Category Archives: Feminism

Nikki S. Lee and polyculture

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In Cathy Covell Waegner’s “Performing Postmodernist Passing”, the photographer Nikki S. Lee is highlighted as an example of ‘passing’ in visual media. By ‘passing’, Waegner means the ability of an individual to appear as a different race and integrate into that particular racial society. Waegner focuses on one work in particular, in which the Asian American Lee passes and poses as a black woman. Lee has other works in this series which Waegner does not discuss, but which I think are notable: she poses as a white woman in front of a confederate flag, a female stripper, a lesbian, an old white woman, a Hispanic woman, and a few others.
In her work, Nikki S. Lee truly exemplifies what Waegner explains as “polyculture”. Lee’s ability to change from one race to another so easily demonstrates that “the stereotypes used to determine socioethnic groups are encoded and foregrounded” (Waegner 225). The idea of separate and distinct ethnicities is inherent in multiculturalism, while polyculture suggests the porousness of ethnicity. As Lee demonstrates, the aesthetic (what someone looks like, where they are, how they dress, how they act) as interpreted by the viewer determines race.

The Problem with Simplifying Biraciality

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In “Biraciality and Nationhood in Contemporary American Art”, Kimberly Pinder highlights contemporary artists who explore the complexity of multi-racial identity in the US.

In “Eros and Diaspora”, Kobena Mercer explores the sexuality aesthetic in the works of Rotimi Fani-Kayode.

For me, “Biraciality and Nationhood in Contemporary American Art” explored the main focus of this course thus far: how contemporary society constructs racial bodies and the artists who challenge those constructions. The popularity of multi-racial celebrities Tiger Woods and Vin Diesel (and, I would add, Dwayne Johnson and Jessica Alba in more recent years) combined with the often-glorified inter-racial historical relationships are truly the most prominent discourse on bi and multi raciality in the US. This had created the idea that race as a construction in the US will one day cease to exist, as everyone will be an ethnic mix.
But, as Pinder points out, that is just not the case. Contemporary representations and narratives greatly oversimplify the complexity of bi and multi raciality, often ignoring America’s history of immigration, slavery, and genocide. Artists such as Adrian Piper (as we have discussed in class), Lorraine O’Grady, and others discussed by Pinder have used their own biraciality in their works to critique the conceptions/perceptions of race in the US. Rather than glossing over this country’s racial history, these artists address its effects to explore the complexities of multi-racial identities.

Black Female Body and Sexuality Part 2

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In the second half of the article Thompson explores the intersectionality of Black womanhood as it relates to the Black female body. Thompson challenges us to think about the compacted effect race, gender, and sexuality has on the Black female body in the section of her article entitled “”.Nandipha Mntambo and Berni Searle, both artists from South Africa, challenge pre-conceived notions of the Black female body by reclaiming the body and using it as a site of protest. In Berni Searle’s art she forces the viewer to be conscious of both her identity as a woman and as Black. I feel this intersect of identity is complex but is often over-simplified through the eyes of Western Viewers.
 

For this reason, I appreciated Stearle’s fight against the Western propensity to associate nude Black women with sexuality. She instead uses her nude body to counteract and criticize the Western perspective and to evoke the history of abuse and violence directed toward the Black female body, specifically violence against the Black female body in the various forms of sexual abuse (299). Zanele Muholi, also an artist from South Africa, takes it a step further through exploring the added layer of sexuality in relation to the Black female body. LGBTQI issues are not often discussed with in Black communities and I think Muholi’s intention to use this photograph to make a political statement is both awesome and admirable. Muholi’s piece Sex ID Crisis is one of my favorite pieces in this article because the image is able to capture the complexities of what it means to be a Black lesbian woman in a simplistic manner. Muholi’s image also evokes a history of violence against the LGBTQI community. For me the piece incites critical thinking about what it means to be a lesbian in an black society and the unique challenges accompanied by that multi-layered.
 

The final part of the article encompasses the component of transnationalism into the conversation on the intersectionality of Black female identities. This section of the article reminds me of W.E.B. Dubois’s concept of “double consciousness”. Dubois explains “double consciousness” as the dilemma of having to embody two distinctly different and contradicting identities into one identity. Thompson explores art from producers rooted in histories of forced migration and art from artists who were raised in the land of the colonizers. As an African-American woman I have struggled with defining my identity especially in relation to Africa. Consequently, I really enjoyed learning how artists from similar backgrounds,who struggle with identity crises too, express their sentiments on this issue through art. The fusion of both identities is really beautiful to me especially when conceptualized in art forms like Magdalena Campos-Pon’s piece When I am not Here.

Fraser: Bridging the Gaps

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The Museum Highlights selections really opened my eyes to the art world and its boundaries.  Many people, myself included, fail to realize how divisive the arts have become at the hand of professionalism and academia.  This is extremely important to note and I believe that groups like Kontext Kunst and artists like Andrea Fraser that dedicate themselves to bridging the gaps between writing, thinking, and making presented in the art world are admirable.  Fraser is able to do this through the interconnectedness of her writing, and performances.

One thing that stood out to me about Frasers project art is the way in which it critiques aspects of the culture of art oftentimes simply through representation.  Understanding these cultural tendencies is something that I came to learn through Fraser’s work.  For example, while reading chapter 9 of a performance where Jane Castleton leads a tour group through the Philadelphia Museum of Art, it became undoubtedly apparent to me who and what the Museum deemed important, as well as what type of people the Museum preferred and catered to.  Fraser sums up this notion beautifully in her description of Jane in the end notes where she states:

“as a volunteer, she expresses the possession of a quantity of the leisure and the economic and cultural capital that defines a museum’s patron class.  It is only a small quantity – indicating rather than bridging the class gap that compels her to volunteer her services in the absence of capital…yet it is enough to position her in identification with the museum’s board of trustees and as the museum’s exemplary viewer” (Fraser, 110)

Fraser:  Through the interconnectedness of her writing and performances, Fraser attempts to bridge the division between ‘writing’, ‘thinking’, and ‘making’ that the professionalization of the artist and intellectual created.

Taylor:  Taylor outlines the history of performance art and highlights artists significant to the genre including Abramovic, and Scheemann.

A Personal and Political Art History

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Chicana artistic sensibilities are bordered.  They emerge in a borderland of ambiguity and flux. #anzaldua #latorre

#YolandaLopez also contributed images of La Virgen that affirmed the mulitplicity of #Chicana(@) identity

As an art historian I was most drawn to Latorre’s assertion that the language that contributes to the binary separation between artist and intellectual must be rejected in order to disrupt the subject/object binary that underlies it.  Art history that is committed to radical change must contribute to dismantling such structuring principles but must at the same time affirm cultural-historical specificities.  The opening up of art history to interdisciplinary and creative experimentation is crucial if we are to maintain its relevance to experiences beyond those privileged to accept the cannon without complaint. I think that art historical treatments of Chicana art represent a crucial case study in experimental approaches that destabilize monolinear narratives of art history while respecting the parameters of identity politics.  How personal is the political and how political is the art history?

How do we negotiate the need to maintain the specificity of Chicana identity when it is characterized by slips and fissures that generate multiple meanings and experiences across time?  I found it interesting that while Chicana artists working in the 1970s felt alienated by second wave feminism and sought to forge images that they could better relate to, it is possible that Latin@s of my generation might feel a break, in turn, from this tradition.  Recognizing that I am not Chican@ and that this certainly contributes to the distance I might feel from this artwork (and that I should not necessarily seek to identify with these images,) I do feel it is important to appreciate both the value and the limitations of these representational vocabularies.  These artists certainly contribute to the affirmation of Chicana identity against its erasure in male-dominated discourses of Chicanidad and Latinidad, yet I am interested in the limitations of this art in perpetuating symbolic economies that are no longer as relevant to Latin@s of my generation.  Unfortunately we face the paradox of contemporary art that embraces dispersion and flux to such a degree that the specific is no longer visible.  What kinds of images/performances/gestures/language exist in the space between roses and pomegranates and the white cube?

Chicana Art: “Breaking the Taboo on Sexuality”

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Latorre: Cultivated from a cultural group that initially wrote off gender and sexuality issues as specific to Anglo Americans, the innovative Chicana movement does not have nearly enough scholarly visibility as it should.

Lopez:  Lopez evokes the experiences of latina women through modernizing the Virgen de Guadalupe in her digital print entitled Our Lady.

After reading both pieces by Latorre and Lopez along with doing some more outside research of my own, I found the initial ambivalence of Chicana artists to identify with the feminist movement interesting.  A particular passage in Latorre’s piece comes to mind when thinking about this quandary: “Concerns over gender and sexuality were either relegated to the margins or completely silenced.  Many activists at the time, both male and female, held the perception that these were Anglo-American issues that would divide el movimiento and dilute its political effectivemness.” Latorre p.12

However, in the first few pages of Lopez’s piece Silencing Our Lady, we see that this belief is proven to be wrong.  In fact, it seems as though the activists use the excuse of political dilution to mask their real concern of bringing the issues of gender and sexuality within the community to light.  Unsurprisingly, we see this represented in the violent attitudes of men toward young women in reaction to the digital mural that portrayed female residents of the Estrada Courts Housing Projects entitled Las Four (below).

Source: http://www.rowan.edu/artbytes/abnhtm/art/alma.htm

Lopez’s digital piece Our Lady, which features a more contemporary, sexualized version of the Virgen de Guadalupe also sparked an intense debate spear headed mostly by male religious leaders.  Because this piece accentuates female strength and freedom through such an iconic religious figure, we see (as we did in the reaction to her Las Four piece) patriarchy’s attempt to censor and stifle anything that is not dominated by, or pleasing to men.

Silenced No More!

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Lopez: This essay expresses Alma Lopez’s attempt to give voice and visibility to Latinas through her portrayal of the Virgen de Guadalupe as a “contemporary Latina.”

Latorre: By placing women at the center of visual discourses and exploring sexuality in art, Chicana artists unveiled sexual and gender diversity within the Chicana/o community.

Similar to our past readings of how the Black Panthers and African-American artists used visual imagery to empower the African-American/Black community, Lopez and other Chicana artists used this medium to represent the gender and sexual diversity within their communities as well. In “Silencing Our Lady,” Alma Lopez uses digital art to fight gender and cultural oppression through her contemporized version of the Virgen de Guadalupe. Despite Lopez’s brilliant attempt, Our Lady received criticism from a predominately male audience (with the exception of older women) because of the Virgen’s “exposed legs, belly, and [….] breasts” which, according to New Mexico’s Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan, classified it as “sacrilegious” (251). I, too, disagree with Archbishop Sheehan’s and other critics’ criticisms of Our Lady because I find it to be an image of women empowerment due to the confidence portrayed by the woman through her hands-on-hip posture, chin-up facial expression, and stern gaze. Even the Virgen’s cape-like attire screams strength and power to the audience. Additionally, the fact that the Virgen is being upheld by another woman also signifies strength in the absence of a male figure. Ultimately, the reason that protestors view the image of the Virgen as a “threat to masculinity” is because it disrupts the cycle of oppression that continues to manifest through the ignorance created by the censorship of the patriarchy.

Another interesting fact to note is the protest of the older women against Our Lady because it exposes the generational differences of values among women, which can be a symbol of the new generation breaking away from the restraint of male dominance. I also find the protestors’ demand to remove the image unsettling because it undermines the ability that viewers have to think for themselves.

Overall, such negative views of Our Lady call into question how we view women’s bodies. So often in art and media, women’s bodies are perceived as objects used to satisfy the male gaze and cater to the desires of men. This recurring representation of women is a problem. Why can’t a woman’s body be seen as admiration of a God-given gift, natural beauty, a nurturer of life, or a call for women to develop self-love and love the skin that they are in?

My Argument for Feminist Art

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Jayne Wark’s Conceptual Art and Feminism piece gives an overview of how four feminists artists have managed to aesthetically challenge the ideological and institutional structures that promote dominant and mainstream art forms.

In “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists,” Linda Nochlin utilizes this “women-question” to inspire a collective reflection on the social environment that has consistently generated a body of legitimate art created exclusively by men, and absent of any so-called  “great” contributions from female artists.

“Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present” chronicles the process of Abramovic and her team to prepare mentally and physically for the debut of her show at the MoMA.

What constitutes feminist art? My understanding is that feminist art is confrontational in its nature. Given the historical and present-day reality of our white, male-dominanted world, anything that does not measure up to this standard becomes, by default, inferior, dissident, and unlawful. This becomes the rationale that leads to our conventional belief that women are second-class citizens, rebellious, and sinful creatures. Though one could argue that the mere presence of a woman in a male-dominated social setting is considered defiant and thus a “feminist” action, after reading our course materials for this week, I’d like to situate my understanding of feminism as not only being confrontational, but stimulating self-refleciton of what we consider “normal” and “natural.”

I now reflect on many of our past classes, believing that just about any piece of artwork that disrupts/dislocates/dislodges the stereotypes that are so near and dear to our hearts is considered “feminist art”. Many would consider the female-identity of an artist a prerequisite for the creation of feminist art. However, I disagree. Feminism in itself is not even a monolithic movement. At it’s core, it calls for a disruption of the social and political climate that maintains the sub-ordinance of almost demographic, gender aside. I think of Jimmy Durham’s “Self Portrait” that we saw at the “This will have been: Art, Love, and Politics in the 80’s” exhibit at the MoMA as a contribution to feminist art. This was the cut-out canvas of what we would call the stereotypical American-Indian. As the piece is littered with judgmental phrases that society has projected onto his body, the viewer comes face-to-face with the ridiculous incongruity of our definitions of the American- Indian population. This piece stopped me in my tracks because it exposed me to this crime that I was complicit  in. Labeling my counterparts, boxing them into uni-dimensional, commonly polarized and contradictory identities was something that I was guilty of. If this piece were to come alive, if this piece were actually turned into an installation performance (with countless derogatory phrases and symbols placed all over the body of a man), it would still be me who looked foolish. I would still be the one feeling insecure. This is what feminist art means to me.

It throws me off balance. It forces me to see myself as a member of a society that strategically compartmentalizes and conquers certain populations for the benefit of an inconsequential few. It leaves me questioning what I really stand for in life. And this was exactly what I saw occurring in Marina Abramovic’s documentary. Her main piece at her MoMA exhibit left me in tears. Vicariously through the audience members who were bold enough to take on Abramovic’s gaze, I felt incredibly vulnerable, as if her gaze was deconstructing the countenance of not just me but humanity. She was exposing us to our wretched selves.  She was the mirror that we all so frantically avoid after we have engaged in some kind of illicit action. However, this time around, I was not being scolded for sneaking a treat from the cookie-jar, stealing my mother’s make-up, nor cheating on a lover, I was on trial as an accomplice for every transgression that this society has carried out against supposed, second-class citizens.

Lastly, as I do not want to end on a pessimistic note, I would argue that feminist art does not leave you suspended in a guilty stupor for long, but rather it catalyzes the processes of self-reflection, reassessment, and re-directioning of one’s life and behaviors. It inspires a gag-reflex of all the injustice and brutality that we have digested as palatable subsistence. I’m really looking forward to expanding my exposure to feminist art, as I feel that it will serve society and myself very well. I also hope that society will have the courage to (metaphorically) sit and stare back at Marina Abramovic.

Marina Abramovic: Yes, It Is Art

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In “Conceptual Art and Feminism”, Jayne Wark explores the ways in which the works of four artists (Martha Rosler, Adrian Piper, Eleanor Antin, and Martha Wilson) have challenged the limitations and values of Conceptualism.

In “Why Have There Been No Great Artists?”, art historian Linda Nochlin illustrates that historically the process of creating art depended not on innate talent, but on the social conditions in which the artist lived.

The HBO documentary “Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present” follows the compilation and execution of Abramovic’s exhibit “The Artist is Present” at the MoMA; simultaneously, the film explores the controversial and emotional world of performance art and the performance artist.

In the documentary “Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present”, Marina speaks with an interviewer about her artwork. She has always been asked about her performances: “Why is this art?” In thinking about performance, conceptualism, and feminism, the link between contemporary conceptual art and feminism must first be explored.
To begin, what is feminist art? Marina Abramovic is generally considered a feminist artist; she is even called “the grandmother of performance art.” Female identifying artists have largely been absent from art history, as discussed by Linda Nochlin in “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?”. Nochlin concludes, and I agree, that art history as a profession is from the white, Western male viewpoint, and that social conditions rather than lack of talent prevented women from becoming artists throughout history. When considered in this way, feminist art is any art created by a woman.
But in addressing contemporary art specifically, why is conceptual art feminist art? Jayne Wark discusses how artists Martha Rosler, Adrian Piper, Eleanor Antin, and Martha Wilson used conceptualism to critically address the social and political movements of the 1970’s, especially the feminist movements. Their art carried political clout: they were not only creating art for aesthetic value, they were engaging with audiences to make people think. In order to do this, they moved outside the bounds of conceptual art, a move made necessary by the patriarchal nature of the art world.
In the same way, Marina Abramovic’s work is contemporary, conceptual, feminist art. She is a female artist who has gained international recognition (and notoriety) for her performance art. In her performance art, she criticizes: the conceptions of women, the body, society, love, relationships, family, and the individual. Thus her work has political and cultural resonance. So, returning to the original question “Why is this art?”: Abramovic uses performance to engage her audience and evoke thought. Like the women of the conceptual feminist art movement, she must step outside the ‘normal’ and ‘accepted’ views of art (the white Western male view) to gain recognition and acceptance as an artist.

Avoiding “the feminist’s first reaction”

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One thing that struck me was Linda Nochlin’s insistence that we who view art history through a feminist lens must suppress our initial urge to make a case for talented but overlooked women artists when confronted with the question “Why are there no Great women artists?” Before reading Nochlin’s essay I can well see myself thinking “But wait! What about Artemisia Gentileschi?! What about Mary Cassat, Georgia O’Keeffe, Frida Kalho, or Judy Chicago??” Surely these women were great artists who produced great work but they were not Great and by making a case for their work and existence in this context we distract ourselves from the reality that, though these women made wonderful and important art and contributions they have never been considered on the same level as Michelangelo, Renoir, Picasso, or Andy Warhol. We must accept that there have been no great women artists instead of denying it so that we can begin to examine the underlying structures that made this so. We must critically question the myth of the Great Artist and his magical Genius that propelled him to greatness so we can see the educational and institutional privileges that permitted him to be Great.