Feminine Sentences, Janet Wolff, Polity Press, 1990, Cambridge
Patriarchal culture controls the institutions, the language and style of representation which leads to the marginalisation of women's experience. There are structural and ideological obstacles to success of women artists. The category of 'woman' makes it impossible to be a feminist heroine, ideologically subversive plot or of a female body without all the connotations of a patriarchal representation and viewing.
Western society operates in a silo culture of knowledges of art, engineering, politics, economics, and technology. We need an integrated sociological perspective to overcome the history of gender division and institutions; and gendered work/home division. The gender division of public and private.
Women's sphere of operation is ignored and absent. Men's knowledge and social life is prioritised - their role is clearly specified. Growth of bureaucracy and urbanisation led to the division of work and home. Gender, domesticity and male and female roles were formed. Women were excluded from roles where production of knowledge took place (academic and professional thought).
Knowledge producers (men) operated in the public sphere, and took priority over the private (usually women). Women's public existence (factories, offices, street and department stores) was ignored. The world of creativity was defined by men. What does female creativity look like?
Discipline development and the rise of professions create a male gendered knowledge - therefore partial.
'Women's knowledge' is difficult to define - because of the range of criteria - age, class, ethnicity, orientation. Knowledge is the product of experience - and we cannot unify our experiences - they are not standardised. This makes it difficult to articulate when women's contribution has been ignored in a patriarchal culture.
Expose the ideological limitations of male thought ah facilitate the female voice and experience.
Celebratory art is marginalised by establishment (or targets a specific group).
Feminists who celebrate: Judy Chicago, Nancy Spero and writers Monique Wittig.
Feminists who deconstruct dominant meanings: Mary Kelly, Silvia Kolbowski, Barbara Kruger.
What is the purpose of gendered artwork:
- Celebratory (humanist) cultural politics
- Post Modernist (deconstructing) strategies which show up problems of uncritical presentation of positive images and limitations of textual practice
Critical and deconstructive practices show patriarchal systems for what they are, but the celebratory aesthetic engages specific viewers at specific times and reasons. My work definitely fits the celebratory aesthetic. Recognition of the commonalities of women's experience (to oppression) is valid and crucial for a feminist critique.
PM interventions engage with the dominant discourse/culture. Pastiche, irony, quotation and juxtaposition in cultural politics works with current issues, subverts them and re-appropriates meanings, thereby challenging the patriarchal dominance. PM art is 'to please' or 'to undermine representation' 'deconstructs tradition'. Radical and feminist intentions are to make an informed interrogation of representation often using text and caption with image - use of soundbite to destabilise the image.
Some good stuff in here. The questions is how to use it in my work?
No comments:
Post a Comment