GROUP 7 SUMMARY POST

The male gaze is a phrase used to delineate how women were perceived by men through various art forms. Women were painted and portrayed as a spectacle, where men were the spectators. Women were highly objectified and the gender bias and differentiation was uncanny. Throughout time, many female artists stood up for a change; they wanted women to be portrayed as human beings– as subjective individuals instead of objects. Many female artists used art as a medium to express their feelings as well as realities.

Specifically, in the 1970's women in North America and Great Britain came together politically to protest their exclusion from male-dominated exhibitions. In New York, women artists and critics challenged the museum of Modern art and other New York institutions: (1) They called for continuous exhibitions of women’s work, (2) More one woman art shows, (3) A women’s artist advisory board, and (4) 50 percent inclusion of women in all museum exhibitions.

All the same, in Great Britain, efforts endorsed by female British artists mimicked the efforts that were being put in place in North America. There was a large emphasis on socialist politics that remained so much more profound than focusing on this notion of a politics of difference. For example, the first Women’s Liberation Art Group was founded in London in 1970, hosting is first art exhibition which included a slew of female artists just a year later. Not to mention, there was the introduction of the Woman’s Workshop of the Artists Union, created specifically to fight against the isolation of women through the feats of creative action. A lot of very powerful women in England rose up around this time and their work easily crossed many different disciplines within various forms of multimedia. Their work is conceptual and the fragments piece together to really evoke a strong sense of femininity through the vessels of their art.

It is difficult to talk about feminists artists in Great Britain without including women like Kate Walker, Sandy Gollop or even Mary Kelly. These British artists were integral to the understanding that we know have of these notions of the male gaze and the devaluations of the female anatomy that were so dominant in everyday culture. Exhibitions such as, “Portrait of the Artist as Housewife,” as organized by Walker and Gallop really introduced an open dialogue on this accepted and reinforced idea of domesticity as it works with femininity that was so common not only in society, but also in the art world.

Of these significant artists were Judy Chicago, from Chicago Illinois and Sylvia Sleigh, from England. Where Judy Chicago used her taboo choice of patterns and colors, expressing the female body and adding a personal statement to her paintings, Sylvia Sleigh altered completely the way women were viewed; instead of women being the spectacle, Sylvia Sleigh painted men as the "spectacle" and allowed women, this time, to be the spectators.

"Virginia Woolf" by Judy Chicago 1973

Judy Chicago painted the "Virginia Woolf" in 1973 (featured above). The painting embodies "a central core, [a] vagina, which made [one] a woman", as Judy Chicago states. As can be seen by the painting above, Judy Chicago utilizes a unique, abstract pattern that portrays "a woman's body". Judy Chicago adds personality and self consciousness to her artwork. She uses her personal consciousness in her artwork which induces a subjective versus objective viewpoint. In other words, her artwork portrays a subjective viewpoint.

"The Turkish Bath" by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1862

"The Turkish Bath" by Sylvia Sleigh, 1973

Furthermore, Sylvia Sleigh also recognized that women were highly oppressed and objectified. Why were women painted as a spectacle? Why were men the spectators? Who gave men that privilege? Sylvia Sleigh wanted to give equality to men and women; she wished to portray men as women had previously been portrayed. Therefore, Sylvia Sleigh painted men in "naked bath scenes" as women were painted. Sylvia Sleigh wished to give a message through her paintings– and my is the message loud!

As can be seen by the paintings above, Sylvia Sleigh recreated the painting called "The Turkish Bath" which was originally painted by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres in 1862. This older painting encompasses many women who are painted completely naked. Women act as the spectacle in this painting– something that catches the male gaze and allows men to be the spectators. Sylvia Sleigh recreates a similar painting that changes the gender of the spectator versus the spectacle. In Sylvia Sleigh's painting, men are painted naked, allowing women, this time to be the spectators. Her message was simply to spread equality of the two genders, not to degrade one gender before the other.

Works Cited:

Chadwick, Whitney . Women Art and Society . 4th ed., Thames and Hudson, 1990. New York, N.Y

By:

Tanvi Singh, Sebastian Molina, Amber Torres, and Gordon Springer

Group 6 Summary

                                                Emergence of Female African American Artists 

- During the 19th and 20th Century Female Artists began to express the oppressive facts of American culture as they relate specifically to the experience of being a socioeconomically marginalized person.


                                                                     Significant Artists   

- Romare Bearden
- Elizabeth Catlett
- Raymond Saunders
-  Faith Ringgold
- Betye Saar
- May Stevens


                                                                  Correspondent Images 

Left to Right: Ringgold, Catlett, Saar, Stevens



                                                                Emergence of Feminist Art 

Female Artists of all backgrounds began establish a foothold in the art world during the 20th Century and their work reflected the complexity of existence in a society dominated by men.


                                                                      Central Figures 

- Audrey Flack
- Jennifer Bartlett
- Maria Montoya Martinez


                                                                  Correspondent Images

Left to Right: Audrey Flack, Jennifer Bartlett, Maria Montoya Martinez

 


                                                                     Emergence of Modernism


During the 20th Century a new aesthetic ideology emerged that either subverted or rejected all previous notions of art and style. This came to be known as modernism and amounted essentially to a reinterpretation of all philosophical, religious, and social norms. This permeated culture and manifested itself most obviously within the context of the art world.

 
                                                                    Female Icons of Modernism


- Georgia O' Keefe
- Frida Kahlo
- Louise Bourgeois
- Barbara Kruger
- Marina Abramovic
- Hannah Hoch


                                                                   Correspondent Images

Left to Right: Kahlo: Fulang Chang and I, O’Keefe: In the Patio VIII,

 Bourgeouis: Maman, Hannah Hoch: Roma O’Keefe: Black and Purple Petunias, Kahlo: The Wounded Deer, Abramovic: AAA-AAA, Kruger: I Shop Therefore I am

                                                                         End

Group 5-Presentation Summary

Abstraction in painting and sculpture were developed simultaneously during the first decade of the 20th century. The art was formed after post-impressionism, and cubism resulting in the high spiritual content. This was the time when artists started exploring into decorative arts and textiles with geometric abstraction. According to “Modernism, Abstraction, and the New Woman” by Whitney Chadwick, “Geometric abstraction when worn, come to signify modernity and, at the same time, to obscure very real kinds of social change that would ultimately erode the ideal of individual artistic freedom”(252). Fashion played a major role at this time, there were modern influences in fashion during this period.
One of the well-known artists during this period is Sonia Delaunay, she was a Russian artist that moved to Paris in 1905 (Abstraction was more prevalent there). She worked with her husband and is best known for the way she used colors, and used geometric patterns creation abstract art.

This art by Sonia Delaunay was the first piece of decorative art and the first completely abstract work

. This was influenced by Russian Peasant design.

She was yet another woman that decided to give up her career and dreams to support her family, husband specifically, so he can get ahead in his career. Working with textiles and embroidery lead her to break down forms and emphasize surface structure in her work. Her husband later commenting on her painting that “the colors are dazzling.They have the look of the nationals

or ceramics, of carpets – that is, there is already a sense of surfaces that are being combined, one might say, successfully on the canvas” (Chadwick page 262).

Another art by Sonia Delaunay, created during the Russian Revolt. She used ballet costumes as instruments for combining visual art with theatrical design.

Modernism was a period during which the female nude bodies were the main subjects of paintings.Men were shown as creatures with high sexual energies and women were just portrayed naked and powerless.

• Women artists like Suzanne Valadon and Paula Modersohn were the first women artists to work with female bodies.
• These women artists started painting naked bodies of women and themselves but in a way that is empowering and not sexual
• Most arts from this period were getting attention from feminist art historians, as they were considered an erotically based assault on the female form.

Suzanne Valadon, a French painter became one of the first women artists to use the female naked

body in her paintings. She showed women in domestic settings doing things that they do on a daily basis. She also often used her family members as her models. Many of her paintings include her mother, father brothers and herself in a family setting.

A painting by Suzanne Valdadon called "Young Girl in front of a window"

Paula Modersoh-Becker is another such artist. she was the second woman after Artemisia Gentileschi to use her own naked body as the subject of her paintings. Her nude self-portraits maybe the first such paintings in oil by a female artist. But, as such they reveal all the contradictions inherent in the women's artists attempt to insert her own image into existing artistic conventions. Her art is considered a clash between modernist ideology and social reality. 

The picture above is by Paula Modersohn-Becker, it is an Archetypal fertility image, Subject to fertility is nurtured with dignity, and this shows womanhood. Modersohn-Becker is shown here embracing motherhood, but ironically, she died after giving birth to her son.

works Cited:
Chadwick, Whitney . Women Art and Society . 4th ed., Thames and Hudson, 1990. New York, N.Y