ROYAL BANTER: December 2010

Tuesday 7 December 2010

Monday 6 December 2010

At the start of this project I wanted to look at the nation's obsession with the Royal Family and how they are portrayed in the media as well as on memorabilia (particularly the postcards of them). I was thinking mainly about how Royal memorabilia is simply playful and a tourist attraction, and how I could begin to mock ideas of taste by creating memorabilia that no one would want to buy. This whole idea comes from a bin that my Grandparents have that commemorates Charles' and Diana's wedding in 1981.

As part of this idea, I thought humour would be important, and so I got interested in the more satirical views of the Royal Family, shown mainly in the media, but by artists and designers as well. I wanted to create my own satire in relation to Royal memorabilia. At first I thought of simply recreating memorabilia, but more outrageous than existing souvenirs, using humour to question the nation's obsession with the Royal Family.

So.

Whilst keeping Royal memorabilia in mind, I've decided to go back to basics and think about the portrayal of images of the Royal Family in it's current state. And I think I've missed something key; the Queen's image has become perhaps one of the most iconic of the 20th and 21st centuries - her face is everywhere. What will happen when she stops being our monarch? The whole image of the Royal family will change. Not only that, but I think attitudes to the Royal Family will naturally change too - considering that the Queen has been the monarch for almost three generations. For my campaign, I want to look at this in more depth - and I had the idea to centre the campaign imagining Charles being King. I think this is relevant at the moment particularly because of the news coverage of Prince William's and Kate Middleton's engagement - as their wedding will create their public image as a couple - an image that I think will be very different from Charles and Camilla. So for my campaign, I'm going to start by experimenting with images of Charles in place of the Queen and see how that goes...

As if 'King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla' on our commemorative plates will be as iconic as Liz.

This plate commemorates the wedding of

Sunday 5 December 2010

God Save the Queen

I think I'm more interested in satire surrounding the Royal Family than the Royal Family itself - and it seems a lot of artists have had similar ideas.

Heres a link I've found to some

UNOFFICIAL ROYAL PORTRAITS.

I also had a look at some of Alison Jackson's work - she satirises the famous by taking photos of their look-a-likes in awkward situations.

This photo was particularly controversial as it explored the speculations that, before their deaths, Diana and Dodi Al Fayad were expecting a baby.

"I wanted to see if people really cared whether she was real or not. So I sort of depicted this as a fantasy that existed in the public mind at the time -- which is really powerful. . . . We were all thinking: Is Diana in love with Dodi? Does she want to marry Dodi? Was she pregnant with Dodi's baby? . . . Would the monarchy have tolerated that?"

Saturday 4 December 2010

10 for £1

As I'm clearly obsessed with the Royal Family, I decided to visit Buckingham Palace today. Although that was lovely, 30 photos of Buckingham Palace aren't that interesting to look at on their own - so I'm going to experiment with them first. Instead, here are some postcards and souvenir shops around Buckingham Palace. I also went into the official Buckingham Palace shop, but wasn't allowed to take photos (bummer), but they had some amazingly tacky souvenirs - including a buckingham palace rain coat, buckingham palace booze, and most randomly buckingham palace lip balm?? I also thought it would be interesting to point out that, while all of the 'unofficial' souvenir shops had Princess Diana souvenirs, in the Buckingham Palace shop, there was nothing to do with Diana at all...hmmmmm.