• Log In

The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog

Subscribe on Android Spotify Google Podcasts audible patreon
  • Home
  • Podcast
    • PEL Network Episodes
    • Publicly Available PEL Episodes
    • Paywalled and Ad-Free Episodes
    • PEL Episodes by Topic
    • Nightcap
    • (sub)Text
    • Pretty Much Pop
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • Phi Fic Podcast
    • Combat & Classics
    • Constellary Tales
  • Blog
  • About
    • PEL FAQ
    • Meet PEL
    • About Pretty Much Pop
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • Meet Phi Fic
    • Listener Feedback
    • Links
  • Join
    • Become a Citizen
    • Join Our Mailing List
    • Log In
  • Donate
  • Store
    • Episodes
    • Swag
    • Everything Else
    • Cart
    • Checkout
    • My Account
  • Contact
  • Mailing List

Art That Jay Mentioned: Jenny Saville

November 12, 2010 by Jay Bailey 4 Comments

Editor's Note: Jay Bailey, excellent guest from our Nelson Goodman discussion, has been good enough to help us make sense of some of the art references. -ML

null

Jenny Saville, Shift, 1996-1997, oil on canvas

While the four of us brought up many examples of art (Nascar is exempt from that classification because I still don't understand that nonsense nor the people who enjoy it for that matter), I felt it best to highlight the artist with whom I declared as being one of my favorites.  Her work is certainly not foreign to the eyes of art students, but unfortunately she is generally unknown to the greater public.

Jenny Saville's work is interesting to me because it is so painterly.  I like to use the phrase "material honesty."  The paint is obvious in its drips, brushstrokes, and color layering.  Her paintings are obviously paintings, which isn't always the case with other paintings.  In contrast to that understanding, they seem so real.  They seem so much more real than the pigment on canvas that make up their being.

Her subject matter is also of great interest to me.  Like many people I am very fond of bodies.  Human bodies have been at the center of artists' minds since the beginning of object making.  Saville follows in that tradition, but her work is obviously influenced by our own 21st century world.  I am one to argue that her work could not exist before things like plastic surgery, contemporary pornography, digital photography, video, and modern feminist thought.  We, as the audience, could also not see her work for what it is without being informed by that same world.

I encourage everyone to do image searches for her work.  Consider it.  Love it.  Hate it.  Converse about it.  What else is all of this art stuff for?

-Jay Bailey

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Filed Under: Web Detritus Tagged With: Jenny Saville, paintings, philosophy blog, philosophy of art, philosophy podcast

Comments

  1. Josh Davis says

    November 15, 2010 at 4:27 pm

    On the same day that you posted this, the spoof news source The Onion posted a picture of a topless woman on Facebook. In the 40 minutes it was up, it got about 500 comments, thousands of “likes”. I noticed that the comments were mostly from males, a ratio of probably twenty to one, of which nearly all had something approving or “witty” to say, while a large percentage of the few females that commented disapproved in one way or another. I actually thought it was funny/audacious at first. The longer it stayed up, I began to offended by it. I tried to post a few negative remarks, but The Onion censored them immediately, so there’s no telling how many other people were actually offended. After The Onion took it down, they posted a survey: “Would you vote for a naked woman in the primary?”, showing that it was just a stunt. At that point, I found the whole event mildly amusing.

    The thing I like about art like this is that it forces people, male and female, to take a step back. What the onion did hardly counts as art. On the other hand, what could be more taboo than desexualizing the nude female? They appear to be corpses(?) . Is America ready for this sort of art?

    This has gotten me to wondering what kind of reactions I would get if I put such a print up in my apartment.

    Reply
  2. Seth Paskin says

    November 17, 2010 at 8:23 pm

    Wow, what a great comment Josh! I could argue that the overexposure of the “sexualized” nude in media is resulting in the desexualization the nude female. We are bombarded by images of nude and partially nude females which purport to be sexual (e.g. porn), but which simply put the female body on display ‘as such’. It is implied that either the female form is inherently sexual, or that engaging in acts of sex sexualizes it. I’m not sure the latter is necessarily true.

    The body can be sexual, but it can also be grotesque or non-sexually aesthetically beautiful, among other things. No doubt there is some statement to be read into this work – and America better be the kind of place that it can be said.

    I imagine the kind of reaction you’d get depends on who you are having visit and for what purpose…
    –seth

    Reply
  3. Jay Bailey says

    November 17, 2010 at 9:48 pm

    The Onion is fantastic art. It is often too “true” for our own good.

    Reply
  4. Josh Davis says

    December 3, 2010 at 6:22 pm

    Thanks seth. I think I should explore more porn in order to get to the bottom of this.
    Seriously, though. I think that, even if i had the spare change to buy one of these, i wouldn’t. If someone gave me the painting for free, I would put it up. The “tabboo” nature of the piece wouldn’t deter me, just paying for it. There seems to be a tension between what i want in a piece of art and what the artist wants. For example, O’keefe i know has a good reputation, but i find her oversized flowers to be mind numbingly boring and ugly. The whole thing is wild and fascinating and foreign to me. That say Triptych 1976 by Francis Bacon sold for 86 million dollars. You look at it and you’re like “so this is what an 86 million dollar painting looks like.” Another related question would be to what extent the artists personality is connected to the value of the work, how much good art is out there, to what extent the popularity of a piece affects its value . . .

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Seth Paskin Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Citizenship has its Benefits

Become a PEL Citizen
Become a PEL Citizen, and get access to all paywalled episodes, early and ad-free, including exclusive Part 2's for episodes starting September 2020; our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and chat more causally; a community of fellow learners, and more.

Rate and Review

Nightcap

Listen to Nightcap
On Nightcap, listen to the guys respond to listener email and chat more casually about their lives, the making of the show, current events and politics, and anything else that happens to come up.

Subscribe to Email Updates

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Support PEL

Buy stuff through Amazon and send a few shekels our way at no extra cost to you.

Tweets by PartiallyExLife

Recent Comments

  • Erick Mitsak on Episode 130: Aristotle’s “De Anima”: What Is Life?
  • Evan Hadkins on Ep. 296: Heidegger Questions Being (Part Two for Supporters)
  • Tony L on Science, Religion, and Secularism Part XXV: Charles Taylor—The Protestant Reformation and the Rise of the Disciplinary Society
  • Paul D. Van Pelt on PREVIEW-Ep. 295: Kant on Preventing War (Part Three
  • Evan Hadkins on PEL Nightcap June 2022

About The Partially Examined Life

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

Become a PEL Citizen!

As a PEL Citizen, you’ll have access to a private social community of philosophers, thinkers, and other partial examiners where you can join or initiate discussion groups dedicated to particular readings, participate in lively forums, arrange online meet-ups for impromptu seminars, and more. PEL Citizens also have free access to podcast transcripts, guided readings, episode guides, PEL music, and other citizen-exclusive material. Click here to join.

Blog Post Categories

  • (sub)Text
  • Aftershow
  • Announcements
  • Audiobook
  • Book Excerpts
  • Citizen Content
  • Citizen Document
  • Citizen News
  • Close Reading
  • Combat and Classics
  • Constellary Tales
  • Exclude from Newsletter
  • Featured Article
  • General Announcements
  • Interview
  • Letter to the Editor
  • Misc. Philosophical Musings
  • Nakedly Examined Music Podcast
  • Nakedly Self-Examined Music
  • NEM Bonus
  • Not School Recording
  • Not School Report
  • Other (i.e. Lesser) Podcasts
  • PEL Music
  • PEL Nightcap
  • PEL's Notes
  • Personal Philosophies
  • Phi Fic Podcast
  • Philosophy vs. Improv
  • Podcast Episode (Citizen)
  • Podcast Episodes
  • Pretty Much Pop
  • Reviewage
  • Song Self-Exam
  • Things to Watch
  • Vintage Episode (Citizen)
  • Web Detritus

Follow:

Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Apple Podcasts

Copyright © 2009 - 2022 · The Partially Examined Life, LLC. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Copyright Policy

Copyright © 2022 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in