graphite, putty eraser & watercolour/30x20cm
original source: 'The Times' 29/09/08
The original newspaper photograph from which this drawing was processed provided the image content of the continuation of the pomegranate juice marketing campaign that inspired the recent previously-posted 'Venus' drawing, in this instance pushing the selling of sex(-iness & -uality) that little bit harder. Here, the coy, over-the-shoulder glance recalls a pose such as that of Ingres' 'Grande Odalisque'.
Ingres 'La Grande Odalisque'
oil on canvas/1814
Whilst on the subject generally, it's worth mentioning Barry Hoffman's lavishly illustrated book 'The Fine Art of Advertising' (picked up a while back for a couple of quid, a small victory under the circumstances, perhaps), which, from an ad man's perspective, not uncritically & alive to the many inherent ambiguities of the subject, explores the relationship between art, artists & marketing, its often symbiotic nature & of course the playful, knowing irony with which advertising campaigns habitually appropriate &/or reference iconic images from the tradition of fine art & especially that of Western painting (although it's worth noting that some of the more sexually-inclined art of the East has also, inevitably, provided suitable fodder). All good, thought-provoking & instructive stuff, even if the novelty of the extent to which so-called 'creatives' routinely plunder art with the intention of inspiring desire in order to flog stuff & aspirations soon palls when surveyed in such a fashion, laid out in all its inglorious, mindless banality: but this of course is the very raison d'etre of marketing campaigns, they have a built-in obsolescence before it's quickly time to move on to advertising & selling the very latest 'essential', improved development in commercial, retail culture.
This is why pioneers such as Richard Hamilton & other of the 'Pop' artists & the heirs to their particular tradition, who turned the tables by appropriating images & the visual language of advertising into their art, assume admirable, heroic proportions, by reflecting back to the world for more considered contemplation - aesthetically distanced from the naked hard sell - the sheer dumbness & futility of the endless cycle of consumerism & insatiable desire, visually seductive as it so often is.
Note to self: beware the melancholic consequences of (half or slightly more than) watching reruns of the TV series of 'Brideshead Revisited' (excellent, seductive & absorbing though it remains) whilst also trying to get some art done (at the same time mentally composing drafts of blog posts!) in the all-too-short mere 2-day window of the weekend on a cold, gloomy, grey-turning-to-rain autumnal Saturday...
Soundtrack:
Boards of Canada 'Music Has the Right to Children'
The Sundays 'Reading, Writing & Arithmetic'
Van Morrison 'Moondance'
White Stripes 'White Blood Cells'
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