What's in fashion at the moment? Like music and clothes, art has fashionable shifts. Do art magazines govern what is fashionable in art or do they simply report on what is already in fashion?
I noticed in Venice Bienalle in 2007 that there was a lot of taxidermy used.
At the same time in Leeds at PSL there was an artist, Kelly McCallum that used a lot of taxidermy.
In this months Modern Painters there is a whole article on taxidermy so I'm guessing it's still relevant a couple of years on. This seems to show that this particular magazine isn't governing the current trends, but drawing our attention to them.
Art magazines are aimed at a specific audience of contemporary art lovers who want to be kept up to date with what's going on globally. If I wanted to target this audience I would make a note of trends in the magazines and channel my practice towards it. Taxidermy could fit in nicely with my practice. Instead of using a plastic heron coming out of my briefcase, a real heron could work better. It could target the "art mag" audience, but alienate another audience. if I'm to use the briefcase in the public realm for a performance many people may be offended by me walking round with a dead animal as it has all sorts of connotations such as hunting and animal cruelty.
Instead of jumping on the taxidermy band wagon I think I’ll stick to the plastic herons as it has a more light hearted, comic effect which is what I’m going for.
As soon as you get involved with thinking about fashion, 'taste' comes into the frame. How do people develop 'taste'? Bourdieu states that the position an individual is located at in social space is defined not by class, but by the amount of capital he or she has. This can be 'cultural capital', i.e. art. Read his book 'Distinction'
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