Autobiographical work

Yesterday, we began exploring the idea of using autobiography in work in the first of a series of installation workshops. I have taken some notes from the opening presentation.
 
Cave Of Hands
 
Cueva de las Manos (Spanish for Cave of the Hands) is a cave or a series of caves located in the province of Santa Cruz, Argentina, 163 km (101 mi) south of the town of Perito Moreno. It is famous (and gets its name) for the paintings of hands. The art in the cave dates from 13,000 to 9,000 years ago.
 
Bhimbetica Rock Shelters

The rock shelters and caves of Bhimbetka have a number of interesting paintings which depict the lives and times of the people who lived in the caves, including scenes of childbirth, communal dancing and drinking, and religious rites and burials, as well as the natural environment around them.

 
 Jan Van Euck, Albrecht Durer, Da Vinci

Rembrandt van Rijn

No artist has left a loftier or more penetrating personal testament than Rembrandt van Rijn. In more than 90 portraits of himself that date from the outset of his career in the 1620s to the year of his death in 1669, he created an autobiography in art that is the equal of the finest ever produced in literature even of the intimately analytical Confessions of St. Augustine.


Frida Kahlo, Tracey Emin



The presentation explored autobiography through time and that it can take many forms, its not the obvious which is always the most intruiging but self portraiture tells a lot about an artists life. It can take the form of portraiture, diary, the avante garde movements, performance art, documentary and self presentation through the 'big brother culture' and the facebook/social media revolution. But also why autobiographical work? it could be a record of life or work, a platform for societies minorities (the feminist artists use self expression a lot in work to get points across), it may be to remember or establish existence. Re-presentation is also a big thing with autobiographical work and this is something post-modernism is displaying through things such as parody in film.