blank canvas & vehicle for art/fans

[crisTEAne 21,059]

i bumped into this article just now and i immediately thought of gaga; two things in particular: the blank canvas (AP) and the vehicle (BTW) concepts. 

it's nothing groundbreaking, but i think it's always nice to discover some of her reference points. i'm not saying that this was her source of inspiration; i'm just saying that there's a whole artistic universe out there and it feels nice when you're able to connect the dots. maybe she doesn't even know about helena's artistry. that's beside the point. the point is that now we know about her and are able to appreciate her work. 

the article is not long and is a nice read.

here is the link: http://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/8238/how-helena-almeidas-body-became-her-artwork

here is the full text in which i highlighted the most important parts:

Spoiler

 

How Helena Almeida's Body Became Her Artwork

January 22, 2016

The groundbreaking feminist artist's admirable oeuvre is finally given the limelight in a new Paris exhibition

Who? “I turn myself into a drawing,” wrote Portuguese artist Helena Almeida, whose work is a fascinating amalgamation between performance art, photography, painting and drawing. Born in Lisbon in 1934, Almeida is the daughter of sculptor Leopoldo de Almeida, who clearly influenced the young artist to join the painting course at Lisbon’s School of Fine Arts at the fledgling age of 21. After marrying architect Artur Rosa, Almeida obtained a scholarship which allowed her to study art in Paris; from 1964 onwards, Rosa assisted Almeida, capturing his wife’s performing body as she began to combine photography, painting and performance art. Her groundbreaking interdisciplinary approach resulted in the work for which she is appropriately celebrated for today.

What? Almeida started out making three-dimensional paintings, but soon grew to resent the absence of self-representation in the form. By 1969 she had turned to photography instead, finding that the medium permitted her to incorporate painting, performance art, body art and drawing into her practice, and to reinterpret her own body as a sculpture (1). That same year, she exhibited a photograph of herself wearing a canvas (2), and the image marks the beginning of the artist's groundbreaking move to identify her body with the being of her work.

Despite being her own model, Almeida provocatively maintains that her works are not self-portraits; rather, she uses her body as an object (3), producing carefully choreographed images in which the body undergoes a number of actions: from wearing a canvas, to turning her back to the camera and provocatively lifting the hem of her skirt. She once remarked on her own presence in her work: “I wasn’t going to hire a model when I myself was in the studio… I know what positions I need to place myself in, which postures I should assume and how to understand the settings... But it’s not me. It’s as though I were another person.”

The legacy of conceptual art is tangible in Almeida’s appropriation of the striking blue strokes of paint she often employed, reminiscent of Yves Klein’s trademark hue, ‘International Klein Blue.’ These flashes of colour appear repeatedly in Almeida’s work, menacingly blotting out the artist’s face in one image, and operating as barrier that Almeida is tearing apart with her hands in another. Almeida disagreed with Klein’s use of women in his own practice, and responded to it with artistic ferocity, tenaciously tearing the colour apart (4) and emerging from the supposed void behind (5).

Why? Almeida’s work is a refreshing combination of a number of distinct art forms, which she successfully combined by introducing paint into photographs of her own performance and body art. A tantalising new exhibition, entitled Corpus at Paris’ Jeu de Paume, features a vast offering of the artist’s work from the 1960s to the present day. Almeida is quite rightly recognised as a dynamic leader of the unique brand of experimental art which emerged from the Modernist crisis in 1960s Europe; her work opens up prevalent questions about the porousness of artistic practice (6), the reproduction of images (7), and questions around the representation of the artist’s body. The exhibition is a timely homage to an unsung heroine of conceptual art.

Helena Almeida’s Corpus is on display from until May 22, 2016 at Jeu de Paume in Paris.

 

in my interpretation, the underlined parts (visions, ideas, concepts) are present in gaga's work:

(1) body as a sculpture: "you are the sculpture of your own museum" @ BTWBall during black jesus

(2) wearing a canvas: being a blank canvas for her art/fans to project on

(3) body as an object: vehicle for art/fans

(4) tearing the color apart: tears of joy smearing the pain away

(5) void behind: marrying the night/obstacles in life

(6) artistic practice:

(7) reproduction of images: the reverse warholian expedition and the every icon concept (AP)

remember: ARTPOP could mean anything. 

[Miky 9,491]

I love these threads  love seeing her inspirations. Keep them coming!!!

[The Surrealist 27,470]

Nice thread. She spoke a lot about having a canvas and a brush to perform your own art. 

[The Child 18,997]

That makes sense cause she did say that the blank canvas at the VMAs was how the public perceived BTW, a blank canvas that was booed.

[crisTEAne 21,059]

15 minutes ago, CrazyMonster said:

That makes sense cause she did say that the blank canvas at the VMAs was how the public perceived BTW, a blank canvas that was booed.

i don't remember exactly, but i believe you. 

it does make sense, because during the BTW era, fans struggling with their identities and societal norms were projecting their fears onto her and, in turn, she helped them accept themselves. in that sense, she really did function as a blank canvas; just like during the AP era, with the exception that in that case she used her own pain to paint with and transformed it into an electronic explosion that is ARTPOP. the evolution and the parallels are so beautiful: the organic relationship between her and her fans couldn't be more real.

[The Child 18,997]

2 minutes ago, skeleton.gun said:

i don't remember exactly, but i believe you. 

it does make sense, because during the BTW era, fans struggling with their identities and societal norms were projecting their fears onto her and, in turn, she helped them accept themselves. in that sense, she really did function as a blank canvas; just like during the AP era, with the exception that in that case she used her own pain to paint with and transformed it into an electronic explosion that is ARTPOP. the evolution and the parallels are so beautiful: the organic relationship between her and her fans couldn't be more real.

I don't remember where she said but I'm sure I'm not making this up.

[Lurk 410]

Brilliant find :-)

Reading this article left me with "my art pop could mean anything" in my head.

I hope Gaga was aware of Helena's work because if so gagas 'canvas' outfit could be a literal reference (remember the Mona Lisa/ Picasso dresses) to her artistry as Gaga is kind of in renaissance of her. You know, her whole thing is that "Lady Gaga is her art"