ART364B - Marietta Davis

Note: Nanomajority is featuring the women of ART364B in seven separate monthly installments. To participate in the conversation, click "Add new comment" at the bottom of the page.  In addition to "The Beauty Files" you can view other videos by Marietta in the "View Project Posts" section on the right. 

Artist's Statement

"The Beauty Files” is a video conversation from 2010, featuring my long-term collaboration with artist Heather Marie Vernon. We employed a DIY style using different types of video cameras to reference high as well as low art. Our objective is to play with pop culture by creating an abstract mash-up of beauty techniques, music lyrics, and philosophical concepts. We discovered that low-tech methodology was not only aesthetically important but also culturally relevant. We wanted to emphasize feminist ideology and contextualize the piece, like Hannah Wilke, Joan Jonas, and Yoko Ono, continuing the history of female artists exploring issues of the body, female identity, and representation through vanguard performance and video.

Comments

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2011-02-23 12:51.
#1

Lots of engaging images in there.  It's ironic that a piece that, at the very least, is ambivalent regarding the role of make-up in the lives of women, would use make-up in such an aesthetically pleasing manner.  Of course, what I find beautiful often does not align with the dominate paradigm.   Thanks for sharing the piece.  I look forward to future installments. 

Rob Parrish

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 2011-02-21 09:34.
#2

Very engaging politically and  visually. Great feminist historical continuum with the lipstick scenes referencing  Yvonne Rainer in 'Privilege."

 

Maria Epes

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 2011-02-05 19:40.
#3

Timeless...

Great job, Maria

 

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2011-03-30 07:53.
#4

These images are disturbing: and yet, I watched this video repeatedly, and could not take my eyes off it. I wonder about the depth that it touched-playing on the consumer manipulation of femaleness and how I am often a willing participant, wanting to believe that I will be a younger more beautiful 'me'. Yet, knowing I will never and have never been an ideal nor ever looked like the models in the advertisments. They haunt me, and I can imagine others as they push the boundaries of what the culture deems is 'normal'