In response to Calle’s work, Grigely wrote a series of ‘postcards’. His work engages fully with Calle’s in a kind of monological analysis of how the work can be perceived in terms of contemporary positions Continue reading “Joseph Grigely, Postcards to Sophie Calle”
Category: Disability Research
Sarah ‘Saartjie’ Baartman, the “Hottentot Venus”
Grigely is discussing how Western culture appropriated artifacts from the colonised world and used them as a basis for justifying the further expansion and suppression of the colonised. Here the colonised, the oppressed, is the disabled body. Continue reading “Sarah ‘Saartjie’ Baartman, the “Hottentot Venus””
Sander L. Gilman, Black Bodies, White Bodies: Toward an Iconography of Female Sexuality in Late Nineteenth-Century Art, Medicine, and Literature
Gilman’s essay points out that at the time Baartman was exhibited there were a number of conventions that were synchronic and gave rise to ideologies concerning women, blacks and sexuality. Continue reading “Sander L. Gilman, Black Bodies, White Bodies: Toward an Iconography of Female Sexuality in Late Nineteenth-Century Art, Medicine, and Literature”
Lennard Davis, The Disability Paradox: Ghettoisation of the Visual
In this extremely pertinent and thought-provoking essay, Davis looks at what he calls the paradox of disability in the visual arts. Continue reading “Lennard Davis, The Disability Paradox: Ghettoisation of the Visual”
Marc Quinn
Looking at Quinn’s wider body of work on his personal website, it seems that the statue of Lapper was part of a larger project that explored disability and our accepted ideas of Continue reading “Marc Quinn”
Alison Lapper
I decided to explore Alison Lapper, the subject of Quinn’s statue that raised the most controversy. I found a series of images online where Lapper is posing in a similar way to how the statue shows her. Continue reading “Alison Lapper”
Lennard J. Davis, Nude Venuses, Medusa’s Body, and Phantom Limbs: Disability and Visuality
This essay opens with a description of a woman:
“She has no arms or hands, although the stump of her upper right arm extends just to her breast. Her left arm has been severed and her face badly scarred, with her nose torn at the tip and her lower lip gouged out. Fortunately, her facial mutilations have been treated and are barely visible, except for minor scarring visible only up close. The big toe of her right foot has been cut off, and her torso is also covered with scars, a particularly large one between her shoulder blades, one that covers her shoulder, and one covering the tip of her breast where her left nipple was torn out.
Yet, she is considered one of the most beautiful female figures in the world.” (Davis 2004, p 51)
Mary Duffy
As an example of a disabled artist re-appropriating her body, Davis cites the work of Mary Duffy, Cutting the Ties That Bind. Continue reading “Mary Duffy”
Narratives of illness & disability
It has been acknowledged in social science that the narrative is one of the methods we use to construct and assign meaning to our social worlds (Hyden, 1997). Continue reading “Narratives of illness & disability”
Jo Spence
Lennard Davis also mentioned Jo Spence as an example of an artist using the spectacular gaze to come to terms with bodily changes. Her work, especially The Picture of Health, is richly autobiographical and explores issues surrounding feminine beauty and age, as well as her experience of partial mastectomy. Continue reading “Jo Spence”
Carl Whetham photography 