Citation

Pollock G. Journal of Visual Art Practice 2017; 16(3): 265-296.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017)

DOI

10.1080/14702029.2017.1384912

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In 1985 journalist Anthony Summers published a post-mortem photograph of Marilyn Monroe, titling it 'Marilyn in death', in his book, Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe (1985), which investigated the theory that her death was not suicide. The photograph thus acquired forensic significance. My questions are these: Is there an inevitable transgression and even violence in the exposure of an image of a dead woman such as we find in Summers' and other publications? Under the rubric of this collection, unguarded intimacy, I address a set of paintings made from the morgue photograph of a derelict Marilyn Monroe in the era of feminist ethics by two painters, Margaret Harrison (b.1940) and Marlene Dumas (b. 1953). What are the material and theoretical possibilities of creating feminist e(a)ffects in re-workings of this stolen image if we can distinguish between the forensic notion of the silent witness (the pathologist performing an autopsy whose aftermath this photograph in the morgue indexes) and a concept derived from the Matrixial aesthetics of artist-theorist Bracha Ettinger-aesthetic wit(h)nessing? Can such aesthetic wit(h)nessing deflect the unguarded intimacy of seeing an unattended body in its absolute helplessness by inciting compassion?. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Language: en

Keywords

aesthetic wit(h)nessing; compassion; corpse; death; feminist fascinance; Marilyn Monroe; mourning; painting; photography