The Naked Self Portrait: Women (1 and 2).

The Naked Self Portrait: Women.

(1) Subjectivity.

Illustration 1: 'Interior Scroll'; two photographs on one print; beet juice, urine and coffee on screenprint on paper; Tate Modern, London, UK; Carolee Schneeman (b. 1939).

A record of a 1975 performance (New York), in which Carolee Schneeman, controversially, removed a scroll from her vagina and read the text out loud. It describes a conversation with a male film-maker. Schneeman uses her own body as the central component of this work.

The concept of an 'Interior scroll' suggests a specialised awareness to which the individual alone is privy. Our mirror image signifies an object we have an intimate recognition of, but which is the hardest thing to see clearly. If art is primarily a subjective process, its thread of subjectivity is most tightly wound around the artist's sense of self. To represent oneself as a naked object intensifies this conflict. Issues of ego, age, corporeality and sexuality inevitably obtrude. This theme has stimulated artists, female and male, to search for an unidealized vision of their own body.

(2) Objectivity.

Illustration 2: 'Self Portrait', 1991; Jenny Saville (b. 1970).

Jenny Saville makes little effort to portray herself as an artist in this work. Maintaining eye contact with the viewer, she is reduced - provocatively - to a bodily, animal function that we all perform daily, but which is generally considered 'unaesthetic' and beyond the bounds of acceptable representation. Art and beauty, particularly female beauty, are often mutually inclusive terms. Realism, however, tends to transgress conventional belief with regard to what is appropriately feminine. The realist claims a right to depict that which may seem ugly, because such a thing exists and is a fact. 

"The 'what should be' never did exist, but people keep trying to live up to it. There is no 'what should be', there is only what is" - Lenny Bruce.

'Wonderland', film 1999.

'Wonderland', 1999: Film and Soundtrack (Michael Winterbottom, director; Michael Nyman, composer). 

'Nadia'.

Michael Nyman's soundtrack for 'Wonderland' (1999) seems to dig deep into a core of aching sadness at the heart of British urban life. 'Nadia' (Gina Mckee, actress) wanders the streets of London, after a doomed, anxiety-ridden blind date. Stark, sped-up images merge with the score, evoking a universe of possibility inside this young woman, and the city itself.

Illustration 1: Wandering the streets.

The music provides an inner narrative 'voice', each section ('Nadia', 'Franklyn', 'Molly'... ) being named after a different character. Does the 'Unnamed' theme represent a yet-to-be-born child?  

Illustration 2: 'Wonderland'; film poster and soundtrack cover.

This movie is strongly evocative of my own memories as a twenty-something in the nineties. In one memorable scene, Nadia takes an undignified bus journey home, having been used for easy sex on what she'd thought was an ideal date. There's an identifiable cruelty to this situation: it contrasts the hopes and dreams of one thwarted individual with the vagaries of city life, in all its indifference.

Illustration 3: An undignified bus journey.

What's striking is the tender music, set against abrasive imagery (shot in a 'vérité' style on lightweight cameras, in real locations). Combined with a sensitive use of close-up, plus Gina Mckee's face and performance, Nadia's pain is made transparent, as she struggles to control her breakdown in a public space. It's a beautiful moment that the film retrieves from a world of desperation.

Illustration 4: Nadia's pain.