Emma Talbot ‘Unravel these Knots’, Griselda Pollock - The Missing Wit(h)ness: Monroe, Fascinance and the Unguarded Intimacy of Being Dead

 

The above two presentations were those which particularly interested me during this one day symposium. Hearing Emma Talbot’s self-awareness and intimate personal observations provided refreshing insights into her concurrent exhibition at The Freud Museum. Continuing a discussion about the process that some artists may go through when making site-specific works for the museum, that may emulate a psycho-analytic session.

At a subsequent lecture, and related to Talbot’s work and personal disclosures, Griselda Pollock answered a question about whether a personal work of art was Art Therapy. I have often understood this as a criticism, especially of artworks by women, which focus on the personal. Pollock clarified with an interpretation about gender preference, the artist’s intent, the quality of the work and the nature of an artwork to relate to the human condition (1)

 

Pollock’s lecture addressed another area of discomfort, artworks made from photographs of vulnerability, which may objectify. Employing Bracha Ettinger’s term fascinance i.e. using the matrixial (feminine ethic) as opposed to the Lacanian phallic male gaze, not only for looking at but taking responsibility for making artworks. Marlene Dumas’s painting made from an autopsy photograph of the dead Marilyn Monroe illustrated Pollock’s theory of questioning how artists make work that is wit(h)nessing, ie witnessing with a feminist aesthetic ethic or not. An audience member criticised Pollock for including so many images of Monroe’s death photograph in her presentation. I realised the strength of what Pollock was saying from this criticism, influencing my future decisions about how I will use imagery.

 

 

(1) Pollock, G. (2016). Performing Feminism. Wilson Lecture Theatre, Camberwell

 

Pollock, G. (2013) After-affects/After-images: Manchester University Press, Manchester