The
power structure and modes of production within the cultural body of the art
world has changed little through the centuries. Advances for women in the last 100 years have been numerous and
powerful but the feminist movement has not changed the nature of the patriarchy
machine in the art world, which is to secure man’s control over the most
culturally significant medium of each respected epoch. For example, during the Renaissance, Baroque
Area, Rococo, and etc. most women who were privileged enough to produce art
were limited in the kind of art that they could produce. At that time the “highest” forms of art were
historical painting and also figure study.
Because of gender roles and limitations women did not have access to the
nude model, for figure study, or models in general, as needed for historical
painting. Because of these profound
limitations women at the time produced genre, landscape, and still life pieces. These types of paintings were not valued as
greatly as the male controlled historical and figure types. Therefore, women could be marginalized and
ultimately kept out of the canon. A
prime example for this is Judith Leyster, a Dutch painter from the Baroque
area. Leyster, a painter of exquisite
talent managed to make a living off of her paintings but could never break
through the glass ceiling in her profession.
Mostly she is known for her still life and genre paintings. Also, art historians are now starting to
think that certain Frans Hal’s pieces are actually Judith Leyster’s work. What would she have produced if she had
access to the same resources as male artists from her time?
The
situation today is more intricately woven and subtle. The nature of the art world has changed since Leyster’s day. Today, women do have access to models and
full educational training. One could
say that positive changes have occurred and the case for growth is a sound
one. It is true that women have more opportunity
today then in the past. However,
although women have access to models and training in the art world, painting is
no longer the culturally dominant medium.
Today, in American culture, the most widely valued genre of expression
is film and video. It is appalling that
so few women reach a high level of critical acclaim and that the few that do
are often born into the profession. One
may start to question the nature of technologically driven art production. Is it possible that a more invisible,
perhaps even intangible, glass ceiling exists today? Film and video are powerful social tools. What does it mean that the voices of the
female artists are so faintly heard?
The women have spoken and they scream from under the glass ceiling, but
their voices are muffled. The lens of
patriarchy warps people’s perceptions, and they cannot think outside of that
paradigm and so the feminine voice becomes invisible and silent.
In
an interview with Pipolotti Rist in Artforum International, a video
artist from Switzerland, the concept of video art as monument was
explored. When asked if the time of the
exterior monument like the Eiffel Tower is over, Rist replied, “ Yes,
absolutely. Actually, it’s been that
way for about 100 years, ever since the idea that it is the viewer that
completes sculpture was introduced” (April ‘98 p 48). This is why film and video has become so popular because they are
intimate and engage all of the senses bringing a completion that only occurs
when someone participates. This is the
power of video art—to build visions for people to enter. And this is why it is so important to
discuss the work and meaning of female video artists—to understand their
visions and voices.
Mary
Lucier is an American video artist with an original and much needed voice. She was born in Ohio during the 1940’s and
describes her childhood as typical and American. Lucier attributes her interest in video to an unusual
architectural feature in the Victorian House she grew-up in. In Mary Lucier, author Melinda Barlow
explains Lucier’s experience, “ the ornate air registers designed to release
heat from the lower level to the chilly second floor bedrooms, she and her
siblings used to spy on each other, in the process overhearing family secrets and
quarrels” (p 4). This was the beginning
of Lucier’s interest in voyeurism, which is an element present in her first
work, Poloroid Image Series. The series is reminiscent of her visual experience—peering through the
frame in the floor. If Lucier’s work is based on voyeurism then
one might say that the majority of her work is a kind of nature voyeurism or
perhaps a peek into the relationship of humanity and natural forces. Lucier brings a kind of continuum perspective
to her works involving nature. It is as
if one can begin to see the Earth’s sense of itself. She brings us a concept of time that may be how the Earth would
feel time, which of course could make matters of human importance seem trivial. But Lucier doesn’t forsake the human
perspective; she shows us how we are supported, damaged, dependant and
oblivious to nature.
In
her piece Dawn Burn (1975-1976)
Lucier introduced a very important concept to the art community. She used real-time recording to show the sun
rising seven times over New York’s East River.
She placed the horizon at the bottom of the screen. The sun’s path intersected with a beam in
the landscape. According to Robert
Riley in The Making of Modern Art, “As the sun rose, it etched its path
in the tube: the burn became a line that measured time, extending the
expressive gesture of drawing, painting, and sculpture into the technology of
video and distancing the creative act from the human hand.” p 100. An unexpected component of the video was
when the path of the sun actually burned itself into the screen of the
monitor. This piece shows Lucier’s
fascination with a time continuum, one that people take for granted but that
controls the cycles of creation and decay.
Ohio at Giverny (1983) is a sound example of
Lucier’s use of double imagery, which is an element present in her photo stills
as well as her video work. Also, in Ohio she employs monitors of progressive size
to form a line, a kind of curve. Dawn Burn had the same monitor size
variation. This work compares different
cultures and eras by juxtaposing footage of rural Ohio with scenes from Monet’s
grounds at Giverny. By using the
grounds of Monet, Lucier puts an interesting art historical twist on the
meaning of her video. The visual focus
is on the light that illuminates and brings awareness to the transcendence of
difference through the landscape—though nature.
Another
piece by Lucier, Wilderness, takes the concept of landscape to a more interactive level. She synchronizes three videos on seven
monitors that are placed on pedestals with classic Grecian design—another
subtle art historical reference. The three videos are displayed in a musical
format A/B/A/B/C/B/C and show portions of the northeast inland and coast. In her artist’s statement Lucier explains
her piece, “Wilderness is a pictorial adventure into the origins of American landscape art, a
reinvestigation of the substance of the American pastoral myth through the lens
of contemporary technology. Part of a
continuing series of works exploring visual perception and memory through
landscape, p 147.” Lucier transforms
the artistic notion of landscape into a medium that speaks in the present about
the past; she shows us the powerful connection between memory, events, and
places.
Asylum (1986/1991) is a multi-media video
installation that explores ideas concerning production, decay, the human
artificial earthly paradise and the human desire to make death tangible and
integrated. There are three parts to Asylum: an indoor garden, a toolshed, and a
video area. The garden symbolizes
re-growth, the toolshed represents the forces of human control and the video
installation explores the ideas of production and consumption. In Mary Lucier her artist’s statement
says, “The structure of production and the by-products of their decay
demonstrate a marked ability to seduce us with a morbid beauty, (p 155).
Noah’s Raven (1992-1993) is a good example of Lucier’s
interest in the interaction of humans and the earth; she explores mutual
catastrophes between nature and people.
There are damages from one party to the other: for the earth the
residual damage of pollution and for humanity the trauma of natural disaster,
disease, and age. Lucier places each
monitor in this installation on organic and constructed forms: a tree trunk or
a piece of equipment, exploring the dichotomy between them and the forces which
created them. In the videos there are
images of people afflicted and disfigured by cancer. These images are mixed with images of landscape, drawing
emotional connections between humanity and the Earth.
In
Oblique House—Valdez (1993), Lucier explores the damages of the Exxon oil spill in Valdez and
an earthquake that had devastating effects on Alaska. She has four monitors, each with a different person telling the
story of the two disasters. Then on the
ceiling She has images of an old town that was wiped out by the earthquake and
landscape shots of the Alaskan terrain.
The sound of a person walking on wet soil or snow brings the viewer into
a soft moment between earth and individual.
This contrasts the severe situations of the oil spill and the
flood.
Shigeko
Kubota is an eclectic artist that is known primarily for her video art. She was born in Niigata, Japan in 1937. Kubota graduated with a degree in sculpture
from Tokyo University. After completing
her degree she moved to New York where she studied at New York University and
the New School for Social Research.
Originally Kubota was known for her artistic pursuits with the Fluxus Group
where she worked with Nam June Paik, Allison Knowles, Allan Kaprow, and George
Maciunas. An early piece of Kubota’s is
a video documentary of the Fluxus group.
Much of early work and philosophy is reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp. She takes objects and video installations
and creates unusual modes of deconstructing experience. In 1965 Kubota performed a piece called Vagina Painting. The paintbrush was attached to her underwear
and the paint used was a menstrual red.
Kubota took her body and turned it into an active tool. This is especially significant because the
female body is traditionally an object in art.
Kubota takes her body beyond object and beyond subject. Her body becomes the actually instrument of
creation. And the fact that this is centered
around her vagina is not an accident.
Kubota is speaking about creation, fertility, and female control and
also counter-pointing the work of Yves Klein and Jackson Pollack.
In
1972 and 1973 Kubota teamed up with Mary Lucier, Cecila Sandoval and Charolette
Warren. The group called themselves Red, White, Yellow and Black; they
produced three multimedia concerts during there short-lived but important
coalition. During this time especially
Kubota and Lucier began working with what is called “new music” as related to
John Cage’s event. Lucier shot her
first video for their second event and Kubota made one of her most famous
pieces, Video Girls and Video Songs for Navajo Skies. Kubota found parallels between
her native culture in Japan and life on the Navajo reservation. According to Melinda Barlow in the Quarterly
Review of Film and Video, “Kubota found many similarities between Japanese
and Navajo culture, the most significant which had to do with water. Like her father’s relatives in Japan, the Mitchell-Sabdoval
family (a Navajo family) did not have running water in their home, and had to
travel some distances by horse and buggy to retrieve it—a journey Kubota
recorded for Video Girls and Video Songs for
Navajo Skies” (p 310).
Much
of Kubota’s later work takes the idea of video and combine it with the
sculptural form. In her piece Duchampiana: Nude Descending
Staircase (1976) Kubota takes the idea of a
walking figure and presents that experience in a new way. The figure is shown at different points in
its motion on different parts of the staircase where the video clips are
installed. The boundaries between
sculpture and video are blurred. The
two combined create a new kind of experience for the viewer, just as the motion
of the figure descending the staircase is presented a new and dynamic way.
Sexual Healing (2000) is a recent piece by Kubota. The installation explores her dynamic with
her husband, artist Nam June Paik, since his recent stroke. It is very intimate as it documents the slow
recovery of Paik but always with a light sense of humor and softness that is
provided by Marvin Gaye’s song, Sexual Healing. The video monitors are often placed in the objects that have aided
Paik’s recovery such as the wheelchair, and the hospital bed. The two sculptural figures represent Kubota
and Paik. Author Michael Rush for Art
in America explains the importance of this piece in its demonstration of
daily process—even one as private as healing, “What Fluxus and video art have
in common is that both are art of the moment.
The process of capturing events that are invisible to others, with your
own eyes, becomes art” (v 88 p 78).
Pipolotti
Rist was born in Rheintal, Switzerland in 1962. She attended the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna and the School
of Design in Basel. Among video artists
she has been particularly successful with the development of music video as art
because she often plays off pop culture motifs and also writes her own
music. Rist says that her work is
‘poetry in motion’ and explains her fascination with the medium, “Because there
is room in them for everything (painting, technology, language, music,
movement, lousy, flowing pictures, poetry, commotion, premonition of death, sex
and friendliness) – like a compact handbag”(Benaiah Gibb Pavilion).
Rist often
draws on ideals from western culture especially romanticism, which is an
element you can see in much of her work.
Some of the romantic qualities in Rist’s work may come from the
idealized notions of femininity that she plays off of. This is because Rist was part of a movement
during the 80’s called Girlism. Girlism
was mostly concerned with pop culture and its essence was to assert femininity
and claim it in a way that helps to dismantle racism and sexism. But beyond romanticism, Rist’s work is often
described as psychedelic, sexual and political by nature. Going against the feminist idiom, “one
cannot dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools,” Rist does.
Rist began her
public career in 1984 and since then has exhibited consistently. One of her earliest pieces, I’m not the Girl Who Misses Much (1986),
combines an altered version of “Happiness is a Warm Gun,” by John Lennon in which Rist dubs in her own voice and changes the
perspective from third to first person.
During the video Rist runs around the room as if in a frenzy, and when
the music ends she is over taken by a sense of confusion, exploring feminine
discontent and anger.
I’m not the Girl Who Misses Much (1986) deconstructs the realm of music video in terms of the
objectification of women. Rist appears
first as the object of the video, then subject and finally creator of the
piece. She attacks the one-dimensional
representation of women as male fantasy sex objects. She is dressed like a Minoan Goddess, with her breasts revealed
by her dress that is cut around them; she represents feminine power and
fertility. This piece is a prime
example of Rist dismantling the master’s house with the mistress’s tools.
In 1992 Pickelporno was created. This piece received a lot of publicity and brought critical
acclaim to Rist. She wanted to show the
experience of sensual touch visually.
To do this she placed a small camera in a tube and attached it to the
hands of a couple. The result’s of
their interaction were portrayed in slow motion in the video and alternated
with symbolic nature shots.
Blutclip (1993) explores menstruation in an open and extremely direct
manner. Menstruation is no longer a
secretive and hidden phenomenon for women and Rist makes that a point of Blutclip.
Menstrual blood smeared on the body is viewed sensually and up-close in
the piece.
According
to Elizabth Janus, writer for Artforum International, “More recently,
Rist has concentrated on video installations that attempt to collapse the
physical and psychological space between viewer and monitor, by hiding monitors
inside objects or, eschewing them altogether in favor of images projected
inside boxes dotted with peep holes, p 100.”
In Yogurt on Skin, Velvet on TV (1994) Rist places her videos inside shells and handbags—traditionally
feminine objects. Inside the objects
were images of bodies, a torso floating by, and a blood colored fluid: the
feminine objects, the hidden world of women are revealed and exposed.
Selfless in a Bath of Lava (1994) is an
example of Rist’s sensitivity to location and is piece where she takes a poke
at religion. The piece was relocated to
a medieval art gallery and placed under a religious painting. According to Janus, “A tiny monitor embedded
in the floor showed the artist standing naked in a bed of hot lava, reaching
forward in supplication, and crying (first in German, then in French, Italian,
and English), ‘I am a worm and you, you are a flower. You would have done everything better. Help me. Excuse me.’ Not without humor, Rist presents herself as
a lost soul suffering the consequences of what one presumes are pleasures of
the flesh” (v 34 p 101).
Open My Glade, is an innovative video
installation that Rist showed in Time Square in June 2000. During the installation every hour at a
quarter past Rist’s image appeared on the screen. Her face was pressed up against the screen, which made it look
like she was actually trying to get out from behind it. Is this a symbolic exploration of the
negative side effects of technology?
Perhaps, it is and Rist is showing us the way that we become trapped by
information and technology in the modern age.
Trinh
T. Minh-ha is a native of Vietnam but moved to the United States at the age of
17. Minh-ha is mostly known for her
films but she is also a writer and a composer.
Her earliest educational training was in composing and her Ph. D. was in
comparative literature from the University of Illinois. She is obviously a versatile
individual. Much of her films bring
perspective to and shed light upon identities that have been silenced by
colonialism, sexism and racism.
Minh-ha’s films explore cross-cultural perspectives in a way that breaks
the subject—object relationship between the Western observer and the documented
culture. Traditional anthropological
investigations have shown different cultures in an arrogant and superior way,
one that assumes that the objectivity to categorize the behavior of different
cultures from an outsider’s position exists at all. According to Minh-ha, her works place womanhood “in the larger
context of cultural politics, post-coloniality, contemporary theory and arts”
(Women Make Movies).
Resassemble: From the Firelight to the Screen (1982) is Minh-ha’s first film.
It begins her exploration of women as subject, not object and also other
cultures as subject, not object of colonial arrogance. She documents the lives of women in a
Senegalese village in a sensitive manner.
Minh-ha’s
film, Naked Spaces: Living is Round, (1985) continues her exposure of the subject—object dichotomy in
ethnography. Naked Spaces depicts the day to day life of natives
in six West African countries in a human and precise manner. Mostly, representing the minute occurrences
of everyday life, which brings certain humanity to documenting a culture from
an outsider’s perspective. The
organization Women Make Movies said
this about Naked Spaces, “The
nonlinear structure of "Naked Spaces" challenges the traditions of
ethnographic filmmaking, while sensuous sights and sounds lead the viewer on a
poetic journey to the most inaccessible parts of the African continent, the
private interaction of people in their living spaces.”
Surname Viet, Given Name Naam (1989)
examines recent political situations in Vietnam. The film is non-linear and beautifully woven with a myriad of
imagery. Minh-ha juxtaposes images of
traditional female dancers with interviews from Vietnamese women in Vietnam and
the United States who discuss their culture’s expectations of them. This film is significant because
traditionally women in Vietnam have lived under Confucian ideology, which
mandates the feminine sacrifice of personhood. The female belongs first to her
father, then husband and finally son; a song in the movie proclaims, “Daughter,
she obeys her father/ Wife, she obeys her husband/ Widow, she obeys her
son.” According to Susan Pui San Look,
writer for Third Text, “the interviews function to situate the
‘real/true’ voices of Vietnamese women, ‘speaking for themselves’, in
opposition to their ‘false/silences/spoken’ counterparts p 64.”
Shooting for the Contents (1991) explores issues of Chinese politics and culture that were raised
by the Tiananmen Square events in China.
Minh-ha uses old and new Chinese ideologies to explore connections
between the past and present: Confucius to Mao and Chinese pop songs to
classical pieces. Aesthetically, Women Make Movies says that in Shooting for Contents, “Video images emulate the
gestures of calligraphy and contrast with film footage of rural China and
stylized interviews. Like traditional Chinese opera, Trinh’s film unfolds
through ‘bold omissions and minute depictions’ to render ‘the real in the
illusory and the illusory in the real.’ Exploring color, rhythm and the
changing relationship between ear and eye, this meditative documentary realizes
on screen the shifts of interpretation in contemporary Chinese culture and
politics.”
Minh-ha’s
most recent film, A Tale of Love, takes a 19th century Vietnamese poem, the Tale of Kieu, and relates its timeless truths to the
experience of a Vietnamese immigrant who has come to the United States. Minh-ha connects the universal and the
particular. Her other films focus on
political issues and women, but this film takes the story of one woman and
expounds upon her story bringing us to sweeping truths concerning love and
struggle. In the Tale of Kieu, a young woman sacrifices her
life for her family. The immigrant
works for a women’s magazine and is writing a piece on the poem; ultimately,
she finds the story puts her more in touch with her own life.
Yvonne
Rainer was born in San Francisco in 1934.
She went to school in New York to study modern dance and eventually began
choreographing during the 1960’s.
Rainer was influential in dance, as she would be later in film. In 1968 she started incorporating film into
her performances and this ultimately led her into the field.
One
of Rainer’s first major films, Journeys from Berlin, explores post—WWII Germany and the corruption that existed in the
government well into the 70’s. The film
is varied and employs a variety of voices that each makes specific points about
the effects of terrorism on people of all ages and types. There is a woman speaking on the feelings
and events that brought her to the point of taking violent action against the
government. There is historical documentation, a young girl speaking on her
feelings of repression and confusion at the political state of her country.
Finally an American women talks to a therapist. She discusses the events of her life and her feelings about
sexuality, growth, fear, and oppression.
Rainer draws parallels between the specific stories of the American
woman and the historical events of the corrupt government in post—WWII
Germany.
The Man Who Envied Women (1985) is a
film about a divorce. The husband in the marriage is
proud of his promiscuous nature and sexual conquests that ultimately lead to
the end of his marriage. The cinematic
strategy is unusual. The husband goes
through his daily activities but only the wife's voice is ever heard. She explains the reason for the divorce and
essentially tells the story of their marriage.
Author Helen DeMitchell, writer for Afterimage, said, "The
central narrative treats the ongoing dilemmas of communication between men and
women. But at the same time, in true
Rainer fashion, it is also a tightly packed exploration into the jungle of
contemporary social/feminist/cinematic theory, p 19 Dec 1985."
Privilege (1990)
illustrates the life of a middle-aged woman who is in the passage of
menopause. It contains a personal
interview with a friend of Rainer's who discusses the loss of sexuality and
ultimately attention that comes with age.
Privilege also explores negative effects of rape in the lives of
women and specifically in the life of her friend that she is interviewing. Her friend was called to testify in a rape
case and falsified evidence that resulted in the accused being sentenced. Beyond the interview different characters, real and
fictional, bring issues to light concerning women, mental health, sexism,
racism and classism.
Rainer’s
most recent film, Murder and Murder, portrays a woman in her 60’s who has been married with children and who
is know a grandmother. She has been
living alone for 15 years and suddenly meets a woman whom she falls for. She begins a lesbian relationship late in life. The movie raises interesting points about
love and aging. Other lesbian couples
are in the film and some of their relationships tend towards violence and
ultimately murder.
The
exclusion of female video artists from the mainstream is a disgrace, especially
because the content of the works of these artists is so varied. The contributions of Lucier, Kubota, Rist,
Minh-ha, and Rainer in film and video are extensive. They develop conceptual and aesthetic issues in video art and
film as well as exploring feminism, politics, sexuality, and the relationship
of nature to humanity. They are hard to
sum up and even harder to categorize because their work is on the fringes
pushing us to question further. Their
voices bring richness to our world and confront us with ideas and scenarios we
overlook daily.