16 Feb 2009

Dissertation. Explanation.

Space. Meets Female. Face. Meets. Incomplete. Patriarchal case.

Being female is still a problem, deal with it. They say.

Not here. Not in this Kingdom...


"Curators and critics at the recent ‘Feminist Future: Theory and Practice in the Visual Arts’ symposium at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, a museum not notorious for its historical support of women. Agreed that feminism has generated the most influential art impulses of the late 20th and early 21st century. There is almost no new work that has not in some way been shaped by it. When you look at Matthew Barney, you're basically seeing pilfered elements of feminist art, unacknowledged as such. [1]

But taking lead from recent major exhibitions in Berlin, revolving around this theme ‘The Cult of the Artist: I can't just slice off an ear every day" at the Hamburger Bahnhof...and my utmost belief that the female experience has yet to be fully explored within society. As yet I am still trying to determine this term I’m using: ‘the female experience’...but I inheriantly acknowledge that this is the closest one can get to naming it. The female (again in my belief) in the Arts is still a problem.

For stark example: it has taken 110 years in the history of the Venice Bienale for it to select Maria de Corral and Rosa Martinez as curators, marking the first time in the exhibitions history that a woman, in this case two, was selected as curator. 110 years. This wasn’t in the 1980’s. This was 2005.

Admittedly my view, is whole hearted subjective. A highly stylized western outlook... I make no qualms about this, I would like to address why that is so...as this is represented by the some of the artists, and their specific work I have been drawn to discuss:



[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/arts/design/29femi.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss