VIOLENCE Against WOMEN IN THE Work OF WOMEN ARTISTS
past JANICE S. LIEBERMAN, PH.D.M
We psychoanalysts are used to speaking words, reading words, and hearing words that describe the horrific treatment of women all over the globe. Presented here are a number of visual images that can help united states to reflect farther on this difficult topic. Every bit they say: "One motion-picture show is worth a k words". Most of these images will be difficult to look at and I take chosen to not minimize their impact past interspersing them with more than neutral images. The art of the 1970'southward and 90'due south in particular is very concrete and "in your face up". This art does non hibernate behind beauty to tell its story. "Gimmicky artists experience free to limited visually ideas that were once forbidden, and to show what never before could be seen, equally least in public." (Lieberman 2000, p.223) These artists concern themselves with problems of human conflict and human being paradox.
I intend to focus here on gimmicky fine art, but first I desire to get back equally far equally seventeenth century Italy to a painting washed by the great adult female artist, Artemisia Gentileschi, who was the daughter of artist Orazio Gentileschi. This was painted when she was merely 17 years onetime! The Old Testament tale she depicts, that of "Susannah and her Elders" (1610), is an ancient one almost sexual compulsion. Susannah was threatened with execution for an infidelity she did not commit unless she consented to the Elders' sexual demands. 
Susannah refused and was brought to trial. In the cross-examination that followed, the elders were shown to have lied and were stoned to death. Susannah is a self-portrait of Artemisia. We see her cringing with unbearable hurting nether the leering looks of the ii older men. They are fully dressed, giving them power, their stare gives them ability and their positioning above her gives them power. She, on the other manus, is naked except for a small-scale flimsy cloth. Her feet are ruddy- they accept been literally and figuratively in "hot water" and are "blushing" instead of her cheeks. Her cringe is clearly that of an boyish girl, and seems very much like the cringe of girls we know today discipline to the prurient gaze of older men. Information technology is uncanny that Artemisia herself was raped a year afterwards painting this picture past her father's friend Tassi,who she tried to stab in self-defense. Hither too, as in the Sometime Testament tale, there was a trial. Artemisia grew up in a rather lawless home characterized past overstimulation and visual traumata. Supposedly she witnessed her parents in intercourse and the bloody birth of her brother, resulting in her female parent's expiry when she was twelve. She had posed nude for her father and had seen many nude male person models. At the trial, Tassi tried to present proof that she was not a virgin when he trapped her by deducing from her drawings of male men that she had "seen" male person ballocks.
In that aforementioned seventeenth century, a number of artists depicted rape in mythological images so familiar to us that we tend to admire the art and artist and tend to ignore the violent subject matter of rape. How many of united states have admired Bernini's "Rape of Persephone"(1622) in the Villa Borghese in Rome, its baroque grace and pure white marble evoking beauty, rather than feelings of horror or indignation at her tears. Persephone was the vegetation goddess and was the daughter of Zeus. She was abducted by Pluto, the god-male monarch of the Underworld. Similarly in the case of Poussin'south (1634) "Abduction of the Sabine Women" and Rubens' (1618) "Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus, mass rape was considered to be part of state of war, all fair, and non to exist idea about or challenged, very much as is the instance today in as well many parts of the world. Nosotros adore these paintings for their grace and beauty, ignoring their tearing bailiwick affair.
I now skip a few centuries to the 20th Century, in which women artists began to have a vox about violence in their own lives as well as in others. Hither nosotros have Frida Kahlo's (1935) painting "A few nips:passionately in dear", washed after Frida read about a woman stabbed to death past her boyfriend, who alleged that he dealt her "only a few small nips" with his knife..
This adult female could exist a stand up-in for the artist herself. Frida's small torso was savaged by an bus blow, her life one of concrete pain. According to Knafo (2009) "Frida said two things destroyed her: the accident and Diego (Rivera, her artist husband). Frida twice married Diego, who was double her age and iii times her size., and she was securely distressed by his numerous infidelities. (For example, he had an affair with her sister.) Only as she struggled with the many assaults to the integrity of her damaged trunk, and then too she refused to surrender on the tempestuous relationship with Diego, which was the source of and so much heartache and pain." (p.73) In this painting she seems to exist unconsciously depicting not merely the incident of which she had read, but also the sadomasochistic bond she had with Diego by showing them both bloodied. He is clothed, wearing a lid, standing over her, clearly the powerful one. The banner says "Unos Cuantos Pique Titos" (a few small nips) , the doves ironic symbols of peace.
The rise of the feminist movement in the 1970's resulted in much politicized art. A number of 20th Century women artists chose to depict violence against women in ways they said were non necessarily autobiographical. Marina Abramovic, for example, in her various performances asked her audiences to corruption her, sometimes with knives or with pair of scissors…..
(Rhythm 0, 1974) To test the limits of the human relationship between performer and audience, Abramović developed one of her nearly challenging (and all-time-known) performances. She assigned a passive role to herself, with the public being the force which would act on her. Abramović placed on a table 72 objects that people were allowed to use (a sign informed them) in any way that they chose. Some of these were objects that could give pleasure, while others could be wielded to inflict pain, or to impairment her. Among them were a rose, a feather, honey, a whip, olive oil, scissors, a scalpel, a gun and a single bullet. For six hours the artist allowed the audience members to manipulate her body and actions. This tested how vulnerable and aggressive the human subject could be when subconscious from social consequences. By the terminate of the performance, her torso was stripped, attacked, and devalued into an image that Abramović described equally the "Madonna, female parent, and whore". Additionally, markings of aggression were apparent on the artist's body; there were cuts on her neck fabricated by audience members, and her clothes were cutting off of her torso. Abramović'south art also represents the objectification of the female body, as she remains motionless and allows the spectators to practice as they please with her body, pushing the limits of what i would consider acceptable.
The women artists I discuss next give us windows into the shattered psyches of those who have been abused and raped. Different the images of Artemesia, Bernini, Poussin, Rubens and Kahlo, the male person perpetrators are not depicted. Ana Mendieta (1973) recreated the crime scene of the rape and murder of fellow University of Iowa student Sara Ann Otters. For the performance, spectators found Mendieta crouched like this, bloody and still, naked from the waist downward. She did additional tableaux of rape that twelvemonth. She did not announce them but permit them be discovered by unsuspecting passersby. In ane she spread blood on the sidewalk and observed people walking on past, indifferent to the violence they had just seen.
A number of Mendieta'southward performances which she photographed depict she herself as driveling. You may know that in her personal life she either jumped or brutal out of a window and died. Her partner, the prominent artist Carl Andre, was brought to trial, but exonerated from having committed the brutal act.
Besides autobiographical are the photos and films of Nan Goldin, who had a series of sadomasochistic relationships with men. Here in "Nan One Month Later Being Battered" (1984) she shows what was a considerable improvement upon her physical condition later have been battered.
In 1980, less horrific, she photographs "Heart-shaped trample", as if bruises and diplomacy of the heart necessarily belong together. Goldin, in her ongoing film series "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency" (1981- ) said that: "I wanted it to be about every man and every relationship and the potential of violence in every relationship". I find this to be sadly accepting. Notwithstanding, showings of her photos are used to effect change.
I saw Sue Williams' (1992) autobiographical sculpture "Irresistable" on the floor of the Whitney Museum. The pain of the crouched figure and the writing on it go right to your heart. She cringes as if in a catatonic cocoon. The words of her batterer are: "You Impaired Bowwow. I DIDN'T Practise THAT. HAVE YOU BEEN SEEING SOMEONE SLUT. I Think Yous LIKE Information technology MOM. Wait WHAT You Made ME Practice. ETC."
The woman artist in my opinion whose oeuvre most poignantly depicts violence confronting women is Kiki Smith. Her father was the prominent sculptor Tony Smith. His iii daughters all became artists. Kiki says petty about her relationship with her father……I saw "Tale" (1992 ) as well on the floor of the Whitney Museum. A naked woman crouches on the floor, her rear finish covered with excrement and leaving a long t-a-i-l that is concrete evidence of the t-a-l-e she could tell. Art critic Linda Nochlin (2015) reports a "visceral stupor", "I still remember the intensity of the feeling, every bit though the bottom had dropped out of the sedate globe of the gallery and my own identify in information technology, to put it more physically, I felt it in my guts" (p.290)
Kiki did "Bloodpool" (1992) in the same twelvemonth. What could be a more wretched image?
And in the aforementioned yr "Pee Torso" (1992), a humiliating image of an abused woman, an image of beggary equally conceptualized past Julia Kristeva in her Powers of Horror . Plainly some male art critics wrote that Smith degraded art itself by calling attention to such depression actual functions as peeing. I desire to read to you some lines written by Kristeva nearly "beggary": "The torso's within… shows up in order to compensate for the plummet of the border betwixt inside and outside. Information technology is as if the skin, a frail container, no longer guaranteed the integrity of one's "own and clean self" simply, scraped or transparent, invisible or taut, gave way before the blues of its contents. Urine, blood, sperm, excrement and so testify upward in order to reassure a subject that is defective its 'own and clean self'. The abjection of those flows from within all of a sudden become the sole "object" of sexual desire- a true "ab-ject" where man, frightened, crosses over the horrors of maternal bowels and, in an immersion that enables him to avert coming face to confront with some other, spares himself the take chances of castration". (p.53) A compelling caption of rape, isn't it?
The early on 90's were a time of unearthing tales of violence during wartime. Judy Chicago of "The Dinner Political party" fame worked on a book chosen The Holocaust Project: From Darkness into Low-cal (1993). In "Double Jeopardy: Everybody Raped" she found that in the camps, not just the Nazis just the liberators also- American, British and Soviet soldiers, raped women Bergen-Belsen survivors.
Kara Walker, i of our most prominent African-American women artists, chronicled in her powerful silhouettes the sexual misuse and corruption of black slave women by their white masters on Southern plantations during those infamous years of American history. This is from her incredible landscape (1995)"The Boxing of Atlanta: Beingness the Narrative of a Negress in the Flame of Desire". Discover the flung chicken leg.
Walker'southward work bitingly satirizes the white man'south desire for blackness women: "I like my coffee like I like my women, any number of combinations, 'hot, black and sweet', 'black with a touch of foam'. The black female trunk equally both field of study and repository of sexual fantasies, phobias, and taboos prevails every bit the locus of a major portion of Walker'southward piece of work with the hope that as she exposes it, it volition lose its menacing power.
Fast forrad to today…. The daughter of two of our colleagues in New York, 21 year old Emma Sulkowicz, a performance artist, decided to not forget about and keep "hidden under the mattress" a date rape incident at Columbia University. For her senior thesis, chosen "Carry that Weight", she carried the offensive mattress wherever she went and fifty-fifty disregarded university authorities by bringing it with her to graduation. Academy President Lee Bollinger turned away from her, refusing to shake her hand. She was harshly criticized for creating publicity that could promote her career, but she did bring sensation to the public almost the prevalence of engagement rape, a backlash to the growing independence and success of young women.
I choose to cease with this glorious image of a bronze sculpture by Kiki Smith called "Rapture" (2001). It recalls the story of St. Genevieve, who saved her people from Attila the Hun. She is standing erect, the wolf is powerless, lying on the basis. Smith also refers to the story of Picayune Cherry-red Riding Hood and the Wolf. Art critic Denson (2015) has written that :
"Kiki Smith's 2001 bronze sculpture "Rapture" embodies a woman stepping out of the upturned corpse of a wolf that had devoured her. Whether or non the piece of work's title is an alliterative play on words (the rupture of rape=adult female's "rapture"), Smith has embodied every woman'due south wish for a fourth dimension when women accept conquered rape" (p.15)
She is not crouching, bent over or beseeching. She shines in the light just every bit women all over the globe will shine as a result of efforts nosotros are undertaking to combat violence against women.
IMAGES:
Artemesia Gentileschi (1610) "Susannah and her elders"
Bernini (1622) "Rape of Persephone"
Poussin (1634) "Abduction of the Sabine Women"
Rubens ( 1635-seven) "Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus""
F. Kahlo (1935) "A few small nips: passionately in love""
M. Abramovic (1974) Rhythm O
A. Mendieta (1973) "Rape, Murder Scene"
(1973 ) bleeding eye
N. Goldin (1984) "Nan one calendar month after beingness battered"
(1980) "Heart-shaped Trample"
Southward Williams (1992) "Irresistable"
K. Smith (1992 ) "Tale"
(1992) "Bloodpool"
(1992) "Pee body"
J. Chicago (1993) book Holocaust Projection: from Darkness into Lite "Double Jeopardy":
"Everybody raped"
K. Walker ( 1995 ) "A Negress on the Flame of Desire"
E. Sulkowicz (2014-five) "Comport That Weight"
Chiliad. Smith (2001) "Rapture"
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