. What is fair and what unfair in enhancing peak fitness.  IDEA SCALES WITH BALANCED DRUG RELATED ARTICLES  (this ready-made could be sculptural and interactive - to further the discussion)(see page pg 174 )

for: doctors therefore fewer deaths or side effects could advise on drugs safe to take and prevent black market inferior quality drugs. Level playing field less advantage for drug takers or at least acknowledged.  Rich countries can afford the drugs.  Sport records would continue to improve and drugs would be safer due to pressure to develop safe drugs and the goal of catching all cheaters is unattainable

against: essence of sport and philosophy of the Olympics emphasis fair and equal competition, difficult to monitor rates or dosages, some countries could not afford ever escalating prices of sophistocated drugs, some athletes do not know they are getting drugs so dehumanising and damaging and long term effects still not known.

IDEA - PRINTED POSTER ADVERTISING DRUGS WITH SEPARATE OVERLAPING SCREEN PRINT IMAGES OF THIRD WORLD ATHLETES AND  TYPES OF DRUGS AND DOPING USED BLOOD DOPING SHOWN. (Use friends to model as the athletes and newspaper headlines or web site photos collaged onto the print)

like metallic mesh and latex - Heraea girl racers

Sculptural latex mould can be used to create a girl of Hera. Unmarried women

raced once every four years in the Heraea

(http.//suite101.com/did-womecompete-in-the-ancient-olympics-a107134 )

Quick sketch of a runner which can be made in small sizes and red rubber moulds.

These can then be ddressed in ancient, modern, precocious, Goth or any type of attire.

There would be a series of multiple 'dolls'. An ironic look at how women are perceived in society.

Unmarried women only were allowed to race in the Heraea race of Olympus.

Their prizes were given in three ages groups; all receiving an olive branch crown and part of a heifer (meat carved in shares), dedicated to the goddess Hera when competing is done. These girls were allowed to dedicate their portraits with their names 'inscribed to the Temple of Hera' (website op. cit )

Print as etching/aquatint

print as etching and aquatint over

photo of etching