GIBBONS, J. (2007) Autobiography: The Externalisation of Personal Memory.

In: Gibbons, J. Contemporary Art and Memory: Images of Recollection and Remembrance. London: I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd.

In this chapter Gibbons shows a selective evolution of autobiographical genre in arts from Rembrandt to Tracey Emin.


This chapter covers very different artists. The concept of domesticated memories - memories, which are themselves creating this sense and memories which are additionally put into domestic environment or in case with Bourgeois in anti-domestic environment (what this change of environment gives to the perception of the works?) is actual for several artists, discussed by Gibbons; the concept of making personal public and political (in different ways from very figurative Kahlo's painting telling about miscarriage to minimalist Gonzalez-Torres works about his homosexual relationship) and relations between the viewer and the artist in autobiographical works; dealing with trauma in art, distancing from some experiences or re-inhabiting, re-appropriating them.


Speaking about broader themes raised in this chapter - there are a lot of them, actual and used as starting points in works of artists Gibbons mentions (Bourgeois, Kahlo, Van Gogh, Gonzalez-Torres, Emin): relations of the personal and the public, and consequently relation of the personal to the political; dealing with traumas; dealing with mental and physical issues; AIDS and LGBT rights, etc.


#autobiography #sculpture #painting #portrait #selfportrait #memory #childhood #death

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