Wouldn’t it be lovely if this piece by Alison Brady from I Want You (Magazine) via Pilot Books (here)
were labeled a tribute to the late Hannah Wilke, whose S.O.S. Starification Object Series in the 1970s featured her body and chewing gum?
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Hmmm……..
are you accusing ms. brady of plagiarism?
if so i feel your case is rather weak.
not only are these images aesthetically and stylistically very different
but the substance in alisons picture is clearly not chewing gum.
if it is simply the fact that she has created this piece by
applying a incongruous substance to her bare skin…….
then i suggest you level the same accusation at countless
other artists from the last 50 (or more!) years.
i find it strange that you chose this one image
from many in our magazine just to make a snide
remark about it.
it would have been ‘lovely’ if you had shown some
support for something that we feel is an healthy
addition to the seattle art scene.
christian petersen
curator and art director
i want you magazine
Plagiarism? Not at all. I like Brady’s work and have included it in various posts in the past. It’s just sometimes I feel a little sad that I’ve seen that before, and I want the original to get some credit. One of the ways artists keep each other’s work alive is to respond to it and use it, just as Brady is doing for Wilke. If Wilke were more famous, no problem. But I think she’s slipping from the general view. Looking at Ms. Brady’s photo, there’s no link or tip of the hat in the title or anywhere else, and it would be nice if there were.
P.S. Art critics cannot be counted on for a jet stream of well wishes, but we do try to pay attention and react.
oh…..i see………
but there is no certain suggestion
from this piece that Alison was in any way
influenced by Wilkes work.
It’s highly possible that she created it
without even knowing about this (very tenuous) precedent.
only the artist knows for sure
so i have sent her a link……and maybe she’ll react.
as for ‘a jet stream of well wishes’
your sarcasm is wholly unnecessary.
we clearly were never expecting such a thing.
but the fact that your ‘reaction’ to our magazine
was to negatively single out a single piece
is disappointing and a little sad.
christian petersen
curator and art director
i want you magazine
I don’t think it the job of an artist to clearly reference all their influences in the title of a piece. If it was many titles would become like a roll call of names! I think it is your job as an art critic to help the viewer to make those connections! I also think you are overplaying the debt that this piece owes to S.O.S. Starification Object. If you look at Alison’s body of work, even as evidenced by the series on i want you magazine.com, it becomes obvious that it is not just a ‘copy’ of Hannah Wilke but a part of an ongoing practice involving decorative modifications to Alison’s female models, who always have their identities and faces obscured – unlike Hannah Wilke’s Self Portraits. Alison’s work seems to explore the relationship between fashion photographer and subject, and the objectification inherent in that relationship. Brady is decorating, obscuring, and ‘de – feminising’ her subjects by making them ugly, strange and disturbing. That she often does this through ‘feminine’ techniques such as cake icing or flower arranging which are designed to prettify is surely the point?
Chewed chewing gum only has a disgusting connotation, it is something that is used, spent and discarded – drenched in bodily fluids! By making these little chewing gum vaginas/scars Hannah Wilke was surely expressing something subtly different? Hannah Wilke seems to me to be exploring her feelings about herself as a sexual woman and her representation as such. By placing and graphically describing elements of her own sexuality on her skin, she offers us her own voice – in contrast to the unthreatening, silent, mystical, interior sexuality usually imposed on female subjects by male photographers.
Both artists obviously explore the relationship between photographer and subject, but it’s a fundamentally different relationship as Hannah Wilke inhabits both roles.
In a world where the vast majority of images of women are still depressingly one dimensional, sexualized in the most banal way and overwhelmingly made by men, it seems utterly disingenuous to make a petty, moralistic critique of Alison Brady based on her stealing ideas from someone who she almost certainly admires. Perhaps you should blame the art world for lauding the macho histrionics of Dash Snow over the subtle thoughtfulness of Hannah Wilke? Maybe that is what is leading Hannah Wilke into obscurity rather than Alison Brady’s not name checking her in her titles.
Great letter, Izzie. And you’re right. It’s not the artist’s job, and yes, there are large sexist forces at work here.
Thank you for reminding me of Hannah Wilke’s work, I must confess I hadn’t looked at it for a few years. As a contributor to I Want You Magazine, I would also love to see you review it in it’s entirety. I think it’s really important to instigate a debate about all facets of art and culture and not to let a forum and catalyst for that such as I Want You Fly under the radar, particularly when it is self published and from your own city. You may not like the work in it but your readers deserve a larger introduction to it than you have currently offered. Perhaps an interview with the artists involved would offer them the space to talk about their references and influences?
I await in trepidation what you will have to say about my own work. Let me just get Charles Avery and Peter Brook out of the way now…
Good points again.
Christian. Not plagiarism. Not sarcasm. Calm down.
Yes but are you going to review the magazine? Now it has been brought to your attention are you actually interested?
No.