Feminist Body Art
Hannah Wilke, Marxism
and Art: Beware of Fascist
Feminism, 1974-77
Carolee Schneeman,
(left) Eye Body: 36
Transformative
Actions 1963, paint,
glue, fur, feathers,
garden snakes, glass,
plastic with the studio
installation "Big
Boards."
Carolee Schneeman, Meat Joy 1964
Judson Church, NYC. Group performance: raw fish, chickens, sausages, wet paint,
plastic, rope, shredded scrap paper: (right) Interior Scroll, 1975
Yoko Ono (Japan, b. 1933) Cut Piece, performance, 1964 (Japan)
and (right)1965 (NYC,Carnegie Hall)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3dsvy_yoko-ono-cut-piece_shortfilms
Shigeko Kubota (American b. Japan, 1937) Vagina Painting,
performance, July 4th, 1965, New York City, Perpetual Fluxus Festival
(paint brush attached to crotch of underpants)
Ana Mendieta (b Havana, 1948; d New York,1985),
Untitled (Facial Hair Transplants), 1972
compare Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair, 1946
Ana Mendieta, Untitled (Death of a Chicken), 1972
compare Hermann Nitsch, Viennese Actionism, First Action, 1962
Carl Andre, Equivalent VIII, 1966
Ana Mendieta, Untitled
(People Looking at Blood), 1973
Ana Mendieta, Untitled (Body Tracks), 1975
"I am overwhelmed by the feeling
of having been cast from the
womb (nature). My art is the way I
re-establish the bonds that unite
me to the universe."
- Mendieta
Mendieta, Untitled (Blood &
Feathers), 1974
Mendieta, (left) Maroya (Moon), 1982 / (right) Untitled (Silueta Series, Iowa), 1979
Mendieta, Silueta, 1979
Hannah Wilke, Starification Object Series, 1975, chewing gum objects on
artist’s body, done as performance with gum chewed by audience and as
performative self-portraits with Les Wollan (male photographer) one of 35
black and white photographs in the Mastication Box, a game box with
photographs, chewing gum sculptures, playing cards, instructions for play
Hannah Wilke, Starification Object Series, 1975:
Pretty woman, femme fatale trickster – seduction and repulsion
advertisement
Hannah Wilke, Starification Object Series, chewing gum collage,1975, 33x26,” Postminimal, conceptual, erotic humor
Hannah Wilke, So Help Me Hannah:
What Does This Represent / What Do
You Represent, 1978. Performance
photograph by Donald Goddard,
husband
François Boucher, Leda and the
Swan, c. 1740, Oil on canvas
Hannah Wilke, February 19, 1992, #6 Intra-Venus Series, photographs taken in
collaboration with the artist’s husband, Donald Goddard, documenting the deterioration of
her body from fatal lymphoma
Judy Chicago (US. B. 1939), The Dinner Party, 1974 to 1979, collaborative
mixed media (ceramic, porcelain, textile) installation depicting (life size) place
settings for 39 famous women (mythical and historical). Brooklyn Museum,
New York, USA.
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/home.php
Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party (Sojourner Truth place setting),1974–79, mixed media:
ceramic, porcelain, textile. Brooklyn Museum
Mary Kelly (US b.1941), Postpartum Document, 1973-79. (left) A 1999 installation
drawings, graphs and charts, objects and sound recordings. Post-Partum Document,
Documentation IV: transitional objects, diary and diagram, 1976. (Post Minimal,
Post Conceptual) Feminist
Marina Abramovic (b. 1946, Belgrade, Yugoslavia), “grandmother of performance art”
(top left) photograph of Rhythm O, performance ,1977. Compare Yoko Ono, Cut Piece,
performance, 1964. (below) Abramovic, Art Must Be Beautiful, 1975, 4 video stills
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOuzzzltSOA
Marina Abramovic and Ulay (Uwe Laysiepen), (left) Rest Energy, video with audio of
heart beats, 1980
(right) Imponderabilia, performance at museum entrance, 1978
Abramovic, Balkan Baroque, 1997, Venice Biennale, Golden Lion Award
"I'm only interested in an art which can change the ideology of society...Art which is only
committed to aesthetic values in incomplete...I don't defend anyone, neither the Serbs nor
the Bosnians nor the Croats...I'm trying to deal with my own emotions, for example with this
tremendous feeling of shame which I have about this war. As an artist, you can only deal
with what there is inside you. I'm making this play because it is the only way to react
emotionally to the war."
Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present
March 14–May 31, 2010
Museum of Modern Art, New York
http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/965
http://www.moma.org/explore/multimedia/videos/96/577
(left) Joseph Beuys, How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, 1965, Dusseldorf
(right) Marina Abramovic, How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, 2005, Guggenheim
Museum
Sanja Ivekovic (Croatian, b. 1949), Make Up-Make Down, 1978 video
Read review of Ivekovic’s 2011-2012 show at NYC MoMA
on course website under “Readings”
Sanja Ivekovic, Lady Rosa of Luxembourg, 2001, 2011-12 exhibition view,Museum of
Modern Art
Sanja Ivekovic's "Women's House (Sunglasses)," from 2004
Sanja Ivekovic's "Women's House (Sunglasses)," from 2004. NYC MoMA 12/30/2011
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/12/22/arts/design/100000001234811/sanjaivekovics-personal-cuts-1982.html
Janine Antoni, Loving Care, 1993, Installation view at Anthony
D'Offay Gallery, London. The artist soaked her hair in hair dye and
mopped the floor with it.
I mopped the floor with my
hair…The reason I’m so
interested in taking my body to
those extreme places is that
that’s a place where I learn,
where I feel most in my body.
I’m really interested in the
repetition, the discipline, and
what happens to me
psychologically when I put my
body to that extreme place.”
— Janine Antoni
Janine Antoni, Gnaw, 1992, Three part installation. Chocolate: 600 lbs. of chocolate
gnawed by the artist; lard: 600 lbs. of lard gnawed by the artist; display: 130 Lipsticks
made with pigment, beeswax, and chewed lard removed from the lard cube; 27 Heartshaped packages made from chewed chocolate removed from the chocolate cube.
"With Gnaw I was thinking about traditional sculpture, about carving. I was also interested in
figurative sculpture. I put those two ideas together and decided that rather than describing
the body, I would use the body, my body, as a tool for making art.“
- Janine Antoni
Janine Antoni, Gnaw, installation
Janine Antoni, Lick and Lather, 1993, 7 soap and 7 chocolate self-portrait
busts, 24 x 16 x 13 inches each
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/antoni/clip1.html#