16
Oct
2015
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is “doing artist” the equivalent of “doing gender”?

Tangent [Julia Kristeva’a intertextual ADD] of the dissertation direction sort…

I am currently reading The Topless Cellist (on Charlotte Moorman) for a class and for another class I am perusing the article “A Performative-Performance Analytical Approach: Infusing Butlerian Theory Into the Narrative-Discursive Method” by Tracy Morison and Catriona Macleod.

AND as the two texts jumble and mumble in my head about gender and Butler’s lense of gender as a doing, meaning that the doer is maintaining, creating, maintaining via a series of performed deeds. This mumble-jumble leads me to the notion that artist is as artist does — artist as doing. for most of us artists, being artist to some degree is a part of our constitutive identity. so what i was wonder (and think is the case), do we do artist in the same way we do gender?

can i take all the theories on doing gender and transfer it on to doing artist? especially in terms of both performance and performitivity! and of particular interest in terms of butler and her predecessor JL Austin is the basis of performance and performitivity being derived from language practices.

recall i have a notion that a writing practice seems to play some psychological function for seminal visual artists (there is a trend that these artists, besides making also write). i have general thought there are several strands, multiple functions–psychological resilience, material realization, and some kind of situated cognition (carnal knowledge of a Barad type). so does writing also play an important function in constituting identity as artist and as a creative for the visual artist?

And back to butlerian and related theories, can i transfer “doing artist” possibly on to understanding the function a writing practice plays for the visual artist. are seminal visual artists’ writings a part of doing artist, constituting and fleshing out their artistic identities? is this an important function of visual artists writings? and if so does this writing for constituting identity have a particular form? in other words are there characteristics of writing practices/genres/themes/etc that are more relevant than others?

was judd constituting his identity as minimalist and as artist, through his writing? is textual stance taking a part of constituting a strong identity to with stand the public battering winds of the art world a part of a resilience function? or something else?

 

IMAGE: Janine Antoini, Loving Care performance, 1993.

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Research interests
Paul Klee: Art and writing
Anouk De Clercq: when artists write
“I am writing for the same reason I am making art”