Peripeteia: reaching the turning point

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Peripeteia: Reaching the Turning Point

On Employing Feminist Theories in Contemporary Art Museums

Caterina Antonaci

11796324 Master of Arts Thesis Heritage Studies: Museum Studies

University of Amsterdam Graduate School of Humanities

January 2019

Supervisor: Dr. Christine Delhaye

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i Peripeteia /ˌpɛrəpɪˈtaɪ.ə/ (Greek: περιπέτεια):

a sudden or unexpected reversal of circumstances or situation; a turning point.

Peripeteia comes from the Greek, from the verb peripiptein, meaning "to fall around” or "to change suddenly." It usually describes the turning point in a drama after which the plot moves steadily to its denouement. In his Poetics, Aristotle describes peripeteia as the shift in the tragic protagonist's fortune1_.

Abstract

Today’s dynamic political landscape and the academic attention dedicated to gender equality, post-colonialism, multiculturalism and globalization, challenge museums to redefine categories and to rethink their internal systems and processes in order to develop more respectful and ethical frameworks to better oblige their diverse communities. This thesis observes how contemporary art museums can be reoriented towards becoming more inclusive and ethical institutions by means of employing feminist scholarship and its main political imperatives. Feminism is considered throughout this research as a strategy whose objectives are the museum’s reform to dismantle museological authority, to challenge the structures of institutions and to break down the rules of the establishment of patriarchal culture. I will investigate how the adoption of feminist curatorship can help to restructure the museum towards the building of a more respectful institution that embraces gender equality and human rights as basic frameworks. In the frontline of the multi-layered challenges museums are facing I attempt to navigate these contemporary concerns with the hope that this research might function as a positive contribution to the several debates taking place across the international landscape of museums discourses.

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ii

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude for my supervisor Dr. Christine Delhaye as she contributed directly in the creation of the thesis that follows. I have benefitted greatly from her suggestions for which I am truly grateful. Furthermore, I would like to thank the professors of the Master programme

Museum Studies, Heritage Studies who have provided me valuable assistance throughout the MA.

Additionally, this dissertation would not have been possible without the love, support, and encouragement I received from my parents and my boyfriend Federico whose daily help and support has been useful beyond words. Finally, I would like to thank the women present in my life to whom this thesis is dedicated, namely my mother, my sisters Lavinia and Laura, my adored niece Lucilla, and my dearest friends Francesca, Flavia and Chiara, for each one of them keeps inspiring and surprising me every day.

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List of Figures

Figure 1. The Dinner Party (1979), Judy Chicago, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. .. 10

Figure 2. Head of Hatshepsut, New Kingdom, circa 1479-1425 B.C.E. for Pharaohs, Queens, and Goddesses: Feminism Impact on Egyptology exhibition. ... 14

Figure 3. Big Mother (2005) Patricia Piccinini for Global Feminisms exhibition. ... 17

Figure 4. Marcus Boy (2000-2006) Oreet Ashery for Global Feminisms exhibition. ... 18

Figure 5. Bind Series Ryoko Suzuki, for Global Feminisms exhibition. . ... 19

Figure 6. Crow Peace Delegation (2014), Wendy Red Star, 1880 for Half the Picture exhibition, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. ... 22

Figure 7. On the Impossibility of Freedom in a Country Founded on Slavery and Genocide (2016), Dread Scott for Half the Picture exhibition, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art.. 23

Figure 8. Yo Mama (1993) Renee Cox, for Half the Picture exhibition, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. . ... 24

Figure 9. Do Not Disappear Into Silence - Something To Say (09/2018- 08/2019) Brooklyn Museum entrance. . ... 27

Figure 10. The New Museum. . ... 30

Figure 11. Sex, Violence, Religion + the Good Life (1976), James Albertson for Bad Painting exhibition. . ... 34

Figure 12. William Copley (Cply), Exhibition View Bad Painting 1978 ... 35

Figure 13. Gay Liberation, Gay Liberation Monument in New York City’s Christopher Park, George Segal, 1980. . ... 39

Figure 14. Installation view of Consciousness Razing—The Stonewall Re-Memorialization Project. ... 40

Figure 15. Installation view of Consciousness Razing—The Stonewall Re-Memorialization Project. ... 40

Figure 16. View of Resources for Resistance in Consciousness Razing—The Stonewall Re-Memorialization. . ... 42

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1 “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim”.

Elie Wiesel

Introduction

Through the Prism of Feminism: A Feminist Critique of the Artworld and Art Museums

Nearly fifty years have passed since the publication of Linda Nochlin’s landmark essay Why Have

there Been No Great Women Artists2_{in which she exposed the underrepresentation of women artists}

(and by extension artists from backgrounds marginalized by race, class, ability and other interlocking oppressions) in patriarchal art institutions, like museums. Furthermore, she denounced how these underrepresented groups have been historically unable to access the mechanisms, support structures and privileges of the artworld. She revealed the idea that “greatness” –the traditional framework for the evaluation of artworks– has been identified as white-male and Western, and encouraged ways to change the art historical canon in order to include women, non-white, and non-western artists. Although there have been crucial improvements since women’s work is now more accepted and respected than in the past3_{–as suggested by the increasing number of women artists in graduate}

programmes and the efforts to include women in major exhibitions– yet female artists are still underrepresented and gender equality in museums is far from achieved. Sexism is still so insidiously woven into the institutional fabric, language, and logic of the mainstream artworld that it often goes undetected4_{. In this regard, feminist scholar and curator Maura Reilly argues that the banal refrain}

“women are treated equally in the artworld now” needs to be reassessed. The common tokenism showcasing the presence of few female icons such as Marina Abramovic, Tracey Emin, and Cindy Sherman, does not imply that women artists have achieved equality, nor indicates fairness. Discrimination against women is visible in several aspects of the artworld: gallery representation, auction price differentials, press coverage, inclusion in permanent-collection displays and solo-exhibition programs. A look at the past few years of solo-exhibition schedules at major art institutions in the United States and Europe reveals the continued prevalence of gender disparity. Despite decades of postcolonial, feminist, anti-racist, and queer activism and theorizing, the majority continues to be

2_{Nochlin, L., ‘Nochlin, L. (1988) Women, Art, and Power. New York: Harper and Row. pp. 145-178.}

3_{Jones, A. ‘On Sexism in the Art World’, in Women in the Art World, Art News, 26 May 2015, pp. 1, Retrieved}

from:http://www.artnews.com/2015/05/26/on-sexism-in-the-art-world/

4_{Reilly, ‘Taking the Measure of Sexism: Facts, Figures and Fixes’, in Women in the Art World, Art News, 26 May}

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2 defined as white, Euro-American, heterosexual, privileged, and, above all, male.5_{Specifically, the}

situation concerning female artists reveals, as argued by Bocart et al., the presence of a “glass ceiling” as there are no women in the top 0.03% of the auction market where 41% of the profit is concentrated. Overall, 96.1% of artworks sold at auctions are by male artists.6_{Furthermore, recently published}

Guerrilla Girls statistics demonstrate that economic inequity in the artworld is still very dominant for white male artists earn four to nine times more than everyone else.7_{The works of female artists that}

do enter the market are, by contrast, valuated less than those produced by their dominant male counterparts, evidence that the gender bias is not just prominent, but also systemic. Finally, gender disparity is evident in major international exhibitions of contemporary art, of which none has ever achieved gender parity. With the exception of the 2009 Venice Biennale, which featured 43% women, the next edition dropped down to 26% in 2009 and the followings never exceeded 35% of women artists.8

Likewise, inside major art institutions permanent-collection displays are also very imbalanced. Although museums have the chance to reinstall their collections towards more inclusive and respectful displays in ways that offer new perspectives on old stories, Reilly claims that many curators are not daring enough to disrupt the hegemonic narratives that govern these museums. One of the reasons being that senior management in art museums is predominantly male, and it often prevents them from instituting substantive change.9_{Additionally, inclusion strategies and new approaches for}

exhibitions are often resisted because they challenge standard museum practices: maintaining traditional models may seem more comfortable for many museum professionals than disrupting and transforming the practices that prioritize dominant cultural knowledge. However, this leads to the exclusion and alienation of the multiple, increasingly diverse communities that museums serve.10

Obviously institutions such as art museums play a very essential role in society in individual and collective heritage definition, however, how can they responsibly oblige to their communities when the people they present are only considered partially by the works displayed? As a consequence, often museums are perceived by many to be unsatisfactory: reflecting white values, serving only a cultural

2015,pp. 1. http://www.artnews.com/2015/05/26/taking-the-measure-of-sexism-facts-figures-and-fixes/

6_{Bocart et al. (2018) Glass Ceiling in the Art Market, p. 1.}

7_{Editors of Art News, ‘Guerrilla Girls Respond’, Art News, 26 May 2015, Retrieved from:}

http://www.artnews.com/2015/05/26/guerrilla-girls-responds/

2015, pp.1, Retrieved from: http://www.artnews.com/2015/05/26/taking-the-measure-of-sexism-facts-figures-and-fixes/

9_{Ibid. p.1.}

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3 elite and excluding the “Other” from the interpretive and representative processes.11_{This leads}

museums to be most comfortable and welcoming for specific publics: indeed, the modes of display and meaning-making of one collection or exhibition can serve as sites of learning and aesthetic enjoyment for some audiences while causing estrangement and disappointment for other audiences.12

As a consequence, art museums may often appear unwelcoming, outdated and even irrelevant: manifesting a negligence and unsensitivity to contemporary societal realities. For this reason it becomes necessary to develop multiple ways of creating meaning, learning, and interpreting. Precisely, this thesis investigates whether art museums can cease to benefit from Euro-American male creativity and become more sensitive towards the different communities they serve. To this end, the central focus of this research evolves around the role feminist scholarship plays in these circumstances, leading to the following research question: how is feminist theory currently employed in contemporary art museums as a strategy to change conventional museological practices based on sexist and patriarchal frameworks?

This project proposes that the adoption of feminist theory, with its intrinsic openness and inherent pluralism, can serve as the starting point for a more inclusive and respectful reconstruction of museums. The innovative and revolutionary nature of feminism is extremely useful to clear museums’ stagnation, challenging authoritative hierarchies and encouraging radical changes. Even though the juxtaposition of the terms “museums” and “feminism” reveals from the very beginning a fundamental ontological hostility: the former are institutions which stand at the “centre”, while the latter constitutes “the marginal, the peripherical”, a substitute to the orthodox.13_{Yet, museums and feminist}

theory can influence each other in very productive ways. Museums empirically taxonomize, classify and separate artefacts according to locality, epochs and styles; while feminist theory suggests to observe the artefacts in a “transversal” way: one that might disturb museums’ empirical certainty by proposing that the narratives set by traditional perspectives can be rearranged and rebuilt in flexible ways,14_{eventually allowing the inclusion of different voices and stories.}

The beginning of this research follows a historical-analytical approach through an exploration of the relationship between feminism and museums. This choice is meant to provide insights on the different

11_{Simpson, M., G., (2001). Making Representations: Museums in the Post-colonial Era. London: Routledge.} 12_{Swarupa A.(2017) ‘Inclusion Requires Fracturing’. Journal of Museum Education, 42:2, pp.109.}

13_{Reilly, M.(2017)Notes from the Inside: Building a Center for Feminist Art, in J.C. Ashton, (Ed.) Feminism and}

Museums: Intervention, Disruption and Change. Museums Etc Ltd. UK: Hudson House, 8 Albany Street, Edinburgh. p. 17.

14_{Porter, G.,(1996) ‘Seeing Through Solidity. A Feminist Perspective On Museums’, in The Sociological Review.}

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4 facets and the main pillars on which feminist theory is based, to critically analyse the influence museums and feminism have on each other and the potential outcomes generated by their encounter. In doing so, I will consult the work of many feminist scholars, curators and museums professionals. Throughout the thesis, feminist scholarship is considered as an intervention aiming at bringing fundamental changes in the structure of museums, in particular focusing on aspects ranging from exhibitionary curatorial strategies and the acquisition policy of artworks to the relationship with the audience and the interaction with the communities that museums serve.

For the purpose of the research I will analyse two museums that employ feminist scholarship in different ways, namely the Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum founded in 2007, and the New Museum founded in 1977, both situated in New York. The analysis of the case studies is made through personal observations, field notes, photographs, written reviews, articles and academic literature. For each case study I am going to analyse three selected working patterns or main focuses of the museums in which feminist ideals are present.

The process of selecting the case studies has been defined by the desire to find museums that greatly distance between each other in concept, internal logic and in their application of feminism. Firstly, I was interested in analysing an institution specifically born out of feminist ideas, precisely how the Sackler Center for Feminist Art has been created. This museum fitted perfectly with this thesis analysis specifically because it takes place inside a traditional encyclopaedic institution, aiming at applying feminist scholarship in their exhibitions and to revise male centred art historical canon. Secondly, I wanted to observe a contemporary art institution that acts according to feminist values but that does not draw its existence exclusively around them. This choice has been motivated by the willingness to show that being a feminist museum is not a necessary condition in order to be able to apply feminist values and frameworks. The New Museum in New York, positioned between a traditional museum and an alternative space, is a catalyst in bringing light and stimulating dialogues with international young artists. It has been created by feminist curator Marcia Tucker obviously embracing feminist values even though it does not showcase the label in its core name and mission. I will analyse the two institutions’ different application of feminist scholarship, observing how they adapted the core values of feminism to their specific missions and objectives.

Perhaps the biggest difficulty this thesis sets forth is the conflicting relation and resistance that museums nurture “against” feminism, which has consequently led to the “ghettoization” and seclusion of the concept. Indeed, feminist as well as postcolonial, queer and other minorities’ works have been only partially accepted into the artworld, in separate and very specific exhibitions.

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5 Feminism for instance, has been treated as a detached, lateral and brief interest along the long-existing mainstream western-dominated artworld.15_{Such interest manifested itself in the 1980s and 1990s}

with few major shows on feminist art, such as Bad Girls at The New Museum (1994), or Sexual

Politics at the Armand Hammer Museum in Los Angeles (1996). Nonetheless, according to Reilly,

these shows were largely ignored or “panned by the mainstream artworld.16_{”Subsequently, interest in}

feminism faded and renewed briefly during the 2000s, with exhibitions such as WACK! Art and the

Feminist Revolution (2007) at MOCA, and Global Feminisms (2007) at the Sackler Center to fade

again after the exhibition at Centre Pompidou elles@centrepompidou in 2009. A further proof of the sporadic pattern of interest, is that feminism has now regained critical attention, although in such a way that may not bring fundamental changes to existing conditions. Indeed, feminism has not so far been treated as something that should penetrate the actual structure of art museums. Contrarily, it has been seen as a fashionable interest to which dedicating some exhibitions along the way: “it has been borrowed and added to the museum for its novelty but has not realized structural change.”17_Museums

need to radically change their structures not exclusively by adding women artists to their collections or displaying feminist exhibitions, rather they need to re-orient and re-imagine themselves according to political imperatives suggested by feminist theory, for the ultimate achievement of feminism can be the changing of institutions on a structural and organizational level. For this reason, throughout this thesis, feminist theory is thought of as something that needs to become an intrinsic part of museums, playing an essential role in acquisition systems, exhibition frameworks, and acting as a powerful influence in the very organization of the museum.

Women’s Museums

At their creation, during second-wave feminism, the women’s museums were established to subvert conventional male dominated institutions founded on patriarchal frameworks. Women were denouncing the lack of attention to their history, achievements and artistic practices. Subsequently, they created spaces in which they could specifically treat all of the matters that were excluded from traditional institutions because were deemed as “unimportant”. Since the 80’s women museums have

15_{Jones, A.‘On Sexism in the Art World’, in Women in the Art World, Art News, 26 May 2015, pp.1, Retrieved from}

http://www.artnews.com/2015/05/26/on-sexism-in-the-art-world/

2015, pp.2, Retrieved from: : http://www.artnews.com/2015/05/26/taking-the-measure-of-sexism-facts-figures-and-fixes/

17_{Dimitrakaki, A. and Perry, L. (2013)Politics in a Glass Case: Feminism, Exhibition Cultures and Curatorial}

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6 continued to emerge around the world. In 2008, the first International Conference of Women’s Museums took place in Merano, Italy. This occasion marked the first time twenty-five women museums from different continents came together in a congress. In 2012 the network of women’s museum concretized into the current International Association of Women’s Museums (IAMW). Today, the association has developed a strong network that includes around forty-nine members worldwide, chasing collective goals.18_{Nevertheless, each women museum is extremely diverse in}

missions and working methods, for the objectives vary in different part of the world: every museum is bound to its particular history, location, culture and heritage, developing different missions and thus revealing the impossibility of gathering them under a single definition.

The first women museum started in Bonn in 1981, during the women’s movement of the 70’s. Female artists recognized the struggle of being able to exhibit their works in public institutions, and responded by founding their own space. The museum emerged in response to women’s need to participate in exhibitions, aiming at changing conventional artistic norms and, above all, at redefining the conventional concepts of aesthetics and artistic quality. Obviously, there was a strong focus on women’s works: the main topics concerned women’s history and feminist politics, with the intention of trying to fill those gaps created by traditional art institutions. However, this led women’s museums to operate in a community niche, in which only a specific target audience is reached, one that is secluded from the rest of society.19_{Indeed, women’s museum occupy only a limited area of the}

museum world, often facing financial difficulties, especially because women’s art has not been given a priority.20_{In response, in order to correct the current assumption deeply embedded in the cultural}

psyche that “women museums merely and exclusively concern women”, these institutions are expanding their exhibition focus to embrace wider discourses, broadening feminist discussions and including considerations on gender (instead of evolving specifically around feminism). Yet, they are still facing difficulties and they often continue to be only partly recognized by the museum system.21

In order not to restrict the scope of the research, the following thesis will analyse two institutions that do not self-identity as women museums, to posit that feminist based strategies in museums can, and should be, applied to every contemporary art institution, and not specifically to women or feminist museums.

18_{International Association Women Museums (2018) Retrieved from: https://iawm.international/}

19_{Schonweger, A. (2018) Women’s Museums: Hubs for Feminism. In Feminism and Museums Intervention, Disruption}

and Change (Ed.) Ashton, J. (2017). Vol. Two, Museums Etc Ltd. UK: Hudson House, 8 Albany Street, Edinburgh. pp.161.

20_{Ibid. p.163.} 21 Ibid. p.163.

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7 Denoting Feminism

Feminisms: Sites for Conflict and Contradiction

The multiple and different waves of feminism stress the importance to highlight what definition of feminism this thesis embraces. Although it cannot be reduced to one definition, the term is identified with the desire of a fundamental modification of the patriarchal system currently dominating our society, one that always has, and still is, privileging masculinity.22_{Furthermore, feminism is the}

demand for equality in a society in which gender is a fundamental aspect of its fabric, especially because – as argued by cultural theorist bell hooks – in the society we live in, both females and males since birth have been accustomed to accepting sexist thought and activity23_{. Feminist discourses are}

concerned with gender as a term encompassing difference and subordination, moreover standing in opposition to something else: "patriarchy," "masculinism", "the dominant culture", and have the intention of transforming the status quo and affecting the distribution of power.24_{Equally important}

it is to stress that the movement of feminism does not focus on the naïve and wrongminded assumption of being anti-male, rather it is “the movement to end sexism and women’s oppression.25_”

Precisely, feminism implies a refrain from dualistic thinking and restrictive categories, in order to destabilize definitions of masculinity, femininity, hetero- and homo-sexuality and finally to deconstruct these very binary oppositions which try to position the ‘one’ against the ‘other’.

In this regard, New Museum’s director and former curator Marcia Tucker suggested that borders should not be simply traced between the sexes: the traditional dichotomy of “men versus women” is the product of western binary systems of thought and language, and it only aggravates inequities.26

Furthermore, these dualistic notions of men and women, black and white, majority and minority, centre and periphery, ignore the richness of human identity and perpetuate stereotypes.27

Nevertheless, what has been and is being defined as feminist has profoundly altered over time and across cultures; for definitions and understandings of the term can clash with women of different generations or coming from different countries. Indeed, feminism is far from being a unified body of

22_{Butler, C. (2007), ‘Art And Feminism, An Ideology Of Shifting Criteria’, in WACK!, Art and the Feminist}

Revolution, ed. by Cornelia Butler and Lisa Gabrielle Mark. Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art; Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, pp. 15.

23_{hooks, b. (2000) Feminism Is For Everybody. South End Press, Cambridge. pp.viii.}

24_{Barzam, K, E.(1994) Beyond the Canon: Feminists, Postmodernism, And The History Of Art. The Journal Of}

Aesthetics And Art Criticism. Vol. 52, No.3. Wiley, The American Society For Aesthetics pp. 327.

25_{hooks, b. (2000) Feminism Is For Everybody. South End Press, Cambridge. pp.viii.}

26_{Tucker, M. (1994) ‘Common Ground’ in Museum Provision and Professionalism Ed. by G. Kavanagh. Routledge.}

pp. 226.

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8 thought: living in a multi-cultural society means coming to terms with feminism’s heterogeneity, acknowledging and respecting cultural diversity.28_{The idea of a “universal common oppression” is,}

according to bell hooks, a false and corrupt platform disguising and mystifying the true nature of women’s varied and complex social reality, mainly a professed belief by bourgeois white women.29_”

Nonetheless, today a new wave of “universal” feminism is progressively growing and entering popular culture. Although for a long time people tried to distance from the label of feminism so as not to appear “unfriendly” or “alienating” (with the common assumption in the cultural psyche being that “all feminist are un-shaved lesbians against men,30_{”) recently the word feminism has become}

trendy: increasingly celebrities, actresses and singers are proudly declaring it. Furthermore, women are increasingly asking other women to “become” feminist, trying to universalize the movement promoting it as a “common fight” to which the majority of people should participate. In this regard, it is important to stress that feminism was never a movement that belonged to the overwhelming majority of women; rather it has always been identified with a small group of activists and radicals who heavily invested in women’s lives through unprecedented drastic acts. In reality, the majority often tried to disassociate from the small group of radicals, (while at the same time benefitting from their earned achievements). Currently, the situation has deeply changed: feminists are trying to make feminism more “palatable” and comfortable for everyone.31_{However, precisely the undertaking of}

turning feminism comfortable manifests an essential contrast with feminist ideals: if anything, feminism’s main discourse was to make things uncomfortable. Indeed, in order to change circumstances and to break away from the value system and goals of dominant culture, feminists believed there had to be a drastic shift, which cannot be achieved through comfortableness. As Crispin argues, a feminism where everyone is comfortable is a feminism where everyone is working for their own self-interest, rather than for the interest of the whole.32_{Making feminism a universal pursuit only}

distances the aim of reaching a more equal society. It shifts the focus to the “label” rather than on the philosophical content of the movement: eventually what becomes important is the surface. Similarly, museums, which always reflect society, can incur the risk of employing this superficial or “shallow”33_{feminism: treating the “women issue” as mere demographical one that can be solved}

simply by adding women artists to their collections. This obviously would not bring any substantial

28_{Tucker, M. (1994) ‘Common Ground’ in Museum Provision and Professionalism Ed. by G. Kavanagh. Routledge.}

pp. 226.

29_{hooks, b (1984) Feminist Theory From Margins To Center. South End Press Cambridge, pp. 47.}

30_{Crispin, J. (2017) Why I Am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto. First Melville House Printing New York. pp.14} 31_{Ibid. p.15.}

32_Ibid.p.15. 33 Ibid. p.16.

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9 change to the structure of the institution. On the contrary, this thesis brings forth reflections on a feminist philosophy which includes new considerations on what it means to be moral, to participate to the world and to build something new, reflecting on the importance to avoid such superficial views of feminism.

Recovering Subjectivities

Patriarchal systems of oppression have long regulated women’s lives through structures of power, authority and hierarchy. Women's selfhood has been historically and systematically subordinated, diminished, and belittled, when not denied. In this regard, Willet et al. denounce the “masculinization of the self”, precisely indicating the status of invisibility, passivity and self-sacrificial altruism that consigns women to a condition of “selflessness.34_”

Consequently, the notion of “the self” acquired fundamental importance in feminist studies, which urge for its reconceptualization in particular reclaiming “lost subjectivities”. In this regard, according to Willett, it is of paramount importance to challenge the “master narratives” and traditional canons of social theory and philosophy to search for alternative views of identity and selfhood. The latter should not be based on insubordinate and oppressed narratives, but on the contrary, they should reassert the identity of women in manners that transform stereotypes into liberating modes of selfhood.35_{Moreover, in the process of reclaiming identity and selfhood, feminist studies}

conceptualize subjectivity not as a unitary, static form, but as a multiple, dynamic and continuously produced in the course of social relations that are themselves changing and often contradictory.

Precisely following the above-mentioned corollary preaching of feminism, namely the urgency of recovering subjectivities and selfhood, each sub-sections of both the case studies is entitled with the letter “I”.

34_{Willett, Anderson and Meyers, ‘Feminist Perspectives on the Self’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter} 2016 Edition), Retrieved from: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-self/#BM1

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10

Chapter One

The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art

Figure 1. The Dinner Party (1979), Judy Chicago, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Photograph by Author on November 2018.

The year 2007 was one of unprecedented institutional importance as well as a landmark moment in the history of museums and art history in general, marked by the inauguration of The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, an exhibition and public programming space completely dedicated to feminist art. The Center is the product of Elizabeth Sackler’s effort to create “a place whose primary mission was to further equality, justice, and equity and provide opportunity for the moral principles and values of feminism.36_{” The Center’s mission is to raise awareness of feminism’s}

cultural contributions, to educate new generations about the meaning of feminist art, and to maintain a dynamic and welcoming learning environment. The presence of the word ‘feminist’ on the very title distances the institution from a women’s museum in which female artists are principally committed to assert their visibility. Indeed, within the current state of feminist discourses, it is no longer a matter of creating solo shows made by women artists, rather it is about changing the patriarchal structures that pervade our culture and society. For this reason, since the very beginning,

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11 Sackler’s curator Maura Reilly stated that the institution would openly be a feminist one, making people acknowledge that – following Nochlin statement – feminism has been of profound impact on cultural production influencing every angle of contemporary art and launching a whole new realm of intellectual exploration.

At the core of this institution stands the work by Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party (1979) (Figure 1). The work inspires all the thinking at the Center, for it encompasses one of the most important ideals and contributions provided by feminist theory: a revisionist critique of the status quo and everything we take for granted. Indeed, within feminist thinking, revisionism is understood as the attempt to “rewrite history” in order to pay attention to the underrepresented areas of culture and heritage and of the world more in general. The Dinner Party features a ceremonial dinner arranged on a triangular table with thirty-nine place seats, each commemorating a woman. At the centre of the table, there are several tiles on which additional names of women are written. Precisely exemplifying the revisionist framework intrinsic in feminism, the work monumentally manifests hundreds of women’s names that Chicago wished to bring back to memory, making visitors acknowledge their biographies and personal stories. The artwork is also in the middle of an exhibition programme which consist of a series of biographical shows based on the figures and themes present in it. The Dinner Party has been kept in storage for years at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Afterwards, in 2001, it was purchased by Sackler, who subsequently gifted to the Brooklyn Museum.37_{The gifting of the artwork}

marked a significant moment in the history of feminism. Chicago’s aims were to “end the on-going cycle of omission in which women’s achievements are repeatedly written out of the historic record: a cycle of repetition that results in generation after generation of women struggling for insights and freedoms that are too often quickly forgotten or erased again.38_{” Finally in 2002, the monumental}

installation found a “home” thus breaking the cycle of erasure (at least for the 1,083 women represented in it.39₎

Curatorial Practices: The three “I’s” of the Sackler Center

Three dominant frameworks oversee the institution. The first one is an Inclusivity approach, which

37_{Reilly, M.(2017)’Notes from the Inside: Building a Center for Feminist Art’, in Feminism and Museums: Intervention,}

Disruption and Change. J.C. Ashton, (Ed.) Museums Etc Ltd. UK: Hudson House, 8 Albany Street, Edinburgh Museums Etc. Edinburgh & Boston. pp. 16.

38_{Ibid. p.16.} 39_{Ibid. p.17.}

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12 influences the stories that are to be told through the exhibitions.40_{The latter are extensively thought}

after the need of including the hidden, underrepresented and biased areas that pervade culture, in order to generate narratives that constitute more respectful representations of heritage. Second, the

Intersectional approach, in which the exhibitions take account of the multivocality of feminism,

addressing to a varied and multiform audience and refusing the ideal of a single feminist reader, which does not account for social, economic, racial and sexual differences. And third, the Integration approach which focuses on making the Sackler Center a matrix philosophically integrated to the Brooklyn Museum, and not something that works separately from it; demonstrating that feminism is not a temporary intrusion but a permanent intervention in the institution.

“I” for Inclusivity

The first aspect assessed concerns the inclusivity frameworks on which the Sackler Center is based. Apart from inclusive approaches on an organizational level concerning the compositional structure of the staff (the curatorial department alone for instance, is comprised of nineteenth curators, of which fifteen are women41_{coming from different parts of the world); inclusivity refers to the curatorial}

strategies employed at the Center as well. It is engaged in a twofold manner: first as a methodological approach based on a feminist revisionist practice that is committed to review and reassess history in order to recover (women) ignored accomplishments. The second employment of inclusivity refers to social inclusion, and it indicates the importance of considering feminism as a transnational phenomenon, namely concerning all women and not merely those who belong to privileged centres (as it has been considered so far according to Maura Reilly).

a) Including the “Hidden Histories”

One of the core missions of the Center, which is evident in the exhibition programme, is based on ‘reinterpreting and rewriting history’ using a feminist point of view, in order to change the way we accept certain versions of history and narratives and to include the underrepresented areas of culture. In this regard, feminist-based strategies of the Sackler Center encourage to question received truths and explore unexamined areas of history through an extensive programme of exhibitions precisely

40_{Bergsdòttir, A. (2016). ‘Museums and Feminist Matters: Considerations of a Feminist Museology’, NORA, Nordic}

Journal of Feminist and Gender Research. pp. 5.

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13 dedicated to these neglected areas. The exhibitions employ feminism as a methodological approach applying it to history and art objects of which a majority belongs to the vast permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum. The artefacts analysed in the exhibitions are not specifically feminist objects nor objects made by women or related to them, for they have not been made nor acquired with a feminist agenda in mind. More importantly, the reason why they are analysed through a feminist perspective is because the latter allows us to expand current opinions and to discover new interpretations about them.

One of the first inaugural exhibitions of the Center, Pharaohs, Queens, and Goddesses: Feminism

Impact on Egyptology (2007-2008), dedicated to the realm of Egyptology, precisely presents objects

that draw from the museum’s renowned Egyptian collection providing new interpretations encouraged by feminist studies. The exhibition is the result of a collaboration between Maura Reilly and Edward Bleiberg, curator of Egyptian, Classical, and Ancient Middle Eastern Art. It aimed to shed new light on traditional interpretations of women and power in ancient Egypt.42_Pharaohs,

Queens, and Goddesses was part of the exhibition programme of biographical shows based on the

figures and themes of The Dinner Party, for the exhibition revolved around a particular artefact, namely the head of Hatshepsut, who is one of the women represented at the table. In the exhibition, Hatshepsut was featured alongside other women and goddesses from Egyptian history, including queens Cleopatra, Nefertiti, Isis and several goddesses – many of whom are cited on The Dinner

Party’s tiles.

42_{Reilly, M.(2017)’Notes from the Inside: Building a Center for Feminist Art’, in Feminism and Museums:}

Intervention, Disruption and Change. J.C. Ashton, (Ed.) Museums Etc Ltd. UK: Hudson House, 8 Albany Street, Edinburgh Museums Etc. Edinburgh & Boston. pp. 17.

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14 Figure 2. Head of Hatshepsut, New Kingdom, circa 1479-1425 B.C.E. for Pharaohs, Queens, and Goddesses: Feminism Impact on Egyptology exhibition. Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum. Retrieved on January 2019.

The exhibition aimed to determine how significantly Egyptology has been changed by feminism, leading to revisions in established historical and mythological figures such as Cleopatra, Nefertiti, Isis and Hatshepsut. The latter (Figure 2), was an Egyptian queen living around the year 1450 B.C., who, in a very unprecedented act, declared herself Pharaoh and succeeded in recalling the throne. As Bleiberg explained, a century ago researchers portrayed Hatshepsut as a devious woman who claimed the kingship illegally. Today, after revisions and reinterpretations stimulated by feminist theories, Egyptologists determined that Hatshepsut acted to preserve her family’s claims on the throne, thereby transforming the figure from villain to heroine.43_{Similarly, feminist-led researches have expanded}

our knowledge and changed our modern understanding of the ancient world with regards to figures such as Tiye and Nefertiti. Egyptologists only now recognize the two as their husbands’ equal partners in ruling Egypt instead of scheming women who struggled to claim more power than was proper for queens and women.44_{Even Cleopatra, whose reputation among the ancient Romans (as well as many}

historians) was fundamentally negative, is today considered as the legitimate guardian of her country’s political interest.

43_{Brooklyn Museum Website (2018) Retrieved from:}

https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/pharaohs_queens_goddesses

44_{Brooklyn Museum Press Release Website, Retrieved on:}

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15 This exhibition shows how feminism expanded the realms of intellectual exploration, demonstrating that when feminism is used as a tool to understand and examine other collections and cultures in the museum, it helps to shed light on sex and gender disparities throughout history, and opens dialogues about the roles of women historically.45_{To this extent, the wide collection of the Brooklyn Museum}

is extremely useful and convenient for revisionist frameworks of analysis, allowing for always new possibilities of interpretation.

b) Including “Transnational Histories ”

Simultaneously, the other inaugural exhibition that had to represent “the birth” of the Sackler Center due to its scope and size, was Global Feminisms: New Directions in Contemporary Art (2007). Reilly’s intentions were to push feminist discourses onto new directions. Precisely, the exhibition has brought feminism to a new frontier that Reilly identifies as an “international expansion,46_{” reflecting}

feminism’s increasing interest in the postcolonial movement and in notions of diversity and multiculturalism. Curated by Maura Reilly and Linda Nochlin, the exhibition started as a speculation of women artists’ status after more than thirty-five years of Nochlin’s landmark publication47_{. Both}

Nochlin and Reilly concluded that, although women did achieve greater recognition, this concerned in particular the women belonging to privileged centres. In response, Global Feminisms called attention to the work by women as cultural producers across cultures, not only in the west, thereby criticizing the art world as implicitly masculinist and Euro-US centric. The exhibition was created following a “transnational” curatorial framework, meant to broaden the understanding of the co-implicated histories and identities of women, in order to rethink feminism and art in the age of an increased globalisation. For this reason, the exhibition was important in the acknowledgement that the perpetual marginalization of non-western women could no longer be ignored, recognizing the major changes in feminist theory that have occurred after the introduction of postcolonial and antiracist ideas.48_{In this way, the exhibition encompassed the shift of interest within feminist thinking}

that in the 70’s denounced the exclusion of women artists from the masculinist art historical canon, while in the 90’s it condemned the exclusion of feminists of colour from the (always masculinist) Euro-American centred canon.

45_{Nochlin, L. (1988) Women, Art, and Power. New York: Harper and Row. pp. 145-178.}

46_{Reilly M. (2007) Introduction: Toward Transnational Feminisms: Global Feminisms New Directions in}

Contemporary Art. London, New York: Merrel, pp.15.

47_{Nochlin, L. (1988) Women, Art, and Power. New York: Harper and Row. pp. 145-178.}

48_{Reilly, M.(2017)’Notes from the Inside: Building a Center for Feminist Art’, in Feminism and Museums: Intervention,}

Disruption and Change. J.C. Ashton, (Ed.) Museums Etc Ltd. UK: Hudson House, 8 Albany Street, Edinburgh Museums Etc. Edinburgh & Boston.. pp. 19.

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16 The exhibition, showcasing a variety of media from painting, sculpture, photography, video and performance, presented the work by eighty-eight female artists (of which only four were born in the USA), from sixty-two countries featuring a multiplicity of voices and thus stressing the “global feature” of feminism. The display of the exhibition was not developed according to a chronological or geographical order, instead it was divided into four sections linked with each other, that determined both the interconnectedness and the diversity of women’s histories, experiences, and struggles worldwide.49_{The first section, Life Cycles, outlined the stages of life – from birth to death – in a}

subversive and at times disturbing manner. “Natural” contexts such as motherhood, nursery and pregnancy, have been subverted by the artists through works showcasing lesbian motherhood, “primate” nursery, or male pregnancy. Section two, Identities, has been deeply influenced by feminist theorist Donna Haraway’s reflections on the “contradictory, partial, and strategic” features intrinsic in individuals’ identities.50_{This section presented works that aimed to expose how people’s identities}

cannot be restricted to a single definition, thus recognizing their fluid and changing qualities. The third section of the exhibition, Politics, scrutinized world politics through the perspective of female artists, considering how the political has become deeply personal (reversing the famous feminist motto “the personal is political”). This section presented works exploring the difficult relationship between the individual and the political forces that brought to war, racism, sex trafficking, colonialism and geographical displacement. Finally, Emotions, the last section, investigated the representation of various emotional and psychological states. Works overtly addressed sentiments such as self-hatred, neurosis, happiness, sexual pleasure, madness. The works aimed to dismantle the confining stereotypes of what is “natural” for women to feel. This section humorously ironicized on the conventional idea that presented women as emotional creatures and weak victims.51

49_{Reilly, M.(2017)’Notes from the Inside: Building a Center for Feminist Art’, in Feminism and Museums:}

Intervention, Disruption and Change. J.C. Ashton, (Ed.) Museums Etc Ltd. UK: Hudson House, 8 Albany Street, Edinburgh Museums Etc. Edinburgh & Boston.. pp. 19.

50_{Haraway, D. J. (1991). Simians, Cyborgs and Women. The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge.} 51_{Reilly M. (2007) Introduction: Toward Transnational Feminisms: Global Feminisms New Directions in}

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17 Figure 3. Big Mother (2005) Patricia Piccinini for Global Feminisms exhibition. Courtesy of Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Retrieved on January 2019.

Figure 3 showcases the work by Australian artist Patricia Piccinini, Big Mother (2005), which

represents an upsetting lifelike sculpture of a genetically engineered primate nursing a human infant. Piccinini explores the intersection between the natural and the artificial as it developed in discourses of contemporary culture. The hybrid creature interrogates viewers on what it means to be human today, questioning individuals’ relationship and responsibilities towards what they create.52_As

Piccinini explains, the work was inspired by the story of a female baboon whose baby died while still being nursed and, overwhelmed by grief, consequently abducted a human child as a substitute.53_The

primate is represented in an apparent state of sadness, whereas the infant, serenely breastfeeding, does not appear aware of the subverted circumstance. Big Mother challenges many binary dualisms, particularly that of the human and the non-human. Piccinini’s work is concerned with how the creations of humans’ evolving technologies are blurring the boundaries between humans, animals and machines.54_{Her work provides input for reflecting on problematic issues concerning}

environmental, moral and ethical implications of scientific and technological innovations during our current era.

https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/feminist_art_base/patricia-piccinini

53_Ibid.

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18 Figure 4. Marcus Boy (2000-2006) Oreet Ashery for Global Feminisms Exhibition. Courtesy of Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Retrieved on January 2019.

Figure 4, shows the artwork by English-Israeli artist Oreet Ashery, Marcus Boy. Marcus Fisher, the

figure in the photograph, represents the artist’ alter ego, an orthodox Jewish male, who is Ashery’s most consistent character. Ashery is interested in the intersection of life and art, the intimate and the professional. In this work, she looks at the intersection of gender, race, religion and ethnicity and questions the nature of identity.55_{Through the alter ego, Ashery shares her willingness to breach into}

the world of men, and to explore the “Otherness” of Orthodox Judaism as experienced by a male person. The ambiguity created by the work is intentional, as Asheer does not want the viewer to understand the true gender of the figure.56

https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/feminist_art_base/oreet-ashery.

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19 Figure 5. Bind Series Ryoko Suzuki, for Global Feminisms exhibition. Courtesy of Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Retrieved in January 2018.

In her Bind Series, Ryoko Suzuki (Figure 5) is commenting upon Japanese social realities concerning the status of women. Although the Law for Equal Employment Opportunity of Men and Women was passed in 1985, today the country is still a male dominated society, and equality between men and women is far from being achieved. In this work, Suzuki wraps her head with tightly wound pigskin previously soaked in blood. The blood is herewith symbolising female sexuality and the artist’s distressing transition from adolescence to womanhood.57_{The wrapping of the artist’s skin leads to a}

deformation of her physical traits, for which she becomes almost unrecognizable. With this work, the artist wants to share her pain caused by the timely constriction to which she has been subject her whole life.

From these three artworks, it is already clear how direct and sharp the exhibition was. Visitors were confronted with scenes provoking strong emotional responses, ranging from domestic violence, self-mutilation or passionate moments. The exhibition had mixed reviews. Art critic Roberta Smith argued that due to the small amount of paintings and sculptures (in blunt contrast with the large quantity of photographs and videos), conferred the idea of being an exhibition about information, documentary, politics and the struggle for equality, rather than being about art58_{. She also added that the numerous}

https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/feminist_art_base/ryoko-suzuki

58_{Smith, R. “They are Artists who are Women, Hear them Roar” The New York Times, Art Review. March 23 2007}

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20 artworks displaying nude female bodies made of it a cliché, which ultimately seemed to suggest the desire by female artists to “get even” with male artists for all the nude paintings depicted over the centuries.59_{Furthermore, according to art history and gender studies professor Carol Armstrong, the}

exhibition only reaffirmed negative stereotypes, not only perpetuating the image of the woman as mentally unstable and weak, but also illustrating feminism as victimhood and pornographic misogyny60_{. According to Armstrong, rather than suggesting that feminist art can be aesthetically}

challenging, the exhibition presented it as merely illustrational and documentational, without adding new and productive things about women and the concept of the feminine. Furthermore, the exclusion of men entailed a separatist feminist discourse, suggesting that the practice of feminist art was not relevant to both sexes, ultimately perpetuating the opposition between men and women, which is not what feminism entails.

Nevertheless, the exhibition had positive reviews as well. As argued by Helena Reckitt, the focus on non-western artists and the extensive consultation with art critics and curators coming from regions that were not traditionally part of the Western art-world’s circuit, allowed to avoid mainstream curatorial trends.61_{Furthermore, in showcasing a multitude of feminist voices across multiple and}

different cultures, the exhibition challenged exclusionary discourses of contemporary art, which continue to assume that the west stands at the center while consigning everything else to the outside border. Global Feminisms developed a more inclusive discourse encouraging cross-cultural differences. It took inspiration from what Chandra Talpade Mohanty calls “common differences,” indicating the similarities as well as the contextual differences between women across and within cultures, races, classes, religions and sexualities.62_{To this extent, the exhibition was created according}

to a relational feminist curatorial strategy, placing these very diverse yet similar works in dialogue.63_{The exhibition highlighted how women artists responded to highly individualised}

situations that nonetheless featured similar conditions ranging from hysteria, death, pain, war, sex or motherhood. Therefore, these “common differences” – which are context-dependent, multifaceted, and versatile –were underlined and put close to each other, generating fresh dialogues and always

59_{Smith, R. “They are Artists who are Women, Hear them Roar” The New York Times, Art Review. March 23 2007}

Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/23/arts/design/23glob.html

60 Armstrong, C. “Global Feminisms.” ARTFORUM. January 1, 2007.Retrieved from

https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/200705/global-feminisms-and-wack-15216

61_{Reckitt, H. “Unusual suspects: Global Feminisms and WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution.” n.paradoxa. Vol.}

18.

62_{Talpade Mohanty, C.(1992) “}_{Feminist Encounters: Locating the Politics of Experience” in Destabilising Theory:}

Contemporary Feminist Debates (Ed.) Barret, M and Phillips, A. Polity Press, Cambridge.

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21 new discussions. This all-women exhibition, by actively excluding narrow boundaries and adopting an inclusive transnationalism, questioned the continued privileging of masculinist cultural production present in the art market, cultural institutions and exhibition practices in the US and in Europe. Furthermore, by indicating the need of a transnational feminism, the exhibition does not merely add voices or extend the Euro-American centred feminism, instead it expands the concept of feminism by creating a relationality within the movement itself, favouring an intricateness between individual and collective experiences of women cross-culturally.64_{By extension, this exhibition has challenged the}

widespread account of “universal sameness” among women, deeply embedded in the plural title choice “Feminisms”. Nochlin and Reilly wanted to highlight that there is no unitary, single vision of feminism, in as much as there is no universal woman. In this way, the exhibition entailed a turn to a feminism that encompasses anti-racist and post-colonial studies. This feature has been integrated to the Sackler philosophy from this very inaugural exhibition, and it is still present in current exhibitions. The next section will precisely explore the intersectional feminist approach even further.

“I” for Intersectionality: Intersectional Feminism

To this very day, the Sackler Center increasingly highlights the multivocality of the concept of feminism, encompassing bell hooks’ statement that understands “common oppression” as a false and corrupt idea, which suppresses the true nature of women’s varied and complex social reality.65_{Precisely, as occurred in the very first exhibition Global Feminisms, the Sackler has always}

refused the ideal of “global sisterhood”, a concept that takes a universal sameness among women without accounting for social, racial, ethnic, sexual and cultural differences.66_{Furthermore, the}

institution takes an intersectional feminist stance to contrast the choice of addressing a homogeneous audience, which assumes that feminist readers have a shared identity and transcends the differences among them. The current exhibition organized by Catherine Morris and Assistant Curator Carmen Hermo Half the Picture: A Feminist Look at the Collection (2018-2019) showcases a variety of feminist agendas demonstrating the interconnectedness and diversity of women’s histories, experiences and struggles worldwide, addressing a wide and different audience without reducing difference and heterogeneity to unity.

Contemporary Art. London, New York: Merrel pp.18

65_{hooks, b. (1984) Feminist Theory From Margins To Center. South End Press pp. 48.}

66_{Reilly, M.(2017)’Notes from the Inside: Building a Center for Feminist Art’,in Feminism and Museums: Intervention,}

Disruption and Change. J.C. Ashton, (Ed.) Museums Etc Ltd. UK: Hudson House, 8 Albany Street, Edinburgh Museums Etc. Edinburgh & Boston. pp.25.

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22 The exhibition presents new acquisitions, rediscoveries and more than one-hundred works from the Brooklyn Museum collection, analysing them through a feminist perspective, exploring past and contemporary discussions about feminism and culture. On display, there are more than fifty artists of varied backgrounds, approaches, and intersecting identities, whose practices have responded to feminism over the last century. The title of the exhibition, explains curator Catherine Morris, refers to the 1989 Guerrilla Girls’ artwork You’re Seeing Less Than Half The Picture Without The Vision

Of Women Artists And Artists Of Color, a direct and sharp graphic work, made to gather support and

inspire action to fight stereotypes and dominant narratives. Similarly, the exhibition presents highly compelling works of artists, who fight to make present these issues encouraging viewers to pay attention.67

Figure 6. Crow Peace Delegation (2014), Wendy Red Star, 1880 for Half the Picture exhibition, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Photograph by Author, taken on November 2018.

The exhibition explores a wide range of art-making and rethinks the biases present in art history, visual culture and society, focusing on enduring political subjects that encompass gender, race and class. The artists draw people’s attention on messages of resistance and protest, criticizing and interrogating historical, social and political narratives of the United States; they further observe realities such as violence and exploitation, in particular in contexts of gendered power dynamics.

Figure 6 showcases the work by Wendy Red Star 1880 Crow Peace Delegation (2014), a series of

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23 annotated photographs of Native Americans of the Crow Land.68_{Many of these photographs are}

today part of American mass-popular culture, employed for commercial objects such as tea-bags or cups, completely devalued of their original meaning and lacking information on the subjects depicted.69_{Red Star’s photographs feature annotations instructing viewers on who the subjects are,}

providing information on the clothes and objects used. The work is a commentary upon the depiction of native Americans in popular culture. Red Star is a native herself and through this very personal and political work of art, she is criticizing American ignorance on First Nations culture, at the same time elucidating on the meaning of the costumes and objects belonging to the people depicted.

In parallel, power dynamics and the continue struggle for racial justice are expressed in the photographs of the past performance by Dread Scott On the Impossibility of Freedom in a Country

Founded on Slavery and Genocide (2016) (Figure 7), in which the artist is repeatedly pushed

backwards by the jet of a fire hose as he attempts to walk. Fire hoses were used by police to suppress peaceful anti-segregation protests during 1963 Civil Rights Campaign in Alabama. Scott refers to these events in order to commemorate those who have participated in the task of dismantling white supremacy in the United States.

Figure 7. On the Impossibility of Freedom in a Country Founded on Slavery and Genocide (2016), Dread Scott for Half the Picture exhibition, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Photograph by Author, taken on November 2018.

68_{Wendy Red Star Website (2018) Retrieved from:}

http://www.wendyredstar.com/medicine-crow-the-1880-crow-peace-delegation

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24

Half the Picture can also be seen as the consequence of the critical revaluation of art making, art

history, and the artworld at large that has been set forth by Nochlin in her 1971 landmark essay. The artworks in this exhibition interrogate the contexts in which art has been made, understood and valued, focusing on education, historical erasure and biases that characterise the making of art. In this regard, Jamaican artist Renee Cox reinterprets honorific portraiture, a genre that has been historically recognized in whiteness, power and privilege. The artwork Yo Mama (1993) (Figure 8), is a nude self-portrait that presents the subject as model of self-possession and self-empowerment, challenging the long tradition of white male artists depicting nude women as always available and passive. Cox used her own body, both nude and clothed, to celebrate black womanhood, criticize our racist and sexist society, in particular by deconstructing stereotypes and celebrating women’s empowerment.70

The artist reflects on how distorted are the images of women in the media, picturing women confined in unrealistic representations of the female body. This distortion crosses all ethnic lines and devalues all women.71_{Therefore, Cox starts from the stereotypical representations of women and turns them}

upside down, for their empowerment.72

Figure 8. Yo Mama (1993) Renee Cox, for Half the Picture exhibition, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Photograph by Author, taken on November 2018.

https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/feminist_art_base/renee-cox

71_Ibid.

72 Kimmelman, M. CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK; 'Yo Mama' Artist's Past as Superhero. The New York Times Feb 17 2001. ( https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/17/nyregion/critic-s-notebook-yo-mama-artist-s-past-as-superhero.html

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25 Seemingly, Half the Picture, having learned from the critiques of Global Feminisms, does not adopt a separatist critique of art history, in which only women artists are present and that therefore would only promote traditional art history (instead of critically analysing it). Rather, the exhibition, through the perspective of both women and men artists, is focused on difference and gender and not on the female per se. Furthermore, the postmodern refusal for authority, master discourses and categorisation, reminds of Griselda Pollock’s idea that imagines feminism “as a movement across the fields of discourse”. The play on the word ‘movement’ allows us to keep in mind the political collectivity in which feminist work must be founded and, at the same time, it enables us to refuse containment in a category called feminism.73_{Following Pollock’s proposal, the exhibition considers}

the feminist movement as a verb rather than a noun; a shifting and reflexive process that considers all society as a subject and resist a single definition. Indeed, throughout the exhibition, feminism is understood as a constantly-reinventing transitory process charged by diversity, acknowledging that it takes place in different social formations.74_{Each artist presents its own view of feminism, through}

personal observations and opinions, and makes visitors recognize that feminism favours diversity over sameness, because of the intrinsic heterogeneity of femininities that change according to ethnicity, class, race and generation.

Furthermore, the exhibition contrasts the presence of what Barzam calls the ‘Feminist Reader’, which is an illusory construct because individuals belong to communities charged by different voices and contradictions, in which, by extension, there is a plurality of readers. Indeed, feminists do not speak as one, hence it is not possible to address a single reader nor a shared identity with that reader.75_It

should also be argued that individuals’ concerns and interpretations are never constant, but always shifting: identity itself is multiple and the self is unstable. Consequently, Half the Picture features different voices and addresses a multiplicity of viewers. In this way, the exhibition seemingly takes into account that addressing a unanimous audience leads to reinforcing the same reader-text relations that are set up by dominant art histories. The latter function according to ‘absolute truth’ and ‘falsity’ ideas, dictating visitors what should deserve their attention or how they should look and interpret art, thus reaffirming the hierarchical relations and asymmetries of power that do not encourage critical readers because they do not allow visitors to reach interpretation on their own terms.76_Without

73_{Pollock, G. (1999) Differencing the Canon: Feminist Desire and the Writing of Art Histories. London and New York,}

Routdledge, p.26.

74_{Cherry, D. ‘Historiography/Feminisms/Strategies’. n.paradoxa online issue no.12 March 2000.}

75_{Barzam, K, E.(1994) ‘Beyond the Canon: Feminists, Postmodernism, And The History Of Art’. The Journal Of}

Aesthetics And Art Criticism. Vol. 52, No.3. Wiley, The American Society For Aesthetics pp. 329.

Peripeteia: reaching the turning point