My contextual study is the main body of written work of the final year of my degree. The research and conclusions which I have brought from this study has influenced my own practice and my perception of it.
Below is a shortened version of my contextual study. Feel free to contact me to see the whole copy.
Gendered social construction in the portrayal of the female body in the work of Kiki Smith and Sarah Lucas.
The female body has been portrayed by male artists past and present. Since the 1960s and the rise of feminism within art, the portrayal of women’s bodies have been re-appropriated by women to make political and personal statements about their constructed image and gender (Jones & War, 2003, p.13). I am interested in artists such as Kiki Smith, an American artist (1954-) and Sarah Lucas a British artist (1962-) for their gendering of artworks and the extent to which society’s projection of stereotype on the female body can be seen through their works.
The difference between the Gender and Sex of a person is important to the reading of this essay. While the sex of a person is biologically determined, the gender is culturally constructed and unfixed (Emerling, 2005, P.115). The culturally constructed woman is important for reading the work of both artists; However, while Lucas uses this construction frequently in her work, Smith shrinks away from this avoiding the personal in favour of the ambiguous body (Posner, 1998, p.15). I am particularly interested in the extent to which this construction or ambiguity is possible to achieve and highlight.
Kiki Smith and Sarah Lucas use the body as subject for representation through sculpture in a wide variety of media from found objects and plaster in Lucas’ case, and paper, bronze and wax in Smith’s, each also working outside sculpture using print and photography. Both represent the female body in their artwork effecting a subversion of the traditional view of the body, portraying life as a woman in their contemporary environment, using fragmented body parts and metaphor (Collings, 2002; Posner, 1998).
Kiki Smith was well known in the 1980s and associated with the second wave feminist movement through the critique of essentialism in her figurative works (Bird, 2003, p.53). Sarah Lucas is well known for her works involving contemporary gender issues within the everyday (Collings, 2002, p.120).
I am interested in issues of gendering and gendered preconceptions in the artwork, ideas about the gendered female which predetermine the creation of, viewing or interaction with the body in art. This involves reading the work through feminist theory, the second wave’s essential woman, post feminist critique of this as binary, and the use of the abject.
Second wave feminism began in the 1960s and believed all women had specific universal, innate traits, this theory was labelled and criticized as essentialism (Pollock, 2003, p.161). Post feminist and gender theorists, writing from the 1980s, contest essentialism as binary- the defining of gender into two separate constant oppositions, and argue the importance of the gendered body above the sexed (Hatt & Klonk, 2006, p. 149 & 166). Both artists have been identified with feminism and acknowledge the influence of feminist theory, influenced by different feminist movements due to their generational gap. While Lucas is most often associated with post feminism, she states her influence to be the writing of second wave feminists such as Juliet Mitchel, Jacqueline Rose and Andrea Dwarkin, this explains her interest in psychoanalysis, language, class and gender roles (Collings, 2002, p.31). Smith is more readily associated with second wave feminism as this was the period Smiths work began to gain most attention (Posner, 1998, p.9).
In setting the sculpture of Smith and Lucas in discourses of feminist art, certain terms reappear across the generational divide. For example the gaze, used by critics such as John Berger (1926-) and Laura Mulvey (1941-) and taken up as a discourse on patriarchal power by feminist writers such as Mira Schor. Defining the way a painting is looked at and the act of looking by both the artist and viewer and the implied power in this look (Hatt & Klonk, 2006, p.189.). Other themes which reoccur include the abject; the portrayal of the body as transgressive, incomplete or repulsive, without dignity (Tate glossary, n d).
Gender theorists Luce Irigaray (1932-) and Judith Butler (1956-) comment upon the gendering of women, Butler arguing for the cultural construction of gender while Irigaray argues that there are essential similarities between women across cultures; both appropriate the work of male predecessors, Lacan, Foucault and Freud and use these to explain the gendering of women through suppression. Many themes used by Butler and Irigaray are relevant to viewing the work of Kiki Smith and Sarah Lucas through their gendered interpretations of the body. Butler’s important theories include the appropriation of gender, performativity and critique of second wave feminisms’ universal woman (Wall, 2011). Particularly useful in viewing the work of Smith and Lucas is Butler’s theory of performativity, and the questioning of what is subversive or simply new forms of oppression within feminism, applicable to artworks often seen as subversive (Salih, 2002, p.10). Luce Irigaray is a second wave feminist philosopher. Her themes include gender, power and the embracing of difference. This includes the essential woman, repression of the female and critique of Freud’s description of woman as passive rather than active (Wall, 2012). Irigaray is particularly useful in her theory of mimesis and the essential woman in discussing the extent of artworks use or subversion of gender (Whitford, 1994, p.4 & 8).
I will also use the writing of art historians and critics including Griselda Pollock, Mira Schor and Laura Mulvey to influence my reading of these art works. Griselda Pollock (1949-) is an influential feminist art historian, writing mainly from the 1980s. (Pollock, 1999 ;Pollock, 2003) She critiques the essentialist view of the feminine, focusing on genders creation through language and unequal power (2003, p.179; Parker & Pollock, 1981, p.114), much as Lucas and Smith do in their artworks. To expose the ideology behind what is seen as the natural feminine, Pollock is looking for signs of the structure causing femininity within artworks rather than the signs of femininity themselves (Parker & Pollock, 1981, p.41), this can also be applied to the work of Lucas and Smith, through their use of the culturally structured female body.
Mira Schor is an American feminist critic, writing from the 1980s on contemporary art and feminism. (Schor, n d) She critiques male and female artists works use of woman as symbol of the phallus (Schor, 2007), so will be useful in the critique of Smith and Lucas works as signs for the female body. Essentialism is an important part of her writing, critiquing artists for binary essential content but also critiquing the accusation of essentialism in artworks as a continuation of repression (2007, p.58). This will be useful as an opposing stance to Pollock’s in discussing essentialism in the works of Smith and Lucas.
Laura Mulvey, (1941-) mainly writes on film theory (Burke, n d), though all of her theories are applicable to fine art. The areas I am interested in include the gaze, split into three main areas by Mulvey, the characters gaze, the audiences gaze and the cameras gaze, and her inferred need to expose these in order to subvert the sexist assumptions of cinema (and art) (Mulvey, 1991, p.25 & 27). Other relevant themes are the scopophilic gaze, defined as the pleasure of looking and of being seen, countered by the narcissistic gaze described as the pleasure of recognising yourself in representation (Mulvey, 1991, pp.16-18). Mulvey’s use of the gaze in this way compliments Irigaray’s use of language while both use and critique Freud’s theories. I will look at the use of the gaze in Lucas and Smith’s work and through Mulvey, deconstruct its values. The transsexual nature of women’s portrayal in film and the expectation for women viewers to identify with a male protagonists viewpoint (Harris, n d), fits Judith Butler’s theories on gender and transgender, also working with Smith and Lucas’ use of parody, through the dress and body language of their ‘characters’.
I will break looking at these artworks into three components: Firstly the universal or culturally constructed gendering of the artworks, secondly, the theme of power as displayed or subverted within the artworks, thirdly, the gaze and the power of the look within and directed at the artworks. Finally I will have positioned my chosen art works as gendered objects and performances, both in their conception and construction.
Chapter 1. Gender: essential or constructed?
Through this chapter I am focussing on artists comments on gender and essentialist gendering in two works. Virgin (fig. 1) (1993), by Kiki Smith, in the collection of Marianne Boesky (Posner, 1998, p.109). Created at a time of high production of abject figurative work by Smith. Bitch (fig. 2) (1995), by Sarah Lucas in the Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (Collings, 2002, p.98). Produced within Lucas’ repeated use of the table as a metaphor for the body.
The acknowledged use of projection of identity onto women by female artists through artwork such as Virgin and Bitch can be viewed as an attempt to subvert or mock stereotypes in order to emphasise the instability of gender, or as an essentialising stereotype themselves. In the following chapter I am going to focus on the influence of power and gendering in works by these artists.
Chapter 2. Gendered depiction of Power.
Throughout this chapter I am focussing on gendered differences of power, how the artists Sarah Lucas and Kiki Smith have been influenced by or have subverted power difference.
The essential woman has been portrayed as passive and available throughout art’s histories and by many contemporary artists. Within the essential the active and passive depiction of woman is important in describing the balance of power, between art and its viewer, between depicted male and female figures and allusions within the work. This can be seen as relevant to gendering as described by John Berger in Ways of Seeing (2008), used by feminist writers since its writing in 1972. Seeing comes before words and establishes our place in the surrounding world (Berger, 2008, cover), therefore as a viewer we are always looking for the relation between what we see and ourselves (Berger, 2008, p.1). So begin to use artworks to define and dictate our behaviour. In this way artworks can have a great effect on our performed identity.
Often the passive available female is contrasted with the active aggressive male, one example being Jacques- Louis David’s The Oath of the Horatii (fig 3) (1784), contrasting four standing tensed men in two thirds of the image with three crouched women swooning in the last third. Female viewers are told that to be ‘ideal’ you must be passive, powerless and beautiful. As stated by Griselda Pollock in Old Mistresses (1981, p.116), “Woman is present as an image but with specific connotations of body and nature, that is passive, available, possessable and powerless”. This tradition of portrayal of women as passive and beautiful has continued to, and been critiqued by, contemporary artists. One contemporary artist, continuing this tradition is Harry Holland, his view of his ideal, beautiful, passive depiction of women is that to depict anything other than the ideal, to depict ‘real’ woman would cause the viewer to think about his artwork in the ‘wrong’ way, to question the content rather than the aesthetic (Appendix). It is the forcing of the viewer to question the content of artworks, through their use both aesthetic and content, which I see as important in the work of Kiki Smith and Sarah Lucas.
Though in most of the works here the depicted women are powerless, passive, available, and so connately pleasing to the viewer, they have also become repellent through use of the abject and the vulgar. The obvious depiction of bodily fluid and violation of everyday taboos in Tale, the use of food which will rot and decay in Lucas work Bitch, from the previous chapter, the slightly repellent soft, limp limbs of Bunnies all create a sense of the abject. This is aided by the use of low worth materials and the everyday within the works. This challenges the pleasure of the viewer’s gaze bringing to the work its own form of power.
“Since women are not expected to be disgusting the violation of certain established taboos, like that on public reference to menstruation, symbolizes a disrespect for the social order … vulgarity can be a means of enhancing dignity” (Betterton, 1987, p.247).
The works take on the abject as a way of reclaiming power by repelling and refusing the viewers pleasure and disturbing the expectations of portrayal of the female body. As the power of the viewer comes from control of the gaze and the promise through this of actively exercising power over the object/ woman (Pollock, 2003, p.71), this refusal of pleasure in the gaze by the artwork to some extent reverses the role of active and passive. In the following final chapter I will go on to discuss in more depth the importance of the gaze in gendered artwork.
Chapter 3. The Gaze.
This chapter puts focus on issues of the gaze, or look between the viewer and the artwork, in relation to Kiki Smith’s Virgin, a paper figurative sculpture also discussed in Chapter 1, and Sarah Lucas’ Got a Salmon on #3 (fig 6) (1999), a photographic print in the Tate collection, part of a series of self-portraits, challenging gendered stereotypes (Tate collection, 2004). Here I am using the gaze in very specific context, as a form of conveying power of the viewer, which objectifies the subject of the artwork.
The work Virgin, by Kiki Smith previously discussed in chapter one as a form of subversion of the projection of a gendered stereotype, or an essentialising representation is here discussed in terms of the gaze.
In the work of both artists but particularly in Kiki Smith’s the choice of what is and isn’t important in the construction of the body is apparent. What should and should not be included as seen by the artist is emphasised through reductionism, the narrowing of what is included in the description of the body’s identity, to eyes, ears, hairless scalp, vulva and dress, leaving out individual characteristics or features. Combined with the handmade quality of surface, the hand and look of the artist is insinuated. This breaks up the power of the gaze of the viewer through acknowledging the part of others look at the artwork. Three looks are used by Laura Mulvey (1991, p.25) in her critique of cinema, that of the camera, the characters and the audience. In my viewing of Virgin, through a reproduction in a book, there is a fourth look involved, that of the camera, which cannot be ignored in reducing the power and reality of the look to the viewer. In Lucas’ portrait, the look of the camera/artist, the look of the viewer, the look of the ‘character’ works easily. Until you realise the artist directing the camera is also the subject, the object of the gaze has taken control of their portrayal. This knowledge begins to break down and expose the barriers of the look, forcing the viewer to confront the fallacy of the power of their own gaze. In these works this finally fully subverts the normal power relations between the female object in art, and the viewer.
Conclusion
I have been discussing the effects of gendering upon the artworks of Kiki Smith and Sarah Lucas. As female artists I have shown they work within and with the cultural construction of gendering. At the same time using the signs and projections of this construction as a form of subversion. I have found the fine line on which the artists place themselves and which splits the conception of the female body into essential and cultural construction, and have underlined the difficulty for artists of avoiding universalism within the depiction of the body.
I have also explored the issue of gendered difference in power within the artworks of Smith and Lucas in relation to the tradition of depiction of woman. Using this to discuss the effectiveness of parody, mimesis and the abject, in subverting the projection of passivity. Highlighting several ways in which Smith and Lucas use gendered projections and stereotypes to subvert the balance of power in representation of the female body.
Finally I discussed the gaze within the gendered artworks and its use in conveying viewing power over representation, also discussing the effect of the gaze in subverting the viewers’ sense of power and the importance of breaking down the reality of the gaze. I also discuss the artists’ use of the abject and un-ideal representation of woman within contemporary standards of beauty and femininity and the effect of this in conveying the possibility of power of the represented female body to the viewer.
This has lead to a greater understanding of the gendered construction of my own practice and other artists’ use of the body in subverting gender norms. Throughout the writing of this essay I have discovered my interests lie further within subversion of gendered roles than I had previously suspected, and hope this new knowledge will further influence my future practice and writing.
Fig 1, Virgin, (1993) Kiki Smith, papier-mâché, glass and plastic, 16x18x9”, collection of MarianneBoesky, Photograph: Mike Bruce.
Fig 2, Bitch, (1995) Sarah Lucas, table, t-shirt, melons, smoked mackerel, 80 x 100 x 50 cm, Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
Fig 3, The Oath of the Horatti, (1748) Jacques-Louis David, Oil on Canvas, 10’ 10x13’11”, Musee du Louvre.
Fig 4, Pauline Bunny, (1997) Sarah Lucas, Mixed Media, 950x640x900mm, Tate Collection.
Fig 5, Tale, (1992) Kiki Smith, wax, pigment, and papier-mache, 160x23x23”, Collection of Jeffrey Deitch.
Fig 6, Got a Salmon on #3, (1997) Sarah Lucas, Inkjet print on paper, 29 1/8 x19 1/2”, Tate Collection.
Rebecca Lois 