Monday, October 10, 2005

21st Century Female Art

Ana Mendieta envisioned the female body as a primal source of life and sexuality, as a symbol of the ancient paleolithic goddesses. In her siluetas, Mendieta used her body or images of her body in combination with natural materials. Austrian artist Valie Export has worked in film, video, photography, text and performance. Initially expanding the Actionist project to confront a complex feminist critique of the social and political body, her works achieve a compelling fusion of the visceral and the conceptual. Catherine Opie gained national attention for her large format portraits of dyke daddies, gay male performance transvestites, FTM transexuals, tattooed and scarified gay men and lesbians and other members of a social milieu where sexual identity is most dramatically thrown into question. Opie places her subjects clearly and calmly in the center of focus. Elke Krystufek’s art is about herself, her ego and her life. For ten years, her impertinent performances have exhibited a voyeuristic/exhibitionistic dynamic that dissolves the boundaries between public and private. British Hepworth’s adherence to abstraction was lifelong and drew on geometric as well as organic shapes. She introduced into England the idea of piercing the solid mass of sculpture with a "hole," making the object more transparent. This concept influenced the future work of Henry Moore, among others. Hepworth’s hollow interiors become more important than the enveloping material. As the viewer's eye is drawn inside the sculpture, the openings invite the surrounding landscape to become part of the artwork. Adrian Piper is a conceptual artist (and philosophy professor) whose work, in a variety of media, has focused on racism, racial stereotyping and xenophobia. Nan Goldin is an example of an artist who works at the most intimate level: her life is her work and her work, her life. Her "snapshot"-esque images of her friends -- drag queens, drug addicts, lovers and family -- are intense, searing portraits that, together, make a document of Goldin's life. Marlene Dumas makes paintings with no concept of the taboo. Racism, sexuality, religion, motherhood and childhood are all presented with chilling honesty. Undermining universally held belief systems, Dumas corrupts the very way images are negotiated. Stripped of the niceties of moral consolation, Marlene Dumas’s work provokes unmitigated horror. Sarah Lucas often employs metaphors that represent or symbolise sexual body parts. These metaphors are frequently food or furniture which she utilises as ready-mades, attributing new meanings to them. Silvie Fleury displays stylish items of fashion and design in order to compare and clash them with the everyday world. In a way, fashion is dissected from its aura and made banal. Vanessa Beecroft has become famous for her human installations featuring armies of vaguely similar women (and lately men) wearing identical underwear, high heels, wigs, and not much else. Their nudity becomes almost like a uniform. She explores the intrusion of the public, Pop, fashion, conceptual art, and the body as object. Rosemarie Trockel is one of the most important figures in the contemporary art movement in Germany. Trockel challenges established theories about sexuality, culture, and artistic production. In her "knitted paintings" Trockel designs patterns on a computer that are then produced by a knitting machine. Louise Nevelson’s wood assemblages typically painted in either jet black or – later- in white and gold, ranged in size from the small to the large and monumental, inviting viewers to observe a world into which they could not go but in which they often feared they had already been placed. Eva Hesse was sent with her sister to Holland to flee the Nazis in 1938. Their parents joined them and they moved to New York in 1939. When Eva was nine, her parents separated and her father remarried. A few months later her mother, who had a history of depression, committed suicide by throwing herself from a window. Hesse used to say that she aimed to create ‘nothings’. One can create a ‘nothing’ by making things that aren’t things (in the sense fixed representative objects). And Hesse’s objects always do more than merely represent. If art is always made to mean things and to represent, the only way out is to make what Hesse called "non-art." Louise Nevelson was one of the most important American sculptors of the twentieth century. Her wood assemblages typically painted in either jet black, white and gold, ranged in size from the small and personal to the large and monumental, inviting viewers to observe a world into which they could not go but in which they often feared they had already been placed. Barbara Kruger is internationally renowned for her signature black, white and red poster-style works of art that convey in-your-face messages on women's rights and issues of power. Barbara Kruger knows how to capture our attention with her bold socio-political photomurals, displayed on billboards, bus stops and public transportation as well as in major museums and galleries wordwide. With Louise Bourgeois' work, we are faced with the presence of subjects of desire. They may not be immediate figures of desire, but they position themselves clearly as “operations” of desire. Bourgeois' sculptures exhale the sweat of erotic work.

21 comments:

anita said...

i've taken a look at the post.
just wanted to let you know that i right now i don't have a chance to sit for 10 minutes to write down a significant comment. i'll get back to this asap. thanks

Josh said...

the organic forms of Barbara Hepworth garner my focus the most. the smooth line and the concept of exploring the interior space of the object by carving out a hole is great. i wasn't aware that hepworth's work inspired moore, but i can definitely begin to understand the impact that she must have made. the use of a rustic facade such as wood gives nice contrast to the almost heavenly interior of the plaster (i assume) very well. after looking at the list of pictures, hepworth probably grabs my eye the best because it's just such a clean design.

here's a short read on oppenheim:
http://www.haberarts.com/meret.htm

Heidi said...

Ana Mendieta’s piece is like a desperate call for help. I went to see the exhibit and in the first part the figures (like traced by the police in a murder case) and the red paint is recurrent. Looks like she wanted to be punish. It made me anxious.
I like Barbara Hepworth’s “Oval”. The combination of colors, clean lines, smoothness of the surface and geometric shape make it effective I also like the idea of the holes.
Heidi

amanda said...

I was impressed with Vanessa Beecroft's ideas...i find it interesting that she compares the body to an object while exploring pop culture and fashion. In advertising today the woman's body is usually repersented as just an object, usually provocatively and inferior to the male. This way of portraying the woman helps to market and sell products. I think Beecroft's installations are a good reminder of the way our society accepts this degrading way of portraying women's bodies. I dont know if this is the message she is trying to convey, since she also included installations of males...but i dont like the idea of thinking that the body is just an object i find it much more sacred than that.

Speaking of all these females....i was wondering if we are going to have any female artists speak to our class?

AT said...

Good point, Amanda. The first was going to be Maritza Molina. She cancelled because of Katryna. I have another female artist in mind in mid-November. It makes me look more.

peter said...

Elke Krystufek "Silent Scream", reminds me of restrictions against women in some middle eastern countries. I think the make-up on her face is implies that she's a mime... someone who should not have nothing to say. But the nude figure with the covering on her face is a sign of rebelion or frustration about some traditions.

AT said...

The post is just a tentative to what's being made out there. It wouldn't do justice to the artists to asume that this is what their work is about. One has to be content with what's available in the net, not to mention size and copyright issues. You're supposed to continue this investigation on your own.

Anonymous said...

Catherine Opie's work seems to strike me the most. For some reason, i too am fascinated with the possibilities of transgender transformations and images. The question of whether the suject is male or female and how easily that the line between sexes can be blurred and crossed. Ana Mendieta's siluetas are the most haunting of all. There is something creepy about the sillouhettes in the earth and the female body contour. The image that was presented to us online haunts me, especially because of the red blood-like material splattered across it. Another reason why it's so haunting is becuase Mendieta committed suicide (supposedly), so it's a scary form of foreshadowing. I find this utterly fascinating.

Lisa Schwal said...

By the way.. that last anonymous comment was from me :)

Heidi said...

This is for the class:
If you want to take a look atTaschen's book, we have it on Reserve in Richter Library.
The number is N8354.W653 2001
Be sure you have the call number before you go to Reserves.
Heidi

naomi Witt said...

Blah Triff to much info! I know you are trying to stimulate us to write more when we respond in post but this is over whelming and I don't know what to comment on. I think it would be better have just one piece or artist to focus on to really have a distinct thing to talk about.
That aside- I agree with Josh in that Barbara Heyworth’s piece most caught my attention. I don’t really know that it so much the implied internal space that caught my attention though so much as the use of the wood and whatever the white material inside was. The form itself is strong not just the space in implies. And also like Josh said the look is so clean it's very attracting as a design for it to be so.

Nydia said...

Hey, everybody! Just wanted to say that I went too the Ana Mendieta show and it was really cool and a whole buch of other things! It was very intriguing and interesting and frightening and so much more! O to the post,the picture that intrigues me the most is the Ana Mendieta "Silueta". I like the idea of a siluette on the floor covered in what seems like blood. I feel that in relation to other women artists, Mendieta is showing all the blood, guts and work that goes into doing their artwork and that they work every bit as hard as men do. I did find it interesting that Triff pointed out that the feminine revolution really took place aout twenty years ago as oppossed to the whole twentieth century. Sometimes I feel that society still holds this image of women as supposed to be behving all proper that when they do things that are eccentric or shocking, it is harder for society to kind of swallow and adjust to the fact that a woman did this as opposed to a man. Say a man had come up with the idea that Ana Mendieta did (of the boody covered in the sheet with the heart on top of it); I don't think it would have been as intense because it wold have been perhaps, expected for a man to do something like that. But when a woman did it, I feel it was more of a show stopper because it was such a strong image and a lot of times women are associated with softer imagery as opposed to rough or even violent imagery. I don't know. I'm probably just babblng but hope o write more later!

anita said...

the images that struck me the most where those from Elke Krystufek, Marlene Dumas, (Nevelson too, but that's overstated everywhere), and Louise Bourgeois.

I see a connection between the Krystufek and the Dumas. they're both portraits (self-portraits?) and very expressive, each in their own way. and like peter mentions, krystufek seems to portray restrictions imposed on women. i think the dumas is also saying something similar, yet she's somehow managed to make some monstruous portrayal of a woman(?). both images are above mysterious and seem to be saying a lot. however, both portraits have this expression on their face that is so calm, melancholic, and almost grotesque.

the bourgeois piece strikes me the most in it's enigmatic expression of killer color. i can't tell what is it, yet it's organic form is what draws me to it. (is this photo somehow altered from what it's supposed to look like? it looks somewhat posterized when i enlarge it) i took the time to look up louise bourgeois and see some other stuff that she's done and is still making. i find it interesting what she's working with, the deeply personal and the overtly universal. the connection that she makes between both experiences is a quality that a lot of artists fail to meet, it's either too personal or too universal. i don't know if that's good or bad, but it definitely draws me in.

AT said...

Naomi, it may look like too much, but generally I post more images than words. I wanted you to have an idea of what each artist does (one paragraph per artist is nor unreasonable).

amanda said...

Triff could you maybe explain Hesses idea about making things that arent things...i am not sure that i understand her concept.

AT said...

Hesse made that statement and I guess it means letting things speak for themselves, rather than belaboring them too much. Western art has this drive of authorship, whereby artists feel they have to leave an impprint on the things they "make." Hesse's approach was the opposite. Leave the object as untouched as possible... does it make sense?

Sarah Schermerhorn said...

I love the graphic quality that Louise Nevelson has in her sculptures. The layers of different shapes and symbols layered on top of one another is extraordinary and beautiful. When I went to see Ana Mendieta’s exhibit I was first disturbed by the goriness and board by the films. However, the way she used nature as her art was incredible. Carving or burning a sculpture right into the walls of a cave or onto a tree was a unique and exquisite way to express her pain through her art.

sierra said...

I like Hesses idea about making non-art. Its a fresh idea and extreamly ironic since art is anything created with intention, and Hesses intention is to have no intention. I feel like what im trying to say goes beond that too since minimalism has the same non-intentions. Im not sure if she is concidered a minimalist or not, but say she wasnt, to me that would make her more concrete of an artist for not following a movement
As for Mendieta, I felt priveledged today to be able to see the show at MAM. To me it was haunting and strong and organic and even spiritual. I dont want to write too much on it or i will simply be restating my paper, but wow, so glad i went

Natalia said...

I found Ana Mendieta’s painting amazing. I like the fact that she uses her body as a tool and the earth as the canvas to create these art works. She explores identity, the value of earth, and unity creating this relationship between the female body and nature. In this painting her silhouette looks like some kind of spirit, as if she wanted to leave a memory of her existence. It has mystic and magic feeling to it, which makes it very striking. But the fact that the figure is red could be also seen as blood representing some kind of violent scene. I really don’t know how to interpreted but I found this painting very authentic and with a lot of personal meaning.

Natalia said...

Triff I didn't have time to go Ana Mendieta's exhibition but I went to the "Retratos" exhibiton almost two weeks ago in the bass museum and I wrote a paper on it. is that ok?

P.S I'm gonna try to go to Ana Mendieta's exhibition this weekend.

Dominic Halley-Roarke said...

It's interesting to me that the Barbara Hepworth piece was commented on as attention getting--after all, there is nothing shocking or distrubing about it. On the contrary, it has a pleasant rythmn to it; as least for me its just pleasurable to look at. Maybe a lot of us are no longer interested in being shocked for the sake of such-I know I am not. Whatever the reason behind the need to shock-whether its to express internal turmoil of the artist or to deal with societal issues-I think the reaction to Hepworth piece suggests that there is still a place in art for the sensual as an end itself. As to Mendieta's two works--the later one posted is to me enjoyable just on that basis; the ripped out heart one is not. It will be interesting to see her show (I am also going this weekend)and see how the work balances out-if it is a group on the shock side or more on the mysterious, painterly side that can be appreciated for its sensual qualities alone.
Another question for consideration is if, as society becomes more ware of gender issues, etc., does the art based on exploring these issues become somewhat outdated?
In reference to AT's first post on the subject of female artists, is the difference always observable (that is male vs. female)? Some of the attributes of the female don't seem to apply to some of the work - such as those working with texts. I would also be interested if, as a musician, AT observes any similar gender differences in composers of contemporary art music. How about architecture designed by women?