Artistic Work

This monography is about the visual work fans make, also known as fanart; and the relationship we can find between it and the art we study from the academy and its place in contemporary art.

     The main objective of this work is to present some enlightening considerations about fanart, what it is and where it comes from; the relationship that I find between fanart and the art that we study in the academy and the importance of researching on this topic / phenomenon. The analysis, from a contemporary and academic point of view, of fanart through some works that would allow us to understand its conceptual and aesthetic complexity, making a horizontal line that unites academic art and fanart.

     My relationship with fanart was born from a very young age by being a fan of many things or Objects and being involved with a very broad fan culture. I started making a fanart compilation; and what happens with and around fanart, more specifically, about 6 years ago. All this observation, participation and compilation began to take an academic form about two years ago when I set out to do my undergraduate thesis on this subject and it was developed for over a year to take the form it has now. Even so, because this is just an undergraduate monography, a lot of information and many areas to remain unexplored, although my intention is to continue with this work.

     In order to analyze the images of fanart so that I could put them in conversation with pieces of academic art, I chose the Panofsky method, as it is a relatively simple method with which almost all of us, whom have passed through the academy of visual arts, know. Even with this method, much of the information that makes these images valuable is not mentioned or indicated; to compensate for this I decided to include the points of analysis that Henry Jenkins, an academic on the fandom phenomenon, builds throughout his book Textual Poachers (1992). Through this combination I was able to put the images in an imaginary horizontal line, both images of fanartists and images of artists of academic training who use Popular Culture as a base, and speak of them in the same terms.

     With this work I try to draw attention to a type of art that has been overlooked, such as Art Brut or Graffiti a few years ago, because it has not yet been looked at carefully, passing it through the filter that provides an academic education in visual arts. For me, the discourse that fans are forming, not only through the images they produce, but also in the aesthetic and cultural discussion that takes place within the fandom, gradually transform, not only those who participate of it, but also what they consume and the way they face the world.

     This transformation also changes, little by little and, almost undetected, the way in which young people consume culture, build it and transform it. I think that this is reason enough for us to begin to further review these niches. The academy is always looking for what happens outside of it, and what I try here is to point it in the direction of fanart.

     I think it is necessary to continue with this type of research. Continue with the review of the artistic production of the fans. Investigate other expressions, such as audiovisual production. Thoroughly investigate the discussion and construction of cultural discourse in fan spaces. The political and social critic dimension of fanart and its producers. The gender issues in the creation and legitimation of fanart. Investigate more about the ways in which fanart is distributed and traded. The relationship between social justice movements and fanart. The representation, acceptance and movement of fanart pieces created by ethnic minorities. Review, specifically, the academic training artists who produce fanart and work based on popular culture, how they do it, and how it looks and differs from the way fanartists produce fanart and work based on popular culture.