As Brooklyn Museum participates in the #5WomenArtists campaign started by The National Museum of Wom

As Brooklyn Museum participates in the #5WomenArtists campaign started by The National Museum of Women in the Arts for Women’s History Month, our #BKMTeens Digital Artizens are eager to jump into the conversation.“We as visual artists can communicate our concerns whether we choose the figure, landscape or more confrontational issues such as gender, politics or religion. I have chosen gender.” —Dorothy L. PowersLots of  modern and contemporary women artists make art that is specifically about feminism and what it means to be a women, but that doesn’t mean they’re all making the same points. For some female artists, feminism is about empowerment and strength, but others are more focused on the pain and frustration of womanhood. Today we’ll take a look to the works of #5WomenArtists to examine what feminism means to them. Traditionally, men and women had different roles in art-making. For the most part, men were the only people making money and getting famous in the academic art circles of Europe, and their paintings are often still considered to be some of the most important works of art in the world. At the same time, women’s art-making was mostly restricted to handicrafts (or “women’s work”) like embroidery and  quilting, which were thought to be less creative and inspired. These days, some important feminist artists like Miriam Schapiro and Ghada Amer reference handicrafts in their work to make the point that those ways of making are powerful, important, and worthy of recognition! Miriam Schapiro’s Agony in the Garden honors another woman artist, Frida Kahlo (read about her in our Glossary of Artists!), by placing her self-portrait in the center. Schapiro decorated the rest of the canvas with collage-like painted designs that reference “women’s work” crafts. Ghada Amer’s Heather’s Dégradé’ also reminds us of handicrafts because the lines are created with embroidery. In the detail,  we see outlines of erotic imagery of women. Amer’s work explores sexuality and pleasure, and the pressures of domesticity. Artists like this want to see more respect for  the types of art that are traditionally considered female.New Zealander artist Lisa Reihana and Cuban artist Ana Mendieta both work on feminist art that also about the indigenous goddesses of their homelands. Reihana’s Mahuika was part of a Brooklyn Museum exhibit called Global Feminisms. It shows the Maori fire goddess and ancestor as a powerful and menacing female figure. Traditionally, images of ancestors, or marae, are carved only by men, so as a woman Reihana’s practice of digitally creating marae was very provocative. Mendieta’s Untitled (Guanaroca [First Woman]) is carved into stone in the landscape of Cuba, a long-term testament to the female body’s fertility and connection with nature. These artists use ancient ideas of femininity to bring power to modern women. In Kiki Smith’s Annunciation, the artist portrays a woman with a gender-neutral look in a moment of creative inspiration. A piece like this can challenge the viewer to think about what it means to identify as a woman—what aspects of womanhood or femininity are included in the figure? Do these #5WomenArtists address issues in your life? Which one do you identify with the most? Posted by Julia Fields -- source link

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