Contextual studies: Assessment task 1: Visual Analysis

Kayleigh Esteller
Assessment Task 1: Visual Analysis
Tutor: Malcolm Moseley
Pair 1: Hans Bellmer, Cindy Sherman

The work by Hans Bellmer, is a photograph of a doll formation made upon the uses of legs and torso’s. the picture is in black and white and set in a eerie woods around about Autumn time as there are leaves on the ground and there are bare branches on show. In the slight background there is a dark unclear figure of possible a man whom seems to be peeping around the tree.
The doll to me symbolises sexuality and forced mutilation. The figure its self has no face, arms or genitals just legs and torso. But has shoes on all feet. Bellmer to me is expressing the lust for woman and how their bodies are very powerful, this is maybe because of the time of the photograph was produced (1933-1936) which would have been pre war context, of where the woman in Nazi period is just there to reproduce.
This photo was made to shock the people especially the Nazi’s, one of the happened to be his father. It is a picture that creeps you out when you look at it. It make my skin tingle. I feel like something unpleasant will or has happened to the manikin, it is pale and miss shaped. The figure lurking in the background is either getting closer or walking away, which makes me feel uneasy.
In Cindy Sherman’s photo which happens to be in colour this time, she has also used a doll. This time the doll has all features you would normally expect which makes it look life like. The doll is sitting with one arm back and one ford, with both legs patterned but both feet touching. Almost as if the doll is giving birth. But it happens to look very relaxed. The black top or maybe dress has been ripped down to reveal and torn open chest with another dolls head upside down inside. The black top is covering the dolls genitals. But legs covered in what looks like jeans. The face and body is covered in what looks like bloody it is also dripping down the torso. The head of the doll looks as if its been altered or it don’t belong to that dolls body. The eyes have an alarming glare as if she is staring you right in the eyes.
I think she is trying to portray the role of a woman in very day society. The struggle she has in everyday life. The doll its self has no body shape as such it shows no curves nor breast, its like its hiding what it really is. To me I feel violence from the photo, the depth of how the doll is meant to feel. It portrayed by the background as beautiful and graceful, however on the foreground you see it in all its light and glory. And its horrible and heartbreaking.
In contrast between the two photographs they have both used doll/ manikins but in difference ways. Bellmers manikin was curvy and had a belly and thighs, where Shermans has nothing as such but on the other hand had a face which showed expression. They both portray sexuality in one way or another, La Poupe to me shows modernism I think the artists is coming to terms with the period of time he is in. The artists are both creating shocking by slightly highlighting things we don’t see or don’t want to see. They bring this our attention by recreating an upsetting or eerie image. That plays with our mind. I think they are also playing with the idea of a lost identify, using the dolls with no expression or no face at all. Which the artist Cindy Sherman say she loses in her work.
Both pieces of work are fundamentally expressing views in politics from the artist point of view in their own period of time.She explained to the New York Times in 1990, "I feel I'm anonymous in my work. When I look at the pictures, I never see myself; they aren't self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear. Both pieces of work are fundamentally expressing views in politics from the artist point of view in their own period of time.