To jump right into the question at hand, I personally feel that gender should matter when it comes to art, and for that matter, with anything. However, it seems that the majority of the human population disagrees, so I will continue to analyze the role of gender in art.
I would first like to look at the “art” created by Hannah Wilke. I definitely think that Wilke’s gender had everything to do with her creations—I do not think that a man would create such an atrocity and call it art. Mary Devereaux said “man is the bearer of the gaze, woman its object.” I believe Wilke had a similar idea in her head, and wanted to create something completely feminine, and completely outrageous—something nobody (more specifically, no man) has ever done before. She wanted her art to have a feminine gaze. I think perhaps that this is a good idea; however I also think she missed the mark quite a bit, and just created fetish pornography. I absolutely do not see how her art is supposed to help, or portray women in a positive way. She has portrayed herself as vulnerable and ugly. She has portrayed herself as an object of disgust. I was deeply disturbed when I first saw her photography, and it made me think she should have received some psychiatric treatment. “The male gaze is not always male, but is always male-dominated” (Devereaux, 126). A viewer can not help to look at these images without a male gaze, and be filled with repugnance.
This next piece of art, Blind, by Ryoko Suzuki, takes a very literal interpretation of the “male gaze” of art. This photograph features a woman who is “blinded” by bloody cords. This is kind of an ironic piece because it was created by a woman, most likely intended to mock this view. “…those who are oppressed look in spite of the restriction not to do so.” (Devereaux, 120; a quotation taken from the previous page on the reading). This image shows the degradation (Devereaux, 130) that women have faced in the area of art. This disturbing image tries to show how disgusting and wrong this has been. Compared with Wilke, Suzuki portrays this message much better, because she does not show the female body as a disgusting object, but as something that has been blocked, or held back by something disgusting.
Jack-In-The-Pulpit No. IV, by Georgia O’Keefe is a painting of a beautiful flower. However, when you look more closely, you can see that it resembles the female genitalia. “Feminist theorists urge us to reconsider our relationship to established artistic traditions.” (Devereaux, 136). By portraying the female anatomy through different means, and in a beautiful way, she is showing that the female body is beautiful. This advanced femininity in art, and I all aspects of culture by giving it a positive, forward stance in the art world. There is nothing “degenerate,” “ugly,” or “degrading,” about this art.
5 comments:
You're awesome Christopher and I hate to totally and completely disagree with you, but in this case it is an absolute necessity.
First of all, just to clarify, I TOO believe that gender is a major factor in art and in everything. That's the primary problem feminists face. One of the main reasons they do the art they do is that the standards and qualifications of art that are being portrayed as universal and infallible are in actuality merely the interpretations of men being applied to everything. Wilke, O'keefe and other feminists see this and want to show this to the rest of the world so they may re-think the views that they were indoctrinated with.
Wilke's work is NOT pornography. She's showing that she is NOT the ideal passive and pretty object that women are portrayed as in other art. You may think that it is "vulnerable and ugly" but she is really showing that she is confident and free. She can show her body on HER terms and with HER values, not based on man's ideals and wants.
Like Ariane, I'm going to have to disagree with you. First of all I would like to address your comment that a male artist would not "create such an atrocity and call it art." Obviously this is your opinion, and you are completely entitled to it, however I would just like to point out the work of the artist Robert Mapplethorpe. He created his own versions of self-deterioration photography, including many that were sexual, and even pornographic. Check out his works if you are curious, but be warned they are very graphic. Second, I find it interesting that you mention Hannah Wilke's later artwork as "ugly." I think, based strictly on your post, that you have missed her point. I do not believe that her intention was to portray women as ideologically beautiful, but instead the opposite. I think she was trying to break the stereotypical idea of women's "beauty," especially in the art world. She was depicting her body in its natural state, taking advantage of her freedom of expression, and possibly using it as an outlet to deal with the heavy emotions connected with diseases such as cancer. Again, what makes art so unique is that it is different for everyone, and whether one agrees with it or understands it is irrelevant; the purpose is expression, and Hannah Wilke certainly broke the traditional mold of women in art with her pieces.
With regards to the work being ugly... it almost seems as though that is the whole point. Because women feel that they have been degraded before by being viewed simply as beautiful objects for the viewer's pleasure... they are trying to show that they are women beyond that outer beauty (hence the pictures done in the same poses by that one woman, I believe, before and after cancer).
That being said, I really do NOT agree with it... AT ALL. It seems as though this battle being waged over the women's body could have been more effectively waged over other aspects of art that degrade women... for example, in the kinds of acts that they show women doing. Why don't feminists focus on making women the "doers" in their artwork, like men have been for the last couple centuries?
In class we mentioned the difference between degrading a thing and looking upon it as beautiful; there is a wide gap there, that I'm not so sure the feminists understand (based on my earlier interpretation of their work... I could be wrong). During the course of history, beautifying and objectifying and degrading women have all been intertwined, and this may affect our view of them and make us consider them all to be one and the same. Yet this is not the case (as I believe Ashley had said, there's nothing wrong with women being the standard of beauty. That's something they can be proud of). The problem is not the beauty, but the way that women are treated because of/along with it. This is why it would seem to be much more productive to focus on the other aspects of art that are degrading, rather than simply revealing the female body even more through art.
I also did not see how this differed at all from pornography, so I looked it up. According to MSN Encarta dictionary, one definition of pornography is "sexually explicit material: films, magazines, writings, photographs, or other materials that are sexually explicit and intended to cause sexual arousal". It appears to me that the ONLY difference here is the intention... because the images are definitely sexually explicit. Also, I think that it really is important to remember that the artwork would be viewed with the male gaze in the end by at least some... and that, I think, would be detrimental to any message the feminists think they might be getting across. (perhaps even be taken as a type of porn by the mistaken viewer??) Now personally... I really do not like the work at all due to its immodesty. It has nothing at all to do with beauty or ugliness, only the way the subjects themselves are depicted within the works. As a female, I feel that "what is inside" is the most important, and that these female artists could have made their point through depicting strong women- that HAD their clothes on.
The last part of that last sentence itself makes me think even more that their works perpetuated exactly what they were trying to stop.
Christopher, I'm sorry to tell you, but you seem to completely miss the idea behind Hannah Wilke's art completely, and furthermore, with some of your comments, you appear to miss some of the basic ideas behind feminism itself. What first and foremost bothers me about your post is the idea that through the "art" Hannah Wilke created "She has portrayed herself as vulnerable and ugly." First off, I clearly disagree with your beliefs on what is considered beautiful and ugly. Second of all, though many feminist theorists work against the idea that women are vulnerable, I don't believe a single one dictates that a feminist can not be vulnerable and is not allowed to do so in her work either. In fact, I believe that many artists as a whole promote the idea of vulnerability within their works. Second of all, the fact that you so blatantly passed judgment of her work as "ugly" seems to utilize the male gaze itself- that a male gets to decide what is beautiful and ugly. Hannah Wilke decided for herself to portray her body as she saw fit. The fact that you deem it disgusting shows the male gaze working at best; you chose to degrade the work because it did not fit your standards of what femininity should be.
I hope it is okay to comment on my own post, but I would like to defend myself for being intellectually attacked (which is fine, we all have our own opinions, but my pride is taking over).
I think perhaps Wilke could have sent the same message she was trying to send in a more classy way. I find her art demeaning to women; people may look at that say say women are naturally ugly--this is not something I would want people to think about me if I were a woman.
To address the topic of Robert Mapplethorpe, Kim, I find some of his work equally as offensive, and think perhaps some of it is even more pornographic (i.e, one self portrait including a bullwip).
Yes, women have been degraded for being viewed as beautiful objects, but I think being portrayed the way Wilke portrayed herself is even more disgusting, disgraceful, and degrading.
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