5 Unique Women Artists

The 19^th and 20^th century brought out many unique and special female artists.  The more female artists came about, the more popular they became.  It was no longer about the men, the women were getting themselves noticed in the art by society as well.  Some of the women artists we have discussed in class that interested me are Frida Kahlo, Barbra Kruger, Judy Chicago, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Marina Abramovic.

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo has become the most admired female Mexican artist almost five decades after her death.  She used her body as a symbol for her artwork.  She showed the pain and heartache she suffered in her paintings.  She specialized in self-portraits and telling the story of her life in her work.  Her art is sends a powerful and endearing message to the viewers.  She did a very good job on getting herself noticed in her society, especially over her husband, Diego.  ``The world just loves women artists who are sad and dead.  But I was the hero of my own life.’’(Kahlo)  She also worked on other themes such as portraits for friends on commission, still life’s, and cosmic panoramas.   Frida was a very influential figure in the 20^th century art world. 

Barbara Kruger, born January 26, 1945, in Newark New Jersey.  She is an American conceptual artist.  She attended Syracuse University for a year and then moved to NY to attend Parsons School of Design.    Barbara began to employ images in her art with words or captions directly over them.  Her captions on these images were mostly her view on sex, religion, racial and gender stereotypes, and power.  Her work has been shown off in galleries, museums, buildings, train stations, parks, and even ceiling walls.  She tried to reach out to her viewers and make them think about what she is trying to say.  ``I had to figure out how to bring the world into my work.’’ (Barbara Kruger)

Judy Chicago ‘s art piece, The Dinner Party was very interesting and unique.  This was set up to honor the history of women in Western Civilization.  There were over 999 important women and their names were grouped around the place settings to symbolize the traditions of women's achievements.  Each set was shaped identical to a woman's vagina.  This symbolized how women were overtaking the men in society and becoming well known.  This was exhibited in 16 venues in 6 countries to an audience of over one million. 

The Dinner Party

 For decades, Georgia O'Keeffe was a huge figure in American art.  She was the first woman to get a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art.  She painted a series of architectural pictures that depicted the soaring skyscrapers of NYC.  Most often though, she painted landscapes of close-up flowers from her trips to her summer home in Lake George.  The last twenty years of her life she was very ill and this decreased her ability to do art.  When she died her ashes were scattered over the New Mexico landscape she had loved.  

White Flower on Red Earth 1943

 Marina Abramovic  was born in 1946 in Belgrade Yugoslavia.  She began her career in the 1970s, and her body has always been her subject and her medium.  She explores her physical and mental limits of herself.  She has presented her work with performances, sound, photography, video,  and sculpture.   One of her work in the exhibition that I found interesting is called The Artist Is Present.  People go and sit in front of her taking turns staring at her, seeing how long they can go.  It is all about how far you can exert yourself until you cant go anymore.  Some people sit there for hours staring at her.

The Artist Is Present

 Work Cited

"Barbara Kruger - Feminist Artist - The Art History Archive." Barbara Kruger - Feminist Artist - The Art History Archive. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2012. <http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/feminist/Barbara-Kruger.html>.

 The Guerrilla Girls. The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. New York: Penguin, 1998

 http://www.fridakahlo.org/

 http://marinafilm.com/about-marina-abramovic

 http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/geok/hd_geok.htm

http://thismamamakesstuff.com/2011/03/art-smart-a-lesson-in-okeefe-art-critique-pastels/georgia-o-keeffe-white-flower-on-red-earth/

http://www.judychicago.com/gallery.php?name=The+Dinner+Party+Gallery