Essay on Breaking Down the Barriers to Feminist Art Work

Breaking Down the Barriers to Feminist Art Work Every time a girl reads a womanless history she learns she is worth less. While studying art history in Pre-Industrial Visual Cultures this semester, one theme has become painfully obvious. There are few if any women artists included in the study of art history. If you dig deep into the books you can find mention of many unknown, unrecognized and often times very talented women artists from the past. Women in history are simply not recognized, and this is due to a large extent to their exclusion from the art world. My paper chooses to focus on a few female artists of the sixties and seventies who sought to make up for past history and ensure women were known. These women†¦show more content†¦Her most famous piece is entitled à ¬The Dinner Partyà ® and in this she sets a large table with 39 place settings for women from the past. Along with this there are hundreds of other names and these include past women artists including Artemisia Gentileschi and Mary Cassatt. The purpose of this piece was to show how many women from history are unrec ognized and forgotten. These women have made lasting and powerful contributions to our society and yet they are essentially left out of history and overshadowed by their male counterparts. This was especially true in art history, and Chicago attempted to show how important it was that females have a place in history. Therefore the exclusion of women from history, had a profound impact on Chicago and greatly impacted her art making. The Dinner Partyà ® utilizes female sexual imagery to further establish a female presence in the work. The plates for à ¬The Dinner Partyà ® clearly depict vaginal imagery. Chicago termed this imagery central core imagery and she attempted to invent a new female language. Chicago in an interview with Lucy Lippard says that, à ¬if women make art differently from men, it means that women are actually independent from menà ® (Lippard, 228). Her work was trying to eradicate the negative stereotypes people had about females and establish the importance of women both in the past and present. This work sought to repair some of the damage suffered from the exclusionShow MoreRelatedThe Artist Is Present : Challenging Performance And Cultural Politics1506 Words   |  7 PagesAmbramović’s concept of performance art interrogates the traditional forms and practices of what most people would consider to be the â€Å"norm†, that derive from personal preferences gene rated from different aspects of society. Abramović is known for her durational performance work that tests the endurance and limitations of her own body and mind. Performance art may be understood as a practice where the body of the artist is central or the medium itself involving objected based art materials such as paint andRead MoreThe Evolution of Gender Roles and its Role in Society1505 Words   |  7 PagesTheogony (The Birth of the Gods) played a tremendous role in the status of man and woman (Mason). In Theogony (The Birth of the Gods), Prometheus lives in a world of only men where life was great. There was no work and all leisure. Prometheus makes the Gods mad and is punished by Zeus by sending down Pandora (a woman). Pandora opens a forbidden jar and releases â€Å"grim cares upon mankind† (Mason). The story presented the idea that women essentially ruined everything. This reflects upon the ideals of GreekRead MoreWomen As An Adult Female Person868 Words   |à ‚  4 Pagesunwilling), their musical accomplishments presumably made them more marriageable.† Moreover, musical talent now made women increasingly marriageable, families were encouraged to pay for lessons, or, if musically talented themselves, teach their children the art form. Women’s participation in the theater increased which transformed the experience itself. As an audience, women were hounded by critics who accused them of being unenthusiastic, and hesitant to clap. Block’s theory is that â€Å"women were behavingRead Morecritical evaluation essay764 Words   |  4 Pages English 102 Effectiveness in Writing September 18, 2014 Critical Evaluation Essay â€Å"Now We Can Begin† an essay by Crystal Eastman is a very powerful essay. Eastman makes the point know in her essay that an honest and true feminist no matter where she stands in the movement she will see to the woman’s fight with strength and courage and how it   matters in the future and as well as its difference in its approach for the workers fight for industrial freedom. Eastman state â€Å"In fighting for the rightRead MoreWomens Movement Impact1449 Words   |  6 Pagessocially accepted than ever before. Tavaana, an organization that discusses women’s rights states, â€Å"...the nation simply had to accept the idea of women in the workforce†. People had to accept that women were finally gaining rights and were able to work in the same occupations as men. These changes helped The Women’s Right’s Movement, The Women’s Suffrage Movement, and women themselves to excel further, which was one of the main goals of both of t he movement from the beginning. In the opinion ofRead MoreGender Inequality1640 Words   |  7 Pagesgrievances of women. Feminists have fought against the ingrained tradition of women as housewives with no rights and being looked down upon as the lesser sex. The women’s rights movement in the United States has worked tirelessly since 1848 to fight for rights and break down gender barriers. Misogyny and gender constructs, such as the ideal of beauty, hold women back in various aspects of their lives as discussed in the articles â€Å"Marked Women† by Deborah Tannen and â€Å"A Woman’s Beauty: Put Down or Power Source†Read MoreThe Reality Between Femininity And Masculinity Essay1910 Words   |  8 Pagesexamining how women mimic an image of womanliness, but that in its own turns into a masquerade – a performance to conceal one’s real self. Furthermore, this essay examines Judith Butler’s 1990 text Gender Trouble, in which she discusses how existing feminist moveme nts are confined by how they define gender. Butler also argues that this definition is ‘outdated’ and is a reflection of how the world still treats gender as a set of static, ‘binary’ categories, i.e. when a child is born, they are placed intoRead MoreWhy Alam Attends An Art Gallery Essay1866 Words   |  8 PagesThis sense of gratitude for one’s own works is also demonstrated multiple times within text, but one of my favorite instances is the scene where Alam attends an art gallery showcase and chooses the cheapest piece of art work that featured a black woman in it. This, in his mind, is achieving the goal of representing femininity, beauty, and blackness within his household. He truly feels satisfactory, and even proud of himself, of this act when in all reality the image has no significance to the messageRead MoreFeminism : A Patriarchal Society2654 Words   |  11 Pagesthough, women are mostly equalitarian in which they want to work against t he power structures and have equal rights or gender equality within a society like most men have. Most women are forced to live within a patriarchal society, where men have control and power over many structures like jobs. Through this power, women are seeking to break down some of these barriers and work together with men in societies today to create balance in the work force and many industries today. Feminism can have manyRead MoreWhy Men Are More Talented At Design Than Women1484 Words   |  6 Pagesfashion press in recent years, the roll call is almost exclusively male: Zac Posen, Marc Jacobs, Narciso Rodriguez and Mr. Som as well as Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler. Their female contemporaries have had a harder time breaking through, among them Behnaz Sarafpour, Alice Roi and Ms. Subkoff. Gay men stick together like a band of brothers, Ms. Subkoff said in an interview. It s more common for a man to bring up a younger assistant who is male and be proud of that,