Feminist art should be anything it wants! Constraining feminist art to fit a certain mold or definition is doing the very thing that feminism and feminist art is fighting back against. As far as the question, “What should feminist art do?”, this is a little more complex. Again, I feel like feminist art should do what ever the artist and viewer want it to do. Feminist art is, in general, the fight for female equality expressed in an art form. The reason I feel that this is a complex issue is because, just as a feminist, feminist art should “do” what ever it wants. It would be great to have feminist art, or any art, promote conversation about gender, equality, and the societal constraints dealing with gender inequality, but I think that what …show more content…
She uses ceramic media, cloth, numerical symbolism, historical significance, sexuality, anatomy, and intricateness in a talented way to lure the viewer to her exhibit. All of the different styles and colors presented uniformly symbolizes the individuals within a collective group of feminists. Chicago did a tasteful job in regard to balancing the feminist “we” and incorporating individual diversity of the women featured in the exhibit. An issue that I have with Chicago’s work is that it is labeled “feminist art”. I am sure that in the 1970s it was empowering and gained positive attention for a feminist movement, but today I feel that it is very obviously an exhibit to honor and represent women. The mere fact of labeling art a “feminist work” takes away from the artist and dilutes the message. Its reminds me of the of the ongoing debate we discussed in lecture on whether a skilled female writer should be labeled a “good woman writer”, to bring awareness to the reader that the writer is female, or a “good writer”, to not mention gender because it is irrelevant. Labeling a good writer a “good female writer”, because they also happen to be female, belittles all women as writers. The same goes for “feminist artists” and “feminist artwork”. I understand the motive to have a feminist “we” to create a movement, but I am hesitant to say that labeling something as a “feminist X” is a …show more content…
The fact that we are unable to fully define a feminist identity and use “etc.”, a sign of exhaustion, we can assume that there is wiggle room around gender categories, which is a good thing overall. If there is no way to cover all of the aspects of a feminist identity, there is inevitably some flexibility within the structure. This can have negative consequences for women singly. Classifying people indirectly and directly promotes an “ideal” that is impossible to fit into and ironically divides women. This is clearly counterproductive, we want women to be who they are while coming together and acknowledging cultural constrains that females face based on their
No other artist has ever made as extended or complex career of presenting herself to the camera as has Cindy Sherman. Yet, while all of her photographs are taken of Cindy Sherman, it is impossible to class call her works self-portraits. She has transformed and staged herself into as unnamed actresses in undefined B movies, make-believe television characters, pretend porn stars, undifferentiated young women in ambivalent emotional states, fashion mannequins, monsters form fairly tales and those which she has created, bodies with deformities, and numbers of grotesqueries. Her work as been praised and embraced by both feminist political groups and apolitical mainstream art. Essentially, Sherman’s photography is part of the culture and investigation of sexual and racial identity within the visual arts since the 1970’s. It has been said that, “The bulk of her work…has been constructed as a theater of femininity as it is formed and informed by mass culture…(her) pictures insist on the aporia of feminine identity tout court, represented in her pictures as a potentially limitless range of masquerades, roles, projections” (Sobieszek 229).
“Imagine living in a world where there is no domination, where females and males are not alike or even always equal, but where a vision of mutuality is the ethos shaping our interaction. Imagine living in a world where we can all be who we are, a world of peace and possibility.” (Feminism is for everybody, page 8). This particular quote from the assigned reading really spoke to me. How amazing would it be to live in a world where no one group dominates another, or more importantly no one group discriminates one another. Obviously, just as bell hooks’ said following this quote, the feminist movement cannot do all of this alone. There are so many other things going on in the world that need attention as well, such as racism, class exclusivity, and imperialism. Over the past few years I have become more informed on the feminist movement and the assigned reading only heightened my
Feminism and political issues have always been centered on in the art world and artists like to take these ideas and stretch them beyond their true meanings. Female artists such as Hannah Höch, who thrived during the Dada movement in the 1920s in Germany and Barbara Kruger who was most successful during the 1980s to 1990s in the United States, both take these issues and present them in a way that forces the public to think about what they truly mean. Many of Kruger’s works close in on issues such as the female identity and in relation to politics she focuses on consumerism and power. Höch, like Kruger, also focuses on female identity but from the 1920s when feminism was a fairly new concept and like Kruger focuses on politics but focuses more on the issues of her time such as World War I. With the technique of photomontage, these two artists take outside images and put them together in a way that displays their true views on feminism and politics even though both are from different times and parts of the world.
When I visited the Denver Art Museum, allot of different works caught my attention but two out of them stood out above the rest. These two works were Lots Wife by Kent Monkman, and Untitled (It’s Our Pleasure to Disgust You) by Barbra Kruger. These two works of art conveyed a manipulation of the idea of gender and the roles associated with it.
Feminist theory is derived from feminism, a complex doctrine that has been defined in many different ways (Chodorow, 1978). Hooks (2000) believes that without a consensus regarding a definition, that the foundation on which feminism was built is not fully clear. Nonetheless, several individuals have stepped forward to offer their ideologies and principles regarding feminist theory.
In this case women are stuck where in no matter how they act or how they dress, they end up put into a label they do not necessarily belong in. The main goal of feminism is to create equality for women and fight against the labels put on them. Though throughout time feminism itself has been given a negative label. In today 's society women do not want to be referred to as feminists from fear of being labeled as a bitter man hating woman. This is definitely amplified in media today. Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist, brings up the idea of the essential feminist and where it suggests,” anger, humorlessness, militancy, unwavering principles, and a prescribed set of rules for how to be a proper feminist woman” (169). This fear of being labeled a feminist not only comes from fear of being thought of as angry or humorless, but from being attacked for not being the “proper feminist woman”.
The piece from the article that I found most intriguing and inspiring has to be Chicago’s Menstruation Bathroom. Menstruation is seen as such a taboo thing in our society, we don’t openly talk about it. This piece is attempting to fight those taboos by bringing the imagery of Menstruation, the tampons, the pads, the blood, into the open as opposed to being hidden behind the stall doors. For me, this piece has even more meaning because in one of my other cultures classes we learned about women in Nepal who are sent to sleep in cow sheds during their periods because they are considered “impure” while menstruating. So art like this is important to help fight taboos and normalize this thing that is part of human life, and more specifically a woman’s
One of the most influential and inspiring feminist artists to produce work, Judy Chicago was able to (how she changed the world) through her work including ‘the dinner party’ (1979).an instillation completed after 5 years of development. Triangular in configuration, equilateral in structure, reflecting the goal of feminism, an equalized world. Completed using ceramics, needle and fiber techniques as well as china painting. The table holding 39 place settings each commemorating a mythical or important woman or historical figure. Beneath the table was 2304 handmade porcelain tiles, 999 of which were inscribed of other important woman’s names. In her artwork the dinner party Judy Chicago gave recognition to woman both achievers and oppressed. In this way she gave a voice to the duality of woman’s issues, not only was she advocating for recognition of woman’s achievements but she was also bringing to the forefront the concept of inequality. Judy Chicago‘’ had been trying to establish a respect for woman and woman’s art; to forge a new kind of art expressing woman’s experience’- challenge and redefine conventions of gender’’ The fact that the names of woman were placed on a high end table setting challenged gender equality in itself as tables like this had previously been only acc...
The Feminist Art movement is a constellation of artists, critics, and art historians; emerged to end the ongoing cycle of omission in which women were written out of the historical record. Women have always been seen as sexualised objects of desire in art history, thus these women artists rebelled by producing an undeniable presence of artwork that was unforgettable. This newly found freedom led women artists, from Judy Chicago to Hannah Wilke, to rebel against the constraints of tradition, creating a new paradigm for the female subject in the art world. Judy Chicago was one of the pioneers of Feminist art in the 1970s, a movement that endeavoured to reflect women's lives, call attention to women's roles as artists, and alter the conditions under which contemporary art was produced and received. Often depicted by men, when women portrayed the female body it became a powerful weapon against the social constructs of gender.
As a spokesperson for feminism, many of Kruger’s pieces during this time dealt with representations of femininity, and often attacked stereotypes. She would use photographs of women in "static or supine poses, displayed according to cliched conventions of popular representation” (____62) and would contrast these pictures with a feminist statement overtop. In her 1981 design known as “Your gaze hits the side of my face”, a female statue is shown facing away from the viewer, not making eye contact, and exhibiting the “male gaze” so often seen in the media. Kruger explores how damaging the male gaze can be by using the woman as a statue, which enforces the idea of men confining women by believing they are nothing more than sexual objects to be appreciated visually (___pandamoniam fap). In another work titled “We don’t need another hero” (1985), a young girl pokes and looks amazed by the muscles of a young boy. Showing that even as a child, females are trained to look at men as powerful, and men are trained to be strong. Wanting to change the restrictive definitions of gender, Kruger states “we don’t need another hero” to express that we do not need to continue fitting into these molds (___). For the 1989 reproductive rights protest and the March for Women’s Lives in Washington, D.C., Kruger created Your Body Is a Battleground
The Renaissance monarch’s manner of being viewed, as well as, female images constitute perhaps the largest body of work subject to a male gaze. Physically, per Laura Mulvey in Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, women face three forms of posture in most images – and John Berge in Ways of Seeing relates this to the Renaissance: to feed voyeurism, narcissism, or scopophilia. These terms especially find truism in later works of mistresses and Queens as sexualization of noblewomen increases in the public eye. However, the rather austere portraits of Henry VIII’s wives face just as much of a consciousness of being watched as does Titian’s Venus of Urbino or the romanticized images of the captive Rosamund Clifford. Henry’s wives portraits, however,
During the feminist movement women sought to gain gender equality and they turned to art to get their message out there. Feminist art set the bar higher for women so they can be seen more equal to men. It redefined the way women were seen and gained them a lot more power in the world. Women were able to use feminist art to be able to show the world that they were just as capable of being successful artists just like men were. Artist like Judy Chicago help set ideas of gender equality become a reality. “Inspired by the women 's movement and rebelling against the male-dominated art scene of the 1960s.” (the art story). Judy Chicago stood for women being equal to men and fought against how men were the ones in charge of the world. She used her art as a weapon to combat gender equality. Many other artists like Chicago used their art to fight gender equality. Feminist art helped explore ideas of gender equality and exchanged it around the world. Her art served as a way of breaking societal expectation by incorporating controversial
Women have been an important part of art history since the moment of its creation. While women artists began to emerge from the shadow of their male counterparts, their representation in artwork remained particular to how women were perceived by men and society’s idea of what a woman was and should be. Women have taken great strides in taking the reins on their own lives and their own representations both in the art world and in the general environment. Yet so many names have been forgotten or erased through the trajectory of time and many of their struggles are left unaware. A woman would be more likely to become an artist or have the ability to make art would be if she was related to a male artist and had the materials available. It was highly unusual for a woman to study the subject on her own.
Kathleen Hanna stated: “There are just as many different kinds of feminism as there are women in the world.” This could not be truer. With different types of women, you have different types of feminism, all differing in levels of activism however enveloping around the same purpose. The most popular definition of the term feminism is “the doctrine for advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men” (Dictionary). These would include perception of appearance and attitude, equal pay for equal work – constitutional equality, reproductive rights, ending violence against women, and more. Early thinkers, including Sappho, Hildegard of Bingen, Christine de Pisan, and more are considered the “foremothers of the modern women’s movement” (Rampton). There are three waves of feminism spanning from the late nineteenth century to present day. They encompass the first through the current attempts and successes of what women have fought for in their role in modern society. Roles of women have changed over the past 150 years in the home, the workforce and workplace, the church, and in the educational system. Despite great improvements in equality
Why has this book become so popular in rapid time? Why are women flocking to buy the book and why are they talking about it with their friends? More importantly, why was I a part of the craze? These are all valid questions I would like to find answers to. In my opinion, the book negatively portrays women, and yet women, and some men, are still reading it. It is alarming that so many readers are blinded by the message of the book because they are so wrapped in the content. This is why I find the book worth studying. In order to find answers to my questions, I will look to feminist criticism to better understand my topic.