His-STORY -Con’t

 

His-STORY

To believe in things that are not fashionable means taking a huge chance at not being accepted in this society. This especially applies to someone who seeks to leave his/her mark on the art world. The word “feminist” turns off a lot of men because to be a feminist, especially one that is male, means accepting the idea that you’re not one of the good guys and that you recognize that male supremacy affects everyone. This, according to society, is not fashionable.

Jeremy Shipley is a graduate student artist at Eastern Illinois University in studio art with an emphasis in drawing and painting. A constant reflection on male supremacy shows up in his work. It includes patriarchy’s effects on women and society but also too, himself (but not males in general). Shipleys says, “partriarchy has left no place for me, especially in the art world.”

Shipley has studied the history of feminism and the history of a white male dominated art world and has shown great interest in the women’s art revolution during the 60s and 70s. Inspired by women artist like Jenny Siville, his works incorporate female models used to critique social norms. They are also used to show similarities and contrast between them and the artist; the gender, sexuality, masculinity vs femininity and aslo his “uselessness as a white male artist in today’s art world.” His works seem to address his own self-worth as both a man and artist.

During his work for the spring semester of 2012, he sought to get more comfortable with drawing the figure on a life-size scale or larger with a goal to create portraits where the subject dominates the page. He describes his paintings as being “contingent” because of the time session with the models and decided the only way to add critical content into the pieces was to create abstractions inspired by the sessions. These abstractions include text and other mediums like rhinestones and glitter. He uses line, shape, and the push-pull of figure-ground relationships to create multiple perspectives.

His drawings are conceptually pluralistic on many levels, and allude pictorial space while also reminding the viewer that the image is flat. They pay homage to themes, predeceased by the Romanticism and Classical figure drawing, and notions of the sublime with Abstract Expressionism.

There are huge contrasting elements aside from masculinity vs. femininity. There is the contrast between innocent beauty and the grotesque of knowledge. The more we know, the more skeptical we become about things. And with skeptism comes uncertainty, but also a new potential for innovation, invention, and creation.

Shipley is uncertain of his place in the world and society. He looks to create himself through his work.

Post 5

1. The Daily Femme

The Daily Femme is an online magazine that presents art, music, poetry, photography and just about any other creative medium with a feminist message. It focuses on the misrepresentation of women in the media today as authority figures. “Researchers, educators, artists, writers, philanthropists and activists helping women access leadership positions, fighting gender discrimination, racism, sexual harassment, homophobia and violence against women, addressing sexism in the media, or advocating for reproductive rights, the women interviewed as well as the bloggers on this site are all committed to gender equality in the US and around the world.”

This site is especially helpful in that it offers a variety of outlets on women’s experiences as well as why these women embrace a feminist attitude. Unfortunately, the Daily Femme came to a close September 1^st of 2011, it still accomplishes its goal in educating, informing and inspiring those who show interest in the blog and its messages.

I definitely see as a useful reference especially considering that the women featured in the magazine are all career women which is sort of a different perspective from the artist that I show in my blog.

Cherie. the Daily Femme. 5 January 2010.

 

2. Pink Panther Magazine – Feminist Art and Writing
This site is a feminist group celebrating women’s writing and art. I find this particular blog/magazine interesting because it isn’t just based off professional artist or career women but also ordinary women who share a feminist perspective.
Some of the art work is very beautiful but also very surreal and also, too, the writing. I think it’s very useful in relating to ordinary women and just learning how other women deal with their lives as women.

RedBubble. Pink Panther Magazine -Feminist Art and Writing. 2007-2012.

 

Artist and the Abject: post 4

Wretched, shameful, and unpleasantness, and comfortableness are all factors that play in the theme of abjection depicted in the works of Kiki Smith, Janine Antoni, Jenny Saville, and Jana Sterbak. Whether inspired by death, religion, or social norms, these women artist use their morbid-like artworks to express the opposing themes of objection an they become a little less grotesque to the eye and more readable to the mind with their hidden narratives.

Artist: Kiki Smith

The artist Kiki Smith believes that “art is a representation of your insides.” Because death has been a part of her life since she was a little girl, it is a theme that ultimately shows in her work without much though. This mini documentary talks about Smith’s inspirations for her sculpture; mythology, fairy tales, Catholicism, fiction, and even the death masks of her father and sister.

 

Artisti: Janine Antoni

Janine Antoni believes in uncovering the stories of materials; that there is this notion of stories living w/i the material. After discovering that soap was made of lard, she grew increasingly fascinated with the thought of cleaning the body with the body. “Lick and Lather” for example, is one of my favorite pieces. She creates two replicas of her face, one made of soap, the other made of chocolate. She then washes the soap (washing herself with herself), and licks the chocolate (feeding herself with herself) and very soon, “she” begins to disappear. Though she does this very gently, and sort of loving, the thought of her “erasing” herself brings about a feeling of uneasiness. It also plays off this feeling of self-loathing or the love’hate relationship one feels with their physical appearance.

 

Artist: Jenny Saville

Jenny Saville’s Plan series is deliberately confrontational and uses the abject to express her views of how art glamorizes the female body. It seems to be a critique of the classical nude as well as social norms, featuring big, grotesque, almost monstrous women with putrid flesh. These women have marks (lines and circles and x’s) drawn on their skin which gives the impression that there will be some sort of cutting or surgery. It builds off the notion that; one can only be attractive if thin. So how do most women see themselves when they look in the mirror? With overly voluptuous  bodies and thighs six feet wide.

The women’s bodies along with the scale of the paintings are huge and overwhelming, powerful and instantly provokes some sort of an emotional response. This series force rather than encourage its viewer to reflect on how they judge a woman’s body and even themselves. Gallery

 

Artist: Jena Sterbak

Jana Sterbak uses 60lbs of raw steak in the context of abjection in her Dress for an Albino Anorectic. First she expresses how uncomfortable we as humans sometimes feel in our own skin. She also expresses the morality of it: because the meat is raw it’s obvious it will age and decay over time. But then, so will our own flesh. Secondly, she plays off the expression; “you are what you wear.” This is inspired by societies pressure for both men and women to look a certain way, to be a certain size, which automatically raises consciousness about eating disorders. It could be a response to the Vanitas dress: “You are what you eat.” One could very easily assume that the artist is addressing obesity.

 

All sources are credible as either the artist’s website or online photo galleries through art museums.

Following Jenny chi:

Man on the Street Interview

History of Women in the Figure Drawing Studio

Historically, only men were allowed to be professional artist. It was their job, their trade, and it was entirely normal for men to train as young boys. Women were expected to practice domestic crafts like embroidery. For a long time women who did practice other art skills such as still life drawing and painting where privileged; the daughter of an artist or an woman of the upper class. It was scandalous, however, for any woman to practice figure drawing because of the nude models.

The Wonderful World of Miwa Yanagi

Surreal, futuristic, theatrical, contemporary, and beautifully nightmarish; these are all factors found in the works of Miwa Yanagi centered around women, physical appearances, age, and social restrictions that Japanese women (and women in general)faced as she grew up. Her artistic mediums combine theatrical cosmetics, dramatic stage settings, computer-generated scenes and synthetic photography which are genially transformed into remarkably realistic compositions. Huge in scale, these poetic narratives give insight of Yanagi’s childhood and culture through contradicting themes.

Yanagi was born in Kobe, Japan, and though her father was a successful businessman, she was an average child and led a life of commuting back and forth between an average Japanese high school and home. Her parents were cultured and traditional and wanted her to have a steady marriage with a promising job. She studied fine arts at the University of Kyoto of Arts but had no real intentions of becoming an artist. (Culture base) After she graduated, she took a job as a teacher and because of society’s expectations for a woman to act and dress a certain way it wasn’t long before she was inspired to start a piece called Elevator Girl. An elevator girl is a female guide whose job is to ride elevators greeting and escorting guest in malls and railways. Elevator Girl was originally a performance piece which was held in a Kyoto art gallery (1993) and featured a model that stood in a mock elevator, dressed in what was considered an elevator girl’s uniform, and performed the duties of her character; the bowing, the greetings, the gestures. Yanagi decided that she wanted more control of the concept and turned to photography. Elevator Girl then became Elevator Girls; a series of photographs that portrays a group of Japanese women dressed alike and stationed in futuristic architectural settings. The scale of some of these photographs are large, others are huge, measuring sixty feet in length.

These elevator girls, these attendants, charmingly crafted, are dressed in identical uniforms and make-up. They appear to be robotic in nature and lack human qualities. They are not dolls, not geisha, not housewives, not secretaries, not school girls in pleated skirts. They dress stylish in matching pumps; scarlet suits with gold buttons; navy suits with pale bows; and white suites with caramel hats – so identically dressed they lose self-identity. There is no emotion. They are distant but intriguing, not free but more or less than what they seem. One rests her head in white gloved hands, one naps in another’s lap, one sits, one stands, one kneels. They wait in elevators that lead to the levels of a department store; second floor food court, third floor art, fourth floor a wall lined with more elevator girls. They are quiet, opening doors to worlds made with loud, vibrant colors and mesmerizing scenes of glassless aquariums, and plastic gardens.

Miwa Yanagi
Elevator Girl – House b4 (1998)

These elevator girls, these guides, selfishly crafted by society, are representation to the restrictions and traditional, domestic roles of women all over the world. They are very much dolls and trophy wives, escorts and host. They are made pretty to look at, robotic in nature, because their only duty is to follow orders, to marry and raise children, to be limited to homely careers as housewives and mothers, people with voices but muted. The only doors they open leads to mechanical greetings, bow after bow, and passengers who all but acknowledge their existence.

Miwa Yanagi
Elevator Girl – White Casket (1994)

Take White Casket, a series of four photographs that features three women, dressed in crimson suits, that lie on the floor of a white elevator room. They are consumed by a thick red liquid (I read as blood) and they eventually become that liquid. They live as elevator girls and they will die as elevator girls as if this is the only thing they could ever, and will ever do in their lives.

More girls in white blazers and red skirts stand in a cramped space as they wait for their next customers (Before and After a Dream). Paradise Trespasser shows others clad in black suits, lounging around steel bunks with tan blankets that reach the ceiling. They wait until work starts because they have nothing better to do but dream of a better, more exciting life.

According to Miwa Yanagi, the photos of this series are about her and other Japanese women. “When I started the series, I was working as a teacher” she says. “I strongly felt that I was just playing a role in a standardized society, having a particular occupation in a particular setting. I did not work as an elevator girl literally, but the idea resonated in me in a symbolic way.” (Journal of Contemporary Art)

In 1996, a successful photographer by the name of Yasumasa Morimura saw Yanagi’s photographs, was impressed, and was able to get her work featured at the Shirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, Germany. Her works were featured alongside artists such as Cindy Sherman. Following Elevator Girls, Yanagi completed a new series of collective images called My Grandmothers. For this project, she asked young women to describe what they wanted their future to look like fifty-sixty years in the future. Because of society, women were reluctant to express the way they wanted to live their lives. In order for them to live their childhood dreams, they need to “be liberated from their youthfulness.” From this feedback, she used make-up, dramatic settings and digital manipulation to create their visions.

While Elevator Girls tackles issues dealing with the restrictions forced on young women by social roles and expectations, My Grandmothers features the lives of mature women who were “freed” from those expectations – freed from the expectation of being beautiful, from living an unfulfilling life and the expectation to “behave.” These women are in control of their own dreams and their own lives, taken from their boring youthful settings and thrown in wild adventures in the future. Each photograph features a text, a sort of monologue to complement each grandmother’s story.

My Grandmothers – Yuka
2000; chromogenic print on Plexiglas on aluminum; 63 x 63 inches

Yuka is a seventy year-old grandmother who took a trip to L.A. and met her boyfriend, the play boy. She’s “turned down his repeated marriage proposals” but they look happy as they zoom across the Golden Gate Bridge on a motorcycle. The youthful boyfriend appears to be unaware of his girlfriend’s age. The grandmother Mineko looks peaceful as she flies a jet over the Indian Ocean. Another grandmother, Eriko, is a fashionista and super model with a young body but an aged face. She traveled the world – Paris, Milan, New York, Tokyo – and “brought the masses” to their knees with her prowess and catwalks on the runway though her runway is a tombstone because even after she dies, she will be a legend. These are Yanagi’s ideal grandmothers.

My Grandmothers, Eriko, 2009

While Yanagi’s third series is just as astonishing as the previous two, it has no particular connection to the experiences of Japanese women. It does, though, have very distinctive elements that separate it from the earlier series but also connects them. Fairy Tale is a series based on classical European stories. Not the happily-ever-after, Disney versions but the violent, gruesome originals. Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Gretel, and Rapunzel all make an appearance but in very shocking environments. In some cases she re-creates the scenes from the stories as told, other times she rewrites the scene entirely. While both Elevator Girls and My Grandmothers involved bright, energetic colors, the Fairy Tale images are monochromatic. Yanagi also abandons the computer and uses dramatic, theatrical settings as well as mask and cosmetics to create these fantasy worlds. What’s more, her models for Fairy Tale feature little girls. One of the girls wears the face of an old hag (in which case is the evil stepmother or witch). But Yanagi makes no effort to disguise their youthful bodies.

Fairy Tale – Gretel　2004　Gelatin silver print

In Elevator Girls, the women were young and beautiful, but robotic and emotionless. In My Grandmothers, the women are elderly, adventurous, wise and unrestricted. Here, in Fairy Tale, the evil stepmothers and witches that seek to destroy the young girls in these classical tales find themselves facing rivals equally cruel. It’s a battle between young and old, innocence and self-loathing which implies that youth and old age are a contradiction – that inside every young girl is an old woman or the potential to become this evil, wicked hag and inside of every hag is the innocent young girl she once was struggling to find herself again. This ain’t a Cinderella story as Little Red embraces her grandmother in the gutted belly of the wolf or as Gretel bites (almost erotically) on the finger of the witch’s hand that reaches out to her through the bars of a dark cage. And so it becomes a battle of character. In Yanagi’s Sleeping Beauty, the young girl attacks the old witch with a spindle, definitely in no need of a prince charming. In this series, as Snow White hands herself the poisoned apple, Yanagi expresses that woman aren’t just battling society, but themselves.

Fairy Tale – Sleeping Beauty　2004　Gelatin silver print

Yanagi is expressly interested in the contradictions that women face; youth vs. old age, beauty vs. ugliness, innocence vs. wickedness. Other contradictions that she experiments with are reality and the imaginary, modern and futuristic, and also past and present. She calls Japan “a big grandma nation,” because women live longer than either sex in any other nation. Yet the country also has an almost obsessive adoration of little-girl worship, depicted hugely in anime (lolicon) and manga books. Old women and little girls, “The two extremes―what a contradiction, right?” she says. Her series, themselves, are contradictions. While Elevator Girls depicts young women existing as the fantasy of others, the series My Grandmothers depicts women catering to their own fantasies. She allows us a look in the future in an incredibly clever way that the present, and what it means to live in the present is significantly deepened.

Bibliography
“Culturebase.net.” 21 July 2003. The International Artist Database. 2 November 2011 .
Davis, Ben. “Globalized Feminism.” Artnet Magazine 23 October 2011.
Grooup, Deutche Bank. Cultural Collaborations. 18 May 2011. 2 November 2011 .
Guggenheim, Deutsche. Miwa Yanagi. 2004. 24 October 2011 .
Kariya, Sachiko. “Miwa Yanagi.” Journal of Contemporary Art (2001): 9.
Maerkle, Andrew. “Miwa Yanagi Makes the Personal Public.” Japan Times 19 June 2009: 2.
Miwa Yanagi. 2000-11. 23 October 2011 .
Yanagi, Miwa. Miwa Yanagi: My Grandmothers. 2000. 26 October 2011 .

Annotated Bibs – Post 3

Raven, A. (1994). New Feminist Criticism: Art Identity Action. New York: Harper Collins Publisher.

This book is a collaboration of essays that uses art as the foundation for addressing a range of issues associated with the feminist movement. These essays explore women’s experiences on culture, style, identity, sexuality, gender roles, racial demographics and domestic lifestyles, age, motherhood, etc. Though diverse in perspectives, the essays share interest in feminist theory, the experiences of women and art.

This book is definitely a great source to use as research, not just about women artist, but feminism period. I definitely thought some of the essays a bit shocking, especially when mixed women found themselves struggling with passing for black or white. This book is definitely useful in trying to understand the feminist theory and also trying to understand feminist art.

Because my blog is about women contemporary artist, I definitely look forward to posting about some of the things I’ve read so far. The fact that these essays are from different perspectives excites me because I love learning about different experiences that people have. This helps a lot because I’d really like to show diversity not just in the style and mediums of an artist, but also the diversity in experiences when talking about a white, middle class woman artist in comparison to someone who is black or Mexican and middle class and also the conditions that helped shaped the views of women artists since the early 1900s.

——-

Warr, T. (2000). The Artists’ Body: Themes and Movements. Phaidon Press (Jan, 6).

Performance Art, or Body Art, plays a huge role in modern-day art. The book titled The Artists’ Body: Themes and Movements talks about artist who have used their bodies to create their works. Such artist includes Yoko Ono, Marcel Duchamp, Carolee Scheemann, Jackson Pollock, and so on. The book not only focuses on how someone like Jackson Pollock used his body to create abstract paintings but also how an artist like Yoko Ono would use her body in an a performance piece. The book also mentions art critics and writers who’ve helped influence contemporary art.

I thought this was a pretty interesting book. It’s not particularly about feminism in art but it does give a great explanations about how and why artist used their bodies to help make art and what sort of out-come a piece could have because of the body. It also helps one understand how important the body really is as far as communicating messages and even reading those messages. The fact that the book talks about male contemporary artist actually makes it a lot more interesting because you do get a better sense of the style, and themes behind the works.

This book definitely helps with my blog about feminist art. And, in fact, I‘ve already posted about Jackson Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner and I’ll definitely be mentioning Carolee Scheemann and Yoko Ono. I’ll try using this book to help with the comparison of male and women artist in terms of style, and theme. I’m pretty excited about this.

Video Introduction of Project