Excerpts from
&
Additional Research Prompted By
Feminist Art Theory: An Anthology 1968-2014
Identity and Perception
“From earliest childhood she [a woman] has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually.
And so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman.
She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to others, and ultimately how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life.”
-p. 294, John Beger, Chapter 3 of Ways of Seeing (1972)
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Appropriation & Manipulation in Collage
“Catalina Para was among the first Chilean women artists to test the limits of censorship under authoritarianism. In 1977 she exhibited Imbunches at the Epoca Gallery in Santiago, a body of work that camouflaged its social and political denunciation through the veils of a game of allusions-evasions, in which discourse and figure betrayed the journalistic news item.
Her work manipulated one of Chile’s official icons (the newspaper El Mercurio) as a symbol of the distortions of meaning practiced under the media’s communicative monopoly of a single obligatory truth that regimented the reading and interpretation of events.”
-p. 331, Nancy Richard, ‘Politics and Aesthetics of Sign’ (2004)
Imbunches, Catalina Parra, 1977. ( source: http://www.catalinaparra.net/)
I chose this work as an inspiration because of how Catalina Para used her reinterpretation of the newspaper as a means of social and political commentary. I consider the fast pace of social media images streaming on my feed for #art and #womenempowerment and many are filled with makeup tutorials and various images of women’s self-expression. However, my comments come in the form of questions. I ask, are these forms of self-expression actually empowering or detrimental to our spirit? I consider the idea of women’s fashion and makeup as a form of armor and weaponry, what research about this theory has been undertaken already? How can I, as an artist, reinterpret a common social media post in accordance with the research I find in order to make my own comments or pose more questions?
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Female Artist Identity
“In an attempt to compensate for the often uncomprehending responses, the woman artist tries to prove that she’s as good as a man. She gains attention by creating work that is extreme in scale, ambition or scope. She tries to impress with her drive, determination, her toughness, or integrity. She demands ever greater acrobatics of herself, or she becomes a ‘lady artists’ content with a minor position in the art world. In one way or another, she is not dealing only with art-making, she is dealing with her social status as well. SHe either struggles against, or compromises with, the confines she feels as a woman.
She chooses those areas of subject matter that more closely approximate the experiences of the male, and she avoids those images that would reveal her to be a woman. She resists being identified with woman because to be female is to be an object of contempt. And the brutal fact is that in the process of fighting for her life, she loses her self. For instead of deriving strength, power, and creative energy from her femaleness,…”
(Is this what we women do when they make ourselves up with make-up and fashion? Are we deriving power from our ‘creative energy?’)
“…she flees it and in fleeing it, profoundly diminishes herself. She must turn and claim what is uniquely hers, her female identity. But to do that is the most difficult tasks; it is to embrace the untouchable and to love what is despised.”
-Judy Chicago, ‘Woman As Artist” (1971)
“The Veil”
&
The Ascent of Women
A Documentary with Dr. Amanda Foreman
This documentary explains the history of women dating back to early “Civilization”, the title of the first episode, and is pertinent for my project because Dr. Foreman explains the history of the veil, or hijab, and how this rule to conceal became a tool for women to conduct business and personal affairs with anonymity within a patriarchal structure (Note: “veil” content start time is 21:28; see also transcript below video).
Transcript Excerpts of content discussing the veil:
(source and full transcript: https://www.tvo.org/transcript/119977X/ep-1-civilization)
“Amanda continues THE 112 ASSYRIAN LAWS, DATING FROM THE 12TH CENTURY BC, ARE NOW HOUSED IN BERLIN. OVER HALF DEAL WITH MARRIAGE AND SEX….”
“ON THIS TABLET, LAW 40 IS THE FIRST KNOWN VEILING LAW, 2,000 YEARS BEFORE ISLAM. AND IT’S ASTONISHING HOW LITTLE KNOWN THIS IS, GIVEN THE LEGACY IT HAS LEFT BEHIND. TO EXPLORE IT, I’VE COME TO MEET A GROUP OF MIDDLE EASTERN WOMEN FROM THE COUNTRIES THAT WERE ONCE ANCIENT ASSYRIA.”
“Subtitles read “Married women, widows and Assyrian women must not go out on the street with their heads uncovered. Daughters of the upper classes must be veiled with a veil, an abaya cloak or a long robe.””
Payman reads A CONCUBINE WHO GOES OUT ON THE STREET WITH HER MISTRESS MUST VEIL HERSELF. A PROSTITUTE MUST NOT VEIL HERSELF, HER HEAD MUST BE UNCOVERED.
Amanda says THE LAWS DIVIDED WOMEN INTO FIVE CATEGORIES: WIVES AND DAUGHTERS OF THE UPPER CLASS, CONCUBINES, TEMPLE PROSTITUTES, HARLOTS, AND SLAVE GIRLS – DIVIDING IN THEIR EYES THE RESPECTABLE FROM THE UNRESPECTABLE. THE PUNISHMENTS FOR TRANSGRESSION ARE PITILESS.
Mayada reads ANY MAN WHO SEES A VEILED PROSTITUTE SHOULD ARREST HER. SHE IS TO RECEIVE 50 LASHES WITH A BAMBOO CANE.
The middle-aged woman reads ANY MAN WHO SEES A VEILED SLAVE-GIRL IS TO ARREST HER AND BRING HER TO COURT. HER EARS WILL BE CUT OFF AND THE MAN WHO ARRESTED HER MAY TAKE HER CLOTHES.”
“Amanda says OF ALL THE LEGACIES HANDED DOWN TO US FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD, IT’S THE VEIL THAT HAS BEEN THE MOST PERVASIVE AND THE MOST SYMBOLICALLY WEIGHTED. A MARK OF CIVILIZATION THROUGH GREECE, ROME, AND BYZANTIUM, IT WOULD BECOME THE NUN’S HABIT AND THE WIMPLE OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE. IN ASIA, IT WOULD SPREAD TO CONFUCIAN CHINA AND KOREA. AND IN
“Amanda says WHAT THIS REMINDS US IS THAT THERE IS A LONG HISTORY TO THE VEIL, WHOSE COMPLEXITIES AND CONTRADICTIONS WERE THERE FROM THE START. I DON’T THINK IT’S SURPRISING THAT SUCH A TESTOSTERONE-FILLED SOCIETY AS ASSYRIA WOULD BE AMONG THE FIRST TO PASS A VEILING LAW ON WOMEN. STILL, IT’S IMPORTANT THAT WE DON’T PREJUDGE THE VEIL OR WHAT IT MEANT IN ANCIENT TIMES. ON ONE LEVEL, IT IS ALL ABOUT MALE OWNERSHIP AND MALE CONTROL. BUT, ON ANOTHER, IRONIC THOUGH IT MAY SEEM TO US, THE VEIL WAS A WAY OF GIVING WOMEN A LIBERTY AND FREEDOM TO GO OUTSIDE INTO THE PUBLIC SPACE WITHOUT COMPROMISING THEMSELVES OR LOSING THE PROTECTION OF THEIR HUSBANDS. IN SOME MEASURE, WHAT THE VEIL TOOK AWAY, IT ALSO GAVE BACK. IT BOTH LIMITED WOMEN, BUT ALSO PROTECTED AND GAVE THEM FREEDOM, IN WHAT WAS ESSENTIALLY A MAN’S WORLD.”
Excerpts from
“Sex Differences in the Perceived
Dominance and Prestige of Women
With and Without Cosmetics.”
By Mileva, Viktoria R., et al.
“The use of cosmetics to manipulate facial appearance has a long history, with historical examples showing the use of kohl around the eyes in Ancient Egypt (Lucas, 1930). In this study, we examined the impact of cosmetics use on perceptions of women’s social status and attractiveness.”
Kohl Stick ca. 1492–1473 B.C., MET Museum
“(Abstract) Women wearing cosmetics have been associated with a higher earning potential and higher status jobs. However, recent literature suggests that status can be accrued through two distinct routes: dominance and prestige. In two experiments, we applied a standardized amount of cosmetics to female faces using computer software. We then asked participants to rate faces with and without cosmetics for various traits including attractiveness, dominance, and prestige. Men and women both rated the faces with cosmetics added as higher in attractiveness. However, only women rated faces with cosmetics as higher in dominance, while only men rated them as higher in prestige. In a follow-up study, we investigated whether these enhanced perceptions of dominance from women were caused by jealousy. We found that women experience more jealousy toward women with cosmetics, and view these women as more attractive to men and more promiscuous. Our findings suggest that cosmetics may function as an extended phenotype and can alter other’s perceptions differently depending on the perceiver’s sex.”
May Wilson
(b. 1905, Maryland.)
Untitled II (Portrait), 1966-67.
May Wilson’s work is currently on display at the Brooklyn Museum for their exhibition Out of Place: A Feminist Look at The Collection. I chose this particular artwork as inspiration for my project because of the collage aspect, the mask style of the composition, the use of a photograph, and the subject is a woman. To mask and “make-up” the subject is an interest of mine. I look to maybe reveal “the mask” or uncover the subject and her tools (makeup or fashion) in some way. I want to explore the idea to use the images I capture of make-up on the microscopic level and apply that digitally to a portrait either of myself or a female model. These texturized images of microscopic makeup will be quite similar to May Wilson’s glitter and other appendages as masks, only fully based in electronic media and a more abstract.
Marilyn Minter
(b. 1948, Shreveport, LA)
“There’s an inherent duality of manufactured beauty: There’s the labor of construction, but there can also be an ugly side to the psychology of what we’re trying to do when we’re trying to transform ourselves. I love that there’s this big backlash where people aren’t wearing any makeup at all, like Alicia Keys. You could say all that makeup could be war paint. Why can’t we embrace them both? If that’s how you feel good! It’s hard to feel good in this world.”
-Marilyn Minter, Interview with the NY Times, “Marilyn Finds Art in The Female Form,” 2017.
Gossip, 2012
While observing a fellow student’s presentation on Marilyn Minter a photo, titled Gossip, briefly presented and not even mentioned caught my eye. I scoured the internet to find this photo because, at the moment that I saw it, it validated the direction of my work. I realized I was going in the “right” direction with the test shots I have been producing.
I never knew of Marilyn Minter before this student presented his work last week, the 2nd week in February 2020, It was only when another student next to me pointed out that one of Marilyn’s video artworks is currently on display at the Zuccaire Gallery that I realized I had seen her work before but without taking a closer look.
Marilyn Minter uses water, metallic substances, makeup, and other femininely charged substances that saturate the subject and composition of her photos. There is a rawness to the “beauty” and “ugliness” she portrays in her works. They are authentic and real- quintessentially human. The water aspect in her work and my test shot reflect the feminine form with its curvature and fluidity. The reflective quality reminds us of women all done up, polished, and shined. Water in all these ways also relays to sex, reproduction, and life.
One of my test shots from under the microscope of women’s make-up, water, and oil:
Arshile Gorky
(b. 1904, Armenia)
Arshile Gorky is an artist whose work acted as a bridge between Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism. The abstract is a deviation from what is considered identifiable, real, even normal. When it comes to abstract painting, I think we can agree it is a deviation from reality or realism in European traditional art. The latter with specific guidelines for how to represent the real determined by institutions like the Salon. Artists, like Gorky, who worked in the abstract continued to push the boundary of the grids put in place by current art movement or institutions of their time.
Initially, I considered Gorky’s work for my research because I saw a similarity in form between my test shots under the microscope and those in his paintings because of the anthropomorphic quality to the shapes. If you look closely at Gorky’s painting, and with help from the title and the light hanging, you can see it’s possible what’s depicted is a room with people. In my photograph, there is this sense that the shape is a silhouette of a person in motion. This mild connection allows me to ponder altered perception with regard to the abstraction and how this relates to my current project. I consider the use of makeup as a means of abstraction to alter perception with regard to identity which then led me to question current authorities and social models in place that constrict or define identity expression similar to how artists were restricted by the confines of traditionalism.