KEY ARTISTS:
Chicago, Kruger, Guerrilla Girls (USA)
Fahey (NZ)
KEY MEANINGS:
Place
Identity
Philosophy and spirituality
The everyday, popular culture & consumerism
Ideas about art
KEY CONTEXTS:
Social
Political
Mass media
Women had tasted what it was like to work in the mainstream society when men had gone off to the war in the 1940s. Many of them took on jobs occupied by men, and this provided a sense of realisation for women who started to recognise their potential and ability. However, when the war ended, women were forced to return to their domestic duties at home. As the voices for an egalitarian society grew larger in America, the 1970s saw an outburst of women's dissatisfaction with such social expectations, which is known as The Second Wave Feminism.
Feminist literature blossomed and political issues such as domestic violence, rape and abortion rights emerged to the surface. The invention of contraceptive pills also empowered women while spiking up heated debates surrounding its validity in the society. |
Feminists developed a love and hate relationship with the mass media. While the mass media allowed more exposure to concerning issues that tended to remain largely concealed (victims of rape, sex crimes and domestic violence...) and helped to bring attention to Feminist activities, it also continued to misrepresent women in stereotypical ways in the name of mass appeal.
In the mass media, SHE is often: ◽ objectified (nameless/unidentifiable) ◽ stereotyped (pictured in certain roles: a mother, a wife, a seductress, a victim...) ◽ sexualised (her body often objectified too: just a pretty face, sexy legs or nice hair) ◽ passive & submissive (the subject of the male gaze*) * In Feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the heterosexual male viewer (Wikipedia). |
Feminist artists actively reacted against the patriarchy that existed in the art world for centuries. They noted that women were basically non-existent in the art world largely due to the fact that they were not written about, so they got forgotten. Art history books were written by men, for the male artists. Women would more commonly feature in art as subject, not as the maker of art. This is also because women were traditionally discouraged from pursuing their interest in becoming an artist. They were often denied the entry to art academies and required training.
An iconic Feminist art work by Chicago, 'The Dinner Party' tries to reclaim this lost legacy. The deliberate use of 'craft' methods and 'feminine' imagery was an attempt to challenge the stereotyping of women's art as well as to elevate their status in the art world. Other Feminist artists would also take up unconventional methods (photography, performance, installation...) to disengage from the domains preoccupied by male dominance (e.g. painting and sculpture). Guerrilla Girls refused to participate in the capitalist chain of patriarchal art world and produced 'unsellable' works, exhibiting them in public spaces rather than in art galleries. |
The Fight For Women's Rights |
Where are the women? |
Why are there so few female artists? |
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WOMANHOUSE (1972)
How 1971’s Womanhouse Shaped Today’s Feminist Art
In 1972, artists Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro created Womanhouse, an experiential and experimental feminist art installation featuring installation, sculpture, textile, and performance art in a run-down Hollywood home. This spring, a new installment, called Women House, showcases a new generation of feminist artists at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.
Although Women House will only showcase two of the twenty-three original artists featured in the original (the creators Chicago and Schapiro), it’s clear that Womanhouse laid the foundation for current feminist art practice and theory. Beginning in 1971, Chicago and Schapiro began working towards the creation of Womanhouse. This endeavor grew out of the newfound Feminist Art Program at California Institute of the Arts, with twenty-one women studying under their tutelage.
As Miriam Schapiro recalled in 1987, “[o]ur purpose was to remake the old house into a place of dreams and fantasies. Each room would be transformed into a nonfunctioning art environment.”
Although Women House will only showcase two of the twenty-three original artists featured in the original (the creators Chicago and Schapiro), it’s clear that Womanhouse laid the foundation for current feminist art practice and theory. Beginning in 1971, Chicago and Schapiro began working towards the creation of Womanhouse. This endeavor grew out of the newfound Feminist Art Program at California Institute of the Arts, with twenty-one women studying under their tutelage.
As Miriam Schapiro recalled in 1987, “[o]ur purpose was to remake the old house into a place of dreams and fantasies. Each room would be transformed into a nonfunctioning art environment.”
In 2006, art historian Temma Balducci explained the powerful methodology that the artists engaged in with Womanhouse. She writes, “The artists who produced Womanhouse used parody and exaggeration as tools to undermine essentialist stereotypes about women that limited them to domestic roles, making it one of the earliest feminist artworks to question the boundaries between essential and constructed meaning.”
Viewers would wind their way through this home, confronted and challenged by parodies of societal expectations.
Balducci considers why Womanhouse “generated so little scholarly interest.” The reasons she examines are multi-layered, though ultimately timing might have had to do with it, since it “was produced so early” in the feminist art movement that “the critical language and understanding were not yet in place to deal with the complicated issues broached in the piece.”
Schapiro echoes this sentiment in her own recollections: “[i]t was 1971, the quiet revolution had already begun and some of us were part of it. We were being told by brilliant, creative women that we could and would fulfill our own destinies.”
Schapiro argued that Womanhouse introduced “content into mainstream modern art…based on the lives of women.”
daily.jstor.org/how-1971s-womanhouse-shaped-todays-feminist-art/
Viewers would wind their way through this home, confronted and challenged by parodies of societal expectations.
Balducci considers why Womanhouse “generated so little scholarly interest.” The reasons she examines are multi-layered, though ultimately timing might have had to do with it, since it “was produced so early” in the feminist art movement that “the critical language and understanding were not yet in place to deal with the complicated issues broached in the piece.”
Schapiro echoes this sentiment in her own recollections: “[i]t was 1971, the quiet revolution had already begun and some of us were part of it. We were being told by brilliant, creative women that we could and would fulfill our own destinies.”
Schapiro argued that Womanhouse introduced “content into mainstream modern art…based on the lives of women.”
daily.jstor.org/how-1971s-womanhouse-shaped-todays-feminist-art/
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THE FEMINIST ART ICON WHO ISN'T DONE FIGHTINGJudy Chicago (1939- )Judy Chicago was one of the pioneers of Feminist art in the 1970s, a movement that endeavored 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. In the process, Feminist art questioned the authority of the male-dominated Western canon and posed one of the most significant challenges to modernism, which was at the time wholly preoccupied with conditions of formalism as opposed to personal narrative and political activity.
Seeking to redress women's traditional underrepresentation in the visual arts, Chicago focused on female subject matter, most famously in her work The Dinner Party (1979), which celebrates the achievements of women throughout history, scandalizing audiences with her frank use of vaginal imagery. In her work, Chicago employed the "feminine" arts long relegated to the lowest rungs of the artistic hierarchy, such as needlework and embroidery. Chicago articulated her feminist vision not only as an artist, but also as an educator and organizer, most notably, in co-founding of the Feminist Art Program at Cal State Fresno as well as the installation and performance space, Womanhouse.
www.theartstory.org/artist/chicago-judy/ |
THE FEMINIST MASTERPIECE, "THE DINNER PARTY" (1979)
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MAKING THE MESSAGE LOUD AND CLEARBarbara Kruger (1945- )Barbara Kruger is best known for her silkscreen prints where she placed a direct and concise caption across the surface of a found photograph. Her prints from the 1980s cleverly encapsulated the era of "Reaganomics" with tongue-in-cheek satire; especially in a work like (Untitled) I shop therefore I am (1987), ironically adopted by the mall generation as their mantra. As Kruger's career progressed, her work expanded to include site-specific installations as well as video and audio works, all the while maintaining a firm basis in social, cultural, and political critique. Since the 1990s, she has also returned to magazine design, incorporating her confrontational phrases and images into a wholly different realm from the art world. Associated with postmodern Feminist art as well as Conceptual art, Kruger combines tactics like appropriation with her characteristic wit and direct commentary in order to communicate with the viewer and encourage the interrogation of contemporary circumstances.
www.theartstory.org/artist/kruger-barbara/ |
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CONSCIENCE OF THE ART WORLDIn 1985, a group of vigilantes wearing gorilla masks took to the streets. Armed with wheat paste and posters, the Guerrilla Girls, as they called themselves, set out to shame the art world for its underrepresentation of women artists. Their posters, in the words of one critic "were rude; they named names and they printed statistics. They embarrassed people. In other words, they worked."
In addition to posters (now highly-valued works of art), billboards, performances, protests, lectures, installations, and limited-edition prints make up the Guerrilla Girls' varied oeuvre. Their unorthodox tactics were instrumental in making progress. The group is still going strong, reminding the art world that it still has a long way to go. Referring to themselves as "the conscience of the art world," wherever discrimination lurks, the Guerrilla Girls are likely to strike again. As their reputation has grown, they have encompassed targets beyond the art sphere, like Hollywood, right wing politicians, and same-sex marriage. They have collaborated with institutions that once shunned them, including the Tate Modern and MoMA, and yet their tactics remain as radical as ever. In a 2012 interview they revealed, "We've been working on a weapon, an estrogen bomb...If you drop it, the men will drop their guns and start hugging each other. They'll say, 'Why don't we clean this place up?' In the end, we encourage people to send their extra estrogen pills to Karl Rove; he needs a little more estrogen."
www.theartstory.org/artist/guerrilla-girls/ |
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WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO BE A WOMAN PAINTER IN NZJacqueline Fahey (1929- )Jaqueline Fahey’s paintings collide portraiture with suburban landscapes to create riotously colourful compositions that revel in the chaos of domesticity. Married and a mother to three early in her painting career, the stifling gendered society of 1950s and 1960s New Zealand saw Fahey adopt unconventional colour, technique, and subject matter to reflect and actively challenge the status quo of the gender divide. Yet embedded in the artist’s pugnacious approach is a great level of affection for the women and relationships portrayed, evident in the careful detail bestowed on traditionally ‘female’ interests – clothing, interior textiles, bouquets- elevating the decorative female space above the austere settings more familiar to portraiture.
Her distinctive painting style is recognisable for a raucous use of colour, with often haphazard use of perspectival space to force the viewer into the claustrophobia of the female experience. You can hear Fahey’s paintings. Expertly realised portraits are candid in their expressions – characters are shown mouth open, mid argument, or gazing off absentmindedly into the distance. Glimpses of TV sets, record players, and radios are combined with closely observed wine glasses, cups of tea, and bottles of gin. The clamour of crockery and conversation rings through the paintings and spills out into our space as they do into the painted gardens visible through open windows. Later bodies of work see Fahey applying her distinctive flare to urban environments and urban characters; translating domestic politics to their manifestation in the public environment. Born in Timaru in 1929, Fahey began her painting education in earnest at sixteen, at the Canterbury College School of Art, now Ilam. During this time she became friends with notable members of the Christchurch collective of exhibiting artists, The Group, Rita Angus and Doris Lusk. Of these friendships and the impact on her practice, she says, "It wasn't so much that they influenced the way I painted. What they did was allow me to be professional, to think of it as my life." Not content only painting her feminism, Fahey has been instrumental in promoting female peers, organising the first actively ‘gender-balanced’ exhibition with Rita Angus, which was staged at Centre Gallery, Wellington in 1964. Her contribution to feminist art is recognised here and internationally, and two of her paintings were featured in the major exhibition WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution (2007) at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, which toured to MoMA PS1 the following year. In addition to painting, Fahey is a novelist, having published a novel and two volumes of memoirs. In 1997 she was named an Officer of New Zealand Merit (ONZM) for her services to art, and in 2013 she was granted an Arts Foundation Icon Award, the organisation’s highest honour and restricted to a circle of twenty living artists. www.gowlangsfordgallery.co.nz/artists/jacqueline-fahey/about |
"Overflowing with love, conflict and quiet despair,
Fahey’s paintings from the 1970s bristle with the intensity of domestic life."
Before ‘the personal is political’ became a rallying cry for feminism in the 1960s, artist Jacqueline Fahey began to survey the private realities of New Zealand women, making paintings that challenged accepted archetypes of female experience and ‘appropriate’ subjects for art. Often painting from the vantage point of the kitchen table, she positioned it as the nexus for the conflicts and complexities of family life.