Revisiting Womanhouse
“Few would argue that one of the most consistently and hotly debated issues for feminist art- determining how scholars think of its development and history- is how various works have addressed the relationship between essential and constructed identity.”
Essentialist feminist would say that by virtue of their biology they are equal to or superior to men. Whereas, constructivist feminist would say gender/biology is socially constructed. Has labeling the performance art in Womanhouse as Essentialism undermine or subvert its effectiveness thus producing this lack of interest as Temme Balducci suggested?
Second wave feminism, beginning in the early 1960’s lasting through the 1970’s, mainly focused on subverting the myth of the white, middle-class housewife. The feminist art movement at this time was pioneering, in that it allowed a woman to openly express her own idea of female content in the art world. Did the use of parody and exaggeration in Womanhouse help to deconstruct essentialism thus positing that femininity is social construct?
House work and Art work
The four artists mentioned in House work and Art work, Judy Chicago, Mary Kelly, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, and Martha Rosler, address the idea of the naturalization of domestic labor. This idea of naturalization is a cultural perception where certain daily tasks, like cooking, cleaning and motherhood come naturally to women because of their biology. Do you think these artists were successful in de-naturalizing the idea of domesticity through their art works? Is there a woman’s gaze?
“Each artist participated in the assault on the privileged role of vision in aesthetics, as did so many of their 1970s contemporaries. When the binarism is undone we can see that these works were directly engaged with the most “advanced” artistic practices of the day-Minimalism, Performance, and Conceptual Art- and they are also in the process of forming the practice of Institutional Critique.” Has the labeling of “Feminist Art” undermined or distract art historians from the additional importance of these art works?
What if all art was categorized as “art” and categories couldn’t be applied until 100 years after the artist died? I mean Modernism, the age of the manifesto, is dead right? So should we still be operating according to “ism’s”? I believe that a label of any kind, in these readings “feminist,” limits an audience. Labeling often reduces the work to a single interpretation, and, as we read with Hesse as well, the historical impact of such a label can be challenging to reverse or reconsider. Therefore, we are less able to read about and consider the precedents and contributions of these artists in the areas of conceptual, performance and institutional critique art forms. This seems especially true with the categorized themes in contemporary art. I think this is because the categories, like “feminist” and “queer”, are an immediate signifier of a political agenda questioning “society’s” beliefs and “going against the norms.” Since the artist’s motives were political, I am critical of the feminist theorists for not being able to work together toward a common goal thereby weakening the credibility of their arguments and actually submitting to an either/or (essentialist/constructivist) binary instead of a both/and discourse.
ReplyDeleteI wish I could sound less militant when I am writing these posts- so here, a link to some fun feminist tunes to make ya smile!
Le Tigre http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9z0bUK-gQk
Tracy and the Plastics http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAzWydl7FzA
Leslie and the Lys http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWWtQvX-6N4
Womanhouse is now mentioned in Gardner's so it seems efforts to elevate its historical importance have been successful. But it is only part of the Miriam Schapiro section. There is no photo. I have only heard about Womanhouse recently, but Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party" has been considered one of the hallmarks of "feminist art." Womanhouse was so much earlier and, arguably, much more innovative.
ReplyDeleteIs the historical exclusion of Womanhouse from aspects of the dialogue really a result of a "prejudice toward the presumed essentialism" of the time like Temma Balducci wrote? Some of the criticisms of Womanhouse come across as unfair. Was this art project any more or less naive than other, similar projects?
By labeling the pieces as “Feminist Art” I think it limits the viewer. And I completely agree with the statement that it limits historians from the additional importance of the piece. In Womanhouse, people were so quick to lump everything into feminism, however the simple constructs of exploiting the “daily feminine rituals” of middle class American were almost overlooked. I believe it probably took a while for viewers of Womanhouse to actually realize what these ladies were actually doing.
ReplyDeleteThe overbearing at times grand lump that all feminists get thrown into masks true purpose in their artwork. And it shields others from actually having to look at a piece of art and interpret it.
To hyphenate anything is to marginalize that thing. Along that same line of thinking, to hyphenate an art object is to exclude a viewership. A hyphen says to me that the work of art I’m presented with is pretty good for what it is, but it’s not good enough to be called art. There is also a subtext at play here that tells me if I’m not understanding key concerns raised by a work of art that I shouldn’t bother trying… the hyphen tells me this work of art was not made for me.
ReplyDeleteI would like to think people who know me understand the paragraph above to be mostly in jest, but I believe the points are valid. The need on the part of critics and historians to find a work of art to illustrate a theory does a great disservice to the work itself. Amy points to the problem (as I see it) in her post. Just because a piece of art work doesn’t fit neatly into the dates assigned to a specific movement doesn’t mean the work is not in direct dialogue with other works that came before and after. Modernism isn’t dead it’s just not as fashionable as once was. History is never as neat as the timeline we apply to illustrate its neat forward progression.
Many of these comments seem to be founded (implicitly or explicitly) upon the notion that "art" itself is a neutral or ideologically irrelevant category. I think this would be a good place to start our discussion in class...
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