Master Class THE HYBRID-MONSTER BODY: Shapeshifting as Rebellion by Jasmine Reimer

Description

“The Hybrid-Monster Body: Shapeshifting as Rebellion” is a 5-day intensive program held in a studio environment hosted by BERLIN ART INSTITUTE. In this masterclass we will learn about the hybrid body in 15th and 16th century Italy, with a focus on hybrids found in Grotesque-style paintings in the Domus Aurea. In addition to analyzing art historical and contemporary hybrid bodies – their representation, motifs and symbolism – the course also explores the Grotesque genre and its socio-political context and effects. We will explore how the ancient hybrid body, with its shape-shifting form, disruptive imagery and rebellious nature, challenged conservative ideals, the new bodily cannon, gender binaries and inter-species relations with images once considered “monstrous”. Using feminist and queer theory, fiction, podcasts and other sources, we will examine how 15/16th century ideologies compare with current gender and identity politics and the concept of “normal” in relation to the body. We will identify and explore the contemporary hybrid body as a generative form of monstrosity and its significance in contemporary culture.

In 15th century Rome, a boy fell through an air pocket in the ground. Below was the Domus Aurea constructed by the ancient emperor Nero. After Nero’s death in 68AD, the city buried the Domus Aurea in the earth. Upon its re-discovery, visitors (those brave enough to crawl through its dark subterranean domain) encountered a cave-like world, featuring murals of bizarre, fantastical hybrid bodies – bodies that transformed from human to animal to plant to architectural element to object, and back again. They discovered the style of artwork we now call Grotesque.

Following the re-discovery of the Domus Aurea, avant garde artists in the 15th and 16th centuries (i.e., Perugino, Signorelli, and the famous Raphael) mastered the ancient techniques of the Grotesque style. Initially rejected by dominant social classes, historians and critics, it soon grew in popularity, manifesting in both visual and literary forms. Because, more than just decoration, Grotesque style hybrid was a form of political defiance. Its “monstrous” imagery rebelled against the authoritative, restrictive, bourgeois ideas of normality, beauty and taste established during the renaissance – that of smooth, perfectly proportioned and uniform bodies.
Of particular importance to the Grotesque aesthetic was a body that blurs and exceeds limitations, that exhibits multiplicity and fluidity – legs that transform into vines, stomachs and eyes that bulge, bodies that mesh and interconnect. Seen as “mutant, terrible, unnatural, out-of-order and disrespectful”, the hybrid body was classified as a monster. But it was its innate rebelliousness, its ability to defy, provoke and contest that makes the hybrid-monster body a powerful symbol of transformation, change and resistance. Refusing to be bound by the rigid categories of patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism, the hybrid-monster body poses a threat to our need for simplicity, gender binaries, single-species policies and fixed identities.

During the course participants will explore the above-mentioned characteristics and features of the Grotesque hybrid-monster through classic and contemporary readings, podcasts and videos, in addition to research, presentations and discussion. In keeping with the subject of the course, participants will investigate the significance of Grotesque hybrid-monster body in ancient and contemporary cultures via exercises that combine found and made objects, 2D and 3D materials, written and visual elements. The curriculum is based on a feminist understanding of transformation, the body and the hybrid-monster body as they relate to acts of resistance, and gender, reproductive and identity politics. Focusing on the hybrid as a generative, critical symbol and potential model for socio-political change, we will explore the hybrid-monster as a way to avoid binary thinking, and move beyond patriarchal, capitalist systems and ideologies. (Text & photos by courtesy of Jasmine Reimer )