Essentialism
Traditional approach to identity. Our biological make up makes us who we are. We all have an inner essence that makes us who we are.
Post modern theorists disagree.
Physiognomy
The idea that the perfect person is a strapping, blonde hair, blue eyed human being.
Phrenology
Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) - founder of Positivist Crimonology: the notion that criminal tendencies are inherited.
Hieronymous Bosch (1450-1516) - Christ carrying the Cross 1515
Almost sub-human. Resembling animalystic features.
Chris Ofili - Holy Virgin Mary 1996
This painting appeared in an exhibition in 1997 at The Royal Academy. Countless New Yorker's complained that the painting was insulting to Christianity.
Douglas Kellner - Media Culture: Cultural Studies, Identity and Politics between the Modern and the Postmodern, 1992
pre modern identity - personal identity is stable - defined by long standing roles
Institutions determined identity.
'Secure' identities
Farm-worker - landed gentry
The Sodier - the state
The Factory Worker - industrial capitalism
The Housewife - patriarchy
The Gentleman - patriarchy
Husband-Wife - marriage / church
modern identity - modern societies begin to offer a wider range of social roles.
Charles Baudelaire - The Painter of Modern Life (1863)
About the abstract notion of painting and illustration of life. Contemporary with the impressionists. Introduces the concept of the 'flaneur' (gentleman-stroller).
Thorstein Veblen - Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)
'Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure'. Conspicuous consumption is about showing off wealth in terms of goods, clothes, money etc.
Gustave Caillebotte - Le Pont de l'Europe, 1876
Gustave Caillebotte - Paris Street, Rainy Day, 1877
Georg Simmel writes about 'The Trickle Down Theory', emulation, distinction, the 'mask' of fashion. The idea that when you get a new collection of fashion, everyone has to have it.
Edvard Munch - Evening on Karl John, 1892
Image of people out and showing themselves off on the streets, but you get this vacant look of anxiety on their faces. A notion of alienation in society and people withdrawing themselves to be alone.
Simmel suggests that: because of the speed and mutability of modernity, individuals withdraw into themselvs to find peace.
Post-Modern Identity
'Discourse Analysis' - identity is constructed out of the discourses culturally available to us.
'A set of recurring statements that define a particular cultural 'object' (eg madness, criminality, sexuality) and provide concepts and terms through which such an object can be studied and discussed.' - Cavallaro.
Possible Discourses:
age, class, gender, nationality, race / ethnicity, sexual orientation, education, income, etc
Class
Humphrey Spender / Mass Observation - Worktown Project, 1937
Bolton Library has a full collection of these photographs.
Martin Parr - New Brighton, Merseyside from The Last Resort, 1983-86
He's celebrating the condescending way of viewing people who go on holiday in England from the working class. Almost like a self congratulatory thing - a way of looking at these people to perpetuate sterotypes of classes.
Martin Parr - Ascot, 2003
Nationality
Martin Parr, Sedlescombe, from Think of England, 2000-2003
Martin Parr, Think of Germany, Berlin, 2002
Alexander McQueen, Highland Rape Collection, 1995-96
Like a political statement between England and Scotland. Highly emotive.
Vivienne Westwood, Anglomania Collection, 1993-94
Las Vegas
American identity - is it a real identity at all in terms of national identity? Or is it just a mixture of all these identities from elsewhere. The idea of none of it as actually real.
Race / Ethnicity - 'Otherness' (based on the notion that it is based around a history that is written for white Eurpean middle-upper class heterosexual men.)
Chris Ofili - No Woman, No Cry 1998
References to black culture and Bob Marley song. Uses elephant dung as a stereotypical reputation of something black and African. Uses the elephant dung as stands for his paintings, as well as necklaces / additions to the paintings.
Chris Ofili - Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars, 1994
Analyses super heroes, and notices that there aren't very many black superheroes.
Gillian Wearing - Signs that say what you want them to say and not signs that say what someone else wants you to say, 1992-1993
Alexander McQueen - It's A Jungle Out There, 1997-98
Emily Bates - Dress - Created using her own hair
Bases her work on her identity of being Scottish and red headed. Spent most of her life being called names for being red headed.
Gender & Sexuality - 'Otherness' (based on the notion that it is based around a history that is written for white Eurpean middle-upper class heterosexual men.)
Edmund Bergler - American psychoanalyst - suggests that the fashion industry is the work not of women, but of men.
Flapper, 1925
Cover of La Garconne, by Victor Marguerite, 1922
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Stills, 1977-80
Takes stereotypes of female characters in film - fragile, taken from a male perspective of how women are represented.
Sam Taylor-Wood - Portrait (Fuck, Suck, Spank, Wank), 1993
Sarah Lucas - Au Naturel, 1994
Tracey Emin - Everyone I have ever slept with, 1963-95
Winderbra Campaign - I can't cook. Who Cares? 1990s
Gillian Wearing - Lynne, 1993-96
Post Modern Theory
Identity is constructed through out social experience.
Goffman saw life as 'theatre', made up of 'encounters' and 'performances. For Goffman the self is a series of facades
Zygmunt Bauman - Identity (2004), Liquid Modernity (2000), Liquid Love (2003)
Barbara Kruger - I shop therefore I am, 1987
Feminist artist - criticised for using her art in Selfridges (has she sold out?), also a notion that this has been seen as a sponsored art exhibition. Is it the perfect place to view it?
Tom Hodgkinson - 'With friends like these...', Guardian, 2008
Bauman - Identity, page 27, (2004)
Sherry Turkle - Constructions and Reconstructions of the Self in Virtual Reality (1994)
Online adultery and cyberspace love documentary.
