Required Assignment 3: Work of Art Redux (Track A) Coursera

Required Assignment 3: Work of Art Redux (Track A)

Live!: A History of Art for Artists, Animators and Gamers

We’ve done a bit of research and have identified at least thirty artists who created work based on Velazquez’s Las Meninas. See here for a short list. Now it’s your turn. Make a work or series of works, in whatever media you choose, that takes its inspiration from Las Meninas. You can: 

• take apart and put back together selected elements of the painting (as Picasso did). 
• riff on a theme of the painting (looking and being seen, reality and reflection, a moment in time, stillness, the painter’s process, etc. Note that many of these themes have actually been modules for this course). 

Both of the above are possibilities, but there are certainly more. At any rate your approach needs to be deliberate. Consider the difference between making a “copy” of the original, “appropriating” the original (as a creative strategy) and working “off” the original. Along with your images, post a short (2-3 sentence) explanation of why you did what you did.

After much thought   I felt that Las Meminas  reminded me of the pageants for young girls that sort of exploit their femininity and sexuality.  At my weekly workshop I noticed two Barbie dolls that my friend Riva was working on and photographed them to use on my assignment.  It is a riff on the some of the themes, exploitation,reflections, looking in and being seen and in this case the "photographers" process. A photo montage plus some digital sketching.