Christina R. Bodine
Gallery Artists Relationship to Semester Project
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The theme for my semester project is Gender Stereotype. This topic is a major issue in society and it has such an impact on especially the new-coming generations. When, as a class visited the exhibit “Persistence on History,” three artists whose artwork that I have found to be an interest to me and just happens to have connections with my semester project are—Nina Katchadourian, Joyce Kozloff, and Stacy Renee Morrison.
In
the book, Seeing Power, Thompson
wrote: “it’s true that we’re obsessed
with shaping who we are and that we cannot resist the focus of labor and
capital that shape who we are simply by changing our minds.”(Thompson. 131)
This quote made me think of my first artist of interest—Nina Katchadourian. We
see in the world that media/advertisement
has a way of trying to influence greatly on what an individual can
become simply creating products to cause people to feel compelled to buy in
order for them to have hopes that if they bought, it would bring about some
sort of happiness or belonging in society. Victoria’s Secret, for example, show
a typical view of a beautiful woman in societies eyes—tall, skinny, and
majority of the times white. They promote perfumes and undergarments for women
in order to show if you bought their products, you will be just as beautiful as
that model in the catalog. Media does indeed influence or change our minds in
believing we can be ourselves, but in reality, we are really turning what they
want us to turn into. And that is why I purposely chose this quote in
connections with the work of Katchadourian. A sample of it is shown in the
above image.
At
first glance, it can be easy to think that a male, but it is the artist
herself. Her work can be described as witty, playful and it is true based on
the fact that she used two caterpillars as a mustache. She even used honey in
order to keep the caterpillars in places because they kept going up her nose.
The purpose of her self-portrait is to show that she can change the view of
cross-dressing, which is view as unnatural by using natural products to show it
is okay. Her work contradicted the quote from Seeing Power because in the
quote, it points that we cannot identify ourselves and that society does it for
us, but Nina’s work show the opposite. It shows that she can change societies
view of is not natural by using things that society thinks it’s natural. Her
works ties in nicely with my theme of Gender Stereotype. Gender Stereotype is
influenced by media and advertisement and starting at a young age—kitchen sets
for girls and nerf guns for boys. Nina
used her work to break that thought of crossdressing seen as ridiculous and change
it
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into something funny, and I want to do the same with my project for this semester.
“We are the institution. It’s a question of
what kind of institution we are, what values we institutionalize, what forms of
practice we reward, and what kinds of rewards we aspire to.”(Thompson.
118) I personally like this quote
because it’s in regards of who we are or I should say what person we strive to
be. When changes start, it usually always start with an individual. In the
works of Stacy Renee Morison’s, she recreates photographs of the lives of women
who have died long ago. She found an old trunk and wears them in the photograph
in order to somehow bond with her alter ego whom she views as a spiritual
sister. This artwork I found interesting because by wearing their stuff, Stacy
was able to connect with not only the women who have died, but also herself.
She is an explorer, so she used what she does for a living into a form of art
and was able to inspire herself by doing so. I think this artwork connects with
my theme because today genders have certain roles and that can cause people to
feel confined or sense of not belonging. Just how old collective items caused Stacy to
feel like a different person, that’s all it takes is something small in order
to make an individual to feel new. It is the same way with gender. A male can
wear a dress or a female in a suit and they can feel more like themselves or
get in touch with their alter ego. There is nothing wrong with that, but in
society, it is out of the ordinary just like the artwork of Nina Katchadourian.
For my project, I am searching for artist who breaks these stereotype of the
sexes, so that when people look on my website, they can also put on old clothes
sort of speak and become those people THEY aspire to be and not
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what the world wants them to be.
“We are getting half of the picture
if we conveniently avoid context.”(Thompson.122) In
class, we touched base really briefly with what that quote entails by the
example of graffiti. We discussed that the purpose of the wall is to have space
in order to express themselves. If the graffiti was in a more permitted area,
somehow the rules changed and it is considered illegal. Many people that see
graffiti, see the illegal aspect of it instead of looking deep at the true
meaning behind that artwork on that wall. This quote those with all three of
the artist of interest, especially Joyce Kozloff—the last, but not least artist
that I found interesting.
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By looking at the above image of her artwork, it just looks like a map and it is, but there is a deeper meaning by this image. Look closely and there are little, tiny figures of soldiers and military weaponry and those are copies of drawing by her son, who was young and also fascinated with war. By doing this artwork, Joyce was able to try to understand the terrible aspects of history that her son was so amused to, so she used his drawing in a way to question power, knowledge, and ignorance. I used this specific artwork in connections with my project because the roles of gender has impact especially on those at a small age. Growing up, kids are raised hearing that boy or girls should or should not do something simply because it is not what their gender does. It is sad because we all some way do that. Joyce did not do that with her son. She tried to find a deeper meaning of what makes her son so focused instead of just trying to steer him into another direction.
I remembered in my Latin American class, we discussed
gender roles of Latin Ameica as well as the Caribbean. They have set gender
roles they have to follow and if they do not do so accordingly, they get looked
down upon by society, but it is somewhat a similar way here too. We take away a
doll from a young boy or a ball from a girl and replacing it with the toy that
is made specifically for their gender. We have to do the same as Joyce. Instead
of steering people into the role of their sex, we have to understand their
interest and embrace it like she did with her son.
“There ought to be limits to
freedom.’’ (Interventionists.73)
The Yes Men said this quote and it is so true. We are supposed to have freedom
to be or become whomever we want, but when it is out societies’ ideal, we get
restricted of that freedom. In gender roles, it is exhausting have to be a
certain way or do something in a sort of order because it just what your gender
does. These three artists made their artwork speak for them and how it shows
they change societies’ view to go according to their own.
This
is a picture of Sacagawea, a Native American woman who helped Lewis and Clark
in their expedition. This picture is empowering because she was pregnant at
that time and helping them could have jeopardized her and her baby’s life. She
had not fear and that is really commendable.
This
picture is of Golda Meir, who became a prime minister and raising $50 million
from American Jews for their foundation. I thought that is amazing that her
face is on a face of a bill, which is the first I have seen of this.
I
used this picture for my semester project, but I found it interesting.
Obviously, it is a woman in a wedding drees, but what made me fascinated is
that title Untitled because all the picture in this exhibit are of general
stereotypes and how we are untitled to say that something is for a certain
individual simply because of their gender.
These
artists does indeed help me put my project in different perspectives and I am
excited to really dive into the project further so stay tuned…
Links:
https://list25.com/25-women-who-defied-gender-roles-and-made-history/
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