ART, GENDER AND FEMINISM: NEGLECTION AND MISREPRESENTATION OF WOMEN FROM TWO WORLDS

ART, GENDER, AND FEMINISM: NEGLECTION AND MISREPRESENTATION OF WOMEN FROM TWO WORLDS

There was one case where a young girl was extremely bright and the allegation was that she had used witchcraft to take the intelligence of her classmates. So if you are a woman who is extremely bright, very astute at business, is able to amass wealth, a woman who is challenging and not docile, any of these can lead to allegations of witchcraft.  - Ajoa Kwarteng Kluvitse,The country director, Action aid (Ghana).
This does not apply to boys!

There has been a close analysis of gender, race and feminism since the beginning of time, to bring to bear the role of arts in addressing issues of great concern and this analysis includes the creation of images or objects in fields including painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and other visual media. Most of these works vividly address discrimination and other issues in history, culture, and society and that means they also serve as a platform for confronting problems that continue to face us today. This among others is what inspired me to put this piece together .In reference, Chadwick states that “our language and expectations about art have tended to rank that produced by women as below that produced by men in “quality”, resulting in lesser monetary value. This has profoundly influenced our knowledge and understanding of the contributions made by women to painting and sculpture”  (17). Although women have been influential in art as well as other areas, society consistently tries to limit how far women can go and all that forms the focus of this piece.            .

So how does art address witchcraft? To answer that question, I had to turn to history and I found this great artist:

Hans Baldung Grien (1484 – 1545)

Self portrait

He is considered the most gifted artist of Albrecht Dürer who was also a German painter, printmaker, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. Durer’s prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since. So Baldung brings to this project rich and great works. Also a German artist, Baldung developed a distinctive style, full of color, expression and imagination. His talents are varied, and he produced a great and extensive variety of work from portraits, woodcuts, altarpieces, drawing, tapestries, allegories and mythologies.

Hans Baldung Grien (1484-1545)

                       "The witches sabbath 1510"                          

“An Accused witch”

courtesy:http://www.workplacegiving.co.uk/news-and-press-archive/prisoners-of-prejudice-women-accused-of-witchcraft-condemned-to-ghana%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98witch-camps%E2%80%99/

"Witches camp", Northern Ghana

courtesy:actionaid.org

"Accused Witch"

courtesy:catholic.org/photos/photo.php

Hans Baldung Grien (c. 1484 – 1545

"Witches camp", northern Ghana

courtesy: ghananation.org

Hans Baldung

Condemned female witches are burned at the stake (14C).

.

"Accused witch", yadu masam, northern Ghana.

Courtesy: http://www.zoeyoung.net/node/233

I don’t want to be here. Somebody decided I was a witch. My heart is dead – what I used to know, I don’t know any more…" Yadu Masam - Ngani ‘Witches’ Camp’, Ghana, 2010

When misfortune hits a village, there is a tendency in some countries to suspect a "witch" of casting a spell. In Ghana, outspoken or eccentric women may also be accused of witchcraft - and forced to live out their days together in witch camps. Today they are still run by local chiefs, and accommodate up to 1,000 women in spartan huts with no social amenities. Women are expected to be submissive so once you start to be outspoken in your views or even successful in your trade, people assume you must be possessed. A closer look finds no difference at how society today places women. On one side of the world is how art presents reality to us with refence to the great artists,Hans Baldung Grien, and the same is the case in the other part of the world where we look at feminism with reference to one of the most outstanding conceptual artists, Barbara Kruger. I begin with a quote from Guerilla Girls.

“Women’s brains may not be capable of much but watch out for their bodies” (Guerilla Girls 16).

FEMINISM 

Kruger’s work often questions and critiques the forces that try to make women into objects, disallowing them subjectivity. Well versed in post-structuralism, Kruger blends text with image to deconstruct the tenets of traditional art. Barbara Kruger explores feminist theory through artistic expression.  Her work “Your gaze hits the side of my face” is one example of this. This image shows a photo of a classical female statue, the symbol of “beauty” in traditional art history, but undermines this interpretation by pointing out that the male gaze at the female object is an aggressive act that silences women from taking part in the discourse. Kruger's emphasis on breaking down socially constructed notions like "art" and "beauty" makes her works stand out. Her works bring to us the other side of the media and exposes how Americans are being sold the concept that women and girls’ value lies in their youth, beauty and sexuality. There is more to the expression of women as objects of beauty in the media than expected. Women are portrayed in ways that perpetuate the stereotypes and biases that are held against them.

Barbara Kruger



(Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face) by Barbara Kruger, 1981

Suggesting themes of struggle, power, and control, Kruger’s image addresses complicated issues such as desire, sexism, consumerism and discrimination and encourages the viewer to question their own perceptions of these taboo topics. A large scale work by Barbara Kruger combines her signature bold text and graphics. She explores feminist theory through artistic expression as well as the patriarchy, consumerism and the male gaze.

Barbara Kruger

YOUR BODY IS A BATTLEGROUND 1989

Hans Baldung (c. 1484 – 1545)

“The three ages of the Woman and Death” 1509-10

Barbara Kruger

YOU ARE NOT YOURSELF (1982)

Kruger’s “You Are Not Yourself”, uses this humorous technique to underscore a feminist point of view. The woman’s face looks stressed and upset. She’s wearing make-up and has her nails painted, like a lady should. The words ‘you are not yourself’ are disjointedly laid over a photograph of a distressed woman looking into a shattered mirror. This montage is immediately ironic because you are looking into a mirror, the object our culture relies on to reflect reality, but it is cracked and without its reassurance you are not yourself. Somehow without the recognition of the mirror, the axis of our culture, your own existence is in question. This begs the question why are you not yourself? Continuing with the theme of feminist art, Kruger is perhaps indicating that you are not yourself because our culture, ruled by the mirror and the media, mandates that you be one thing that you are not or possibly may never be. Feminism is at play here. The woman looking into the shattered mirror with a distressed face shows that she isn’t as confident as she should be. She is wearing makeup, trying to make herself up. She isn’t herself because she feels like she needs to dress and look a certain way, which isn’t her. Kruger is commenting on the unreality of the ideal female image portrayed by the media today which forms part of this project and until the world wakes up to the need for equality, I will work and continue to develop this idea through art to tell the story to the world.
For detailed article/project, click on this link

Credit:

Chadwick, Whitney, Women, Art, and Society. New York: Thames & Hudson Ltd, London, 2007. Print

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

Kruger, Barbara, profile/biography

http://www.barbarakruger.com/biography.shtml

Hoak, Dale,History Today Volume: 31 Issue: 2 1981, Witch-Hunting and Women in the Art of the Renaissance

 http://www.historytoday.com/dale-hoak/witch-hunting-and-women-art-renaissance

Jones, Adam ,The European Witch-Hunts, c. 1450-1750 and Witch-Hunts Today http://www.gendercide.org/case_witchhunts.html

Ziem Joseph, Disbandment of Witches’ Camps should not Endanger Lives of the Victims, January 31, 2012

http://rumnet.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/disbandment-of-witches-camps-should-not-endanger-lives-of-the-victims/

Whitaker, Kati, Ghana witch camps: Widows' lives in exile, Kukuo, northern Ghana, 31 August 2012

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19437130

Kruger, Barbara, The Art History Archive - Feminist Art

http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/feminist/Barbara-Kruger.html

YOUNG, ZOE, Evans Saskia  and Cuadrado, Andrea Bringing Balance: Bridging Worlds, 'What I Used To Know.. The Road To Ghana's 'Witches' Camps', March 2011

http://www.zoeyoung.net/node/233

Baldung Grien, Hans (c. 1484 – 1545) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 26 November 2012.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Baldung#Early_life

Semester Project -Vladimir Ventura

My semester project was to create a program, in which the player acts as a female artist from the past. The main focus of my program thus far has been Hildegard Von Bingen. The story starts off as she wakes up from a hallucination, or vision (it is unclear to the player what is going on at first). You navigate your way through your parent's castle, only to faint again. The next portions go through her life -- first when she was sent to Jutta to become a nun, and how she met Volmar, one of her supporters, and how you learn to read, write, paint, and figure your life out.

However, midway through programming, I decided to upload both the buggy program (it is not at all complete, and is very hard to do), and the design concepts that I drew out (and I used the measurements on the drawings as measurements on the program). Various bugs that came up were: getting the chatbox to stay up (it would go away randomly at times), getting the graphics to match up with the logical processes of the program, selecting the right data types (selecting decimals for pixel measurements was a mistake; you cannot have half a pixel), and so on so forth. Additionally, I am not great at graphics or image-making (e.g. photoshop), so my visual/graphics output is very lacking.

I was making this project both as a challenge to myself, as a programmer, and as a way to figure out how to best present an issue using gameplay (which has become so popular nowadays). My audience is everyone; anyone can play a videogame! The message would not be clear to see at first, but through the gameplay (hopefully through the first gameplay, the message will get across), the message would be that success was an impossibility for most female artists, even those with extraordinary circumstances. Hildegard happened to be in a very extraordinary position, having divine visions in a time when divinity was praised and valued, and being able to use these visions to have a voice that would be heard.


The program link, design drawings, and other relevant documentation are here: https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0BwQPVe1E7TmEWGdrZ3IzRFlTZ0E/edit
P.S. in order to run the program on a Mac, run Terminal (in utilities folder), get to the directory in which you downloaded the .java files using ls -l and cd [folder name], and then type java Draw (if it gives errors, try compiling first using javac Draw.java, and then java Draw).
P.S.S. In order to run the program on a Windows, install JDK from the java website. Then install an IDE (Dr. Java or JGrasp, for example), and then open the .java files, compile, and run all in the IDE program. Hope this helps.

Works Cited

A., Justin and Steven D and Jason. “The Caslte Kitchen”, ThinkQuest, Oracle, 1997. Web, 3 December 2012 http://library.thinkquest.org/10949/fief/medkitchen.html
Anonymous. “Medieval German Castles”, Medieval Periodm. n.p., n.d., Web, 3 December, 2012. http://www.medieval-period.com/medievalgermancastles.html

Flanagan, Sabina. “Hildegard Von Bingen.” Hildegard. n.p. 1995, Web.  13 November 2012 http://www.hildegard.org/documents/flanagan.html
Horst, Roland. St. Hildegard of Bingen. 1996, Web. 13 November 2012 http://www.hildegard.org/

Kiefer, James. “Hildegard of Bingen, Visionary.” Rowan University. Rowan University, 17 September, 2012, Web.  13 November 2012. http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/09/17.html

Knight, Eliza. “Cleaning in a Medieval Castle.” History Undressed. n. p., 28, July, 2008. Web, 3 December 2012. http://www.historyundressed.com/2008/07/cleaning-medieval-castle.html
Kosbie, David. "JComponentsWithEvents API" n.p. Spring 2010. Web, 13 November 2012 http://kosbie.net/cmu/spring-10/15-110/handouts/JComponentWithEvents.java

Wikipedia contributors. "Hildegard of Bingen." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 7 Nov. 2012. Web. 13 November 2012 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen

Final: True Feminism

                The purpose of my project is to give a brief definition of what true feminism is. I use personal opinions and small sources to create a valid point and try to keep the viewers attention by keeping it short and sweet. I used familiar images, and a layout created from scratch, to create an atmosphere to what I want to display and drive my point home. I used the familiarity of the color yellow along with the famous gorilla to show a sense of short but accurate reading of the text. Then I felt the reading material needed some abstraction and movement so it can flow well and make the reader feel enticed with the simplification of it all. So the process was long, and enduring but in the end, it came out very well and I enjoyed the experience.

Bibliography:

Kanazawa, Satoshi. “The Scientific Fundamentalist.” Web blog post. Why Modern Feminism Is Illogical, Unnecessary, and Evil. The Scientific Fundamentalist, 2 Aug. 2009. Web. 13 Nov. 2012.<http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200908/why-modern-feminism-is-illogical-unnecessary-and-evil>.

Taylor, Christopher. “Word Around the Net: THE STATE OF MODERN FEMINISM.” Web blog post. WordAroundTheNet.com. Word Around the Net, 2 Aug. 2012. Web. 13 Nov. 2012. <http://www.wordaroundthenet.com/2012/08/the-state-of-modern-feminism.html>.

Princeton University “Sexuality and Feminism.” Web log post. The Anscombe Society. Priceton University, n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2012. <http://blogs.princeton.edu/anscombe/statements/sexuality-feminism.html>.

www.SallyMann.com

Google Images

Project Link:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/117420967

Presentation Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlVdK4V-8ME

Apron-Quilt

Too often women must choose between having a family and their career. If she decides that she wants to do both she is seen as a failure in both; she cannot be a good mother if she is busy with a career and she cannot be a good professional if she is busy having children. 

Crafts are not seen in the same way art is; it is considered less valuable. It is taken as it is with no significance taken beyond its use. For example, a scarf is looked as a decorative object or for warmth but rarely does anyone look at how tight the knots are or give any depth to its characteristics that they do for something like a painting. The way people view crafts is a reflection of the way they view women and contrast the way they see men and art. There is a need to distinguish between arts and crafts that results in crafts being seen as inferior. 


Women have been using crafts in order to send messages, tell a story, or for political purposes. Quilts were made during Women’s Rights Movement and about the slave trade; they made quilts that had on it themes that related to issues of their time. The quilt is an example of how something that is often used in the private sphere by women can be used to depict an issue of the public sphere.

What I have created takes the idea of making a quilt and combines it with an apron. An apron is something a woman puts on when doing her domestic duties. The apron has become a symbol of domesticity. Once a women has an apron on she is incapable of doing anything that does not center around her home. The apron acts as a handicap since it renders her inable to do anything else successfully. The apron is in the shape of the figure that is usually placed in front of bathrooms; it is a generic image. 


In taking two ideas that are thought to exist separately and putting them together creates a new idea. It merges two realities creating one and showing that both can exist together. It is important to note that both do not merely co-exist but that they are balanced and can come together and create harmony for those women who chose. There are white figures that show the stages of life that women are expected to go through. Childhood, Marriage, Motherhood, and being and Elderly all these stages require a submissive women to fill the roles. They are stages that do not allow women to go on any different path. 

At the bottom there is three images of women dancing. There is freedom in their positions that are not associated with the roles they are expected to fulfill. Unlike the white figures each of them have their own patterns that show how every woman is different. But they exist on the same apron which means that they can be balanced with the expected stages if a woman chooses. Women should not feel like they have two identities which they must fight to choose. 



Works Cited

Ringgold, F. (1999). The invisible princess. New York: Crown Publishers.

Robinson, S. (1982). Contemporary Quilting. Worcester: Davis Publications.

                                      Semester Project                              Research Paper                                PowerPoint                         By: Amanpreet Pall

For my semester project I wrote a research paper on the sexism and gender inequality female Indian artists face. I write about the restrictions they have, how they compare to female American artists who have much more freedom and opportunities, and how Indian men can paint whatever they like without facing any judgement or criticism a woman would face. Even though India is changing along with the world and becoming more modern, the culture and tradition is still the same. Women are still second class, don't have any rights that compare to that of a man and despite having female presidents, this country cannot handle a strong woman who defies the norm. The norm of an obedient housewife, perfect mother and juggling everything else in-between barely having any time for herself. I posted this paper on Scribd and emailed it to SAWCC (South Asian Women's Creative Collective). This is a "nonprofit arts organization dedicated to advancement, visibility, and development of emerging and establishing South Asian women artists and creative professionals". 

Being an Indian woman myself, I am a new hybrid of a generation in America that has to balance the freedom of an American woman and restriction of an Indian woman. Despite the freedom I have in this opportunistic country, my life is still bound to the fundamental and traditional values of the Indian culture. In this paper I pour my heart out and my views on sexism and gender inequality that not only everyday Indian women face, but Indian female artists. I am thankful for all of the knowledge learned in this class for it has helped me grow as a woman and shape my ideals and principles more. I hope you all enjoy my paper and power-point presentation for it possesses a passion I have always kept bound, but now it is free to countless eyes. Thank you. 

Female gamers

For my semester project I wanted to concentrate on the social issues of female gamers.  Females who play video games, especially ones centered around online gameplay, at one point or another have had encountered sexual harassment or harassment in general from male players.  Under the anonymity of the internet, they do not fear repercussions from authority so harassment and sexism runs rampant in the gaming world.

Personally, as a female gamer, I have encountered harassment online and I believe that this inappropriate behavior should be called out upon and shunned.

As a digital illustration major in the Fine Arts department, I've always thought about the idea of creating a comic or book and this project has allowed me the freedom to do so.

My project is an on-going comic/manga in which is centered around a girl who chooses to creates a male character in an online multi-player video game because of how she was/would be viewed if she played a "female character," and how she is treated differently compared to her female counterparts and the issues that will come with pretending to play as a male.  Her skills are unparalleled and is eventually scouted and asked to participate in a gaming tournament.

To view the comic & other related illustrations please visit my website at http://sho.queenhawkeye.net