{"id":538,"date":"2015-05-22T14:55:54","date_gmt":"2015-05-22T12:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jumper\/?p=538"},"modified":"2015-05-23T08:45:17","modified_gmt":"2015-05-23T06:45:17","slug":"highlights-from-the-beauty-class-visiting-artists-part-1-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jumper\/2015\/05\/highlights-from-the-beauty-class-visiting-artists-part-1-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Highlights from the beauty class visiting artists (post 1of 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apologies for the radio silence. The beauty course marched on but I failed to get anything written on Jumper the past few weeks as I was finishing up the term and writing talks for two symposia (a symposium on Beauty and Business that I helped put together at UW-Madison and then the fourth biennial Pave Symposium on Arts Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University). I’ll post transcripts from both conferences\u00c2\u00a0in conjunction with the videos from each being posted by the conference organizations (UW-Madison & ASU, respectively).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"lynette<\/a>

Lynette D’Amico<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Michael<\/a>

Michael Rohd<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Paul<\/a>

Paul Sacaridiz<\/p><\/div>\n

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As I reflect on the second half of the beauty course I now perceive\u00c2\u00a0that it was\u00c2\u00a0about trying to add, subtract, multiply and divide with what we had soaked up (in terms of concepts and frameworks) in the first\u00c2\u00a0half.\u00c2\u00a0It was about releasing ourselves a bit from the philosophy\u00c2\u00a0and formal definitions; engaging with art, artists, and life; and seeing what would stick.\u00c2\u00a0In this post and the one that follows I am sharing highlights from the presentations by the several artists who joined us in class and key ideas from them that resonated most for the students.<\/p>\n

March 17 – Revealing and obscuring ourselves through self-portraits (Lynette D’Amico<\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n

You may recall that the students created photographic\u00c2\u00a0self-portraits the first week of class and we used the assignment\u00c2\u00a0to, among other things, discuss\u00c2\u00a0the difference between a selfie and a self-portrait<\/a>. In the same week that Polly Carl discussed the Elaine Scarry monograph On Beauty and Being Just<\/em>, Lynette brought in slides of self-portraits by two artists: Vivian Maier<\/a> and Francesca Woodman<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0(links are to documentaries on each artist and are highly recommended). Lynette\u00c2\u00a0discussed that what interests her is how these artists both reveal and obscure themselves in their self-portraits. Lynette shared the Diane Ackerman quote:<\/p>\n

Selves will accumulate when one isn’t looking; and they don’t always act wisely or well. <\/em><\/p>\n

— Diane Ackerman<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As she\u00c2\u00a0scrolled through\u00c2\u00a0slides of self-portraits by Maier and Woodman, Lynette\u00c2\u00a0asked the students, What selves are being shown in these self-portraits?<\/em> She also played\u00c2\u00a0the grammy video of Sia, a\u00c2\u00a0pop artist who has attempted to evade a celebrity’s life by hiding her face in all live performances and videos and commented, Hiding oneself or camouflaging oneself is its own version of revelation.<\/em><\/p>\n