FEMINIST ART
The context
Main artists for study:
Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman.
Soundtrack http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmExAiCcaPk
Structure of lesson
By the end of this lesson, you will
have an understanding of
• What is Feminism?
• Representation of
Women /women
artists in Art History
• Feminist Art
Introductory questions
• In pairs, discuss these questions and jot answers:
• How would you define Feminism?
• If you can‟t define it, list what you know about
it. E.g. can you name any feminists?
• Would you consider yourself a Feminist?
• Why or why not?
• Is there still any need for feminism?
FEMINISM IS
A political discourse [way
of thinking] which seeks • It is about challenging
• equality of – Relations between men
and women
opportunities & and
rights for women – power structures & laws
that keep women
subordinate
– Division of labour along
gender lines
And empowering women
to have their full rights
as citizens and human
beings.
A political discourse [way of thinking]
which seeks
• equality of opportunities & and Feminism
rights for women
3 main “waves” of Feminism
• 19th C-early 20th C: Suffragettes -
voting rights.
• 1960s-70s: Civil rights movt
Feminist movt. Sought Legal /
social equality for women.
• 1990s- to the present: Post-colonial
and Third World Feminism. Critiqued
ethnocentricity in Western Feminism. Faith Ringgold We Came to
America 1997
If you marry,
would you
take your
husband‟s
name?
• This week, the American Sociological Association held its
annual meeting here in San Francisco. Researchers presented
findings from a national survey of 815 people on family and
gender issues. Apparently, 71 percent of Americans
believe a woman should take her husband's last name,
and half believed it should be a legal requirement.
(Fri August 14, 2009. Mother Jones magazine)
What‟s the difference between a
Woman and a female?
• WOMAN • FEMALE
• Gender • Sex
• Related to identity • Related to biology
• “One is not born a • “Female: one of the
woman, one opposing, or unfair
becomes one.” sex.” (Ambrose
(Simone De Beirce, 1842-1914)
Beauvoir, 1908-
1986) • Are female traits
inherent in our
• Is gender biological make up?
„performative‟? i.e.
about the way we
act?
1960s – 70s Feminism
N.O.W - National • Contraceptive pill
Organisation of Women sexual revolution.
(formed by Betty Freidan & Women had a CHOICE
others) campaigned for about whether to be a
equal rights mother / home maker
Other Issues of importance
• Treatment of rape victims
• Abortion rights
• Domestic violence
Books that influenced Feminist theory
• SdB showed how women are treated as “other” (not-men; inferiors to men) (1949)
• BF challenged the roles of women in society, presenting statistics comparing womens‟
participation in higher education / labour force. (1963)
• GG called for women‟s liberation through sexual liberation. (1970)
Women in Art History
“Why have there been no great women artists?”
(Linda Nochlin, 1971)
Group 1: write down as many male artists you can think of.
Group 2: Write down as many women artists that you can think of.
Did you get…?
• Artemisia
• Lee Krasner
Gentileschi
• Audrey Flack
• Rosa Bonheur
• Eva Hesse
• Angelica Kauffman
• Marisol
• Kathe Kollwitz
• Meret Oppenheim
• Mary Cassatt
• Paula Modersohn-
• Berthe Morisot
Becker
• Suzanne Valadon
• Cindy Sherman
• Georgia O‟Keefe
• Miriam Schapiro
• Judy Chicago
• Guerrilla Girls
• Alice Neel
• Barbara Kruger
• Frida Kahlo
• Emily Karaka
• Remedios Varo
• Jacqueline Fahey
• Faith Ringgold
• Carole Shepheard
• Bridget Riley
• Robyn Kahukiwa
Where were all the women artists?
Pre-70s Art History texts rarely mentioned them.
L-R: Works by Artemisia
Gentileschi, Angelica
Kauffman , Elizabeth
Vigee Lebrun
• Few women artists admitted to Art
academies
• “Old Masters” – almost all male!
Artistic
• Female artists often ignored by art
historians (often men!) Context
• Art done by women often seen as second
rank or “feminine” (decorative,
sentimental, amateur, uncreative) e.g.
watercolours, miniatures, embroidery,
pottery
• Women barred from Life Drawing classes
16th-19th C
• Women were often the OBJECTS of art
(ie models or muses), rather than
producers
Role of women
• Humanism promoted the in Renaissance Italy
education of women (so they I‟m
could be better wives and exceptional
mothers)
• Virtuous, ideal Christian woman =
chaste and obedient. Ideal man =
self-sufficient and active.
• Castiglione‟s Book of the Courtier:
Lady educated and cultured.
Her task to charm, but male
courtier‟s was to prove himself in
action.
• Women artists do feature in
Vasari‟s Lives but as „exceptions‟- 4
out of the 160 artists he mentions
are women. Self Portrait of Sofonisba of
Cremona (16th C)
Evidence of Discrimination
• Women under represented in exhibitions and
galleries even though there were just as many women
artists e.g. Lee Krasner, Elaine De Kooning Heard of
me, honey?
“ It is so good that
you would not know
it was done by a
woman.” (Hans
Hoffman, 1930s)
Elaine & Willem De Kooning.
Gothic Landscape, Lee Krasner 1961
Evidence of Discrimination
“I have not been able to
find a woman artist who
clearly belongs in a one-
volume history of art.”
HW Janson, 1979
• HW Janson‟s History of Art
first published in 1962
contained neither the name or
work of a single woman artist.
• It was this context that
motivated Judy Chicago‟s
Dinner Party and Mary Beth
Edelson‟s work Some Living
American Women Artists / Last
Supper
• Women artists, art historians
and critics join together and
protest against male-dominated
Challenging
art institutions the Patriarchy
• 1970 - Lucy Lippard and others 1980s Guerrilla Girls formed.
demand equality at the Whitney Anonymous group wore gorilla masks
museum annual shows (5% and plastered posters around NY city
women artists shown). to protest discrimination against
women artists.
• 1971 – Art historian Linda
Nochlin‟s article in Art News
“Why have there been no great
women artists?”
• W.A.R – Women Artists in
Revolution used guerrilla tactics
What kind of
ideas about
women are
presented
by these
images?
Representation
of women in art
• Stereotyped roles, e.g. Virgin or whore
• Women‟s bodies presented as sexual objects
• Associated with traits such as vulnerability,
passivity, nature, purity
• Art work assumes the controlling position of a
male spectator (the “male gaze” – Laura Mulvey)
Feminist Art
History becomes Herstory
Ingres Turkish Bath v. Sylvia Sleigh Turkish Bath
What is Feminist Art?
Art that
• challenges the patriarchy
(Patriarchy = social system that gives power to men; discriminates
against women)
Through
1. Raising women‟s political issues e.g. rape, abortion
women‟s roles in society
2. Exploring a female heritage, e.g. Increasing respect for
women artists, recognising women‟s historical contributions to
society or women in mythology
3. Challenging notions of high art vs. craft art, e.g. through
collaboration
4. Use of Feminist imagery
5. Challenging gender stereotypes
1. Women‟s political issues
• Allie Eagle (NZ) “The Personal is Political”
Faith Ringgold‟s Weight Loss
performance Story quilt 1986
Guerrilla Girls
2. Exploring female heritage
• Paying homage to women artists and role
models from history as well as reclaiming
goddess imagery
Mary Beth Edelson, Some Living American Artists
1971 and Woman Rising 1974.
3. Challenging
division between
high art and
“craft”
• Miriam
Schapiro‟s
femmage
(Feminist +
collage)
Wonderland 1983
Mother Russia 1994
4) Feminist Imagery
e.g. Judy Chicago‟s “Core” Imagery –
“My central core, my vagina, that which makes me a woman.”
5. Challenging gender stereotypes
• Cindy Sherman & Barbara Kruger
6. Interest in Identity
• Cindy Sherman‟s Bus Stop series, Untitled Film Stills
Feminist art is not a specific style
• It was“neither a style nor a
movement, but instead was a
value system, a revolutionary
strategy, a way of life…. That
what was revolutionary was not
its forms but its content.”
• (Lucy Lippard) Would you consider any of these „Feminist‟?
Revision of Key Terms
Define to your
partner:
• Feminism
• Feminist art
• Representation
• Patriarchy
• Male gaze