Question-
“Uncomfortable Art”
Art – visual art, photography, sculpture, literature, drama, film, architecture, fashion – has the capacity to generate strong emotions from its audience. Such emotions can be varied and concurrent: attraction, disgust, fear, intrigue, and boredom. Indeed, some of the most important works of art through history have been both beautiful and ugly, sublime and ridiculous, magnificent and uncomfortable – such as “beautiful” paintings of death and war, captivating photographs of poverty, and rousing, but also heartbreaking music and drama. This is not specific to Western or modern art. In a globalized, fast changing, and image-centered world, in fact, the ‘uncomfortable’ power of art may be expanding.
This assignment asks you to write a thoughtful, reflective essay about a single artwork that both attracts and repels you, in which you attempt to locate and “work through” your different personal responses to it. You should use two or more readings from the course to support and develop your paper.
Instructions
1. Select an artwork from the DIFC that intrigues and fascinates you, but which also disturbs you or makes you feel uncomfortable. Include a photograph or copy of the artwork at the start of your assignment, together with information about the artwork and the artist.
2. Begin the assignment by describing the artwork in detail. What is the artwork of? How has it been created? What do you think the artist’s intentions or messages are in this work? What do you see in it?
3. Try next to identify and describe the different emotions within you that are stirred or moved by the artwork. It may be something within the art itself. It may be something about the way the art is displayed in the gallery. There may be something ‘uncanny’ about the art (as Freud mentions) – something familiar to you, but which is also out of place and now unsettling. What do you think makes this artwork familiar and unfamiliar, ugly and beautiful, frightening and comforting? You may see something in the artwork that others don’t see. Your reaction to an artwork may be very different to someone else’s – if so, how and why?
4. Finally, using two or more class readings, discuss two or three specific aspects of the artwork that you find particularly impressive or uncomfortable, and which you think other people might find intriguing or upsetting. These aspects may be big features or very small details. Why do you think these aspects have generated these emotions in you? Why might some people find them pleasurable and others disagreeable or banal?
Additional information-
This question related to Arts and it is about a uncomfortable or disturbing art. Art is believed to be beautiful to the core; even historically there are several instances of disturbing and uncomfortable art throughout. One such piece of art has been shown and the artist’s intention behind such an art has been given. The art used here is “Memories of Destruction” by Aydin Aghdashloo.
Word limit-1000.
