Sunday, May 2, 2010

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{The map, as follows:}

Research Procedure. This study will investigate the following question: What might happen if I spend one year with one work of art? How might my art practice be inspired by this extended looking? To explore this question, I will act as the primary participant of this study, visiting one painting on a (weekly basis?) over the next year. I have chosen as my subject Bronzino’s Portrait of a Young Man, which resides in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Bronzino’s Portrait is located on the second floor in the Italian Renaissance galleries. Data Collection. I will keep a journal/sketchbook and use it as a workbook for my weekly visits with the portrait. In this sketchbook, I will note questions and observations during my time spent with the painting. The nature of these observations will be free-form. On my visits, I will stay with the painting for as long as the time yields new observations and insights. It is my hope and expectation that this extended looking will inform ideas for my own art making (either during my time with the artwork or outside of the gallery space). This form of data collection is appropriate because it will be a way to both record my experience of/with the artwork, fuel this experience, and even shape it. Participants. I am the only participant in this study. In terms of my personal background, I am an artist and musician, and a student of art history. For my undergraduate studies, I focused on modern and contemporary art and art criticism (my thesis was on Marcel Duchamp’s Large Glass, Jasper Johns’ Device Circles and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s theory of perception). I have studied fashion design and now work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, color correcting the children’s books in the Special Publications department. The nature of my job involves visiting works of art repeatedly to properly color correct art images; therefore, I am accustomed to this kind of detailed looking, even at work. Documents. The primary documents related to this research will be my journal notes, and my finished artwork inspired by or in response to the portrait. The artwork may take many forms: paintings, fashion designs, and music are all possible responses to these aesthetic encounters. Limits. I will only be studying this one painting (as mentioned previously, Bronzino’s Portrait of a Young Man). I can only view this painting at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Finally, I am the only participant in this research.

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