Art Theory - S2 week 12 -

MORE RESEARCH TO FURTHER INVESTIGATE THE FEMALE AND MALE GAZE WITHIN ART AND GENDER

https://www.academia.edu/16833314/The_art_of_Hannah_Wilke_Feminist_Narcissism_and_the_reclamation_of_the_erotic_body?email_work_card=view-paper

The art of Hannah Wilke: ‘Feminist Narcissism’ and the reclamation of the erotic body.
Jennifer Linton (Linton, N.D.)

"American artist Hannah Wilke was frequently attacked and dismissed by art critics as being indulgent exercises innarcissism that only served to reinforce the objectification of the female body"

"According to Freud, the self-love of narcissism is a normal complementto the development of a healthy ego. 2 Whereas a certain amount of narcissism isdesirable, an excess of self-love is considered dysfunctional and indicative of pathology. 3"

""Assimilating the visual language of the objectified female body, Wilkeemployed her own eroticized body as a metaphorical mirror that she then held up to reflect back the sexual projections of male desire. This act of reflection enabled Wilketo to sever her passive (and traditionally female) receptiveness of this male projection and assert her own erotic will."

"The consciously sexualized self-objectification of Wilke and the use of her own body as a “professional currency” 14 often elicited harsh criticism from the ranks of feminism, an ideology to which she actively subscribed"

"Wilke was not the only woman artist of her generation to use her own body in a consciously sexualized manner, nor was she the only artist to engage with narcissism as a feminist tactic."

"Women artists of the late 1960s and 1970s, such as Schneemann and Wilke, often engaged in the feminist project of reclaiming the female body from previous male privilege. Centuries of depiction by exclusively male artists had rendered the female nude a dehumanized, neutral object"

"The reclamation of the female body from the privileged control by male artists was the primary motivation behind Wilke’s photographic diptych entitled
 I OBJECT: Memoirs of a Sugargiver "

Very good read, as it discusses more than just one bit of her artworks and how her works are a different type of feminism and are very controversial because of the fact it eas very modern and ahead of its time. Her works were very interesting and intriguing as they are quite similar to mine and very upfront and to the point which can make others uncomfortable because of how it can confronting which a lot of people don't like because they don't like to be confronted with negative things and chose to ignore it or brush it off. Though when confronted by it people usually

https://www.academia.edu/17616942/Gender_differences?email_work_card=view-paper

Gender differences (B, N.D.)

"In eastern industrialized societies such as the united states, people tend to think of masculinity and femininity in dichotomous terms, with men and women distinctly different and opposites"

"gender sociologically reveals the social and cultural dimensions something that is often denied as biologically fixed. Gender is not biologically fixed at all, but rather is culturally learned and is something that can and often does change over time"

"how much o a person's gender identity, among other things, is due to their biological makeup nature and how much is due to their social surroundings and the way they are brought up nurture. From a sociological perspective, biology alone does not determine gender identity, but rather it is a mixture of biology and socialisation"

"women as disadvantaged because of power inequalities between women and men that are built into the social structure ... men's historic power to devalue women as work and benet as a group from the services that women as labor provides"

"position of women in society for the sole purpose of improving their position in society. 'here are four major frameworks that have developed out of feminist theory, liberal feminism, socialist feminism, radical feminism, and multiracial feminism. out there are feminisms, not labels."

"gender inequality results from past traditions that pose barriers to women's advancement. It emphasizes individual rights and equal opportunity as the basis for social -justice and reform. socialist feminists, on the other hand, argue that the origin of women's oppression lies with the system of capitalism. because women are a cheap supply of labor, they are exploited by capitalism, which makes them less powerful both as women and as workers"

This was a fantastic read and would defiantly recommend to others who are interested in researching about gender

https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/defining-the-female-gaze

"Emily Nussbaum writes skeptically of the female gaze as “the notion that the camera lens, which has been trained to ogle and dominate, can change, in female hands, launching a radical new aesthetic.” Seeking out film and TV that boasts this gaze" (Khanna, 2019)

"To zero in on what the female gaze actually is, it’s necessary to first understand its roots in (and opposition to) the male gaze. Laura Mulvey, the film theorist who coined the term in her 1975 essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” pointed out that, “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive female.” The male gaze centers the heterosexual male as the default subject—the one who looks—and defines women as the objects of that vision—the one who is looked at." (Khanna, 2019)

"In theory, a female gaze serves to reverse this way of looking, with a woman as the default subject and men as objects. But here’s where it gets tricky: The male gaze isn’t a cinematic invention, but a natural outgrowth of real-world societal and cultural structures that use female objectification to concentrate power in the hands of men. Women objectifying men has neither the power nor the menace of the male gaze." (Khanna, 2019)

"Defining the female gaze requires understanding why the male gaze is so objectionable in the first place. In lazy cultural criticism, a critique of the male gaze regularly begins and ends with an assessment of how sexualized its female characters are. And while is certainly a critical part of defining the male gaze, rote sexualization is only a symptom of the larger problem. What centers the male gaze is the notion of an “objectifying vision,” a term coined by philosopher Alia Al-Saji. This theoretical innovation refers to a way of seeing that determinedly focuses on “only what can be observed and measured, what can come to count as an object.” For the male gaze to really see a woman, she must be an object with no history, agency, or inner world." (Khanna, 2019)

https://theculturetrip.com/europe/articles/the-female-gaze-the-contemporary-artists-who-took-back-female-identity-in-art/

"The experience of being a woman, particularly that of being a female artist in a male-dominated field, is a major subject of Judy Chicago’s work. Though probably best known for her large-scale banquet installation The Dinner Party (1974-79), which commemorates 39 important women in history, the influential artist has created an important body of work in the past four decades, including designs of female anatomy spray-painted on car bonnets, Bigamy Hood (1965/2011), and Birth Project (1980-85), which involved Chicago working with over 150 needleworkers to realise a positive portrayal of childbirth. Always challenging the status quo, Chicago’s work continues to celebrate women’s freedom of expression and respond to the lack of acknowledgement of women in our cultural history." (Barnes, 2019)

https://frieze.com/article/female-gaze

"‘The Female Gaze: Women Look at Women’ attempted a tricky double manoeuvre, aiming to interrogate both the phenomenon of the male gaze, and the theoretical discourse that has identified and surrounded it. In the years since Laura Mulvey’s seminal essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ (1975), the notion of the male gaze has become an integral part of cultural theory and art practice." (Kitamura, 2009)

"representation of women by other women is as fraught with the dynamics of power as the representation of women by men. If the exhibition began with Mulvey’s premise that ‘pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female’, it went on to draw from cultural critic Wendy Steiner to question the degree to which the viewed object is always already identified as essentially female, and the subject (viewer) as essentially male." (Kitamura, 2009)

" male gaze is present or not, the phallocentric mindset was everywhere in the work. Pieces such as Maria Lassnig’s Girl With Wine Glass (1971) or Lisa Yuskavage’s Heart (1996–7) depict the female nude in various positions of repose, erotic pleasure and vulnerability. The works refer to a long art historical tradition and tread upon the territory traditionally prescribed by the male gaze" (Kitamura, 2009)

https://theartgorgeous.com/three-fresh-takes-female-gaze/

"The “female gaze” was coined in response to film theorist Laura Mulvey’s 1973 essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Mulvey didn’t actually use the term “female gaze,” but she did speak out against what she called the “male gaze” in Hitchcock’s Rear Mirror: a pervy, objectifying lens that turns women into sex objects to be dominated and consumed. Under the male gaze, the woman becomes “the bearer of meaning and not the maker of meaning,” according to Mulvey—a passive object and not an active subject. The male gaze denies its subjects their individuality and their humanity." (Lopatko, 2019)

"The opposite of the male gaze is what we call the female gaze: an empathetic, empowering gaze that emphasizes the subject’s agency and rich internal landscape. In the art world, we mostly hear “female gaze” in reference to the new wave of contemporary feminist art, typically photography but not always." (Lopatko, 2019)

"The female gaze doesn’t have to be about sex, but like most things in our culture, it usually is. Brighton-based contemporary artist, Helen Beard doesn’t shy away from the graphic details of sex and sexuality. Quite the opposite: she blows them up and paints them in neon. Her paintings, and recently, sculpture, aims to question body ideals, promote body positivity and celebrate female and queer pleasure." (Lopatko, 2019)

https://www.vulture.com/2018/08/how-do-we-define-the-female-gaze-in-2018.html

"What is the female gaze, then? It’s emotional and intimate. It sees people as people. It seeks to empathize rather than to objectify. (Or not.) It’s respectful, it’s technical, it hasn’t had a chance to develop, it tells the truth, it involves physical work, it’s feminine and unashamed, it’s part of an old-fashioned gender binary, it should be studied and developed, it should be destroyed, it will save us, it will hold us back. The female cinematographers involved in the project have as many opinions on the female gaze and its helpfulness (or lack thereof) as you might expect from a group of talented, thoughtful, highly trained people who are more than just “female cinematographers.” Here’s what a few of them have to say about how they see the world from behind their cameras." (Telfer, 2018)(

Jill Soloway on The Female Gaze | MASTER CLASS | TIFF 2016

(Jill Aoloway on The Female Gaze | MASTER CLASS | TIFF 2016, 2016)

"the female gaze might be a way of feeling... what could be thought of as a subjected camera that attempts to get inside the protagonis"

"It uses the frame to shear and evoke a feeling of being in feeling rather than looking at the character"

"the first female gaze... where you say I can tell a woman directed this because I feel held by something that is invested in my feeling in my body that my emotions are being prioritized over the actions"

quotes Hannah Wilke art-making in 1976 - I am concerned with the creation of formal imagery that is specifically female a language the fuses mind and body into erotic objects that are namable and at the same time quite abstract the content is always related to my own body and feelings reflecting pleasure as well as pain the ambiguity and complexity of emotions human gestures and multi-layered metaphysical symbols below the gut-level translated into an art that is close to laughter.

female gaze part of reclaiming the body using it as a tool on set with the intention to communicate a feeling  seeing

Part two... female gaze uses the camera to take on the very nuanced and occasionally taking the impossible task on showing us how it feels to be the object of the gaze.

part of the female gaze is a social-political justice  demanding of art-making... empathy machines"

"female gaze is not a camera trick it is a privilege generator its storytelling to get you on somebody's side, it says you will be on my side on my camera on my script my words... I want people to see the female gaze is a conscious effort to make empathy a political tool"

" you haven't been able to be in your body because you have been the object of the gaze your whole life is a sort of paralysis... silent rage when you release... amount of cis male artist have been telling their stories that work like propaganda to teach us how to behave"

"political platform the female gaze it wants to call out how awful it has been to be offered access to succeed at being seen "

"female gaze wants to call out how the male gaze divides us... divided feminine.. men divide us for their storyline they divided us so they can tell stories about us to other men so they call us Manonda and the Whore. They say the one I want to marry and the one I want to fuck."     

http://www.composingdigitalmedia.org/f15_mca/mca_reads/mulvey.pdf
What we know Male Gaze - Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.”

“In a world order by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female”  (Mulvey, 1975)

“Female gaze projects it's fantasy onto the female figure.. Women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visuals and erotic impact”(Mulvey, 1975)

“Women displayed as a sexual object is the leit-motiff of etrotic spetical: from pin-up to strip-trease” (Mulvey, 1975)

“The presents of woman is an indispensable element of spectacle in more narrative film, yet her visual presence tends to work against the development of the story line, to freeze the flow of action in moments in etrotics contemplations”   (Mulvey, 1975)


REFERENCES

B, A. (N.D.). Gender difference. [online] Academia.edu. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/17616942/Gender_differences?email_work_card=view-paper [Accessed 14 Oct. 2019].

Barnes, F. (2019). The Female Gaze: The Contemporary Artists Who Took Back Female Identity in Art. [online] Culture Trip. Available at: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/articles/the-female-gaze-the-contemporary-artists-who-took-back-female-identity-in-art/ [Accessed 14 Oct. 2019].

Jill Soloway on The Female Gaze | MASTER CLASS | TIFF 2016. (2016). [video] Toronto: Toronto International Film Festival.

Khanna, M. (2019). Gazed and Confused. [online] Bitch Media. Available at: https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/defining-the-female-gaze [Accessed 14 Oct. 2019].

Kitamura, K. (2009). The Female Gaze. [online] Frieze. Available at: https://frieze.com/article/female-gaze [Accessed 14 Oct. 2019].

Linton, J. (N.D.). The art of Hannah Wilke: ‘Feminist Narcissism’ and the reclamation of the erotic body.. [online] Academia.edu. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/16833314/The_art_of_Hannah_Wilke_Feminist_Narcissism_and_the_reclamation_of_the_erotic_body?email_work_card=view-paper [Accessed 14 Oct. 2019].

Lopatko, K. (2019). Three fresh takes on the female gaze. [online] The Art Gorgeous. Available at: https://theartgorgeous.com/three-fresh-takes-female-gaze/ [Accessed 14 Oct. 2019].
Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Screen, 16(3)

Takac, B. (2018). Judy Chicago's Birth Project is Born Again in Pasadena. [online] Widewalls. Available at: https://www.widewalls.ch/judy-chicago-birth-project-pasadena-museum/ [Accessed 14 Oct. 2019].

Telfer, T. (2018). How Do We Define the Female Gaze in 2018?. [online] Vulture. Available at: https://www.vulture.com/2018/08/how-do-we-define-the-female-gaze-in-2018.html [Accessed 14 Oct. 2019].


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