Some four decades later Rebecca Horn started making what she called ‘body sculptures’ – prostheses and masks extending and restricting the body. In 1968, while a student, she read Jean Genet’s semi-autobiographic novel The Thief’s Journal 1949, recounting his travels through 1930s Europe where he received an education in thievery mentored by the one-armed Stilitano, which became a key reference point for her. Horn’s Arm Extensions 1968 bandage the body and make the upper limbs scrape the floor, Pencil Mask 1972 enables drawing with the face, Scratching Both Walls at Once 1974–5 allows the arms to reach across a room. Like prostheses, her supplements are always for a specific person – and they fit into custom-made suitcases, not unlike those designed for medical equipment. Rather than aiding, though, her additions encumber movement, echoing Schlemmer’s choreography.

Scientific research in this area, for example that by Stelarc, can be considered in this artistic vein. [8] A special case of the body art strategies is the absence of body. Some artists who performed the "absence" of body through their artworks were: Davor Džalto, Antony Gormley, and Andy Warhol. In our artist support and exhibition curation, we always ensured that artists felt that they could be experimental, that they could take risks, and that they could be supported in creating honest, passionate, and personal works. After an early exhibition, we experienced artists thanking us for giving them this freedom- it was then that we realised how profound the problems of the art world are. Body art is art made on, with, or consisting of, the human body. Body art covers a wide spectrum including tattoos, body piercings, scarification, and body painting. Body art may include performance art, body art is likewise utilized for investigations of the body in an assortment of different media including painting, casting, photography, film and video. [1] More extreme body art can involve mutilation or pushing the body to its physical limits. Gina Pane was a French artist who was a key member of Art Corporel - the French body art movement she helped found in the early 1970s. One of her most famous works is The Conditioning, where she lay on a metal bed frame above lit candles for half an hour. This was an extremely painful experience for the artist, and the audience could see her physical suffering in the automatic pain responses of her body, such as flinching and wringing her hands. Critic Sam Johnson argues that, "while the candles and bed suggested ideas of sexual love and pleasure, the manner in which Pane positioned her body around these objects caused her harm and surreptitiously threw up questions around the fixed notions of pleasure and pain." Pane's work draws the viewer's attention to the way in which female sexual experience (especially in the female loss of virginity) is regularly associated with pain and suffering in common formulations. This involvement of the body was something that resonated particularly strongly with the Feminist movement, which had been burgeoning since the early 1960s. A large number of women artists chose performance as their medium of choice at this time, often using their own bodies as powerful vehicles of demonstration, rebellion and voice. Performance, photography, and video art became popular choices for female artists, to counteract the dated historical weight and onus of more traditional formats such as painting. As these current forms mirrored the electricity of the changing times this was an opportunity for a fresh feminist aesthetic in which the female body would take center stage, not as the by-product of the male gaze but as a self-claimed artistic subject-object.

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A body of art is more like a portfolio accumulation of artworks that share the same style and overall message. If our caricature artist continued to do portraits but of people other than political figures, or across different countries, the new work AND the political series could be considered a body of work together. In fact, multiple series together could be considered a body of art. Body of art has a more overarching view of artwork where similar use of color or mark making may be the tie that holds all of the works together. It was after I made this commitment to my art and fully investigated my idea that I made a new connection: that I should put myself into the paintings. This would be how viewers understand some of what I am feeling. Imagine your art here: what images would you select to place together and why? Have you create a series of artworks unknowingly?! Fully Investigate an Idea

I began working from those photos to connect with the story and history of my family before my birth. As a painted and sketched out ideas, my professor told me something was missing. I was one step short of making it to the finish line. I took her advice to heart and spent 4 days in the studio staring at my work: doodling, reading, journaling. I don’t remember painting much, instead I observed, reflected, and let my mind wander. But under this flawless skin is a rotten deception, one deepened by a social-media saturated society. ‘Most of the bodies we see online on a daily basis aren’t even real, but rather enhanced or modified by technology to conform to a current, unsustainable trend,’ says LA-based photographer Julia SH, who is exhibiting powerful, textured portraits of bodies rarely depicted in 21st-century media, presented in museum-like frames. ‘In the US, what little nudity permitted is usually shown in a sexual context. Seeing nudes in a museum is one of the only exceptions to this. I created a series where I framed my models as sculptures and works of art in the hope that the viewer will suspend any judgments about whether they find the models sexually attractive or not, or whether their bodies are socially “acceptable”. The more body types we are exposed to, the more pragmatic our view will become.’ In his Anthropometries series, Yves Klein covered nude women in blue paint and had them press, drag, and lay themselves across canvases to create bodily impressions. The piece was inspired in part by photographs of body-shaped burn-marks on the earth, which were caused by the atomic explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Klein crafted this idea into a performance piece, hosting a formal event where guests observed the nude models executing the piece. When talking about Natalia LL, most people immediately think about the series of her photos depicting naked women in provocative poses, with various objects/food products. Photographs constitute Natalia’s most recognizable cycles: Consumer Art and Post-Consumer Art. Both series were created in the early 70’s, during the groundbreaking period of Natalia LL’s creativity shaping.A big objection I hear from artists who start to share their work is they are afraid of being boxed in… that if they share their art and have “tried on” one idea, that is all they are allowed to do or be known for. Bah. This is completely false. It’s also an excuse that could be keeping you from making art. Works are often presented in unlikely but enlightening pairings ... With modest design and concise commentary; this is an intelligent, illuminating survey of a topic that has an enduring appeal."– Daily Telegraph

Over 400 artists are featured in chapters that explore identity, beauty, religion, absent body, sex and gender, power, body's limits, abject body and bodies & space. Works range from 11,000 BC hand stencils in Argentine caves to videos and performances by contemporary artists such as Marina Abramovic, Joan Jonas and Bruce Nauman. More than simply a book of representations, this is an original and thought provoking look at the human body across time, cultures and media. Natalia LL, Teoria głowy / The Theory of the Head [w:] Natalia LL. Teksty Natalii LL. Teksty o Natalii LL, Galeria Bielska BWA, 2004, pp. 120, 374. The International Body of Art, an arts company which helps launch the career of underrepresented artists through its public exhibitions programme, launches its proprietary platform ‘Projects’. Countless famous artists investigated many ideas, techniques, and styles over time. Picasso is a great example of this. Look up Picasso cubism versus Picasso blue period and you will see what I mean. Horn was also interested in mythology, which shows up in Einhorn. The piece may be read several ways. Historian Skye Alexander argues that the "strap on" horn "recalls the unicorn's link to chastity" and the many complex sexualized associations evoked by a woman's naked body in classical art. But the single horn can also be seen a phallic symbol co-opted boldly here by a woman to offer a new model for empowering the female body, which embraces its own sexuality and lays claim to its own sexual power. In either case, Einhorn explores how the body (and particularly the female body) can be both enhanced and restricted by art.

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On the other side of things, throughout our time organising exhibitions we’ve consistently had the audience thank us for creating an art space that is unpretentious and community-focused. We always have our artists present throughout the shows and try to facilitate a welcoming atmosphere. The understanding that these kinds of environments are missing in the art world further informed the development of ‘Projects’ – the community aspect of this and the involvement of the audience is as important as anything else.” When people hear the term portfolio artists can also hear: business, rigid, limitations. What if creating a portfolio actually gave you greater creative freedom?

Francesca Woodman, Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island, 1976, gelatin silver print, 14 x 14.1 cm (5 ½ x 5 ½ in), private collection. Courtesy George and Betty Woodman. From Body of Art Understand all art via one canvas - the human body When artists feel restricted by say theme or topic, I imagine this is what they think: they are having to follow a specific system and rules. What if create a portfolio actually sets you free?! Create From a Place of Freedom Early in Rebecca Horn's career she contracted lung poisoning from repeatedly inhaling toxic materials in the making of her art. She was sent to a sanitarium for two years to recover and during this time she became fascinated by the hospital setting and the limitations of the human body. She began experimenting with making "body extensions" as a coping strategy in which she would use medical materials such as bandages, trusses, and prostheses to create wearable sculpture. Horn said about her debilitating experience, "you crave to grow out of your own body and merge with the other person's body, to seek refuge in it." These pieces were manifestations of the desire, which allowed Horn to explore her personal space and how the body could interact with its physical environment. With a description reading "I am the object," and, "During this period I take full responsibility," Abramović invited spectators to use any of 72 items provided in the gallery on her body in any way they desired, completely giving up control. She made her own body the subject of her artwork, but did not control the way in which the narrative unfolded. Instead, she passively offered up her body to her audience, exploring how they would respond to this act, which carried undertones of the archetypal self-sacrificing woman.Whether regarded as a temple and honored as a sacred vessel or treated as an object to test, wield, or destruct, the body was placed on a pedestal and became a literal (rather than just appropriated, imagined, or created by the artist's hand) collaborator in the art making process. This focus so narrowly directed toward the body, ultimately forced viewers to hone a spotlight on their own physicality and its role in their fleeting existence. But why does Pittaluga think it's important for contemporary photography to offer visibility to all body types? ‘I hope that one day this kind of question will no longer exist,’she says. ‘I am focused on giving a voice and visibility to those who are not ortoo littlerepresented. It is very important to me to do everything to deconstruct this hegemony, I am committed to invoking all these fights until they are won.’ Creating a series of artworks actually builds freedom into your creative process. Yes, you heard me. FREEDOM. Let’s say you have one idea or style you play around with in your art. By the end you have 8 paintings. You now feel bored by the idea of continuing so you stop and start something new, which investigates textiles and painting. In this photography series, she presents her own body as both an object for viewing and as the agent of the objectification. Her goal, therefore, is to bring attention to depictions of women in popular culture, thus dismantling stereotypes about femininity and disrupting the pleasures of the male gaze. Art historian Joanna Frueh, for example, sees the Starification Object Series as evidence of Wilke "representing herself as a woman damaged by female embodiment in a culture that subordinates woman to man." Green, John (2005). Looking for Alaska. New York: Dutton Children's. pp. 67–69. ISBN 978-0-525-47506-4.