In art history today, we discussed an issue that I find very very interesting: femanine art and female artists. Apparently there is this sisterhood of artists called the Guerrilla Girls. It's a group of female artists (nobody knows exactly who) but they go around leaving posters meant to address sexism and racism in art, media, politics etc. They pointed out in their statement that in MoMa, 85% of the featured artists were male. And that out of all the nudes featured, only 2% were male.
deemed "homoerotic" |
by a male artist (deemed misogynistic) |
So I asked my teacher if there were any male artists who are considered feminists. She could only provide me with one name. And when I found an extensive list of "feminist artists" on wikipedia, the only male I could find was Kurt Cobain. I don't honestly don't think this is a matter of there not being any male feminist artists out there. I think there seems to be this agreed notion that you have to be female for your art to ever be taken seriously as feminist. If you haven't noticed yet, my 4 art projects for Art 108 have ALL been linked to the feminine. My first piece was meant to resemble both a cathedral door and a vagina, second piece was a purse, the third was an aborted (female) fetus made from SPAM, and my last one addressed the tension between the sexes.
by female artist (deemed "edgy") |
My classmate Maria, noticed this trend and asked if I thought it might be 'misogynistic', that i was trying to tell women how to think. I can't help but feel that, if I was a girl, that my artwork would be seen as a good thing but since I'm a guy, self-proclaimed feminists will reject it. That I can't have a hand in the message. If a woman makes a sculpture of a vagina...that's pride, but if a man paints a vagina...that's objectifying? I believe that I am the product of being raised in a VERY feminist household, I have a LOT of empathy for women, the empathy I thought they were trying to instill. But if they're not interested in my agreeance with them...well what else can I give them?
I think there are quite a few male artists who examine femininity and feminism. you should also look into examining all of the different waves of feminism (third & most current being more all inclusive). I have not thought of any of your work as misogynist at all.
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