Zanele muholi is a visual photographer and an activist of Black lesbian community. Using photography she addresses the challenges being faced by black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people in both townships and communities. These people are vulnerable and they cannot speak for themselves but, through the pictures they are able to raise their concerns. Most of Zanele pictures are in black and white because according to her, one is able to concentrate in the message than the colour. This essay will therefore, discuss the significance of Zanele’s choice of photographic portraits as a medium to raise the concerns of LGBI community by using some of her images. The first image to be discussed is titled safe sex lll which was published …show more content…
However, there is something which draws the viewer’s attention to the image. She has a big scar that runs vertically on her right thigh and it looks as if it has been sewn. When one looks closer at the scar, it looks as if somebody has deliberately sewn it there. According to De vlies, the scar acts as a metaphor of seam which implies that something drastically was done to the thigh. The scar therefore, symbolises the trauma that the woman went through and the injury that that has been caused to the body. However the scar could also mean the invisible scars that are inflicted on homosexual people, lesbians are humiliated, raped, abused and even killed each and every day. This cause scars in their hearts, the scars that cannot be healed. According to Zanele, lesbians suffer a lot in their townships and communities, which makes her cry each and every day. Therefore, the scar represents the pain, rejection, internal injury, the emotional trauma that the LGBIT people go through. The scar is not caused people by who are far but the people they live with in their communities. In addition, their family members can also add to the pain as other families do not approve of “homosexuality, they end up being disowned or abused physically. With the use of the image, Zanele is appealing to the community to stop brutalising these women just because they
After reviewing Jacob Lawrence’s direct and dramatic paintings, it was clear that his painting helped him express himself. The painting was and still is a product of the economic and cultural self-determination that African-American dealt in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, during the migration and still evident in society today. The visual qualities in Jacob Lawrence artwork that is appealing are the vibrant colors and his clever way of self-expressing the time he was so familiar. In final analysis, his artwork expressed how he felt about his environment and what his perspective were during that time. And, how restrained his painting were, for instance, Street Scene – Restaurant, even though African- Americans had access to restaurants in the neighboring area but, he still place patriot outside the restaurant waiti...
Louise Bourgeois and Constantine Brancusi were both two artists that had very abstract pieces of art. Though the two artists had very different pieces of work they also shared a lot in common. Bourgeois and Constantine both had very visually dramatic styles of art that focused on sexuality and reproduction in forms of the human body. In this paper I will be talking about both artists backgrounds and works as well as what they share in similiarity and the underlying message of their work.
Curtis’s work represents the ideological construction of foreign cultures in the 'way of seeing' that is suitable for the audience of the photograph and the photographer. This illustrates the highly political motives of photograph, carrying multiple meanings in order to craft certain imaginations of the subject (Berger, 1972). As a result of the power that the photographer has on its subjects, certain messages and ‘way of seeing’ are depicted through photographs. For instance, expected gender roles are played out in photographs of the Indian subjects, portraying the expectation of Curtis and his audience of the masculine and feminine behaviour by the subjects conforming to such gender standards (Jackson, 1992). Indian men are captured in what Jackson (1992) describes as ‘active poses’, such as fishing or dancing, juxtaposed with the ‘passive poses’ of female subjects, photographed in more decorative postured of waiting and watching. Though it can be argued that the manipulation and selection of images by Curtis as an artist’s ‘creative manipulation’ of their work, Curtis’ photography was used as a scientific measure, and hence should be devoid of such influences (Jackson,
How does one embrace the message and soul of artwork when you can’t get passed the color of skin in the portraits? Two barrier breaking retrospective artists born with more than 2,899 miles between them have beat down the walls in the art world opening up endless opportunities for female artist today. Carrie Mae Weems and Lorna Simpson specialize in catching the viewer’s eye and penetrating their feelings towards issues of culture, politics, equality, and feminism. It is well established that these woman specialize in identifying problems in their artwork, both artists seem to struggle with not being able to avoid the ignorant eye of stereotyping because they use African American Models in their artwork. Carrie Mae Weems doesn’t see her artwork
According to the book entitled Ways of Seeing written by John Berger, the power of an image is extraordinary given that it can speak a thousand words. This has also been enhanced by the rapidly evolving technology that elicits more subconscious views about an image by anyone who sees them online or in real life. Some professional writers like Susan Bordo have emphasized that pictures of men often receive a wide range of negative tones or opinions due to the physiological effects that are fashionable to society or any other individual who approves or disapproves the beauty in a portrait of two men or women (Berger 38). This essay offers my opinion concerning the pictures of the Doloce and Gabbana, the gay Italian designers, as well as that of
Though people can look into color and composition, others can still even look into the source of the art itself. Cole goes deeper, delving into the source of the art, looking in particular into the idea of cultural appropriation and the view a person can give others. Though it is good for people to be exposed to different opinions of a group or an object, sometimes people can find it difficult to tell the difference between the reality and the art itself. Sometimes art can be so powerful that its message stays and impacts its audience to the point where the viewer’s image of the subject of the art changes entirely. Cole brings up an important question about art, however. Art has become some kind of media for spreading awareness and even wisdom at times, but in reality, “there is also the question of what the photograph is for, what role it plays within the economic circulation of images” (973). Cole might even be implying that Nussbaum’s advertisement can sometimes be the point of some media, and that sometimes the different genres of art can just be to make someone with a particular interest happy. One more point that Cole makes is that “[a]rt is always difficult, but it is especially difficult when it comes to telling other people’s stories.” (974) Truthfully, awareness and other like-concepts are difficult to keep going when a person or a group is not directly involved.
Cox’s work is exactly the type of discussion that is needed to move the discourse on black women’s bodies from being regarded as part of a stereotype to being regarded as individuals with beautiful differences. This is not a ‘re-mirroring’ of the ‘un-mirrored,’ but rather a creation of a new image, void of previous misconceptions but filled with individuality. The stereotypes concerning black women’s bodies needs to be abolished, not reinvented like Hobson suggests in “Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture.”
This investigation will examine a few key works by the anonymous female artist group know in popular culture as the Guerrilla Girls. In this essay it will reveal several prominent themes within the groups works that uncover the racial and gender inequalities in politics, art and pop culture with the use of humor. These collaborating artists work and operate with a variety of mediums, their works display a strong message concerned with activism connected by humor allowing the Guerrilla Girls to communicate and resonate a more powerful message to the viewer. The ways in which this collaborating group has employed many questions and facts against the hierarchy and historical ideologies which have exploited women and their roles in art. This investigation will allow the reader to identify three areas in which the Guerrilla Girls apply a certain forms of humor to transform society’s view on the prominent issue of gender in the art world. These specific ploys that are performed by the Guerrilla Girls are in the way they dress, the masks they wear, pseudonymous names of dead women artists and the witty factual evidence in their works. These are all examples to evoke audiences in challenging not only the art society which dictates the value and worth of women in art but also to confront yourself and your own beliefs in a way that makes audiences rethink these growing issues.
Is childhood perhaps a set of performances, like staged tableaux, and made for adults, in which the body is the focus of attention and expression? And in those stumbling, hesitant, performances, did we, and do our children, learn to act out roles for the rest of our lives? The concept of identity as unconsciously practiced performance: of gender especially, but also of class, race and sexuality, is fast becoming a critical truism. (Butler, 1990). As an adult, perhaps I may try to construct the childhood as an “age of innocence”, but in real time, rather than the adult imagination, adolescence is an age of spots and listlessness, of massive ephemeral excitements and tedious eternities. It is an age when ideas of sexual identity and self are evanescent and fragmentary. You try to out make-up for the first time, experiment with the social marks of femininity and masculinity, and with the marks of rebellion… (Townsend, C. 1998). Like a work of fiction, images call for explanation, to know how we feel about it now. Unable to communicate for itself, the photograph needs its viewers to tell it what it might enclose, and we are unnerved by our multitude of answers. The portrait is a sign whose purpose is both the description of an individual and the inscription of social identity.’ The portrait
The painting clearly refers to the period of slavery, presenting the unequal roles between black and white individuals. The artists paints the image in a way that both exposes and ridicules the actions of the white man. A black woman being kissed by a white man suggests that she is a slave and therefore in a relationship that was enforced and sexually violent. African American women, as slaves, were subject to the practice of sexual exploitation in the 19th century. Women were treated as property as they were continuously harassed, raped, and beaten by masters as white men with authority took advantage of their slaves. While women were appeared to be consenting to the mistreatment, no safeguards existed in order to protect women from such abuses, and were left with no choice but to engage in sexual activity with their masters. The black man in the image, on the other hand, is subject to being hit, a way of enforcing slavery. The two black figures, are in essence, a form of “luxury” for the white men as the black man is being deprived of his rights by his owner and is used as a tool through work in the fields, while the woman is used as a “luxury” that satisfies her owner through fulfilling the white man’s sexual
It is believed by the author that the feminist movement in many ways parallels the struggles faced by African Americans in the US during the same time period. The authors will offer ideas on where the pro...
Whereas men had a so-called “head-start” with painting and sculpture, photography was pioneered by and equally associated with both genders. Sexualized images of women circulated via mass media. Described as a voyeuristic medium, photography was a powerful tool in deconstructing the male gaze and bringing private moments into the public domain (Bonney 1985: 11).
Kruger’s exploration of the role of women in society, and gender as a social construct with her aggressive and provocative images, places her in an important role in recent social and feminist movements. This, combined with her unique artistic techniques, has made her a very influential artist of postmodern times.
Georgina is presented as a figure that could somewhat be considered as the epitome of the beauty of a woman. Rather than viewing the birthmark as a complement to her beauty, he sees it as a flaw that he must get rid of to guarantee that she remains beautiful to him. At no point does he stop to ask her opinion on the issue showing that it did not matter what she thought. All that mattered is that as her husband he did not like the birthmark and thus she had to get rid of it to make him happy. This is a clear indication life in a society where the differences in gender are used to exploit, divide, and isolate women. One of the biggest rifts between men and women in the society even today is the fact that women are expected to meet the ideology
Women desire to become beautiful and powerful, even if they don’t say it in words. And the Photographer plays with that concept and creates that desire, that you can become that person you see in the photograph. And live that lifestyle. Photographers use techniques from the cinema/cinematic, to create the desire of viewers/Buyer/Consumers. The cinematic techniques made it possible the way people lived and the...