Feminist Art Movement: Overview and Analysis

Feminist Art Move custodyt Overview and Analysis The feminist fine art movement that offici ein truth last(predicate)y began in the 1960s- refers to the efforts and accomplishments of feminists who made art reflecting womens lives and experiences. In doing so, it brought more(prenominal) than visibility to effeminate artificers, and was a very influential policy- reservation record in itself. It was a movement that consisted of various artists and general public alike, who only fought for the same things, equality, womens liberation and womens rights. Artists that made more than their fair sh are of political statements through their art were the likes Ghada Amer and Barbara Kruger. The burns that they addressed were ideologies commonly held in society, and were issues that they intend to pitch. In this case, the ch all in allenging task that the artists dealt with in the following workings, is the issue of equality mingled with potents and feminines, through examining the issue of the pre overabundant manlike contemplate - declare all end-to-end Feminist art history. In La Jaune, 1999, Ghada Amer addresses the idea of the male watch, and the theatrical performance of the female person identity. With We rule Play temper to Your Culture, 1983, Barbara Kruger uses direct address exploring the gendering focussing of looking, and focusing on the prevalent male gaze and works to party favour the female gaze.Most Feminist Political theory, in contrast, sees women and their situation as central to political analysis it asks why it is that in virtually all kat oncen societies men appear to restrain more place and favor than women, and how this skunk be changed.The issues that feminist artists fight for have been around for many an(prenominal) centuries, but only up until the 1960s had it truly been have it offd. Although during the years 1850 to 1914 had the front official wave of womens liberation movement occurred, the feminist movement gave look to several(prenominal) woman activists part taking in the political actions performed by all female organizations scanning across the globe, that also gave way to the three -then- impertinently founded, very influential groups of woman who protested and demanded there be equality betwixt men and woman in all aspects of life. First to be acknowledged are the Suffragettes, who triggered off other woman movements campaigning for womens suffrage, namely the national sum total of Womans Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), and from the rights movement in 1848, the Womans Social and Political Union (WSPU), (McQuiston, 1997, p. 18). These political groups utilize manual muss production of political posters in articulate to spread their messages, and like the discussed works of Amer and Kruger, their artworks addressed the gendering way of looking, (King, 1992, p. 135). In saying that, these are works of the two artists that are primarily touch with patriarchy in the viewing of th eir artworks to do with the representation of the female identity, and what they can do to change this gendering way of looking.It wasnt until the social revolution of the 1960s occurred, and at bottom it the second wave of feminism, that woman themselves once again used converse media and other innovative formats to produce their own visual and verbal messages for womens liberation. (McQuiston, 1997, p. 19)Barbara Kruger is peerless of the more acknowledged female artists that do this use visual, and verbal messages to pass along their ideas. All throughout the three waves of feminism, the male gaze has remained a dominant universal issue, intensifying through out the years through that of bluff statements made by artists like Barbara Kruger herself. The concept of the gendering way of looking became a visual construct through the way the male visual ideology treats woman as an object of art to secure the artist as primarily male (King, 1992, p. 135).Whilst some feminists have argued to be included in malestream ideologies, many have also long argued that women are in historic respects both different from and superior to men, and that the problem they face is non discrimination or capitalism but male power.(Bryson, 2003, p. 3) with the artwork, We Wont Play Nature to your Culture, 1983, Barbara Kruger straight access codees the concept of the dominant male power and redirects this power to favor the female audience. She communicates her belief in refuting the idea of men beingness the producer of culture, and women merely being a product of nature. This is on the dot what the visually imagery and text in this work demands, and her direct approach in attempting to do so will let us capture that Jacques Ranciere would agree -that Krugers use of text would be effective in this situation- as he once stated One must recognize that the startle tool used to subjugate another is also the first peachy equalizer Language. (Chan, 2007, p. 260). Put simply, Krugers approach to reach equality in the gendering way of looking has placed both male and female viewers in a place of lesser patriarchy, but further favors the female gaze through her bold statement We -meaning women- Wont Play Nature to your Culture.The concomitant that men still had greater power to look (Allen, 1992, p.5), had Kruger responding with We Wont Play Nature to your Culture, directly addressing the female audience, instilling the female point of view with more validation in comparison to that of the male gaze. This then shows the attempt that Kruger is fashioning to change the concept of the gendering way of looking, and instead of catering to male gaze, she indirectly does this, but in favor of that of the female gaze, thus giving females the control condition in spectatorship. It has an immediate, emotional impact. It can be interpreted as prop a complex comment on the place of scenario and representation in male-female relations under patriarchy. She builds on the feminist analysis of representation as political (Mulvey, 2009, p. 134).In saying that, Krugers use of the female figure in this work embodies very strong political statements, as stated by Catherine King -in other words, but to the same effect-, where although Kruger is directly addressing the male audience, in We Wont Play Nature to your Culture, she has in turn privileged the female audience and given them primacy of spectatorship, whom presumably share the same views as the artist herself (King, 1992, p. 187). Therefore, directly approaching the concept of patriarchy, and reverses its place in the viewing of this work. In doing so, also addresses the way in which male representations of women, to single-foot for nature commence away womens ability to see in their own right. This image reverses the advertizing tricks used in designs that are aimed at the female consumer. and as a result, now favors the female gaze (King, 1992, p. 187).One of womens greatest instruments f or visual shock has been the female body itself, assigned political status for the first time by the Womens Liberation Movement in the 1960s. As the female body had been so often stigmatized, exploited in the misogyny, women suddenly took a firm stand and began to use their bodies to make political statements.(McQuiston, 1997, p. 14)Although she wasnt a feminist artist so to speak, Ghada Amers work, La Jaune, 1999, speaks loudly to the ideologies that feminist artists held, namely the concept of addressing the male gaze. by this work, she works to communicate, and challenges us to rethink the way in which women are equal in society. Amer asks us to rethink the issue of presenting female knowledgeableity in the media by focusing on a cultural aspect of the westward world -extracting pornographic imagery from sex industry magazines and representing them in copied and traced images (Aurricchio, 2001, p. 27). By doing this, Amer directly addresses the idea of the male gaze through p resenting women as sexual objects, as men still had greater power to look (Allen, 1992, p.5).The 1990s have witnessed an ongoing battle against oppressive representations of women in the media, as well as new examples of women using their bodies to create their own power-messages for political causes.(McQuiston, 1997, p. 172)In response to the degradation of the representation of females as sexual objects, Amer is concerned with this being an issue in dire need of thinky. The idea that women, and the images of women, are constructed in order to be looked at by men -and was constructed with theories in art history, in particular those about the female nude- was an idea that Amer sought to change (Allen, 1992, p. 4). So in saying that, Amers work is a direct attempt at make women prime viewers, and make it impossible for the dominant ideologies -such as the male gaze- of feminism to recuperate. figures are repeated of a female in a provokingly arousing position as if to show that a typically female pastime was literally playing with itself. An endless chain of masturbating women, veiled by a mass of cotton as if attempting to evade the viewers voyeuristic gaze.(Grosenick, 2001, p.30)Amers work soft manifests itself and comes into being when you as the viewer come to the realization that the art works is not just tangled colored cotton, but that youre staring at a painting of embroidered provocative female figures. It comes in and out of being as its cotton veil brings our perspectives as the audience, in and out of focus, acknowledging the expertise of the maker in the application of the materials unvarnished in the work, then to acknowledge the imagery. Thus, instead of submitting to the male gaze, our attention as the viewer is redirected and aimed at acknowledging the making of the work itself and the craftsmanship of the artist.Amers approach to the idea of reclaiming female pleasure- and in turn, intending to change the idea of the predominant male g aze- prevents the viewer from subjecting to the common ideologies that this work was intended to change, the ideology that women are suppose to make themselves passively receptive, and men are supposed to seek out their pleasures. (King, 1992, p. 136).The idea of reclaiming female pleasure embeds itself in La Jaune, and the two levels on which Amer interprets pleasure help to convey this concept. As seen evident in the work is the physical pleasure, which is made to appeal to the male gaze, and reclaiming the feminine activity of sewing through the embroidery also evident in La Jaune. Although the representation of the female figure is displayed as an titillating object of desire (Grosenick, 2001, p.35), the veil of cotton that partially hides the imagery helps to conduce the viewers attention evade the concept of sexuality and the work becomes a purely busy, colourful painting.Politically speaking, the works by these two very different influential female artists speak to the univ ersally held ideology of the predominant gendering way of looking, addressing the concept of the male gaze through the representation of the female identity. The concept of giving female perspective dominance over that of the male gaze is the main objective of the selected works that have been discussed in this essay. Through Ghada Amers, La Jaune, 1999, she reclaimed the idea of female pleasure, acknowledged the male gaze and commented on the degradation of the female identity through her attempt to recover it. Barbara Kruger, We Wont Play Nature to Your Culture, 1983, did what all feminists tried to accomplish, she created art that directly addressed the issue of the gendering way of looking, and gave privilege to the female gaze above the validation of the predominant male gaze.