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