본 연구는 현대미술 중 예술가가 자신의 신체를 작품화 하는 경향을 ‘예술의 물질성/비물질성’이라는 논점으로 분석한다. 아브라모빅, 셔먼, 아콘치, 니키 리 등 주요 예술가의 작품들을 사례 연구함으로써, 예술가의 신체에 연관된 물질적/비물질적 층위, 작품에서 예술가의 존재와 표현 방식을 둘러싸고 형성되는 다양한 차원의 지각과 인식의 논리가 서술된다.This research suggests art, not as a priori, universal, or a prototype, but as an
artist engaging in and accomplishing concrete practice, exploring what art actually is.
So to speak, the history of art is a kind of complex field, that was made possible
from the constant accumulation of interaction between the material and physical
deeds and the non material and spiritual achievements of each artist. In order to
render these complex field comprehensible, my essay will to stress the material and
non material dimensions of the artist’s body. The points I want to discuss here
therefore are: contemporary artworks in which artists themselves appear; artist’s
bodies as artworks; and the specific perception and logic operating in such artworks.
By discussing the non/material dimensions of the artist’s bodies as artworks in
the context of contemporary art scenes, I address artists as ‘the subjects of
representation and objects of appreciation.’ For this discussion it is necessary to
review Self-portrait by Marie-Louise Vigee-Lebrun in 1790 and Untitled Film Stills by
Cindy Sherman in 1978-80. What we can find in these examples, all artworks in
which artists appear are distinguishable from other work as the artists become the
narrator of their image.
On the other hand, we often see naked artists in contemporary art, especially
in Body art, Happening, and Performance. In the cases of Ono Yoko, Vito Acconci,
and Julie Jaffrennou, the body is not given as a mere biology with anatomy but an anatomy formed through a social life maintained from one’s birth to death,
composed and represented through social, historical, institutional apparatus and
signs. But when the artist’s naked body assumes the role of critical medium
questioning the social body, the above case might appear slightly strange. That is
why realities are removed and confined to the internal side of art in their
performances, despite their connection with the social, as if being staged at a
theater. Unlike the abovementioned artists, there are artists who interweave society’s
diversity, political and economical situations, and cultural contexts, with their naked
bodies as like in the artworks of Marina Abramovi? or Nikki S. Lee.
Walter Benjamin distinguished the body(Leib) from corporeal substance
(Korper). The former is a communal, social, historical body, different to a biological
one. The body here is not a biologically given body but a secular, acquired one
formed within a community. If we see the body from the viewpoint of aisthesis, or
in the context of our perception in a worldly life as Benjamin’s aesthetics alluded,
the body can be discussed in relation to socially open and expanded consciousness
and artist’s activity.