1st Lesson – Introduction
To what extent can political meanings and values be infused into artworks and
monuments?
Conversely, in what ways do images and artifacts interrogate the political sphere?
We tend to analyze images based on the background information we have about it.
Wants us to approach images with the question “to what extent is this image political?”
Shows “Marat Assassinated” (1793) by Jacques Louis David. Marat was a politician
during the French revolution. One of the pillars of this revolution was an attack on
religion and its superstitions. Painter is one of the key artists and supporters of the
French Revolution. There is a great similarity with this painting and the “deposition of
christ” by Raphael. David depicted a hero who died unjustly so he deliberately recreated
the passion of christ, the best known emblem of unfair suffering. An overlap that is
created between a hero of this new cause, the revolution, and the paradigm of unjust
suffering that is christ. Marat was a martyr of the revolution and was followed by a cult.
Also compares “marat assassinated” to “Meleager sarcophagus” at the met in New York.
It represents a death of a hero. When we look at how meleager’s body is represented
we can see the similarity between the representation of marat and christ in the above
mentioned art works. The image of marat both evokes very powerful models: classical
heroes, passion of christ, being a martyr that are present in the visual dna of 18 th
century French people. When we analyze these works differences matter just as much
as the similarities. “Marat Assassinated” is also very different from “Deposition of
Christ” and “Meleager Sarcophagus” in means of other people being present. Marat is
alone in the painting while Christ and Meleager aren’t alone, this tells us that their
deaths were redeemed by the presence of their friends and followers. However, the
painting that depicts Marat’s death emphasizes abandonment, solitude and isolation
during death.
Shows the photograph “Julile 1, Parktown, Johannesburg” by Zanele Muholi and asks,
“to what extent is this image political?”
It evokes the ideas of poverty and homelessness. The elements that contribute to this
feeling are the newspapers, the way she is lying on the floor on a rug with plastic bags
but, at first glance, these elements aren’t the first things that jump forward. It reminds
us how images could be unsettling to talk about even if we are critically active and
educated individuals. The nude is covered to some extent however the posture and the
gaze engages us, challenges us. The body isn’t aggressive in assertiveness but also it isn’t
hiding itself from others. There is an underlying provocative tension. Newspapers are
condemning the fact that all around the world we are concerned about many things but
not enough about poverty and social injustices. This photograph is political in the most
explicit of ways. It is realized by an artist who declares herself as a visual activist rather
than an artist. She situates her works explicitly in the political arena and within the racial
debate. Zanele Maholi is a South African artist who is also an activist and she actively
campaigns for the LGBTQ community. “Julile 1” is part of a series called “Hail the Black
Lioness” that consists of self-portraits of the artist. The photographs in this series have
in common the use of unusual props that are related to the topics of poverty, injustice,
discrimination, apartheid.
, “Sleeping Venus” (Dresden Venus) by Giorgione and Titian (1507-12): compare and
contrast it with “Julile 1”. As opposed to Zanele Muholi’s deliberate gaze at the
spectator in this painting Venus is not looking to the spectator because she is sleeping.
Venus is offering her body to the viewers gaze unknowingly. The spectator is in the
position of an intruder. “Venus of Urbino” by Titian (1538): again, an allegorical
representation of Venus like the “Sleeping Venus”. Represents the ideal of renaissance
beauty, a perfectly white body that offers itself to the viewer. In this case Venus is
awake and aware of the fact that she is exposed to the outsider gaze. It is openly erotic
and inviting. An unmade bed is very intimate. Here we have a woman showing herself
on an unmade bed. If we compare it with the photograph, we see both similarities and
differences. Difference: In “Venus of Urbino” we see a secluded space that is indoors
and private, whereas in the photograph “Julile 1” she is in more of a public space that
isn’t private or intimate. Personal thought: When I try to make sense of the looks on
both of these women’s faces and their facial expressions I feel like the woman in the
photograph “Julile 1” looks hostile and aggressive as if she challenges the spectator to
look away from her, she doesn’t want to be looked at. On the contrary, the woman in
the painting “Venus of Urbino” challenges the spectator to look at her and admire her.
The way she looks at the viewer seems very inviting.
Shows “Reclining Venus” by Artemisia Gentileschi (1625) and “Maya Desnuda” by Goya
(1797). “Maya Desnuda” belongs to the very long story and tradition of the female
nude.
We are going to take the meaning of politics as it relates to what “policy” is. We will
include into our analysis of what is political and the relationship between art and politics
anything that has to do with the ways in which our communities stick together, organize
themselves and set the rules within themselves.
Art and culture build the foundations of what policies are, they build the means by
which societies work. This is intrinsically political. Every artwork at the moment that asks
you to look at it, it regards (to concern, to look back) you. The image looks back at you,
engages you and by this it forces you to take a stance. Every time you take a posture as
an individual and citizen it is political in a way that you may not be aware of. At that
moment you contribute to the building of a certain type of community, a policy. You are
contributing to fostering, enhancing or disobeying the laws by which a community
works.
We shouldn’t stop analyzing racist works of art because oblivion is not a solution to this
contemporary issue. We have to became more aware and this is not possible by burning
down knowledge. For example if we disregard the paintings that represent ill artistic
canon the photograph “Julile 1” by Zanele Muholi that aims to provoke and protest
would speak to us with a much weaker voice.
Shows the “Portrait of the Vendramin Family” by Titian (1543-1547) and asks “To what
extent is this image political?”. There aren’t any women in the painting. We see men at
an alter with a prominently placed cross on it. It is a painting with a religious
connotation showing a family of men at the alter praying or worshiping. The painting
conveys a very specific sense of hierarchy because only the figure at the center of the
painting is looking towards the spectator which draws the main attention, he is the only
, one touching the alter transmitting the idea that he is the head of the family in question.
The men are wearing official uniforms, an ermine mantle is a token of nobility and office
in the state. Initially what feels like a semi-private environment eventually reveals piece
by piece that it is also about the organization of family and the position of the family
members within the wider community which is the political community. During
renaissance Venice the society is organized into groups, one has to be a legal citizen in
order to access public service of any kind. However, being a citizen doesn’t give you the
rights to access the political office, you can’t be a part of the Venetian parliament just by
being a citizen, but you have to be a patrician (an aristocrat or nobleman). Nobility is
assessed by birth. The right to rule and its responsibilities are rooted in the aristocrat
families.
Shows an ad for the Pennsylvania railroad which depicts a mom and a daughter hand in
hand on a train along with a father seated reading the newspaper along with a childless
couple in the background. We have a different portrayal of the family which consists of
a mother, child and a father. The slogan reads “They go hand in hand… Comfort and
safety”. The image tells the story of a family experiencing a moment of relaxation and
comfort journeying somewhere. “What is political about this image?” The mom is the
dominant and leading figure in this image. The story here is that the family in the
foreground is what is expected from the couple in the background to become. With this
the image becomes both descriptive and prescriptive about what a normal family is like,
what part leisure has in the functioning of a family, what roles the different members of
the family have. The most interesting thing is that no one in this image isn’t explicitly
engaged with anything that concerns the public sphere. The comfort and safety derive
from the fact that everything works the way it should so one can disengage. This
message is political. “Don’t worry, go on a holiday, relax, everything is under control”.
2nd Lesson: Iconoclasms or the power of images
Reading 1: DEBATE: RELIGION AND ICONOCLASM, Idol-Breaking as Image-Making in the
‘Islamic State’ by Finbarr Barry Flood
Iconoclasm: is the social belief in the importance of the destruction of icons and other
images or monuments, most frequently for religious or political reasons.
Arab historians depicted the Mongol invasion of Iraq in the 13th century as destructive.
However, there are many indications that the early rule of the Mongolians wasn’t
marked by destruction or ruin. One of these indications is an inscription (a thing
inscribed, as on a monument or in a book) that is still preserved in Mosul, a city in Iraq.
This inscription stated that a Mongol raiding party stole the monastery’s gold and silver,
including its precious liturgical vessels. The inscription went on to record that, following
a complaint from one of the monastery’s monks, the Il-Khan Baidu, the Mongol ruler of
Iran and Iraq, a Muslim with Christian sympathies, not only restored all that had been
looted, but made amends by means of a generous gift to the shrine of the saint. Shortly
after this generosity of II-Khan was recognized on an inscription on the saint’s grave.
Today neither the inscription or the shrine and monastery exist because they were
, destroyed by ISIS members in 2015. This event is one of the many deliberate
destructions that include Iraqi and Syrian monuments associated with Christian, Muslim
(both Shi‘i and Sunni), and Yazidi communities.
Author’s interest in Islamic architecture started when he was living in northern Iraq.
He argues the fact that ISIS’ ethnic cleansing in Iraq has succeeded in removing a unique
cultural landscape that had survived from late antiquity. Along with enslavement, exile,
murder, rape, ISIS also destroyed Christian, Islamic, and Yazidi monuments across Iraq
and Syria is intending to create a tabula rasa (theory that individuals are born without
built-in mental content, and therefore all knowledge comes from experience or
perception.) “The erasure of the materials of memory is common to many historical
episodes of iconoclasm”.
Reason of destruction: ISIS rejects “shirk” which are beliefs and practices that are
idolatrous, deviated from the worship of one immaterial and unrepresentable God. As
propaganda they use passages from the Quran that talk about the destruction of idols
by Ibrahim. Also An al-Qaeda propaganda video showing the dynamiting of the Bamiyan
Buddhas (they were destroyed by the Taliban because the government declared they
were idols) in March 2001 superimposed the relevant Qur’anic verses on the scene.
In April 2015 ISIS has ordered the removal of all ornamentation in the mosques of
Mosul, including Quranic inscriptions carved or painted on their walls. Because:
-ornamentation is a non-Muslim practice that undermines a necessary visual distinction
between mosques and non-Muslim places of worship
-the potential of ornaments (including even Qur’anic inscriptions) to attract the gaze of
the worshipper and distract her or him from prayer
-the expenditure occasioned by ornamentation, which is viewed as a frivolous waste of
economic resources that would be better spent elsewhere: this one was stressed in ISIS’
reports on this order of stripping ornaments
ISIS uses images as propaganda to promote its cause: ironic-paradoxical
The discursive role of iconoclasm in such spectacles transforms the repudiation (denial
of truth or validity) of images into a potent image of repudiation
Author compares destructions staged by ISIS and the media spectacle of the destruction
of the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad by the US military. The difference between
these two depends on the attribution of divergent status to their objects within distinct
regimes of value. Both phenomena use iconoclasm as a discursive tactic to signal
rupture, the institution of new political orders conceived in term of restoration and
restitution.
NOT DONE
Reading 2: “How statues are falling around the world” by New York Times
About the statues and monuments that honor racist figures being boxed up, spray
painted or beheaded
In Tennessee a statue of Edward Ward Carmack, who was a journalist in the early 1900s
endorsed the lynching of three black men and incited a mob attack to a newspaper
editor Ida B Wells (black), was taken down by BLM protestors.
To what extent can political meanings and values be infused into artworks and
monuments?
Conversely, in what ways do images and artifacts interrogate the political sphere?
We tend to analyze images based on the background information we have about it.
Wants us to approach images with the question “to what extent is this image political?”
Shows “Marat Assassinated” (1793) by Jacques Louis David. Marat was a politician
during the French revolution. One of the pillars of this revolution was an attack on
religion and its superstitions. Painter is one of the key artists and supporters of the
French Revolution. There is a great similarity with this painting and the “deposition of
christ” by Raphael. David depicted a hero who died unjustly so he deliberately recreated
the passion of christ, the best known emblem of unfair suffering. An overlap that is
created between a hero of this new cause, the revolution, and the paradigm of unjust
suffering that is christ. Marat was a martyr of the revolution and was followed by a cult.
Also compares “marat assassinated” to “Meleager sarcophagus” at the met in New York.
It represents a death of a hero. When we look at how meleager’s body is represented
we can see the similarity between the representation of marat and christ in the above
mentioned art works. The image of marat both evokes very powerful models: classical
heroes, passion of christ, being a martyr that are present in the visual dna of 18 th
century French people. When we analyze these works differences matter just as much
as the similarities. “Marat Assassinated” is also very different from “Deposition of
Christ” and “Meleager Sarcophagus” in means of other people being present. Marat is
alone in the painting while Christ and Meleager aren’t alone, this tells us that their
deaths were redeemed by the presence of their friends and followers. However, the
painting that depicts Marat’s death emphasizes abandonment, solitude and isolation
during death.
Shows the photograph “Julile 1, Parktown, Johannesburg” by Zanele Muholi and asks,
“to what extent is this image political?”
It evokes the ideas of poverty and homelessness. The elements that contribute to this
feeling are the newspapers, the way she is lying on the floor on a rug with plastic bags
but, at first glance, these elements aren’t the first things that jump forward. It reminds
us how images could be unsettling to talk about even if we are critically active and
educated individuals. The nude is covered to some extent however the posture and the
gaze engages us, challenges us. The body isn’t aggressive in assertiveness but also it isn’t
hiding itself from others. There is an underlying provocative tension. Newspapers are
condemning the fact that all around the world we are concerned about many things but
not enough about poverty and social injustices. This photograph is political in the most
explicit of ways. It is realized by an artist who declares herself as a visual activist rather
than an artist. She situates her works explicitly in the political arena and within the racial
debate. Zanele Maholi is a South African artist who is also an activist and she actively
campaigns for the LGBTQ community. “Julile 1” is part of a series called “Hail the Black
Lioness” that consists of self-portraits of the artist. The photographs in this series have
in common the use of unusual props that are related to the topics of poverty, injustice,
discrimination, apartheid.
, “Sleeping Venus” (Dresden Venus) by Giorgione and Titian (1507-12): compare and
contrast it with “Julile 1”. As opposed to Zanele Muholi’s deliberate gaze at the
spectator in this painting Venus is not looking to the spectator because she is sleeping.
Venus is offering her body to the viewers gaze unknowingly. The spectator is in the
position of an intruder. “Venus of Urbino” by Titian (1538): again, an allegorical
representation of Venus like the “Sleeping Venus”. Represents the ideal of renaissance
beauty, a perfectly white body that offers itself to the viewer. In this case Venus is
awake and aware of the fact that she is exposed to the outsider gaze. It is openly erotic
and inviting. An unmade bed is very intimate. Here we have a woman showing herself
on an unmade bed. If we compare it with the photograph, we see both similarities and
differences. Difference: In “Venus of Urbino” we see a secluded space that is indoors
and private, whereas in the photograph “Julile 1” she is in more of a public space that
isn’t private or intimate. Personal thought: When I try to make sense of the looks on
both of these women’s faces and their facial expressions I feel like the woman in the
photograph “Julile 1” looks hostile and aggressive as if she challenges the spectator to
look away from her, she doesn’t want to be looked at. On the contrary, the woman in
the painting “Venus of Urbino” challenges the spectator to look at her and admire her.
The way she looks at the viewer seems very inviting.
Shows “Reclining Venus” by Artemisia Gentileschi (1625) and “Maya Desnuda” by Goya
(1797). “Maya Desnuda” belongs to the very long story and tradition of the female
nude.
We are going to take the meaning of politics as it relates to what “policy” is. We will
include into our analysis of what is political and the relationship between art and politics
anything that has to do with the ways in which our communities stick together, organize
themselves and set the rules within themselves.
Art and culture build the foundations of what policies are, they build the means by
which societies work. This is intrinsically political. Every artwork at the moment that asks
you to look at it, it regards (to concern, to look back) you. The image looks back at you,
engages you and by this it forces you to take a stance. Every time you take a posture as
an individual and citizen it is political in a way that you may not be aware of. At that
moment you contribute to the building of a certain type of community, a policy. You are
contributing to fostering, enhancing or disobeying the laws by which a community
works.
We shouldn’t stop analyzing racist works of art because oblivion is not a solution to this
contemporary issue. We have to became more aware and this is not possible by burning
down knowledge. For example if we disregard the paintings that represent ill artistic
canon the photograph “Julile 1” by Zanele Muholi that aims to provoke and protest
would speak to us with a much weaker voice.
Shows the “Portrait of the Vendramin Family” by Titian (1543-1547) and asks “To what
extent is this image political?”. There aren’t any women in the painting. We see men at
an alter with a prominently placed cross on it. It is a painting with a religious
connotation showing a family of men at the alter praying or worshiping. The painting
conveys a very specific sense of hierarchy because only the figure at the center of the
painting is looking towards the spectator which draws the main attention, he is the only
, one touching the alter transmitting the idea that he is the head of the family in question.
The men are wearing official uniforms, an ermine mantle is a token of nobility and office
in the state. Initially what feels like a semi-private environment eventually reveals piece
by piece that it is also about the organization of family and the position of the family
members within the wider community which is the political community. During
renaissance Venice the society is organized into groups, one has to be a legal citizen in
order to access public service of any kind. However, being a citizen doesn’t give you the
rights to access the political office, you can’t be a part of the Venetian parliament just by
being a citizen, but you have to be a patrician (an aristocrat or nobleman). Nobility is
assessed by birth. The right to rule and its responsibilities are rooted in the aristocrat
families.
Shows an ad for the Pennsylvania railroad which depicts a mom and a daughter hand in
hand on a train along with a father seated reading the newspaper along with a childless
couple in the background. We have a different portrayal of the family which consists of
a mother, child and a father. The slogan reads “They go hand in hand… Comfort and
safety”. The image tells the story of a family experiencing a moment of relaxation and
comfort journeying somewhere. “What is political about this image?” The mom is the
dominant and leading figure in this image. The story here is that the family in the
foreground is what is expected from the couple in the background to become. With this
the image becomes both descriptive and prescriptive about what a normal family is like,
what part leisure has in the functioning of a family, what roles the different members of
the family have. The most interesting thing is that no one in this image isn’t explicitly
engaged with anything that concerns the public sphere. The comfort and safety derive
from the fact that everything works the way it should so one can disengage. This
message is political. “Don’t worry, go on a holiday, relax, everything is under control”.
2nd Lesson: Iconoclasms or the power of images
Reading 1: DEBATE: RELIGION AND ICONOCLASM, Idol-Breaking as Image-Making in the
‘Islamic State’ by Finbarr Barry Flood
Iconoclasm: is the social belief in the importance of the destruction of icons and other
images or monuments, most frequently for religious or political reasons.
Arab historians depicted the Mongol invasion of Iraq in the 13th century as destructive.
However, there are many indications that the early rule of the Mongolians wasn’t
marked by destruction or ruin. One of these indications is an inscription (a thing
inscribed, as on a monument or in a book) that is still preserved in Mosul, a city in Iraq.
This inscription stated that a Mongol raiding party stole the monastery’s gold and silver,
including its precious liturgical vessels. The inscription went on to record that, following
a complaint from one of the monastery’s monks, the Il-Khan Baidu, the Mongol ruler of
Iran and Iraq, a Muslim with Christian sympathies, not only restored all that had been
looted, but made amends by means of a generous gift to the shrine of the saint. Shortly
after this generosity of II-Khan was recognized on an inscription on the saint’s grave.
Today neither the inscription or the shrine and monastery exist because they were
, destroyed by ISIS members in 2015. This event is one of the many deliberate
destructions that include Iraqi and Syrian monuments associated with Christian, Muslim
(both Shi‘i and Sunni), and Yazidi communities.
Author’s interest in Islamic architecture started when he was living in northern Iraq.
He argues the fact that ISIS’ ethnic cleansing in Iraq has succeeded in removing a unique
cultural landscape that had survived from late antiquity. Along with enslavement, exile,
murder, rape, ISIS also destroyed Christian, Islamic, and Yazidi monuments across Iraq
and Syria is intending to create a tabula rasa (theory that individuals are born without
built-in mental content, and therefore all knowledge comes from experience or
perception.) “The erasure of the materials of memory is common to many historical
episodes of iconoclasm”.
Reason of destruction: ISIS rejects “shirk” which are beliefs and practices that are
idolatrous, deviated from the worship of one immaterial and unrepresentable God. As
propaganda they use passages from the Quran that talk about the destruction of idols
by Ibrahim. Also An al-Qaeda propaganda video showing the dynamiting of the Bamiyan
Buddhas (they were destroyed by the Taliban because the government declared they
were idols) in March 2001 superimposed the relevant Qur’anic verses on the scene.
In April 2015 ISIS has ordered the removal of all ornamentation in the mosques of
Mosul, including Quranic inscriptions carved or painted on their walls. Because:
-ornamentation is a non-Muslim practice that undermines a necessary visual distinction
between mosques and non-Muslim places of worship
-the potential of ornaments (including even Qur’anic inscriptions) to attract the gaze of
the worshipper and distract her or him from prayer
-the expenditure occasioned by ornamentation, which is viewed as a frivolous waste of
economic resources that would be better spent elsewhere: this one was stressed in ISIS’
reports on this order of stripping ornaments
ISIS uses images as propaganda to promote its cause: ironic-paradoxical
The discursive role of iconoclasm in such spectacles transforms the repudiation (denial
of truth or validity) of images into a potent image of repudiation
Author compares destructions staged by ISIS and the media spectacle of the destruction
of the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad by the US military. The difference between
these two depends on the attribution of divergent status to their objects within distinct
regimes of value. Both phenomena use iconoclasm as a discursive tactic to signal
rupture, the institution of new political orders conceived in term of restoration and
restitution.
NOT DONE
Reading 2: “How statues are falling around the world” by New York Times
About the statues and monuments that honor racist figures being boxed up, spray
painted or beheaded
In Tennessee a statue of Edward Ward Carmack, who was a journalist in the early 1900s
endorsed the lynching of three black men and incited a mob attack to a newspaper
editor Ida B Wells (black), was taken down by BLM protestors.
