Final essay (2441)

Feminism in art 1960s and onwards

The Feminist art movement started in the late 1960s.Before the movement the majority of female artists were denied exhibitions due to their gender, this in turn helped spark the movement and drived many artist to try change what could be put in to gallery’s like The Tate modern and The Satchi gallery. These feminist artists sought to fight for equality and equal rights of women. Ways of doing this included using art, Intervening in the art world, as well as using social interactions, Performances and videos to present a message about equality that women deserved and also helped create places for women in art that had not been there before. This helped pave a way for Identity art and also activist art in the 1980s and so on.

In this essay I am going to write about some of the artists that were in this movement (post past and present).I feel that in order to help shape the future we must take note of what helped shape the world of female artist in the past and use this to help us make the world a little more equal.

Carolee Schneeman

Carolee schneeman was an American visual artist known for her pieces on the human body, Sexually and gender. The work she looked into was mainly characterized by visual traditions, Taboos, and the body of the individual in the relationship to social bodies.

Her friends described her as ‘A mad Pantheist’ which is the belief that all of reality is the same as divinity. This was due to her relationship and respect for nature. Schneemans earliest inspirations and connections between art and sexuality were her drawings from ages four and five, which she drew on her father prescription tablets that were from his work.

Her family was generally supportive of her naturalness and freeness with her body (her father more because of the fact he was a rural physician who would deal with the human body in various states of health.

She has since been labeled as a feminist icon but she also says it can reach out to make artists as well. Her work as a hole revolves around the freedom of sexuality and liberation, unlike other artists who referred to the victimization and repression of women. Carolee wrote in her book ‘She was a great painter’.

My thoughts on the Carolee work/The Interior scrolls

Her most notable art work ‘Interior scrolls’ was a performance at the Women here and now, in east Hampton, in which Carolee entered the room covered in sheets with nothing but a apron beneath. She then discarded the robe in the Centre of the space, climbed onto the table where she outlined her body in mud and struck “action poses” as if it were a life drawing class. She then read from her book ‘ she was a good painter’ and then slowly pulled a paper scroll from her vagina and read from it. She spoke about how she thought of the vagina in many ways  ‘Physically conceptually, as a sculptural form, an architectural reference, the source of sacred knowledge, ecstasy, birth passage, and transformation.

Valie Export

Her work includes video installations, body performances, expanded cinema , computer animations , photography , sculptures and publications covering contemory arts.

Valie related her self within the Viennese art movement. In that time Austrians thoughts towards Feminism was that of a Nazi propaganda .She subjected her body to pain and danger in actions that were designed to bring forward the growing complacency and conform of positive Austrian culture.

She did Guerrilla Gurrls performances have got her an iconic stature in the Feminist art world of today.

One of her performances (named Tap and touch) In which she wore a tiny ‘moving theatre’ around her naked body, this was so her body could not be seen but could be touched by anyone who was reaching in through the curtains (or the front part of the theatre as it was known).She then went into the streets and invited men, women, and children to come and look behind the curtains, all the while having direct eye contact , this in turn made the viewer feel uncomftable and gave them a sense of guilt. And gave the situation a sense of realness (as if they were doing something they shouldn’t do).

Although her work was ground breaking in many ways and unique for its time the media still responded to her work in pure fear and panic, even to the point where one News paper called her a “Witch”. Another instance was that, at one point, Valie claimed that “there was a massive campaign against her in Austria ”

She then went on to say “I found it to be truly fascinating “.

Another one of her iconic performances was ‘Action pants: Genital panic” made in 1968.In this exerbition she entered a cinema wearing leather crotch less pants that had had a triangular shape cut out and walked around the audience (and between rows) with her vagina exposed at face level. This In turn would force the viewer to once again be confronted with genitalia and would force emotions being positive or negative thus earing the last part of the title ‘Genital panic’. It also challenged the typical image of women in historical representation which cinema had always made women out to be passive objects denied agency.

In a interview done by Ruth Askey in 1979 Valie described her exhibition as being done in a pornographic theatre. Valie denied claims that (much like the poster would have suggested) she carried a gun and held it to people in the theatres heads till they all got up and left. This has never been clarified.

After the exhibition there was a set of six identical posters realize. Each poster had valie export sat on a chair wearing the crotch less pants she had worn previously only in these she holds a gun at chest level in which she is apparently turned in readiness to turn the gun on the viewer in which she gazes at. Her hair appears to be up in a wild mop above her head, which emphasizes the strangeness of the image.

Later on Valie went on to talk about her work saying: “I didn’t want to perform in a gallery or a museum, as they were too conservative for me, and would only give conventional responses to my experimental works. It was important for me to present my works to the public in the public space, and not within an art-conservative space, but in the by then so-called underground. When I was performing my actions in public, on the streets, in the urban space, new and different forms of reception developed. In the streets I provoked new explanations. I wanted to be provocative, to provoke, but also aggression was part of my intention. I wanted to provoke, because I sought to change the people’s way of seeing and thinking .If I hadn’t been provocative, I couldn’t have made visible what I wanted to show. I had to penetrate things to bring them to the exterior”.

(This was quoted in Valies book called VALIE EXPORT On page 148-149)

Valies work is by far my favorites and has the most meaning to me out of all the others. She dares to do what many wouldn’t and her use of the media is also impressive. Through the media many more people would have looked and formed opinions that they wouldn’t have other wise. Over all I hope more artists take inspiration from her works like genital panic and continue to push society’s outlook on women.

Sarah Lucas

Lucas studied at The Working men’s college and worked along well-known artist such as Angus Fairhunt and Damium hurst who all worked towards a group exhibition in 1988.Sarah was also a major part of the Young British Artists society. Lose group of visual artists who began to exhibit in London (1988) which were noted for their “ shock tactics “. Their use of throw away objects , wild living, and having a attitude were all similar to Sarah’s thus making this the perfect society for her and where her exhibits were most in there element

Her first two solo exhibitions were called “The whole joke” and “The penius nailed to a board”

In the 1990s Lucas began using furniture as a substitute for the human body, usually including crude genital puns.

“Au Naturel” (1994)

Au Naturel is a mattress with an Assemblage of things: water bucket, melons, oranges, and a cucumber. These particular objects were supposed to symbolize male and female genitalia. The way everything is organized gives hints to the viewer without being too obvious. This is one of the things I like about this piece, being it’s blatant nature and interesting use of objects that symbolize said organs.

Another thing s that I like about this work is that her use of fruit, to me, could suggest that are genitals are very much like fruit and are as tender.

Another one of Sarah Lucas’ notable assemblages was the classic “Two fried eggs and kebab”, (1997) in which a naked woman is depicted via the use od a wooden table and two eggs and a kebab are strategically placed. The eggs possibly suggesting the breasts, and the kebab suggesting the vagina.

This piece of work strikes similar notes like her other piece (Au Naturel) in the way items (notable edibles) are placed to be suggestive to a viewer. I feel like the piece really made use of Sarah’s humor and I can obviously see the visual puns she creates.

Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin is a contemporary artist who is known for her written works (dealing with her own life) and her conventional artwork. Emin primarily works with drawing, painting, sculpture, film, photography, neon signage, and also sewn ornamental needlework. This is when pieces of fabric are sewn together to a larger piece to form a picture or a pattern.

Much like Sarah Lucas, Tracey too was part of the young British artists in the 1980’s even at one point renting a retail space in East London (called the shop) where both her and Sarah made artwork, mugs, and even T-shirts. Though, unlike Sarah, her work took on an ore sock tactic, like a lot of artists in the young British artist society did. One of her most notable works was in fact “Everyone I ever slept with” (1963 – 1995)

This piece was a tent that Tracey had ever shared a bed with. This was not necessarily meant to be take in a sexual sense and could have simply meant to have slept with in the same bed.

I feel that it is important clarify that the intentions of this work was never stated. I feel that this was very clever, and the way that the tent was constructed was also very clever. The bold ( but also very different letters serve to remind me that all these people were very different ). This would have been a piece that was only at its best when seen in person as I feel pictures don’t do it justice.

In 1994, another one of Tracey’s solo’s exhibitions named “Every part of me is bleeding” was revealed. This consisted of many different works done in a variety of media, and included large-scale sculptures, drawings, neon pieces, a video, and also a quilt.

One of the most notable pieces was a seaside beach hut form a past vacation spot of hers and Sarah Lucas, which also included her former boy friend. The hut itself had been reassembled in the exhibition in the main gallery space.

My thoughts on this piece is that Emin captures my attention with her unique story telling style and always makes me feel like I know her, through her intimate work.

The final Tracey Emin piece I want to cover is the “My Piece” from 1998. This piece was exhibited at the Tate gallery in 1999, and consisted of Tracey’s bed with bedroom objects in abject state, for which this gained a lot of media attention.

This idea was brought to light while Tracey was in a depressive phase, due to relationship difficulties, in which she remained in her bed for several days without eating or drinking anything but alcohol beverages. It was said that when she had looked at the vile build up around her bed it had given her the idea to create the piece, as most of her work seemed tom this piece also generated considerable attention from the media. This was mostly because the bed itself was stained with bodily secretions, and the floor was littered with condoms, underwear, everyday objects, a pair of slippers, and underwear with menstrual blood stains.

Later in the life of this piece, two performance artists going by the names of Yuan Chai and Jian Jun Xi jumped onto the bed with their bare torsos to try and improve the work. They called their performance “Two naked men jumping into Tracey’s bed”. They later on had a pillow fight for 15 minutes. They were later detained but no further action was taken.

Tracey’s work over all, gives me the same feelings as Sarah’s. I love the assemblage of items she uses and the way she presents her work. I felt a lot of emotions are displayed in her work, especially “My Bed”, which I feel really shows depression at it’s worst. 

Conclusion

Feminist art has helped us understand the positions these women were in at the time and also helped to create a better future were all will be able to exerbit their work. The different medias they used helped try reach a wider audience

I feel these artists all help stress the importance of feminism in art and inspire people like me to go out of our socially constructed comfort zone and express ourselves using both our body’s and our use of media. I feel the biggest step was women being able to exhibit art in galleries and that this was one of the biggest steps in art history (although I feel we still have a while to go until this starts to become the norm). Over all the art movement that carried so many people in 1960s has by far expanded more then anyone could have expected and I am more then happy to be a part of it. I would like to end on a

Aspiring quote written by Katherine Brooks (senior Arts and culture editor of the Huffington post) that I feel is becoming more and more true as time goes on:

“The past was male the future is female”