This is my undergraduate dissertation, written in 2014, in my third year, during my BA in Drawing and Applied Arts at the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol:
Read the full dissertation on Academia here: Second skin: used clothing and representations of the body in the work of Louise Bourgeois and Christian Boltanski
Lou Baker, Nobody 1, 2014, used clothing, found leather, imitation leather, hair, zips, flocking, velvet, stitch, print
(Click for full image)
Abstract:
'Both Louise Bourgeois and Christian Boltanski appropriate used clothing in their work. With particular focus on Bourgeois’ Pink Days and Blue Days and Boltanski’s No Man’s Land, I will discuss how each artist subverts traditional representations of the body, constructing alternative identities and evoking the abject. However, each artist approaches the use of worn clothing in different ways with quite different effects. I will consider the materiality of clothing and how it evokes memory, absence and loss. I will examine the idea of cloth as second skin and empty clothing as cadaver. I will explore Kristeva’s notion of the abject in relation to used clothing. I will also consider the multi sensory nature of cloth, particularly touch and smell, and how these elements can add meaning. Gender dichotomies are key to my discussion. Referring to Rozsika Parker’s notion of the gendering of cloth, I will explore the femininities associated with cloth, the stereotypical divide between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art and the body in personal and public spaces. Used clothing is possibly worn, faded, stained and dirty, and might have an odour. In the light of this, I will look at the work of Mary Douglas, who described dirt as being ‘matter out of place’ and explore the gendering of dirt as described by Julia Kristeva.'
Key words Used clothing - Body - Gender – Materiality – The abject