Postmodern American Artist 's Cindy Sherman And Kara Walker Critique And Question Grand Narratives Of Gender, Race And

" We are almost a nation of dancers, musicians, and poets. Every great event, such as a triumphant return from battle, or other cause of public rejoicing, is celebrated in public dances, which are accompanied with songs and music suited to the occasion. The assembly is separated into four divisions, which dance either apart or in succession, and each with a character peculiar to itself. The first division contains the married men who in their dances frequently exhibit feats of arms, and the representation of a battle. To these succeed the married women who dance in the second division. The young men occupy the third; and the maidens the fourth. Each represents some interesting scene of real life, such

Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity was written by Griselda Pollock in 1988, and later published in The Expanding Disclosure in 1992. Griselda Pollock is an art historian, and writes this article for fellow art historians. This is an article written to show the different approaches to femininity in the late 19th century, mainly dealing with the field of art. This article shows how during this time period there were women artists, but due to the gendered ruled ideas attached to art history, these women are largely ignored by art historians. Pollock thought that these women artists are primarily overlooked due to the fact that they are judged by the same standards that are affixed to the work of their male counterparts. But she argues

1985 (Figure 2) first appeared in 1985 plastered on billboards around New York City. The piece is illustrated in monochrome colours so to not distract viewers from the meaning of the poster. The harsh contrast in colours between the black writing and white background make the piece stand out and draw the attention of bypassers. Written on the artwork is a list of well-known museums in New York City and beside them is a score of how many women artists have had one-person exhibits there in the past year. The results showed that the Guggenheim, Metropolitan and Whitney museums each had zero, whilst the Modern museum had one. These results are supposed to shock the audience and make gallery curators feel a sense of guilt, that it’s clear the art world don’t appreciate women artists like they do men. Whist they are confronting the public with that truth they are also providing another critical message with this piece. The Guerrilla Girls identified these museums by first name, not out of convenience, but to make a statement, that the only museums to allow women artist some form of respect like male artist do was the ‘modern’ museum. Emphasising the fact that gender discrimination and bias nature in the art world should be in the past, and the only museum that realises and recognises this is the modern one. The poster’s main message challenges the patriarchal world of art and confronts art galleries

Every girl growing up always use to play dress up in clothes as a childhood past time for fun. Cindy Sherman used that passed time as a way to create art with photography and is known for her talent of this act and taking self-portraits of it. Her ideas come stereotypes of women throughout past and present society. These self-portraits are known to “confront and explore the representations of women in society.” (Jankauskas).

The post-modernist Julie Rrap is a contemporary artist whose focal point rests on the basis of femineity and the way the female identity is represented historically within art. She is a feminist who accuses the ‘male gaze’ of instigating a predatory activity that is accustomed with the norm of society. She relates this norm to existing social structures that are attributed with a patriarchal society, where women were nothing more than sexual objects. All in all this term, the ‘male gaze’ evaluates the predatory voyeurism of society, where the male is the active subject and the female is a passive object of representation.

In the twenty first century there are a few men in this world that admits when you think of artist, you don’t typically think of women. Women rights and racism play a strong role when it comes to African American female artist. For decades’ African American woman have always had a permanent double bull’s eye on their back. Their skin and gender was their worst enemy. In the 1700 century women rights movements started to rise. But if you look up women right movements starting in the 1700 century, the face of women rights is predominantly white women. Between books and the internet, they show that it was mostly white women who helped woman rights. If we still struggle to shine light on African American Women now in the 21st century, you cannot

Kara Walker is an African American artist who gained popularity by manipulating scale of her art work to focus on social issues surrounding gender, race and black history of our era. Artist utilize scale to manipulate the dimensions of the artwork depict the relative size of objects. Kara Walker uses large scale technique to deliver the viewers the significance of the story behind the artwork piece. She creates pieces in order to tell story or make statement about the violence, race, or black history rather than aiming for perfection. Kara Walker will become the leading voice for race and racism that will launch her popularity in the art world.

In general appropriation in the art movement of postmodernism, borrows, copies, and alters preexisting images and objects to challenge traditional notions in art. In artist Kehinde Wiley newest art exhibit, “Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic,” he appropriate cultural images, and characters from one context and places them it in another. Using juxtaposed inversions to challenge traditional elitist, white male-dominated, “high” historical art culture. As a self-identified homosexual African American man raised in Los Angeles in the 80’s, it is evident a significant part of Kehinde Wiley artists inventions derive from his own personal experiences and beliefs. By appropriate white

Terror and mockery come together in the portraits of Cindy Sherman on display at the Crocker Art Museum. Walking into the large, dimly lit ballroom, one may begin to feel a slight sense of trepidation as the viewer looks around to find nine sets of beady eyes watching one’s every move. Sherman produced her History Portraits during the late eighties and early nineties, nine of which are displayed at the museum. In her portraits she uses lush fabrics, lavish jewelry, and false body parts to decorate herself in these self-portraits. Her portraits have been know to cause discomfort in the viewers who find the general stereotypes, depicted in her portraits, amusing, yet confusing and terrorizing.

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.

No other artist has ever made as extended or complex career of presenting herself to the camera as has Cindy Sherman. Yet, while all of her photographs are taken of Cindy Sherman, it is impossible to class call her works self-portraits. She has transformed and staged herself into as unnamed actresses in undefined B movies, make-believe television characters, pretend porn stars, undifferentiated young women in ambivalent emotional states, fashion mannequins, monsters form fairly tales and those which she has created, bodies with deformities, and numbers of grotesqueries. Her work as been praised and embraced by both feminist political groups and apolitical mainstream art. Essentially, Sherman's photography is part of the culture and

Cindy Sherman’s, Untitled Film Stills from 1977 are a series of 69 total photographs that were comprised in order to appear as though they were actually taken from film reels. Sherman appears in every one of these shots, and finds a way to create a common thread throughout each of them despite the fact that the characters that she is portraying are vastly different from one another. She accomplishes this by using similar clothing, lighting, setting, and compositions as those that would be found in American B-movies from the 1950s and 1960s.

Finally, the depiction of figure is perhaps the most interesting and intellectually challenging element in this piece. The figure, while emotionally withdrawn from the viewer, is physically imposing. She is looking down and away from the viewer, as if the isn’t aware that she is being watched. Her mask-like facial features also do little in the way of conveying emotion. Her body, however, is quite different. The dark thick lines shaping her muscles and limbs, the detail in the curls of her hair, the placement of her fingers, and her exposed breast all demand the attention of the viewers’ eye. The bold lines that define her legs, waist, and hip, make her seem intrusively part of our space. The awkward placement of her

The Guerrilla Girls speak about sexism in art galleries and the non appreciation of women 's art in the most prestigious galleries of New York. “a very big problem is the fact women don 't collect. ... Men buy the art and call the shots museums. Until women support women and collect each things will never change" (Withers 287). Women artists new to the art world were not accepted, men artist bought their art to present as their own. This way women artist do not get the chance to be recognized for their talent. Making the assumption women are only valued as the model but cannot aspire to be artists and create exceptional work as men would. This is of importance because only 1% or none of the art presented was of women artists. “not only in their appeals to principles of equality, but also, say, in their gesture of adopting the names of deceased female artists as aliases, a gambit tacitly

Taking up the entire right side of the composition a third character ascends a staircase and rests one hand on a disjointed platform. This figure wears an elaborate headdress, fabric sash and holds a large knife tucked at it’s side. The figure’s long toes curl around the top stair where it stands surveying the other two figures. This figure also has a tail, and the same mirroring happens between the extending hairs of the headdress and the hairs of its tail as with the candle light and tail of the first figure. The decorations and prominence of this figure give it an air of spiritual significance, the word priest seems apt. Behind this figure is the forth and final figure of the composition. This figure stands lower on the staircase behind the figure with the knife. This figure has a head shaped like a goblet filled with toothpicks. We only see the head and shoulders of this figure,