Amy Aramanda
The Old Guitarist (after Picasso)
Peter Goin says, ignorance is not the path to originality. This is why we research before every photography project. However, every so often, when I do my research I start feeling defeated. I think that everything has been done before, and that I have nothing new to contribute to the history of art. There have been so many artists throughout history, many of which have never even made it into the history books. For the most part I understand why the artists in my art history books are in there, but why were they canonized and not someone doing the same type of work, why aren’t there more women, and who chooses who makes it and who doesn’t? I feel like these canonized “masters” are put up on a pedestal and worshiped. With this project I want to show that these “masterpiece” paintings shouldn’t be taken so seriously and at the same time I want to elevate photography to the hierarchical level of painting. Since the invention of photography, photographers have been considered mere technicians of a machine and not artists. In an attempt to prove that I’m an artist I made my photographs more painterly and showed the hand of the artist by using body painting to recreate and recontextualize some of the canonized paintings that have really stuck out to me, done by artists that I respect.
The Old Guitarist (after Picasso)
Peter Goin says, ignorance is not the path to originality. This is why we research before every photography project. However, every so often, when I do my research I start feeling defeated. I think that everything has been done before, and that I have nothing new to contribute to the history of art. There have been so many artists throughout history, many of which have never even made it into the history books. For the most part I understand why the artists in my art history books are in there, but why were they canonized and not someone doing the same type of work, why aren’t there more women, and who chooses who makes it and who doesn’t? I feel like these canonized “masters” are put up on a pedestal and worshiped. With this project I want to show that these “masterpiece” paintings shouldn’t be taken so seriously and at the same time I want to elevate photography to the hierarchical level of painting. Since the invention of photography, photographers have been considered mere technicians of a machine and not artists. In an attempt to prove that I’m an artist I made my photographs more painterly and showed the hand of the artist by using body painting to recreate and recontextualize some of the canonized paintings that have really stuck out to me, done by artists that I respect.