Hans Bellmer and His Therapeutic Dolls

Much of the time we are fascinated by what is unable to be had. Particularly though,  the most interesting results can come from obsession. Whether beautiful or morbid, a common theme seems to remain within the world of secret curiosities; those considerably taboo areas...

"Hans Bellmer, whose photographs of his own creepy motile doll-sculptures consciously recall several centuries of carnal mechanics and stalled desire, seems to have understood the ultimate sterility of the whole project."
(Brian Dillon)

La Poupee (The Doll) 1935-6, Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris

Inspired first by the work of Oskar Kokoschka, Bellmer's first doll projects culminated after three legendary experiences: An attendance to Jacques Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann (in which a man falls tragically in love with his lifelike doll Olympia), through an erotic obsession with his young and beautiful cousin Ursula, and in receiving a bundle of sentimental childhood toys from his mother.

Bellmer gained from these events a compulsion, in his words, "to construct an artificial girl with anatomical possibilities...capable of re-creating the heights of passion even to inventing new desires."

 

Milles Filles (A Thousand Girls) 1939

His expressions of obsession and desire through unattainable 'young maidens' in the 1930's are not so different from today's one track Real Doll industry. Throughout the similarities in subject matter, undeniably there is an Art to what Bellmer has done in his blatant use of Freudian concepts to exploit his own desires and self-consciousnesses, satisfying visually that artist's thirst to share, create, and expose our fixations available for the public's endless interpretations..

 

 

Unica Bound, 1959

Plate 12 of Les Jeux de la Popee (The Games of the Dolls) 1949

"Bellmer's photographs of the ball-jointed doll establish sinister, narrative tableaus, with new emphasis on the doll's environment: outside the studio, the doll becomes a dramatic character, often the victim of an unseen tormentor, in domestic interiors, basement, hayloft, or forest."

She "only had life in so far as one projected it into her... [she] understood she was reserved for despair."

"The power of these photographs often resides in the coexistence and confusion of the perverse and the banal".... for what where would we be in our minds be if the 'confusion' portrayed about the deviance in 'normal' sexuality was actually plainly expressed....

Read more into the psychological references in his work HERE.

Below: La Poupee (The Doll), Maquette for 'Les Jeux de La Poupee. 1938

Lar's von Trier's Antichrist

Fervently becoming one of the most controversial films of this decade is Lar's von Trier's Antichrist. 

Some have given his vision praise saying,

"Lars von Trier has never produced a movie that is void of content, shallow or simply cynical. So as someone who has recently seen the movie, I can tell you, I have been challenged, I thought it was beautiful, and I don't care about the message or the story. What is the purpose of a beautiful flower or of a growing cancer on the roots of a tree? It's life, and it's great"

While others remain unbiased,

"I've heard nothing about this movie that makes me think I'll enjoy it, and nothing about it that will keep me from seeing it."

...or simply unimpressed.

"He and many of his ilk have made careers of trying to shock the rest of us out of our collective aesthetic stupor.  And it worked.  We’ve now seen it all.  And we’re tired of it.  What else you got, Lars? "

But a slight majority seem to be enraged:

"It’s bad because mere self-indulgence is not art. A hopeless ragbag of pointlessly pretty shots, hack metaphors, misogyny, undergraduate portentousness and plagiarised cinematography, it left me, by the closing scene, angry. " 

"This foul nightmare is so unrelenting, so devoid of humor, that Antichrist ultimately feels more like a snuff film than a horror movie."

Bjork went as far as to accuse him of "soul robbery," vowing never to make another film again after her work with him in Dancer in the Dark.

“You can take quite sexist film directors like Woody Allen or Stanley Kubrick,” she said, “and still they are the ones that provide the soul to their movies. In Lars von Trier’s case, it is not so, and he knows it. He needs a female to provide his work (with) soul, and he envies them and hates them for it. So he has to destroy them during the filming, and hide the evidence.”

While misogyny has been a rampant theme and accusation throughout Trier's career, it is up to the viewer to decide what defines art, and furthermore can violently disturbing images beyond one's enduring limits disrupt the culture that lies within that art? Can the idea that the artist is a misogynistic individual corrupt the experience of it?  And should the freedom of expression be condemned when a lack of intelligent explanation and/or purpose is present?

Lars von Trier says his movies choose him, and not the other way around.

"I never have a choice, it’s the hand of God, I’m afraid. And I am the best film director in the world. I’m not sure God is the best god in the world.”

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/18/lars-von-triers-antichris_0_n_204597.html

Art has many times been described as a therapy for the artist through their chosen medium, and I believe pieces such as this are less intended to convey a message to the viewer about life, as it is an uncommanded portrait of the artist's therapeutic process- we see, not the result or inspiration, but rather the journey, successful or not.

"As for the personal, therapeutic goal of making Antichrist, he admitted, “It hasn’t really worked”—a reminder to artists that one’s vilest fantasies are sometimes best left un-indulged."

The IFC begins screening of this film on October 23. 

I, however opposed I feel towards the character of the directer, will be there to see and ultimately take something away for my own artistic 'therapies.'

Lars von Trier Interview

Lars von Trier's Antichrist - Official Trailer from Zentropa on Vimeo.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/18/lars-von-triers-antichris_0_n_204597.html

Miwa Yanagi: Japanese Women and Physical Reversal

The White Doves, 2005, from 'Fairy Tales'

Windswept Woman V, 2009

Windswept Woman II, 2009

Snow White, 2004, from 'Fairy Tales'

Miwa Yanagi has much to say about the Japan's society of women today, and derives much of her inspiration from the dichotomy between youth and maturity intermingled within that specific world. Yanagi's creations are reactions to the social restraint of Japanese culture.

"Japanese women today conceive themselves as someone who are lovable. They think they have to be lovable and liked by everyone around them. Especially young women think that they don't deserve to live if they are not like that. As a result, they don't talk openly about their wishes or strange desires even though they had some ideas about who they wanted to be when they were children. In order for them to recall their childhood dreams, they need to be liberated from their youthfulness."

"It's maybe easy to go your own way in America, but in Japan self-centered individualism is not acceptable without you being totally on top of others. Otherwise, you cannot keep on living. If you brake off from your family and decide to never see them again, you can be individualistic. But, if you like to keep a certain distance from your family yet maintain the balance, there are a lot of concerns."

 Reflecting on her work entitled, 'Fairy Tales', Miwa Yanagi explains her use of youth and monsters: 

"Monsters are anomalies on the edge of society, and that exemption from social constraints in a way mirrors the freedom of children and the elderly."

Quotes from Yanagi's Interview with the "Journal of Contemporary Art"

The Grandmothers

(2000-2009)

SHIZUKA

"Do I or don't I stop these hands at this very moment."

In her nine year project, 'My Grandmothers," Yanagi used young women ranging between the ages of 18 and 40 to express how they envisioned themselves forty, fifty, or sixty years from the present. What she avoided were expressions of being close to family and a loving home life in order to highlight the possibilities outside of traditional hopes and dreams and centering on her preference for more independent women.

"I think if you are too young, like junior high school students, you don't have any realistic view of life. They haven't lived long enough yet. Many in their twenties are the same. So, when they apply via e-mail, I turn down their applications and advise them to take a first step in the real life before dreaming about being an extraordinary grandmother."

"I really respect elderly women or men in their 80's and 90's who care for others, and have opinions about the society and beyond until they die. There are only few people who can do that."

MISAKO

"How many more nights are yet to pass for this desolation to cease"

YUKA

 "I told one of my grandkids over the phone that I've been zapped off into some other universe."

MIWA

"Whenever I go out to meet one of my new offspring, we all end up going on a journey together."

"It is strange to me to emphasize the importance of the biological connection to your children, which can lead to cloning. The emphasis is on physically feeling the pain of giving a birth to a child who carries your DNA. The idea of surrogate mother also raises a question. Having someone else carry your ovum in order for you to have a biological child."

Chambliss Giobbi: A Fractured Perception

Self Portrait I, 1999

collage & beeswax on aluminum panel

Chambliss Giobbi is first a composer of music, wherein his initial concepts of time and layered composition became the vital ingredient of his signature style. I once e-mailed him, inquiring about being apart of a project and I received an immediate and delicate response:

"...A complete series may take over a year to make, so I
only really work with people I know intimately or have wanted to work with
for years. This is a testament to the level of commitment I need to have
toward an individual before shooting..."

 As a result, Giobbi's work is intensely personal as he becomes intertwined psychologically... layering time like musical notes and exposing the individual through his eyes....

Combined portrait of Edward & Elanor Giobbi VII, 2001

Torso of Gina Depalma

"One is left with the notion of witnessing an intense, virtually operatic compression of moments, catharsis and myth: an intimate viewing of entropy."

Tanz Fur Mich, Salom 3, (self-portrait), 2009