The purpose of the thesis is to reflect upon the female nude imagery in the counterculture publication London Oz 1967 - 1968, with the retrospective understanding that the alienation involved had a profoundly detrimental effect on my art practice at the time. My aim is to interrogate the past with a view to informing creatively my present work. My thesis is a body of paintings accompanied by an exegesis and a catalogue, from the shed to the dining room and back, 2002, as a work in progress of the MVA. / Thesis (MVisualArts)--University of South Australia, 2005.

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2001. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: A spectacle denotes an impressive or deplorable sight, and necessarily involves the power and politics of viewing. The female body exists as a sexualised object of these processes of looking within Western culture, not only in high art, but also in discourses such as medicine and science. In both art and medicine the female body has been treated as a passive object to be studied, analysed and classified. Power relations and patriarchal ideologies have played a great part in the resulting objectifying representations, firmly locating images of the female body within the realm of the spectacle. Bodily perceptions, in terms of the female body, have changed much, particularly through the reinterpretation of sexuality through feminist theory. Modem culture and technology have opened up many new possibilities for the redefinition and understanding of the body. Modem bodies seem to be under as much close surveillance and scrutiny as their nineteenth century counterparts. This study explores these ideas through a wide range of examples from painting, photography and performance art, and non-art objects such as anatomical objects and medical illustrations. Central to the construction of the body as spectacle, are issues of looking and viewing. Chapter 1 examines ideas around the gaze; the politics and processes of vision, objectification and fetishisation are explored in relation to the functioning of the medical and aesthetic gaze. The concept of spectacle is also elaborated upon in terms of ideas around the nineteenth century carnival and freak show, and in terms of societal taboos and transgression. Aspects of aesthetic and medical discourse focus on the display and scrutiny of the female body. Chapter 2 examines the way in which these discourses attempted to reveal the female body by rendering it in highly visual terms. The dominant ideologies informing both discourses played an instrumental role and resulted in representations that defined the female body in normative standards and ideals of beauty and health. Pornography is considered as a modem discourse in which the female body is defined and displayed as an object of scrutiny. Feminist theory challenged exclusively male representations of the female body and the subversion of traditional forms of representation of women is studied by examining the work of Annie Sprinkle and Cindy Sherman. Many representations of the female body by feminist artists are considered highly disturbing and transgressive, precisely because they traverse traditional and acceptable representations of it. The idealised nude forms the epitome of contained ideals of health and beauty, and the work of Orlan and Cindy Sherman is examined within these terms in Chapter 3. These artists' representations of the female body are in direct opposition to such norms, rather settling for an open-ended, unconfined and abject representation. However, such transgressive cultural images produced by women artists are often regarded as pathological acts, and dismissed in terms of deplorable spectacle. The research concludes with a commentary on the candidate's practical work, which in dealing with the representation of the human body explores some issues of visuality, spectacle and fragmentation. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: 'n Spektakel kan op 'n indrukwekkende of betreurenswaardige skouspel dui; gevolglik betrek dit die politiese en magseienskappe van besigtiging. Die vroulike liggaam bestaan as 'n seksuele objek van só 'n proses van besigtiging binne die Westerse kultuur - nie net in kuns nie, maar ook in diskoerse soos geneeskunde en die wetenskap. In beide kuns en geneeskunde, is die vroulike liggaam beskou as 'n passiewe objek vir bestudering, analisering en klassifisering. Magsverhoudinge en ideologieë het gevolglik 'n groot rol gespeel in die uiteindelike objektifiserende representasies, en gevolglik is die uitbeelding van die vroulike liggaam in terme van spektakel vasgelê. Liggaamlike persepsies, veral in terme van die vroulike figuur, het noemenswaardige veranderinge ondergaan - veral deur die hervertolking van seksualiteit deur feministiese teorie. Moderne kultuur en tegnologie bied verdere moontlikhede vir die herdefiniëring en begrip van die liggaam. Die moderne liggaam word onder streng bewaking en betragting geplaas - net soos sy negentiende-eeuse ewebeeld. Hierdie studie ondersoek dié idees deur die bestudering van 'n verskeidenheid voorbeelde vanuit skilderkuns, fotografie en 'performance' -kuns, asook objekte soos anatomiese objekte en mediese illustrasies. Kwessies van besigtiging is sentraal tot die konstruksie van die liggaam as spektakel. Hoofstuk londersoek dus idees rondom besigtiging - onder andere die politiese en magseienskappe, en die gevolglike objektifiserende effek daarvan - in verhouding tot die funksionering van die mediese en die estetiese blik. Die konsep van spektakel word verder uitgebrei in terme van die negentiende-eeuse karnaval, asook in terme van taboes en sosiale oortreding. Sekere aspekte van estetiese en mediese diskoerse fokus op die vertoning en besigtiging van die vroulike liggaam. Hoofstuk 2 ondersoek die wyse waarop hierdie diskoerse die vroulike liggaam in hoogs visuele terme uitgebeeld het. Beide diskoerse is gemotiveer deur dominante ideologieë, wat gevolglik 'n instrumentele rol gespeel het in die uitbeelding van die vroulike liggaam. Sulke uitbeeldings is dikwels gemotiveer deur standaarde en ideale van skoonheid. Gevolglik word pornografie in hierdie hoofstuk bespreek as 'n moderne diskoers wat georganiseer is rondom die vertoning en besigtiging van die vroulike liggaam. Feministiese teorie skep 'n positiewe ruimte waarin sulke eksklusiewe, manlike definisies en uitbeeldings van die vroulike liggaam uitgedaag kan word. Die omverwerping van tradisionele metodes van uitbeelding word hier ondersoek deur die werk van Annie Sprinkle en Cindy Sherman te bespreek. Die herdefiniëring van die vroulike liggaam deur feministiese kunstenaars word dikwels beskou as onstellend; waarskynlik omdat dit tradisionele en aanvaarbare uitbeeldings van die liggaam oortree. Die werk van Orlan en Cindy Sherman word in terme van sosiale oortreding in Hoofstuk 3 ondersoek. Die klassieke naakfiguur stel die ideale van skoonheid en stabiliteit voor. Hierdie kunstenaars se uitbeeldings toon egter 'n doelbewuste verontagsaming van sulke ideale, deurdat hulle eerder 'n oop, onstabiele en gefragmenteerde figuur uitbeeld. Oortredings van kulturele norme deur vrouekunstenaars word dikwels beskou as patalogiese aksies; en dit word dus maklik afgekeur as 'n spektakel. Die navorsing word afgesluit met 'n bespreking van die kandidaat se praktiese werk, wat die uitbeelding van die menslike liggaam ondersoek. Gevolglik word kwessies van besigtiging, spektakel en fragmentasie verder ondersoek.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Art History, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Teilw. zugl.: Erlangen-Nürnberg, University, Habil.-Schr., 2003.

Chan, Hau Ying. / "December 2010." / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 182-186). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.ii / 摘要 --- p.iii / Acknowledgements --- p.iv / Content --- p.v / Chapter Chapter 1 - --- Introduction --- p.1-38 / Chapter Chapter 2 - --- The body of female life models --- p.39-68 / Chapter Chapter 3 - --- Managing sexuality and maintaining modesty --- p.69-96 / Chapter Chapter 4 - --- Professionalism and passionate work --- p.97-129 / Chapter Chapter 5 - --- The performance of female life models --- p.130-172 / Conclusion --- p.174-181 / Bibliography --- p.182-186 / Chapter Appendix 1- --- A brief introduction of models interviewed --- p.187-189

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This dissertation examines two controversies involving paintings of the female nude by artists Debora Arango and Carlos Correa during a period of political crisis in Bogota (Colombia) in order to open the political to cultural analysis and thus shed light on scenarios of change in the 1930s and 1940s. Unpacking the controversies lends insight into the unique ways in which modernity, the body, its representations, sexuality, gender and politics came together in Colombia during this period. Such an approach also shows that modernity in Colombia involved shifts in religious and secular frames of sense-making and morality. This dissertation argues that the controversies and the female nudes provide a window into the Liberal regime's creation of culture as an autonomous sphere as part of its cultural program, which bridged high and popular culture, as well as on aspects of private life concerned with sexuality and gender. It shows how such changes registered in the lives of the artists and how the artists translated the changes they experienced into modes of pictorial expression. This dissertation argues that the demands of the aesthetic and the demands of politics during this period pressed on each other, resulting in the wide-spread perception of moral breach that came to a head in the "scandals of the female nudes." This dissertation thus sheds light on dimensions of both the political and the private during this period. / Because art and politics were thus entangled, this dissertation shows that, in this particular Colombian modernity, society was not polarized, that the private and the private overlapped, that issues of intimacy surfaced in the public realm, and that Catholicism was the idiom shared by men and women who were grappling with change. It shows that the cultural program of the Liberal regime was the immediate referent for criticism in these events and, through it, of the Liberal regime's reforms of education of 1934 and 1936. Finally, it shows that this modernity and its attendant anxieties were played out through the body in the public and the private realms, within, not against, the Catholic tradition, in unprecedented ways. This thesis demonstrates that politics and issues of sexuality and gender were entangled in the public sphere and converged in the female nudes, turning them into a major threat to morality within both religious and secular frameworks. By unpacking the controversies, this dissertation marks a seminal break with historical accounts that describe Colombia's as a failed modernity, its society as polarized, and debates over sexuality and gender as the product of politics. This dissertation also contradicts art historical writings that account for the production of images and the reception of art in this period solely in political terms.

Rubens' material reality culminates in the tableau which he named Het Pelsken (Flemish for 'The little Fur,' known also as La Pelisse). Of his vast oeuvre it is the most frequently cited work, described by one spectator as an "oil painting of a subject quite unusual...a beautiful woman naked beneath her dark fur." 1 Among art historians the tableau has been the subject of debate as to its 'meaning,' especially since the life-size image does not include narrative paraphernalia that would allow mythological interpretations. But as one scholar wrote, "most are relieved that the work was never meant to be sold."2 / This dissertation's trajectory is different. It points to Rubens' late style tableaux, of which Het Pelsken is one, as items painted in an exquisite technique effecting (bodily) presence, and conceived as commodities destined for circulation. Thus the works are heavily invested by producer(s) and buyer(s). Painted in a sophisticated allegorical language that simultaneously defies easy (narrative) access and yet keeps viewers continuously spellbound, Het Pelsken is being reframed together with some of Rubens' other paintings to establish a dialogue with today's audience. This study analyzes the allegorical paradigm by way of Walter Benjamin's dialectics in order to locate levels of truth---which are of relevance to current viewers---and also probes the forces that generate such an overt and repeated display of the feminine body. In so doing, the study also spotlights neo-allegorists, who in their' more recent art practice reconnect with Rubens and disconnect with some compositional and technical strategies of the Baroque master's paintings. These artists include contemporaries Robert Rauschenberg, Peter Dressler and Jean-Luc Godard. / 1Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, please see Chapter One for more of his commentary. 2Julius Held's research and response is also taken up in Chapter One.

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