Sunday, 1 February 2015

Thursday 29th January 2015 - Looking at a Cultural Text in Context - Hotel International by Tracey Emin

BROWN, N. (2006), TE: TRACEY EMIN, 'Hotel International' 1993 and other blankets and fabric works, pp. 36-49, United Kingdom: Tate Gallery London

I chose this image to analyse for my 'cultural text' as it was the first blanket that Tracey Emin ever made as an artist. I am essentially at the beginning of my ideas as an artist, so believed this to be relevant to myself. Although, I don't entirely link my own work to this, there are elements that I believe to be the same such our particular interest in colour, embroidery and stitchwork, as well as the 'revealing of inner thoughts' concept (which is very obvious throughout Emin's work). Emin also deals with the process of art and craft being combined; I deal with this too, however feel the need to justify to myself that what I am creating isn't just a craft, it's an art form. "Large and vibrantly coloured, the blanket has a pretty quality, occasionally contradicted by the unsettling, sometimes desperate meanings of its text." - page 37

My previous studio project I tried to link my ideas to the Jennifer Lawrence scandal by crocheting a bra and displaying it on a chair; I did this to help a viewer perceive the chair as a hacker sat at their desk, viewing what is basically pornography. I decided that a bra is associated with a woman and in the scandal, sadly private nude images were released of her, as well as this, crochet is normally an art form that can be linked more so with a woman than a man. Emin links her thoughts to similar ideas and also uses techniques that have more associations with women. "Traditionally assigned to the world of women, and made from salvaged fabric, patchwork bed coverings command ideas of the bed as a focus of matrimonial, female domesticity." - page 37

"This kind of work has often been undervalued as a hobby or craft (more recently), disparaged for its association with feminist art, which reclaimed the genre in the 1970s and 1980s. These were critical problems that Emin ignored when she made 'Hotel International'." - page 37

"Trade-union banners are part of an historical folk-art tradition of organised labour, whose colourful designs are the proud heraldry of the organisational structures that seek to represent working class interests." - page 40


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