Sarah Lucas is an English sculptor, installation artist and photographer who gained fame as one of the major Young British Artists during the 1990s, with a series of highly provocative work. Lucas began in the early 1990s by using furniture as a representation of the human body, usually with crude genital connotations, adopting the methods of Pop Art, Conceptualism and Minimalism, amongst others. In the piece entitled ‘Bitch, 1995’ she uses a table, t-shirt, melons and vacuum-packed smoked fish to combine misogynist tabloid culture with the economy of the ready-made. (See Fig 18) Lucas cleverly confronts sexual stereotyping, using a basic artistic language that has an affinity with the detrimental portrayal of sexuality itself. Her use of vernacular language, Surrealism and the material sparseness of Arte Povera, substitutes furniture and food for the human body, revealing the degrading attitudes to women. “As an artist marshalling everyday domestic life, Lucas in the 1990s seized Duchamp’s pioneering idea of found objects to make a significant if unlovely contribution to the repositioning of the female body in late 20th-century sculpture.” (Wullschlager, 2013) Titles such as ‘Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab’ are a perversion of the slang denomination of a woman, and the artwork is a parody of the traditional still life, that evokes Judy Chicago’s ‘Dinner Party’ (See Fig 16). Lucas employs bourgeois materials and methods to attract and engage the philistine in us all, evoking a
In the short story “Girl”, by Jamaica Kincaid is told from the perspective of two different people. There is a bonding relationship that is happening between the two people in this short story. The mother seems to be the main character in this essay uses a very strict tone to her daughter. The daughter is being told about how to do things in her life the correct way. The daughter barely speaks during this essay, she is doing more analyzing than arguing with her mother. When the mother gives the daughter advise she was trying to give her words of wisdom. But, at the same time, some of the ideas the mother gave to her child was offensive like “slut”. The mother has different perspectives throughout this essay with a lot of different
Pollock is known as one of the most influential scholars of modern, avant garde, postmodern and contemporary art. “Griselda Pollock continually challenges the dominant museum models of art and history that have been so excluding of women’s artistic contributions and articulates the complex relations between femininity, modernity, psychoanalysis and representation.” (Boundless, 2015) She is known as a major influence in feminist theory, gender studies and feminist art history. Griselda Pollock’s approach to art history and criticism utilises the central tenets of Marxism critical approach to society and culture, extending the existing framework of historical materialism to compose new feminist analyses of sexuality and gender identity. Pollock embraces the Marxist assertion that society is structured by relations of material inequality, but contends that society is equally structured by sexual inequality and gender divisions. Pollock determines that the exclusion and denigration of female artists in art history is a product of the patriarchal structure of bourgeois ideology. Despite women being involved in art making, twentieth century art history continues to define the artist and the artwork as a masculine phenomenon. As art and culture is marketed and produced by a culture industry that exists to perpetuate and reinforce bourgeois culture, hegemonic art history and criticism actively works to justify this
In Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl,” the narration of a mother lecturing her daughter with sharp, commanding diction and unusual syntax, both affect the evolution of a scornful tone, that her daughter’s behavior will eventually lead her to a life of promiscuity that will affect the way people perceive her and respect her within her social circle. As well as the fact that it emphasizes expectations for young women to conform to a certain feminine ideal of domesticity as a social norm during this time and the danger of female sexuality.
As you begin Beauty (Re) discovers the Male Body your read of author Susan Bordo spilling her morning coffee over a shockingly sexual advisement of a nude man. Initially, I rolled my eyes and settled in assuming, I was going to read about the tragedy of how men are now being objectified and exposed in adverting like women. As I flip through the pages looking at the scantily clad images I’m not really shocked; this essay was written fifteen years ago; I see these kinds of images going to the mall. What was shocking, however, was how Bordo a published, woman philosopher born in 1947 wrote about these images. I felt myself blush as I read “it seems slightly erect, or perhaps that’s his nonerect size, either way, there’s a substantial presence
For a reader in 2017 “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid might seems very surreal and harsh as a story; mostly because of the very grating and mean language that is used when the mother is talking. The mother’s heartless language makes is really uncomfortable even though at the end of the day, she speaks nothing but love into her daughter’s life. She is giving her daughter social and family teachings, sharing with her the cultural and social values that will help her girl to have a peaceful and respected household and a happy life.
In Chapter 3 of his book, “Ways of Seeing”, John Berger argues that in western nude art and present day media, that women are largely shown and treated as objects upon whom power is asserted by men either as figures in the canvas or as spectators. Berger’s purpose is to make readers aware of how the perception of women in the art so that they will recognize the evolution of western cultured art.
Many times throughout history it has been shown that people are shaped and molded into what society calls, “perfect people.” Jamaica Kincaid is the author of the short story titled, “Girl.” In her story there are two characters, an authoritative mother and her young daughter. Throughout the story, the mother expects so much of her daughter in various ways. She teaches her how to cook, what to wear, how to behave, and many other attributes she views to be significant for her daughter’s role in society. Kincaid elaborates the theme of how to be the “ideal,” or “flawless” woman in a society, along with being respected through the literary elements of diction, imagery, and mood.
Her newest show over New York’s Jewish Museum features nearly conservative fashion photos of unadventurously good-looking models. Everything that is in the pictures is standard and recognizable, apart from for the staring eyes that are painted on to the women’s bunged lids, (Nelson, V. 2012). These peepers look so intensely creepy: sensibly detailed but too large, too permanent, too unoccupied, hence making the flesh-and-blood humans who dress in them look as if they have been 3D printed in
The characters Sherman portrays, lighting, clothing and expressions are cliché of what is present in cinema, so much that viewers of her work have told Sherman that they ‘remember the movie’ that the image is derived from, yet Sherman having no film in mind at all.[iv] Thus showing that her word has a pastiche of past cinematic genres, and how women are portrayed in cinema and photography and how Sherman has manipulated the ‘male gaze’ around her images so they become ironic and cliché.
For centuries, women have had the role of being the perfect and typical house wife; needs to stay home and watch the children, cook for husbands, tend to the laundry and chores around the house. In her short story “Girl”, Jamaica Kincaid provides a long one sentence short story about a mother giving specific instructions to her daughter but with one question towards the end, with the daughter’s mother telling her daughter if she had done all the instructions to become a so called “perfect” woman, every man would want her. Kincaid’s structuring in “Girl,” captures a demanding and commanding tone. This short story relates to feminist perspectives. The mother expects a great deal from her daughter to have a certain potential and she does not hesitate to let her daughter understand that. As a matter of fact, the story is about two pages long, made into one long sentence - almost the whole time the mother is giving her daughter directions to follow - conveys a message to the reader that the mother demands and expects great potential in her daughter. The daughter is forced to listen and learn from what her mother is telling her to do to become the perfect housewife. Throughout the story, Kincaid uses the symbols of the house and clothing, benna and food to represent the meanings of becoming a young girl to a woman and being treated like one in society. Women are portrayed to appeal to a man to become the ideal woman in society, while men can do anything they please.
We live in a society where the similarities between female and males are seen at birth. It begins innocently with the toddlers; girls get pink while boys get blue. The gap between boys and girls develops with time and becomes increasingly apparent. There are still gender stereotypes today, but it is not as bad as it was in the past. Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl” perfectly portrays gender stereotypes. It represents gender concepts as cultural constructs in the period it was written. These conceptions are comparable to current stereotypes about gender. The book gives us a list of commands from a mother to a daughter. Men in the society are dominant to the women, and the set of rules is a product of patriarchy whereby the mother and daughter appear as subordinates to the men in their lives. The article makes one aware of the prevailing masculine hierarchy that exists in a family, and how it creates firm gender roles for females in the society.
The art world has been host to a vast menagerie of talent, intellect, and creativity for about as long as human culture has existed. It has grown, developed, and changed just as humanity has. Naturally, with such an impressively expansive history, various avenues of art are visited time and time again by new artists. Artists seek not only to bring their own personal flavor and meaning to timeless concepts, but to find new ways to approach them. While not every single creator and craftsman can make such a great impact on art or the world, their efforts have given birth to some truly magnificent and unique works. In an effort to create a more meaningful understanding, as well a deeper appreciation, of the nuances, techniques, and design choices employed in these attempts, a comparison will be made between Edouard Vuillard’s Interior With a Screen (1909-1910) and Henri Matisse’s Blue Nude (Souvenir of Biskra) (1907). In this essay, each artist’s approach to the subject of the female nude will be closely analyzed, compared, and contrasted, as will their styles of painting, handling of visual elements, and their use of the principles of design. An interpretation of each work and what the artist intended when creating it will also be provided.
In the story Girl, The author Jamaica Kincaid uses point if view to show how the mother teaches her daughter how to be the proper or perfect woman for a man. She also uses” This is how”shows how the mother teaches the daughter how to be sophisticated.
There is some disparity between the way critics and philosophers like Judith Butler view Cindy Sherman's work and the way that Cindy Sherman speaks of her photographs. It may be the disparity that exists between many modern artists, who often operate on an intuitive level, and the philosopher critics who comment upon them from a theoretical perspective or a pre-established framework. On one level, Cindy Sherman may only be playing "dress-up" (as she herself admits) in her famous History Portraits (1989-90) (Berne, 2003). On another level, however, her "dressing-up" may be indicative of a deeper problem in modern gender identity theory which is the problem of "becoming" woman (Butler, 1994) or, as Judith Butler sees it, the problem of performativity. In the History Portraits, Sherman may certainly be said to be "performing" and perhaps even attempting to "become" the male and female characters she represents in her work. Indeed, it is upon such a premise that philosopher critics and gender theorists find her work so engaging. This paper will examine Cindy Sherman and her History Portraits in relation to Judith Butler's gender theory, the portrayal of the self, and how gender identity has changed throughout the course of modern history. It will examine representations of womanhood from Romantic Idealism to Post-Modernism and will also
“The Girl I Hate” by Mona Awad tackles the daily problems of a girl who struggles with her body image. From counting calories to enjoying food, as if it is a sin, Awad creates a realistic story that many can relate to. Awad wrote a successful short story due to her ability to appeal to young females emotions, also known as pathos. Awad makes the audience feel a wide array of emotions from guilt to joy. It is easy to both love and hate the nameless main character. The author is successful because she has a purpose for creating the emotions the reader feels. Not only is Awad’s story incredibly relatable, but it is an important story for this day and age when more people are struggling with body confidence than ever.