overview
Lesson 2 | Summary
Activity Pages
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lesson 2 | the face of fame
activity | the visible & invisible
Collier Schorr and Roni
Horn are two artists who are interested in the genre of portraiture
as a means to convey the visible, and perhaps the invisible aspects
of identity to viewers. Have your students consider the concept
of identity: who are you versus how do people see you? What defines
you and how can that be represented in an image? What characteristics
are more easily depicted versus thos that are more difficult to
represent in a portrait?
View the Season Two Art:21 video segment on Collier Schorr and read
her interview (see link above). In describing her photographic series
“Wrestlers Love America”
Shorr says, “With the wrestlers it was about transmitting
a sense of attraction and fear to an audience, so that an audience
is faced with these two oppositions. They’re faced with being
attracted to the image and being fearful of the image.”
Schorr has talks about the viewer looking at her work:
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“I think they
see all of the great themes packed in. They see youth and
they see triumph and they see tension and they see sexuality.
People bring to it what they want. When it’s in the
wrestling domain people only see the moves, they only see
the singlets. They only see what they recognize. They don’t
bring anything else to it, I think. And I think that when
people see it in a gallery, they’re being told, 'You
can look for other things. You can look beyond the surface
of the picture.' And I think a lot of people see their own
struggles as teenagers in the pictures. They see that transition
from adolescent to grownup to adult. I think they see someone
living life in a way that maybe they don’t any longer.
I think they see kids that are doing something extreme with
their life that takes incredible determination. And so I hope
that it’s inspiring. And I hope it’s scary. I
mean it’s supposed to be scary as well. They’re
warriors after all.” |
Look at several of the images from the “Wrestlers Love America”
series including “At
Ernie Monaco's THE EDGE,” “America
Flag with Scratch,” and “Blow-Up,”
and discuss how Schorr has chosen to convey specific ideas or images
of these people. How do students 'read' these images? How do you
think the general public sees these wrestling images? What does
the typical viewer know about the people in Schorr’s photographs?
Ask students to describe their own relationship to images they see
of others, for example celebrities: are they jealous, curious, inspired?
Use each image to discuss the surface qualities they see, and the
intuitive or emotional responses they have to her work. What experiences
do students bring to viewing Schorr’s images? Most likely
all of your students do not read Schorr’s work in the same
way; point out the importance of this diverse interpretation. As
students each share their own opinion, how does it help the class
to better understand the artist’s work?
Roni Horn has created two photographic series of portraits. In addition
to sculptures, installations, and photographs. Talking about her
portraiture Horn says, “You get into this situation where
your ‘identity’ takes over your actual being because
you get stuck with whatever it is you resemble to other people—not
who you are. They’re not necessarily the same thing.”
Discuss Horn's statement after looking at the work “This
is Me, This is You.” How can we use this knowledge to
“read” her images? How did Horn represent the identity
of the individual in her photographs? What can you interpret about
the individual based on the titles of the photographs?
Compare Horn’s photographs of individuals with Schorr’s
photographs of wrestlers. Schorr remarks on how the wrestlers compete
in relative obscurity; how does this change the nature of the competition?
Horn has stated, “When you do a portrait, it’s about
mutual trust… that the person you’re working with trusts
you so that the image is fluent with whom she or he is.” Horn’s
subjects are relatively unknown; how might this change how they
“pose” or “act” around the photographer?
Horn remarks:
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“There’s
a story about Georgia that hits the nail on the head for me.
She had seen 'You Are the Weather' as a kid. I asked if I
could photograph her. She was maybe five or six years old.
She said, '“Oh, Roni, you can take pictures but you
can’t show them.' I thought, 'Wow, that’s interesting.'
I let it go. And a couple of years later she said, 'Okay,
Roni, you can...' I really just recorded her in action...a
girl becoming a woman...trying on identities. That was very
much her energy. It wasn’t orchestrated.” |
When are portraits “orchestrated” and when are they
“natural?” For example, how do sports figures, politicians,
or Hollywood celebrities want to be portrayed? How do artists often
wish to portray them? Look through newspapers and weekly periodicals,
as well as portraits of the past, such as Jacques-Louis
David’s “Bonaparte
Crossing the Alps at Grand-Saint-Bernard” and Emanuel
Gottlieb Leutze’s “George
Washington Crossing the Delaware.” When does a
portrait seem staged and when does it appear candid? How can the
viewer learn to recognize the difference? |
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