Feminism 4: Examples of Postmodern Feminism

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Feminism 4 Examples of Postmodern Feminism

• Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman and Margaret Atwood

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Outline

• Postmodern Feminist Artistic/Literary Strategies
• Cindy Sherman
• Barbara Kruger

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Postmodern Feminist Strategies -- conscious use
of dual language

• Mimicry Parody e.g. Cindy Sherman Madonna
• Revising tradition and traditional
  genre???????Atwoods use of fairy tales and
  genres
• Re-Visioning History The Woman Warrior (novel),
  The Piano (film) Collage Open accusation
  Barbara Kruger
• Fluid Styles mixed with linear narrative Films
  by Lea Pool, poems by ??

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Postmodern feminist literary strategies the use
of duality (2)

• Themes Meanings
• Construction of identity through relationships
  blurring of gender boundaries dual identity
  (???,The Piano).
• Alternative world Fantasies, magic realism,
  utopia or distopia
• Dual language ?subversiveness (of binaries and
  fixed meanings), irony and ambiguity.

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Mimicry Parody e.g. (1)

• Target Jean-Aguste-Dominique Ingres' The
  Turkish Bath, 1862 Credit The Artchive

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Mimicry Parody e.g.

• Sylvia Sleigh, The Turkish Bath, 1973

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Mimicry Parody e.g. (2) Cindy Sherman

• 1) Untitled Film Stills (1977) -- using herself
  as a model in some black-and-white film stills
• 2) on the tradition of portraiture, she exploits
  the grotesquerie of wealthy and powerful patrons
  through the extensive use of prostheses, stage
  makeup, and costumes
• 3) to using body fragments, dolls or some other
  inanimate objects.
• Addresses issues of femininity, sexual identity,
  voyeurism, and artificiality and oppression in
  cultural representations.

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Cindy Sherman (1) Untitled Film Stills (1977)

• Lois Lane in the 1950's television program
  Superman 

• Cindy Sherman (Staniszewski 281)

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Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Stills (1977)

• Marilyn Monroe

• Cindy Sherman Untitled  film still (Staniszewski
  282)

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Cindy Sherman (2) work in the 80s critique of
portraits

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Cindy Sherman (2) work in the 80sfemale
victimization

• Cindy Sherman, Untitled No. 153, 1985. Metro
  Pictures, New York.

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Cindy Sherman (2) work in the 80sfemale
grotesque

• Sherman, Untitled 155, 1985.
• -- gaze disembodied so that it belongs to no
  one.
• (source http//www.tenverses.org/ten2.html
• The article Ten Years Later Reconsidering Cindy
  Sherman's "Sex Pictures"
• http//www.tenverses.org/ten1.html )

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Cindy Sherman (2) work in the 80sthe female
grotesque

• Cindy Sherman, Untitled 250, 1992.
• -- Thus, the seductive has been used to produce
  the grotesque. (source http//www.tenverses.org/
  ten7.html

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Barbara Kruger

• Traditional images superimposed with some strong
  words.
• An opposition between the pronouns "you" and
  "we," which satirically refer to
• "men" and "women,
• the dominant and the dominated, or
• the commercial culture and the consumers 

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Barbara Kruger (1) Critique of

• Male Desire in Sexual fetishism, Male domination
  in Religion

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Barbara Kruger (1) Critique of Male Power

• The use of hands in male rituals

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Barbara Kruger (1) Critique of Male Power

• The use of hands in male rituals

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Barbara Kruger (2) Objectification of Women

• The use of female images in plastic arts e.g.
  Your gaze hits the side of my face

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Barbara Kruger (2) Objectification of Women

• The use of female characters in narratives

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Barbara Kruger (2) Objectification of Women

• The use of female patients in psychoanalysis

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Barbara Kruger (3) Critique of Oppression

• an installation