The Taschen Collection: Art of our time
By Marga Paz
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All these artists deal openly with issues related to their personal memory, without prejudgements and without either condemnation or failing to show what might have even been traumatic in their personal histories. This is true of Kelley, in whose work the presence of biographical elements express a desire to distance himself from art which springs from minimalist and conceptual art, art that he views as profoundly puritanical.
Kippenberger also frequently approaches his body and his own history in a variety of ways. This leads him to present himself as a virtually omnipresent protagonist in his works via his numerous appearances - in painting, sculpture, photography, posters, books - usually disguised as the different roles he played in his real life. In this sense he mined his own life as if it were a Readymade.
In 1988, when he was living in Spain, Kippenberger began what would be one of his most important series, the Self-Portraits, in which he began to paint his own naked body as a version of the famous photo in which an aged Picasso wears nothing but long underwear. In this series, Kippenberger confronted the description and portrayal of his own body - this time without disguises - in all its realistic vulnerability and physical frailties. He thus offers an image of himself in which his enormous belly and Picasso's own long underwear are given a somewhat grotesque appearance.
Highlighting the traumatic nature of the biographical by questioning the real meaning of identity is an exercise frequently undertaken by Cindy Sherman. Without any attempt at self-portraiture, her part is that of chameleon-like model, taking on the appearance of different characters she photographs in elaborate settings in her studio. This method is aimed at "representing mockups of the ego, illusions of identity, masks of authenticity, and other romantic monsters and post-modern zombies. Her body functions as an "analogon" of an image of perception that operates in terms of two subjects: it is the agent of the representation, and the person who watches, comprehends, and reflects on this agent."
However, it was in 1990s art that the narration of the subjective acquired a more singular role, as is shown in the case of Tillmans. If, on the one hand, ethnographic, social, ethical and political issues occupy a large part of current art, there are other artists who, with a more introspective vision, delve into their own interiors; who are in search of an experience of the real in which the individual's memory and the unconscious emerge as the cornerstones.
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All these artists deal openly with issues related to their personal memory, without prejudgements and without either condemnation or failing to show what might have even been traumatic in their personal histories. This is true of Kelley, in whose work the presence of biographical elements express a desire to distance himself from art which springs from minimalist and conceptual art, art that he views as profoundly puritanical.
Kippenberger also frequently approaches his body and his own history in a variety of ways. This leads him to present himself as a virtually omnipresent protagonist in his works via his numerous appearances - in painting, sculpture, photography, posters, books - usually disguised as the different roles he played in his real life. In this sense he mined his own life as if it were a Readymade.
In 1988, when he was living in Spain, Kippenberger began what would be one of his most important series, the Self-Portraits, in which he began to paint his own naked body as a version of the famous photo in which an aged Picasso wears nothing but long underwear. In this series, Kippenberger confronted the description and portrayal of his own body - this time without disguises - in all its realistic vulnerability and physical frailties. He thus offers an image of himself in which his enormous belly and Picasso's own long underwear are given a somewhat grotesque appearance.
Highlighting the traumatic nature of the biographical by questioning the real meaning of identity is an exercise frequently undertaken by Cindy Sherman. Without any attempt at self-portraiture, her part is that of chameleon-like model, taking on the appearance of different characters she photographs in elaborate settings in her studio. This method is aimed at "representing mockups of the ego, illusions of identity, masks of authenticity, and other romantic monsters and post-modern zombies. Her body functions as an "analogon" of an image of perception that operates in terms of two subjects: it is the agent of the representation, and the person who watches, comprehends, and reflects on this agent."
However, it was in 1990s art that the narration of the subjective acquired a more singular role, as is shown in the case of Tillmans. If, on the one hand, ethnographic, social, ethical and political issues occupy a large part of current art, there are other artists who, with a more introspective vision, delve into their own interiors; who are in search of an experience of the real in which the individual's memory and the unconscious emerge as the cornerstones.
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Benedikt Taschen and Julius Shulman at the "good-people-make-me-look-good"-party for Julius Shulman, right. Chemosphere House, Hollywood, California. Foto: Edvin Paas, 1999
