It is getting close to closing time (December 16) but I thought I would let you in on the feminist art exhibit in Washington DC if you have not already been. WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution. I tell ya, as a person who can feel kind of lost at times when looking around for something I can connect with as a person with a female body - oh yea, we call that a woman - this exhibit made me relax. What did it remind me of? Well for starters, that I am not alone. I am so not alone. I forget that good art can be experienced like exhaling after holding your breath for forever. Everything in my body just started to relax as I walked around and soaked up what was there. I fell in love with two artist in particular that day - Hannah Wilke and Joan Semmel. Do you know them? Here is the short story - Hannah Wilke caught my eye with her poster (see below)
I mean how are you gonna miss something like that? I got it. Right away. Even in the midst of all this great feminist art and revolution, folks were trying to impose standards, what I would call upper-middle-class-act-like-a-lady standards, to the art that was supposed to be rethinking gender. Hannah Wilke was accused of using her body and her good looks too much in her work, that it bordered on pornographic (by those days standards). Truth is she used her female body in her art throughout her whole life, including when it was rotting away from cancer. She didn't hide it from the camera then either. Her critics kind of had to eat it then. I felt inspired by her boldness. It reminded me that when I felt like there might be a campaign going on to make me behave there is. I am not crazy. Just smart as hell.
And as for Joan Semmel, it was more subtle. It was a simple painting of two nude bodies - one female, one male. And I knew what she was getting at. Even before I saw the title. And when I did see the title I almost fell over because it pretty much sums up my life when it comes to my relationships.
INTIMACY AUTONOMY
It is one of those paintings I see and think "I want to be her when I grow up". Oh wait. I am. Wow. Lucky me. Really. I love it. I could feel the love between the two bodies and what it takes to be there like that. And not just with lovers but in all of life. It is who I want to be.
So to sum it up - the art show reminded me of who I want to be, who I am, and who I am surrounded by.
I am a really really lucky gal.
So get out and see some feminist art, damnit. (THE FEMINIST ART PROJECT) You'll be glad you did.
Love,
wma
I do know Joan Semmel.
Posted by: Janet Kozachek | 12/11/2007 at 08:41 AM