INTRODUCTION
The human body is central to how we understand components of identity such as gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity. People change or modify their bodies, hair, and clothing to; hold up with certain groups or cultures; rebel against social conventions and also; to express messages to others around them. As a result, many artists explore gender, race and ethnicity through representations of the body in their creative process. The purpose of this assignment is to identify and discuss an artist who deals with issues of body and identity in his or her artworks. The artworks will be analysed, to prove their affiliation to the concept of Body and Identity issues in art.
A. BODY AND IDENTITY
i. Definition
Body and identity is the act of altering the original looks of the person’s appearances,
…show more content…
History of Body and Identity in Art
The 1960s and 1970s were a time of social disorders in the world, considerable among them, the fight for equality for women with regards to sexuality, reproductive rights, the family, and the workplace. Artists and art historians began to look into how images in art and the media, more often than not produced by men, maintained idealizations of the female form (SA History, nd).
Feminist artists reclaimed the female body and depicted it through a variety of lenses and other media. Around this time, the body took on another important role as a medium with which artists created their work. For example, in performance art, (a term coined in the early 1960s as the field was starting to take hold), the actions an artist performs are central to the work of art. For many artists, using their bodies in performances became a way to claim control over their own bodies and to question issues of gender. Now a history of our ancestors ' methods of painting and piercing their bodies over the past 30000 years is on display in a wondrous, imaginative, and sometimes terrifying exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History (SA History,