English Culture

An art and an artist I really appreciate

2010-05-12T12:49:00.005+01:00

Kandinsky was a Russian painter (1866-1944), whose exploration of abstraction made him one of the most important innovators of modern art. Although Kandinsky was fascinated by colour when he was a child, he didn’t enrol at art school until he was 30 years old. In 1900, Kandinsky studied art in Munich in Germany.

At first his paintings were realistic but over the years his style of painting changed dramatically, as they became more colourful, bold and less realistic.As one of the first explorers of "pure“ abstraction, Kandinsky paved the way for abstract expressionism.

In 1911, along with Franz Marc and other German expressionists, Kandinsky formed a group called "The Blue Rider". He produced both abstract and figurative works during this period, all of which were characterized by brilliant colors and complex patterns.

Around 1913, he began working on paintings that came to be considered the first totally abstract works in modern art; they made no reference to objects of the physical world and were inspired by music. The Blue Riders believed that colors, shapes and forms were equivalent to sounds and music, and sought to create color harmonies.

After World War I, Kandinsky's abstractions became increasingly geometric in form, as he abandoned his earlier fluid style in favor of sharply etched outlines and clear patterns. Many works were comprised solely of lines, circles, arcs, and other simple geometric shapes.

"Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammer, the soul is the piano with the strings" - Wassily Kandinsky

Sources:

- http://www.glyphs.com/art/kandinsky/

- http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/kandinsk.htm

- http://www.artelino.com/articles/wassily_kandinsky.asp

- http://www.answers.com/topic/wassily-kandinsky

- http://www.artnet.com/artist/9211/wassily-kandinsky.html

Personal Perspective:

Kandinsky is well-known for his work with colours and geometric shapes, there is no doubt. This work does promise more freedom of expression, allowing a more expansive and intuitive play of creativity.

He saw art as a way to show and to evoke feelings and emotions.It is true that our emotions can "paint" the way we really see things around us. When we are sad, it seems as though the whole world is dark and gloomy. When we feel joy, the day can seem brighter and the colours of everything around us seem also more vivid. In fact, the geometrical elements such as triangles, circles, rectangles, half-circles and the warm and strong colours evoke unconscious emotions holding powerful and positive energy. It delivers a sense of life as an abstract, metaphysical idea in a beautiful world. Physical and material things doesn't matter at all.

It is almost like art therapy which pleases my eyes and relaxes me.

David Hockney

2010-04-26T17:27:00.000+01:00

Born in Bradford, Yorkshire (1937), David Hockney studied at the Bradford School of Art (1953-57) and the Royal College of Art (1959-62).

David Hockney has been engaged with portraiture since his teenage years when he painted "Portrait of my Father" (1955), and his self-portraits and depictions of family, lovers and friends.His portraits, self-portraits, still lifes and scenes of friends are characterized by his concern with light, bright colours, and frankly realism derived from Pop Art and photography.

During his time at the Royal College, Hockney won a gold medal and the Guinness Award for Etching in 1961. He was awarded a prize in the Junior Section of the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition in 1961 and in the Graphics Section of the Paris Biennale in 1963. He exhibited as a Pop at the Kasmin Gallery in 1963. He was given a retrospective exhibition called “Paintings, Prints and Drawings 1960-1970” at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1970.

Between 1963-1967, he lived in Los Angeles. Due to the mild californian atmospheres (the light, the gardens, the pools, the Beverly Hills architecture and the beaches), he changed substantially his paintings, using acrylic paint instead of oil paint. In 1964 he painted his first California pictures, including his first pool work. In the same year Hockney was invited to make a print at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles, which spearheaded the printmaking explosion in the United States. At Tamarind, Hockney met Ken Tyler, a trainee printer destined to found two world-famous workshops: Gemini in Los Angeles and Tyler Graphics in New York. Hockney made several important portrait lithographs at Gemini in 1973.

In the 1970s, he achieved prominence as a set designer for the opera and ballet. He later experimented with photography and photocollage, and still later with computer technology and printers.He carried on with his work with book illustration based on the cavafy poems and the Brothers Grimm tales and fine portrait work.

Hockney has gained a reputation for his success in drawings, witty etchings, double portraits, inventive photo-collages, opera sets and for his paintings of Southern California.

Throughout his career, Hockney has explored and reveled in the variety of techniques and effects offered by printmaking processes. He has also studied the techniques used by Picasso and spent two years working with Picasso’s printer in Paris. Hockney has recently produced homemade prints on Canon and Kodak office copiers, transmitted huge murals to exhibitions by fax and made drawings on Computer Paintbox for the Television. Hockney continues to live and work in California using his immediate surroundings as subject matter for his work.

If you want to see some of his work, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxANi2OeW4w

Sources:
Clarke, David (1996): Art & Place - Essays on Art From Hong Kong Perspective. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Hoffmann, Frank (1990): Arts & Entertainments fads, Volume 1990, Parte 2. New York: The Haworth Press, Inc.
Melia, Paul (1995): David Hockney. UK: Manchester University Press.
Osterwold, Tilman (2003): Pop Art. Köln: Taschen.

Damien Hirst

2010-04-15T21:21:00.001+01:00

Born in Bristol, in 1965, Damien Hirst studied at Godsmith's College, University of London, 1986-1989.

While still a student, he organized a collective exposition called "Freeze", which included works of his colleagues and his. This exposition turned him famous.

Damien Hirst’s best known works are his paintings, medicine cabinet sculptures, and glass tank installations. For the most part, his paintings have taken on two styles. One is an arrangement of color spots with titles that refer to pharmaceutical chemicals, known as Spot paintings. The second, his Spin paintings, are created by centrifugal force, when Hirst places his canvases on a spinner, and pours the paint as they spin. In the medicine cabinet pieces, Hirst redefines sculpture with his arrangements of various drugs, surgical tools, and medical supplies.His tank pieces, which contain dead animals, that are preserved in formaldehyde, are another kind of sculpture and directly address the inevitable mortality of all living beings.

His work is often challenging in subject matter and difficult to live with. Hirst's subjects include animal corpses, skulls, flies, maggots and religious iconography. His work consistly revolves around the intertwined topics of science and religion, questioning the transition of society from a belief in God to a belief in drugs and science.

Sources:

http://collection.britishcouncil.org/collection/artist/5/18231

http://www.britishmuseum.org/the_museum/museum_in_london/london_exhibition_archive/statuephilia/damien_hirst.aspx
http://www.gagosian.com/artists/damien-hirst/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/damienhirst
http://www.eyestorm.com/artists/profile/Damien_Hirst.html

Personal reflection:

Damien Hirst work is definitely a mixture of science and religion, an art with a new perspective about life and death, repulsion and beauty. It is somehow connected to human life.

But his work can provoque strong reactions. It challenges us to reflect about the human condition, to explore the questions "what is death?", "what is life?", "why do we exist?". If we think about this for a moment, well, his work seems to have a great purpose. But when I see all these real animal corpses preserved in tanks, "macabre", death, repulsion are the words that comes instinctively to my mind. Why? I really can't explain.

Nevertheless, I appreciate indeed the statue "Virgin Mother", a reflection about the beginning of life, birth, and the sculpture "For the Love of God", not because of the skull but due to its originatlity, hard work of encrusting the diamonds and its beauty ("The diamonds are the girls best friend").

Lucian Freud

2010-04-05T19:59:00.000+01:00

Lucian Michael Freud, Sigmund Freud's grandson, was born in Berlin in 1922. In 1933 he emigrated with his family to England, where he acquired British nationality in 1939.

His earliest love was drawing, and he began to work full time as an artist after being invalided out of the Merchant Navy in 1942.

In 1951 his Interior at Paddington (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) won a prize at the Festival of Britain, and since then he has built up a formidable reputation as one of the most powerful contemporary figurative painters.

Portraits and nudes are his specialities, often observed in arresting close-up.

His early work was meticulously painted, so he has sometimes been described as a `Realist', but the subjectivity and intensity of his work has always set him apart from the sober tradition characteristic of most British figurative art since the Second World War.

In his later work (from the late 1950s) his handling became much broader.

His portrait Benefits Supervisor Sleeping from1995 was sold for $33,6, one of the most expensive work sold at this point.

"Many of the figures are asleep, exposed, vulnerable. You can't help feeling that they have in some way become Freud's victims. The painter is a voyeur and he transfers this sensation to the viewer of the paintings. There is a slight sense of guilt in viewing Freud's work, as if you are an intruder in a private space. In one portrait of a nude woman sleeping, there is the shadow of a head on the floor. It is surely meant to be Freud's. But it also become the viewer." (Cockburn:2004:181)

Sources:

- Cockburn, Alexandre: Serpents in the garden: liaisons with culture & sex. 2004. California: CounterPunch

- Los Angeles Magazine, April 2003

- Stremmel, Kerstin: Realism. 2004. Köln: Taschen.

My point of view:

In fact, when I see his naked portraits, I don't feel repugnance. I am seeing people in a very pure essence and reality, in a state of calm, purity and simplicity, with body details and expressions. Lucian Freud's work is very detailed, nothing is missing. And, yes, I feel more like an intruder, a voyeur than a simple viewer. It's almost as I am invading the space in the portrait.

I am not a fan of his work but I admire it because it is a way of drifting apart from the real and superficial beauty. It is another perception of real life, real people.

Francis Bacon's art

2010-03-26T18:06:00.031Z

Francis Bacon was born in Dublin, Ireland, on October 1909. He left home at the age of sixteen and spent two years in Berlin, Germany, and Paris, France.

In Paris he saw an art exhibit by the painter Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). Though he had never taken an art class, Bacon began painting with watercolors. He then settled in London, England, with the intention of establishing himself as an interior decorator and furniture designer. However, he soon turned to painting exclusively.

Bacon began oil painting in 1929. The few early paintings that survive (he destroyed most of them) show that he began as a late cubist (a twentieth-century movement that used geometric shapes). By 1932 he turned to a form of surrealism (using fantastic imagery of the subconscious) based partly on Pablo Picasso's works from about 1925 to 1928. Bacon began to draw attention in 1933 with his work Crucifixion, and the same year he took part in exhibitions in London.

Bacon exhibited very rarely until 1945. It was only after World War II that his paintings became known outside his circle of friends. At this time he also began to paint the human figure. The pictures that made his reputation are of such subjects as a melting head in front of a curtain and a screaming figure crouching under an umbrella.

«What directly interests him is a violence that is involved only with color and line: the violence of a sensation (and not of a representation), a static or potencial violence, a violence of reaction and expression.»[1]

From the 1950s through the end of Bacon's painting career and life in the early 1990s, the consistent theme of his work was the isolation and pain of the individual, with a single figure (usually male) seated or standing in a small, windowless interior, as if confined in a private hell. His subjects were artists, friends, lovers, and even himself. His painting technique consisted of using rags, his hands, and dust along with paint and brush.

The artist died April 28, 1992, in Madrid.

[1] Deleuze, Gilles: Francis Bacon: Logique de la Sensation. 1981. France: Éditions de la Différence. English Translations by Continuum 2003.(Page xii)

Sources:
- Deleuze, Gilles. Francis Bacon: Logique de la Sensation. 1981. France: Éditions de la Différence. English Translations by Continuum 2003. Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation.
- Ficacci, Luigi: Francis Bacon 1909-1992. 2003. Köln: Taschen GmbH.
- Harrison, Charles and Paul Wood. Art in Theory-1900-2000. An Anthology of Changing Ideas. 1992. UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
- Wegner, Nicholas and Philip James. Francis bacon Seminar. A Discussion of the Artist. 2004. London, Cv Publications.

PERSONAL REFLECTION ABOUT FRANCIS BACON'S ART:

We are accustomed to appreciate the beauty and the logical in life. And I think every artist work diserves to be seen even if not admired. Those works give us a new (bad or good) perception of things, people and life.
I am an abstract art admirer but Francis Bacon's art appears quite disturbing. He treated the human face and body in a style of extreme distortion and contortion. His paintings expressed images of anger, isolation, horror and degradation with powerful colors and geometric constructions. I like these powerful colors and geometric construtions, but I dislike the contents which reflects violence, sadness, horror, feelings that the human being rejects.
Could it be the expression of his own personal state of mind or the reflection of all the memories left by the War?

Personal reflection about Gilbert & George's work

2010-03-08T22:57:00.000Z

I don't appreciate Gilbert & George's art. It is shocking, although radical and challenging.

They expose a portrait of people's life, especially their own, accepting the good and the bad in themselves and everybody else.

They manage to push all kind of bounderies through their work. And their purposal intends to provoke people's reaction. Well, they have been succeeded along the years!

The use of depiction of bodily fluids and excrements, naked bodies of themselves, even the simple use of photo montage, isn't at all my idea of art.

There is one aspect that might be relevante to talk about, the only one that requires my attention: the fact that they decided to leave their private life behind for the good of their art. Well, I suppose it is a very hard decision to make, but surely not the one I would choose!

Gilbert & George

2010-02-28T17:42:00.000Z

Gilbert Proesch (born in 1943 in Italy) and George Passmore (born in 1942 in England), known simply as Gilbert & George, met on 1967 while studying sculpture at St. Martins School of Art in London.

In 1969, while still students they made The Singing Sculpture, for which they covered themselves with bronze powder, stoddo on a table on a gallery space, and mimed to a recording of Flanagan and Allen's song Underneath the Arches, sometimes for hours at a time. For this performance and others, they were dressed in matching business suits, which they refered to as "their responsibility suits of their art". If they moved at all it was in a mechanical manner. They were "living sculptures".

The decision to perform live required the two artists to travel around for their work to be on display. Furthermore, they needed to work collectively and collaboratively. So, as a result, they sacrificed their own individual private lives for the sake of their art. Also, by creating the name "Gilbert & George" they made very clear that responsibility for the work needed to be shared by the both of them at the same level.

Gilbert & George changed radically the concept of sculpture, leading the traditional definition into a generic term in wide use in contemporary days.They turned life into art. Their purpose consisted in breaking social and ethical taboos and in dissolving the boundary between the private and the public sphere. In doing so, they focused on themes such as alcoholism, unemployment, violence, nudity, depictions of sexual acts, racial tension, homosexuality, AIDS and bodily fluids (faeces, urine and semen).

Over the years, Gilbert & George have expressed themselves through a variety of mediums: books, drawing, mail art, video, painting and photographic montages among others.

From 1969 to 1975, they completed a number of "postal sculptures" cards containing images and messages sent out in editions to friends and colleagues

They also made a series of charcoal-on-paper sculptures featuring natural designs that covered entire walls.

Until 1974, they made a lot of black-and-white photographs.

During the last 1980s and the 1990s, Gilbert & George produced numerous series of exuberant, large-scale montages of photographs.

Their peaces of art can value 60.000 to 300.000 euros.Very expensive although their interest is not to sale, but to confront people with their art work.

Online gallery and exhibitions:

http://www.mam.org/gandg/gallery.htm

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ArtistWorks?cgroupid=999999961&artistid=1163&page=1

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/7529/gilbert-george-jack-freak-pictures-exhibition.html

Sources:

Ruhrberg, Karl. Art of the 20th Cebtury, parte 1. 2000. Köln: Taschen GmbH. (page 726).

Schmid, Hans. Concepts of Sharedness: Essays on Collective Intentionality. 2008. Germany: Outos Verlag. (pages 25 and 26).

Taylor, Brandon: Sculpture and Psychanalysis, Volume 5. 2006. USA: Ashgate Publishing Limited (pages 139 to 157).

Warren, Lynne: Encyclopedia of 20th Century Photography. 2006. Great Britain: Taylor and Francis Group LLC (page 611).

Personal Museum Guide

2009-06-02T13:44:00.000+01:00

This is the house where I lived in France, more precisely in Bouilly's city. It brings me a lot of memories. I remember the fights I had with my sisters and our graffitis on the walls. It was funny but the punishments weren't.
I was eight when my father offered me this accordion. He thought I would join a group of folk-dancers. Well, I didn't enjoy it and I destroyed it so my father couldn't force me to join this group.
I was given this typewriter at the age of twelve. It was the best gift of all. I really enjoyed writing letters and assignments with it. I still have it.
This map refers to the date of 1986 when Portugal became a member of the EU. This is also the date when my family came to Portugal for good.
1991 was the year wen I became a mum. The birth of a baby is a special moment no woman forgets. Next month he's going to be 18. As time goes by!
I drove my first car - a Fiat Uno - in 1993. Well, don't miss it! Everytime it was raining, my car did always let me down in the traffic. Oh God, how I hated it!
In 1994, I left Mirandela and came to Vila Real with my family. I was offered a job couldn't refuse as a secretary of a large car group company.
In 2004, my hard work and my valuable contribution to the successful development and growth of the company compensated my professional career. I became the leader of eight car salers and got my leadership diploma.
Well, working with cars during almost two decades brought me a special obsession and passion for cars and I became an assidious admirer of car competitions. I never miss Vila Real's rally.
I couldn't finish my personal museum guide without making mention of my admission in UTAD. This is something I intended to do for a long time ago and now I have more time available. Wish me luck!

The Elizabethan Era

2009-02-22T15:36:00.000Z

The English Elizabethan Era is one of the most fascinating periods in the History of England. The Elizabethan Era is named after the greatest Queens of England - Queen Elizabeth I. The Elizabethan Era is not only famous for the Virgin Queen but also for the era itself - Great Explorers, such as Sir Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh. The era of the very first Theatres in England - William Shakespeare, the globe Theatre and Christopher Marlowe! The people of the era - the Famous Figures who featured in the history of this era such as the Queen's love Robert Dudley, the sinister Dr. John Dee, the intrigues of the spy-master Sir Francis Walsingham and the Queen's chief advisor Sir William Cecil (Lord Burghley). Religion - Politics - Executions - Crime and Punishment all played their part in the Elizabethan era! And so did the commoners!

http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/

How to write an essay

2009-02-22T15:16:00.000Z

By using the Internet I've found that there are simple steps that we'll guide us through the essay writing process.

First we need to make some research to choose a topic for our essay.
After determining the topic, we need to organize our ideas on paper; it can be in an outline or a diagram.
Now that we have decided what information we plan to present in our essay, we are ready to compose a thesis statement that will tell the readers what the essay will be about and what point we'll be making.
So we can start to write the essay. We begin with an introduction which is the point of entry from our essay. We continue with the body in which the topic we have chosen must now be explained, described or argued. And we finish with a conclusion and the thesis statement which bring closure to the reader.

Create a new Subculture

2009-01-06T09:26:00.000Z

As I have made the transition of childhood to adulthood for a long time ago and I also lived in an other country besides Portugal for 15 years, so it’s not easy for me to create an imaginary subculture.

By definition subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong, with their own shared conventions, values and rituals.
I’m O.K. with this, but what’s the point of rejecting your own culture because it’s old-fashioned or conservative or anything else and at the same time you are imitating some ideas, values and rituals of a culture of another country? Why can’t you try to be yourself without any influence of outside? Why can’t you embrace your own cultural traditions?

As a mother of a boy and as I always say to him: embrace the culture to witch you belong, try to be yourself as truly as you can, don’t be a copy of somebody else, stand out for your believes and make part of the society, don’t keep your fears and your anger for yourself. So, let’s communicate……….

2008-12-12T11:43:00.000Z

History of subcultures

To be able to understand the youth culture in Manchester today it is important to understand some of the history behind it all. It is important to know how it all started and where we stand now. This is a chronological description of the most important events and a short background to the most wellknown subcultures of the time.
At the beginning of the 20th century leisure and leisure activities were strictly limited to those who could afford membership fees. Poverty had a profound impact upon working class life throughout the beginning of this century. The need to make ends meet dominated the domestic lives of many working-class families. Unemployment was a serious problem at this time, both for skilled and unskilled workers. After 1918 the conditions for the working-class improved drastically. Raising real wages, a narrowing of the gap between the wage rates for skilled and unskilled manual workers, the extension of state welfare and a decline in family size changed the material conditions for the working-class. The increased number of people going to the cinema and the number of wireless gramophones owned by working-class people shows that life was becoming easier for the workers. Never the less almost one third of the working population of Manchester were living in or on the margin of poverty during the 1930s. Despite the poverty money for entertainment was found in the working-class districts of the city, supporting a network of leisure facilities centered upon pubs, cinemas and bookmakers.Traditional leisure was male-dominated. It was central to the formation of the male identity. Pub life was especially important to men since they established their relations with friends and relatives through drinking. Men without work were left with no money for leisure at all. This undermined the collective life of these working-class men. The only way for them to come to terms with this problem would be to keep some of their unemployment allowances to themselves, even though it would mean that they ran the risk of leaving their families in very severe domestic poverty.
Women were much less likely to indulge in leisure activities, even though they did go to cinemas, music halls and less frequently pubs. The family was a woman’s first responsibility, and the running of the home rested entirely upon her. Prior to marriage young women enjoyed much greater freedom and financial independence.
The period between starting work and getting married was one of the most prosperous stages in the lives of working-class people. Young people earned a bit of money, but they were not burdened with the costs of running a home. As a consequence of this financial independence leisure was widely associated with youth throughout the beginning of the twentieth century. Even among youths the world of commercialized entertainment was restricted to those with sufficient funds.
Popular culture and youth culture as we know them emerged in England after World War II. After the war English industry was in desperate need of labour and this made it possible for the young in England to, for the first time, make their own money and to spend it on whatever they wanted. A new group of consumers was born.Out of this developed the first youth culture in the 1950s. A culture born on the streets as the result of the disapproval of the mainstream culture of the time. The followers of this subculture soon got the name Teddy boys. Appearances became more important than ever before. The clothes people wore and the music they listened to all indicated which particular subculture they belonged to.The Teddy boys were highly influenced by the films they went to see, trying to copy the looks of their favorite stars. Since almost all film were produced in Hollywood the influence was American. This American streamlining was seen as a threat to many of the older generation British. The critics thought it shocking that these youths spent all their money on expensive clothes, pop-records, scooters, drugs and clubs.
In 1964 a new subculture appears in London; the Mods. The mods subculture proceeded to demonstrate how the objects and contexts of commercial popular culture- clothes, records, dance, transport and drugs- could be transformed and modeled by the particular realities of this time and this place.The Italian scooter became one of the most famous mod icons. The Mods were young middle- and working-class men who had made a bit of money and wanted it to show. They socialized in groups and if you were not a Mod you were not welcome. The Mod culture spread all over the country, but it was in the big cities that it could best be seen.
In 1976 yet another subculture emerged- Punk. Punk is associated with violence, pins and bad behavior. Punk was closely related to working-class youths. It was their way of showing their disapproval of the current system. Young misunderstood British who rebelled against everything and everyone. The use of drugs has been an important part of the punk era. As John Robb so accurately put it "Everybody did it, nobody cared". But punk has also been a big source of inspiration for the bands that emerged after the punk era was over. The famous Manchester band the Stone Roses once said that without the punk bands they would never have got together to play at all. The impact on the youth culture of the time was enormous.The most famous punk bands of the time were the Sex Pistols and the Clash. Young people everywhere wanted to copy the styles of Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten, the front figures of the bands. These legends live on through their music today.
After the punk the subcultures slowly died away. You no longer needed a subculture to show which social class you belonged to, since the social classes were becoming more fluid. Music was becoming more accessible and the music industry was booming. The old form of subcultures were not important any more, instead different music genres became the issue. Even in the nineties today you find that with the appearance of a new music genre you also get a new type of "fashion" to go along with it.People still find themselves through music. Music is still as important as ever before. The only difference is probably that today you don't have to choose one type of music to listen to, you can like them all.

2008-12-10T09:33:00.000Z

BRITISH CULTURAL IDENTITIES – YOUTH SUBCULTURE

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1- Research online to find out about: Teds/mods/skinheads/hippies/punks/raves/subcultures and their respective tastes in music and style.

I found my research in the Internet from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia.

The Teds or Teddy Boy subculture started in London in the 1950’s and they liked to listen American rock and roll music. They wore long dark jackets, narrow trousers, a smart shirt and a loud tie. The boys used long hair and the girls ponytails.
They were shadowy figures at the dancehalls, lurking around the bars and driking. They formed gangs who had a common uniform like a particular colour of jacket or socks.

The Mods subculture appeared in London in the early 1960’s. They had an obsession for fashion. The boys wore a light-weight continental suit with a three-button, two-vent jacket, narrow trousers, button-collar shirt, narrow tie, zip boots and shot hair, and a long green military-style anorak known as a “parka” to protect the clothes. The girls wore mini-skirts, heavy, bright make-up, thick mascara, and shot straight hair. They used to ride the Vespa r Lambretta scooter. And they liked to hear black American soul music.

The skinheads subculture originated among working class youths in the United Kingdom in the 1960’s. I know that they spread to other parts of the world and still exist today in many countries. They like to use close-cropped hair and usually shaven heads. They were influenced by West Indian (Jamaican), rude boys in terms of fashion, music and lifestyle. Originally their subculture wasn’t base on politics or race. But their attitudes had become more political and more racial. They wear straight-leg jeans, steel-toe boots, button-down shirts and braces. They enjoy to listen to soul, bluebeat and rocksteady music.

The hippie subculture appeared in the United States during the early 1960’s and spread around the world at the time. They inherited the countercultural values of the Beat Generation, created their own communities, listened to folk, blues and psychedelic rock music, and used drugs to explore alternative states of consciousness. They wanted to free themselves from social restrictions.
They wore brightly coloured clothing such as bell-bottom pants, vests, tie-dyed garments, dashikis and long full skirts for the girls. They maintained long hair. Both genders wore sandals or went barefoot.

The punk subculture emerged in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa in the mid-to-late 1970’s and spread around the world.
They seek to outrage propriety with a highly theatrical use of clothing, hairstyles, tattoos, jewellery and body modification. They like to wear leather, rubber and vinyl clothing and their style hair stands in spikes, dramatic shapes, often colouring it with vibrant and unnatural hues. They like to listen to an aggressive and heavy genre of rock music.

2- Write a comparison of British and Portuguese youth subcultures of the same period.

I’m not very familiarize with the Portuguese youth subculture despite the fact that I’m Portuguese because I lived my adolescence in France. And I couldn’t find any text that would characterize the Portuguese youth.
As I remember, the French youth were, and still is, much more liberal than the Portuguese youth. At the age of 16 young French people already had sex, smoked, drove a car and drunk alcohol. The British youth was also more liberal than the Portuguese youth. They had sex and smoked at the age of 16, they drove a car at the age of 17 and bought alcohol at the age of 18. I think that Portuguese youth was conservative, oppressed, very religious and submitted in part due to the dictatorship that ruled in Portugal in this period.

3- To what extent do you think that young people have more in common with the youth of other nations and cultures, than with older people from their own country?

As I’m mother of a seventeenth boy, and as I remember being a teenager, the only reality that young people have in common with other youth of other nations is their age, their issues with themselves, their conflicts with their parents and above all the need of being different from anyone else and the need of breaking all the social, parental rules, and the fact that they don’t know what they really want. And sometimes they choose a way of life, a subculture which they identify in some points such as the clothe, the hair style, the drugs, the political or racial attitude or the music to outrage and to escape from their lives, their own personal conflicts, their parents, the society, all the things they think they hate.
They don’t really realize that they find an escape from the real life and they aren’t being original despite the fact that they want to be different from everybody else, like Jimmy in the movy Quadrophenia who said “I don’t wanna be like everybody else…” but he was a reflection of someone else.
So I don’t qualify this question as a big extent because the older people had their personal, parental and social conflicts in their youth, so most of them should communicate a lot with the young people, understand them, teach them, support them and help them to simply cross the youth to the adult life with less problems and damages.

Banksy works to be painted over

2008-12-10T09:31:00.000Z

I think graffiti is art and also vandalism.Graffiti is art because of the use of the colours, the delivered messages from some extraordinary artists, and the representation of beautiful paintings. Sometimes viewing graffiti art on the walls, in subways and on buildings is much like viewing contemporary art in a gallery and a graffiti piece can totally decorate an appropirate location.But graffiti is also vandalism in some points of view. I wouldn't like to wake up one morning and find the walls of my new house covered in a graffiti piece. It wouldn't fit with the decoration I choose for my home.