MARIKO MORI VS RENÉE COX APPROACHING THE USE OF THE BODY IN MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART FROM A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE, CRITICALLY EXAMINE WORKS BY TWO ARTISTS FROM DIFFERENT REGIONS, AROUND THE SAME PERIOD (FOR INSTANCE AN ARTIST FROM LATIN AMERICA AND AN ARTIST FROM EASTERN EUROPE), USING AT LEAST ONE WORK BY EACH AS A CASE STUDY. Photo: David Sims
COMPARISON: BACKGROUND BOTH ARTISTS INVESTIGATE THE IN-BETWEEN AND EMERGENCE, CHALLENGING NOTIONS OF CULTURAL IDENTITY AND CHANGING PERSPECTIVES MARIKO MORI RENEE COX Born in T okyo, Japan in 1967 Born in Colgate, Jamaica in 1960 later settling in Works primarily with photography, sculpture and Scarsdale, New York. digital art Her work concerns social issues, cultural stereotypes Mori often uses her own body and female empowerment. Mori embodies technology and spirituality (or Works primarily with photography. science and Buddhism) within her practice, Has provoked conversations at the intersections of identifying with both as a way of transcending, and cultural works, activism, gender and African studies. transforming, consciousness and the self Her work blurs boundaries and exists in-between
CULTURE BACKGROUNDS: DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES Jonathon Wallis explains how Mori echoes the consumerist culture of Creates new, positive visual representations of African-Americans Japan (which is influenced by America) From the beginning her works have shown a deep concern for social Explores hybridity and blurring boundaries in relation to post-bubble issues. Japan influenced by satire and Manga. Renee Cox questions society and the roles it gives black women. Elisabetta Porcu suggests that Mori is influenced by sophisticated technology, pop culture, science-fiction and traditional Japanese culture “I believe that images of women in the media are distorted and women (including Buddhism). are imprisoned by those unrealistic representations of the female body. Mori’s early photographs reflect trends in Japanese popular culture, This distortion crosses all ethnic lines and devalues all women. I am especially that of adolescent Japanese girls known as Shojo culture. interested in taking the stereotypical representations of women and In traditional Japanese culture, women follow three submissions: turning them upside down, for their empowerment.” – Renee Cox ("Brooklyn Museum: Renee Cox", 2017) When young, she submits to her father. When married, she submits to her husband. When old, she submits to her sons.
• Between actual/virtual Between performance/photograph • Between absence/presence • • Between tradition and modernity CASE STUDY ANALYSIS: MARIKO MORI: TEA CEREMONY I (1994), II (1995) AND III (1995)
Between visible/invisible Between real/fiction Between performance/photograph Globalised approach CASE STUDY ANALYSIS: RENÉE COX: HOTT -EN-TOT, CA. 1993 – 94
HOW THEY EACH FOCUS ON THE BODY: SIMILARITIES Both use their own body to convey how different cultures have segregated and alienated the female form, how gender is a construction of society, in the attempt to liberate the oppressed female form They both perform with their body Both works exist between photography and performance Both link strongly to Cindy Sherman’s work Untitled Film Stills (1977-80) Both relied on physical transformation to investigate gender and ethnic construction They investigate the relationship between subject/object, and as outsiders of both resident culture and ‘original’ culture they feel alienated – in short they suffer from an identity crisis.
HOW THEY EACH FOCUS ON THE BODY: DIFFERENCES Their bodies perform in different ways due to the differences within their cultural influences Their bodies perform in different ways because their bodies/gender have had different frames applied. Mori hypothetically merges robotics and biotechnology with the human body, whereas Cox uses her nude body Despite both artists using their bodies differently within their works, they both discuss similar arguments. Cox’s photographs usually insert black bodies into white-dominated, traditional imagery. In comparison, Mori uses photography as a way of juxtaposing imagery Cox often adorns stereotypical female identities, like Cindy Sherman, whereas Mori assimilates the role of the alien, or cyborg.
QUESTION Addressing the issue of gender globally, do you consider the way the female body is used within the pieces discussed a success?
BIBLIOGRAPHY Jonathon Wallis, The Paradox of Mariko Mori’s Women in Post -Bubble Japan: Office Ladies, Schoolgirls, and Video-Vixens, Women’s Art Journal , Vol. 29, No. 1 (Spring – Summer, 2008) pp. Brooklyn Museum: Renee Cox . (2017). Brooklynmuseum.org . Retrieved from 3-12 https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/feminist_art_base/renee-cox Elisabetta Porcu, Pure Land Buddhism in Modern Japanese Culture, ( 2008) pp. 177-181 Reasserting Her Image: The Photographs of Renée Cox . (2017). prezi.com . Retrieved from Gwyneth Shanks, Visualizing the Now , Third Text , (2014) 29:4-5, pp. 393-405 https://prezi.com/f7vhrgopsskb/reasserting-her-image-the-photographs-of-renee-cox/ Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, Self-Stylization and Performativity in the Work of Yoko Ono, Yayoi Kusama and Mariko Mori, Quarterly Review of Film and Video , (2010) 27:4, pp.267-75 Renee Cox pt2 INFORMATION - PEOPLE- Black Atlantic - University of Liverpool . (2017). Liverpool.ac.uk . Retrieved from https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/black- Achille Bontio, Olivia Danilo Eccher [eds.], Appearance: Markio Mori, Yasumasa Morimura, Luigi atlantic/information/renee_cox_pt2/ Ontaril, Andres Serrano, Pierre Giles and Tony Oursler, (2000) pp. 32 – 45 Video of the Week: After Hot-En-Tot: Two conversations with Artist Renée Cox . (2017). Black Atlantic Allison Holland, Mariko Mori and the Art of Global Connectedness, in Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific (Issue 23, November 2009) Resource Debate . Retrieved from https://blackatlanticresource.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/video-of-the-week-after-hot-en-tot- http://pinchukartcentre.org/en/photo_and_video/photo/7483 two-conversations-with-artist-renee-cox/ http://www.marthagarzon.com/contemporary_art/2011/08/mariko-mori-cybergeishas- technonolgy/ Renee Cox . (2017). Renee Cox . Retrieved from http://www.reneecox.org/about http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/FEATURES/itoi/itoi11-20-01.asp Fleetwood, Nicole R., Troubling Vision. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011. http://www.skny.com/artists/mariko-mori "Saartjie Baartman: The Hottentot Venus Who Aroused The Victorians". 2017. Blog. Flashbak . http://flashbak.com/saartjie-baartman-the-hottentot-venus-who-aroused-the-victorians-50638/. Mariko Mori - 27 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy . (2017). Artsy.net . Retrieved from https://www.artsy.net/artist/mariko-mori
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