Exercise - Week #6

Identity

How is identity constructed? Is it fixed or fluid? Does it mean where you are “from”?
How do we affect the reading of our identity?

Historical references

Rembrandt van Rijn - gallery of self portraits

Frida Kahlo - various self portraits involving gender and major life events

Stuart Harvey - winner of photography contest

Critique

Sébastien Del Grosso

This photographic portrait gives the viewer a strong impression of the artist emerging from within. The way the subject is viewing his hand with intense focus and concentration displays a sense of care in creating his work. The presence of two mediums - photography and hand-drawn sketching - is a great display of hybridity, and how one merges into the other is fluid and doesn't distract. The lighting is fairly dramatic and highlights the hand with a gentle spotlight, and it shows through the omitted parts of the model.

The gaze

A view or perspective that is implied in a piece, offering the audience a voyeuristic opportunity to involve themselves as a participant of the piece. Jean-Paul Sartre is acclaimed to have been the first to address the concept of the gaze, whereas the concept of the "male gaze" is attributed to Laura Mulvey, a film theorist.

Post-colonial identity

The combination of experiences, beliefs, and perspectives that form an individual which follow a social event or events involving imperialism, colonialism, or similar societal oppression in order to create a resistant front against the colonizing party or parties. Identities may involve qualities of segregation, discrimination, and isolation. Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist and philosopher, gave an analysis of the destructive nature of colonialism and how it negatively affected the colonized.

Hybridity

A mixture or cross between two entities. Hybridity can be applied in various topics, such as an individual's identity involving nature vs. nurture, the meeting of two separate races or cultures, and the conflict in postcolonialism. Theorists that are primarily attributed to discussing hybridity are Homi Bhabha, Néstor García Canclini, Stuart Hall, Gayatri Spivak, and Paul Gilroy.


By Using Himself as the Model for These and Other Studies, Rembrandt Was Making Himself into a Recognizable Celebrity at the Same Time That He Gave the Public Strikingly Original and Expressive Tronies. The Wide Dissemination of These and Other Prin. "Rembrandt Van Rijn: Selected Self-Portraits." Rembrandt Van Rijn: Self-Portraits. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2016. <http://www.rembrandtpainting.net/rembrandt_self_portraits.htm>.

"Frida Kahlo - The Complete Works." Frida Kahlo - The Complete Works. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2016. <http://www.frida-kahlo-foundation.org/>.

Hart, By Sydney. "Photography as a Method of Identity Formation - Culture365." Culture365. N.p., 30 July 2013. Web. 26 Oct. 2016. <http://culturedays.ca/blog/2013/07/29/photography/>.

@Propelsteps. "Amazing Arts & Artists : Sketch Photography by Sébastien Del Grosso." PROPEL STEPS. N.p., 12 Dec. 2014. Web. 26 Oct. 2016. <https://propelsteps.wordpress.com/2014/12/12/amazing-arts-artists-sketch-photography-by-sebastien-del-grosso/>.