The Role of Feminist Art in 20 Century - Essay Example

The role of feminist art in the twentieth century Introduction The modern art in it present kind was generated on the boundary 1960s - 1970s. Art searches of that time can be characterized as searches of alternatives to modernism. Frequently it poured out in its denying through introduction principles opposite to modernism. It was expressed in searches of new images, new means and materials of expression, down to dematerialisation of an object (performances and happenings). It is possible to say that there was a shift from an object to a process. The most appreciable phenomena of the boundary of 1960s and 1970s years can be named the development of conceptual art and minimalism. In 1970s the social orientation of the art-process both from the point of view of the content (themes raised by artists in the works of their creativity), and the structure has noticeably amplified. The most appreciable phenomenon of the middle of 1970s has become feminism in art. So let us consider the role of feminism in the art of the twentieth century. Feminism is a social-political movement, which purpose is granting to women all variety of the civil rights. In a broad sense it is an aspiration to equality of women with men in all spheres of a society's life. In narrow sense feminism is a women's movement, which purpose is elimination of discrimination of women and their equation in the rights with men. Feminism has arisen in the eighteenth century, but it became especially active since the end of 1960s. Especially since the late 1960s, when the feminist art movement can be said to have emerged, women have been particularly interested in what makes them different from males - what makes women artists and their art different from male artists and their art. This has been most prominent in the United States, Britain, and Germany, although there are numerous precursors to the movement, and it has spread to many other cultures since the 1970s1. The role of feminist art in the twentieth century The role of a woman art began to be discussed approximately since the first quarter of the nineteenth century, but the most intensive discussion concerns to the end of the nineteenth - to the beginning of the twentieth century. Both in those years and later even just the right to existence of this issue, not speaking about using concepts "female literature", "female creativity", "female history " etc. had been often called into a question, had been laughed at and denied. The main thing and they believe weighty and incontestable argument of opponents of using these definitions is the thesis: the art can be only good or bad, and no other aspects of consideration and the analysis can be. And especially the art cannot be male or female; it cannot be divided according to a sexual attribute. The first comprehensive, historical exhibition to examine the international foundations and legacy of feminist art, WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution focuses on the crucial period 1965-1980, during which the majority of feminist activism and art-making occurred internationally. The exhibition includes the work of 120 artists from the United States, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Comprising work in a broad range of media-including painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, and performance art-the exhibition is organized around themes based on media, geography, formal concerns, collective aesthetic, and political impulses2. In the art of feminist-women there is a destruction of an image of the woman as a gentle, fine, full of love and giving a life essence. Aggression and sexuality of these characters with which the author is inevitably identified, causes a shock. Not a fine woman, captivating with her nakedness, but some fury appears in the form of a picture, a photo, installation, a model. It frightens a man, as a viewer by definition is a man. For him she creates. Eros of these Venus does not give a birth of a new life. Not dedication, but destroying and castration waits for the dared one, who will come nearer. And departed ones in fear and confusion will get the eternal impotence and malicious memoirs. It enters into an art plan - castration of the man, "taken hold" Culture, revenge of the Nature in the form of the woman mischievously listening advertising about instant treatment of a prostatitis by means of next miracle-means. Because when men are absent (send away on war, work, and drink with friends) the woman undertakes art and then - those men who had not left - look out! The great role was played by Frida Khalo. Frida is a Mexican women artist, who has become a symbol of surrealism of the twenties century for many people. The most of her paintings are with self-portraits, in which surrealism is mixed up with symbolism of American Indian mythology of pre-Spanish period. Bright colours, the absence of perspective, precise silhouettes, images of birds and animals, all this speaks about the strong influence of Mexican art on the artist. Frida felt herself as the successor of ancient culture. Various national costumes, necklaces, earrings, bracelets with Aztec symbols, complex Mexican hair-dresses with flowers and multi-coloured cords are present not only in her paintings; they are a style of her life. As a matter of fact art was not the only important thing in life of Frida. She has also been involved in political issues of her epoch. Let us consider her political role back in the era. Doy states that however Kahlo was not just concerned with female self-image in her activities, she was also a political activist, and a tendency to ignore this has not helped develop an analysis of Kahlo's work which would attempt to relate her political views and activities to her presentation of herself as a Mexican, a woman and an artist3. Frida was a communist. She has entered the Mexican Communist Party in 1928, but in a year has left it on the morrow of excluded Diego Rivera. And in ten years true to her ideological beliefs, she has entered Communist Party again. In her house on book-shelves were the dog-eared volumes of Marx, Lenin, Stalin's works, next to them Zinovyev, published in 1943 in Mexico City, ready at hand Grossman's publicism devoted to Great Patriotic War, and absolutely unexpected "Genetics in the USSR". In her bedroom, in a head of the bed, hung big portraits of founders of Marxism-Leninism and their most gifted followers. In particular, there was Mao Tse-tung in beautiful wooden frame, the increased photo of Lenin, who performed from a tribune on the Red Square before Red Army men leaving to the front. She has also had not finished portrait of Stalin. The leader is represented severe, with his eyebrows knitted, in white full-dress coat, with one golden marshal shoulder-strap. The second strap Frida had no time to finish... Her personal diary was filled not only with declarations of love for Diego but also with assurances of her faith in the Communist Party: "I am a communist," she wrote. "I clearly understand the materialist dialectics of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse ' I love them as pillars of the new communist world"4. So as we see the female artist of the twentieth century is not just an artist, who creates some aggressive towards men images, but also in the first instance a thinking essence, who does care the social and political environment she lives in. Conclusion The question, which have been asked more than thirty years ago by Linda Nochlin on pages of article in ARTnews, "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists' - Today, apparently, has lost its topicality. At least the answer offered by her has lost it: modern women-artists already do not have discount for social discrimination, and they are compelled to answer before eternity at the same way their colleagues men are. Moreover, there is an impression that women possess even some odds before men, and in their rehabilitation even obvious excesses are observed. The practised eye can easily reveal in any present big international exhibition a sort of female quota (though official data on this account are not present). Unfortunately, frequently in this quota get frankly "tactical" works on the theme of feminism. But it is, so to say, production costs. As a whole the history of art should be grateful to the American feminist, forced to reconsider lists of "great" artists. To conclude we may agree with Katy Deepwell (1995, p. 1), who claimed, "Feminism is not a singular approach but a broad umbrella term for a diverse number of positions and strategies amongst women involved in the production, distribution and consumption of art. The contributors include critics, curators, academics and artists. Each explores a different aspect of women's art practice, feminist art criticism and women's role in the art in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Although there are shared concerns and reference points amongst these women, they do not present the reader with a singular position on women artists, the work they produce, or the role for feminist criticism. Emphasis has been placed through the selection of contributors on demonstrating the broad framework of debate in which a diversity of feminist art practices and forms of criticism operates"5. Works cited: Artlex, "ArtLex on Feminism and Feminist Art", http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/f/feminism.html Doy, Gen. Seeing and Consciousness: Women, Class, and Representation. Oxford: Berg, 1995. Deepwell, Katy. New feminist art criticism: critical strategies. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995. Franco, Jean. The Decline and Fall of the Lettered City: Latin America in the Cold War. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2002. MOCA The Museum of Contemporary Art, "WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution", Los Angeles,http://www.moca.org/wack/ Read More