My blog has just gone over 500,000 hits. It's hard to believe that so many people have come across it since it began in June 2010 and that they have read a few entries or looked at a couple of images. 500,000 is the number of inhabitants of a medium size city! I am quite galvanised by it all. I confess that writing posts has not been uppermost on my mind for a while, caught up as I have been with life offline. I do other things apart from modelling and as from September I have been formally studying psychoanalysis, so I have a lot of reading to do.
But I dont want to give up writing this blog, I like the thought of interacting with so many people online.
I really should thank Unbearable Lightness for getting me started on the idea of blogging. She has been writing a blog for some years and invited me to guest post in December 2009. I then decided to start my own blog - Lightness continues to blog but privately.
Recently, she emailed me one of her posts in which she asks a question that seems easy to answer but is actually quite complex. Who is a model? Can anyone be a model?
On the day when a long awaited interview given by supermodel Kate Moss is finally published in Vanity Fair, it seems appropriate to have a post about modelling. Kate's career has been unique and seems to have been guided by two maxims, to which she has adhered throughout - dont complain and dont justify, because it keeps the mystery. The advice was given to her by her former lover Johnny Depp. And she has stuck to it. She does not blog, does not tweet, never speaks to journalists. This is a first and I wonder whether it marks a change of career. She has been modelling for 25 years.
Endowed with a most photogenic, not necessarily most beautiful, face, Kate has been modelling since her teens and has learnt to model by modelling. There are no schools, no classes that can turn you into a model: you simply have to do it in order to master the necessary skills.
What are these skills? "I know a model when I see her" says photographer Ama Saru.
I turn to Moss, who says "I don’t want to be myself, ever. I’m terrible at a snapshot. Terrible. I blink all the time. I’ve got facial Tourette’s. Unless I’m working and in that zone, I’m not very good at pictures, really,” And a little later she talks of her need to become a character.
This is it, then. Modelling is performing.
But is modelling an art? I hate it when people label themselves 'artists' because there is more to being an artist then claiming the name. Who is or is not an artist is an entirely contextual matter. I used to know a musician that was very skilled and played beautifully, yet he would never refer to himself as artist, though for some he was. "I am a musician by trade" he would say.
I dont think Kate Moss would call herself 'an artist'. Yet she has appeared in stunning images, clothed, semi-clothed and nude, lending those images her allure and her ability to transform herself, visually. Without her, those pictures would not work.
Is a model born or made? To which I can only retort: is a photographer born or made?
A bit of both, I think.
(Photos from top: A street in Bath, photographer myself; Alex B by Ama Saru: Figure work by Paul Ward, model Alex B)
Thank you for taking up the question, Alex. And congratulations on the 500,000 mark! I am one of your avid followers.
ReplyDeleteI too am an avid follower and i say yes modeling is art . Most definitely . I look at some of the work youve done or that Dr Lightness has done and thing its just incredible . The narratives that can be inferred from your work . How is it any different than something produced by the great artists of the past , other than the fact that a camera was used ? Same process on the models end , only different in the type of medium used .
ReplyDeleteThis is a nice comment Speshuleddy. But it raises another question, which has again been discussed ad nauseam. Who is the artist? To which I would add: how much is the viewer involved in determining whether it is art or not?
ReplyDeleteI dont know that there is one answer to that question that fits every scenario . Ive come to the conclusion that if its are to you , then its art . Now , you may be alone in that assessment , but its yours . If you are fortunate enough to meet others who share your view , and there are a significant amount of them , then it is viewed as art by a wider community . However , if someone thinks somethings art and I think its trash , I really cant tell him emphatically that it is , because were talking about perception after all . Not sure if that made any sense .
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