The Female Identity- Post 4

                Exploring the female identity is not contained to one culture, class, religion or generation. These female artists have explored their place in society as well as the art world through various techniques. Mixed media, painting and photography serve as the platform for which they explore gendered identity.  Each woman’s work is a unique expression of her anguish, rage, joy, confusion, etc. at her own interpretation of the female identity, her identity, and societal constructs of it.

courtesy of bandagear.com

              Georgia O’Keefe (b.1887) is best known as the female painter at the forefront of modernism. Her work spans over 70 years, having her first solo exhibition at Gallery 291 in 1917.  She was inspired to delve into abstraction after reading Kandinsky’s On the Spiritual in Art. Although her work never reached full abstraction she played with the flatness of the canvas and the precision of forms. This can be seen in works ranging from Calla Lilies, 1923 to Radiator Building, 1927.

Alfred Steiglitz, Untitled, 1920
Courtesy of .paulfraisercollectables.com

                O’Keefe is also identified by her association with a man and what his images of her impressed on people. Alfred Steiglitz, her partner, took over 300 portrait and nude images of her over two decades. These images degraded O’Keeffe to an object, a muse, and just a woman. Her work was constantly scrutinized and compared to the male artist, Hartley stated there was a “feminine perception and feminine powers of expression” (Chadwick, 306), making her not an artist first and foremost but a female first and artist second. O’Keefe’s paintings were often ‘read’ into because of her gender and the ideological constructions of a woman, turning a flower into a vulva and a building into a penis.

                Barbara Kruger (b 1945) uses graphics and mass media to comment on issues of female identity. Kruger appropriates images, often of female archetypes, placing text on top of the image to comment on the female identity through a masculine lens. The text is confrontational and ironic, speaking in the voice of the woman with the male gaze upon her. This commentary can be seen in Untitled (Your gaze…) 1981.

                Drawing from her private experiences and viewpoints Kruger creates statement pieces for the female collective. “Making art is about objectifying your experience of the world, transforming the flow of movements into something visual, or textual or musical. Art creates a kind of commentary.”(Taschen, 187) Pieces like Untitled (I shop therefore I am) point out our dependence on consumer culture.” For some people, shopping has turned into a lifestyle consuming at our leisure. Some feel that, the power of consumption is stopping us from finding true and sincere happiness…” (West 2010)

Kruger, Untitled (I shop therefore I am) 1987

                Anita Dube (b 1958) uses many mediums to address the female identity. Drawing for her formal education as an art historian and critic her pieces are conceptual and fluid. Her piece Woman , 2007,is made of paraffin wax and wicks. She created the word “woman” out of the wax and let it burn throughout the show, constantly being effected by the environment. One article states “The notion of womanhood as a candle that is gradually extinguishing its own existence through the act of burning is a powerful one to digest.” (D’Mello)

Dube Woman , 2007

 Dube has also created an alter identity to address her own issues of gender within her Indian culture. Noor, her alter ego, is man and through him she is free to articulate problematic “performative gestures in culture as well as activism-Anita Dube” (Sternberger, pg. 97) she records him as part of her video installation. It portrays  the nine ‘rasas’ ( ‘sentiments’ in Indian aesthetics, the characteristic qualities of literature, drama and music) Throughout the video Noor transforms from friendly to aggressive and open minded to tradition. As a female artists in India she is hyper aware of societal constructs and Noor enables her freedom to speak.

Currently on exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum is Wangechi Mutu (b 1972), whom through mixed media addresses the identity of the black female body. She specifically explores the eroticization of the black female body through the figures she creates. The figures are fantastical but recognizable. They are both sharp and soft in depicting the female body using a variety of tools from plastic pearls and ink to paint and felt she creates collages and installations that speak to her heritage as a woman, a Kenyan and a citizen of the world.

Her large scale females as seen in The Bride Who Married a Camel’s Head 2009and People in Glass Towers Should Not Imagine Us 2003 are otherworldly and distinctive. They both contain animal prints in them, possibly a reference to her African heritage, and beautiful feminine curves, indicative of the typically thought of black female body. But both females are semi naked and postured in aggressive manners. These stances could be seen as an association of black females as an “other”.

Tejal Shah addresses the female identity through queer framework. Shah uses photography, performance and media in her work to address issues of desire, transgender, fantasy,religion and politics. As an Indian artist she uses her culture prominently in her pieces. In Southern Siren - Maheshwari, 2006 Shah portrays Maheshwari who is male by birth but identifies with the female gender identity. She places him in a romantic bollywoodesque dance sequence, combining popular culture and the female lead. Shah’s work addresses what makes a woman a woman? Is it more than just having a vagina?

 Maheshwari, 2006
courtesy of Brooklynmuseum.org 

These five women are all artists that have and are pushing the boundaries on gender identification.  From O’Keefe trying to be more than just a muse and seen through the lens of being a female to Shah questioning the essence of identifying as a female, each woman has made a contribution in breaking boundaries. The female gender identity is not only a woman’s issue it is a man’s issue and spans across cultures, age, class and race.

http://artworld101.independentplymouth.info/barbara-kruger/

http://www.cornerhouse.org/film/cinema-listings/indian-video-art-between-myth-and-history

http://nasher.duke.edu/mutu/art.php

http://www.naturemorte.com/artists/anita-dube/artist-cv/

Artwork
of
the
Week:
“Woman,”
Anita
Dube by Rosalyn D'Mello ‘Blouin Artinfo’ Published: June 16, 2013

Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. London: Thames & Hudson, 2002. Print.

Grosenick, Uta, and Ilka Becker. Women Artists in the 20th and 21st Century. Köln: Taschen, 2005. Print.

Sinha, Gayatri, Brian Drolet, Barbara London, Suketu Mehta, and Paul Spencer. Sternberger. India: Public Places, Private Spaces. Newark N.J: Newark Museum, 2007. Print.