wet on painting feminism and art culture

She would either remain lying on the ground or fill the silhouette with other resources such as fire and red paint. The Silueta series were recorded by photographs and invoke a dematerialization of art in which Mendieta would lay naked in the natural environment, sometimes in mud or sand, and make an imprint of her body. Earth-body art is best exemplified by her Silueta series (translating to silhouettes) completed between 19 that emphasize gender issues of the twentieth century by using her own body in nature, in turn “resisting the gallery system and the commodification of the art object” (299 Raine) and thus women as objects. Mendieta challenged the male-dominant view of contemporary art by incorporating feminist ideals through what she defined as “earth-body” art (Viso 11). From the provocative 'Representations of the Penis,' which suggests novel readings of familiar images of masculinity and introduces new ones, to 'Appropriated Sexuality,' a trenchant analysis of David Salle's depiction of women, Wet is a fascinating and informative collection.Ĭomplemented by over twenty illustrations, the essays in Wet reveal Schor's remarkable ability to see and to make others see art in a radically new light.Ana Mendieta (1948-1985) was a crucial figure in the development and continuous transformation of feminist art in the 1970s and onwards. Articles range from discussions of contemporary women artists Ida Applebroog, Mary Kelly, and the Guerrilla Girls, to 'Figure/Ground,' an examination of utopian modernism's fear of the 'goo' of painting and femininity. Collected here, these essays challenge established hierarchies of the art world of the 1980s and 1990s and document the intellectual and artistic development that have marked Schor's own progress as a critic.īridging the gap between art practice, artwork, and critical theory, Wet includes some of Schor's most influential essays that have made a significant contribution to debates over essentialism. Writing from her dual perspective of a practicing painter and art critic, Schor's writing has been widely read over the past fifteen years in Artforum, Art Journal, Heresies, and M/E/A/N/I/N/G, a journal she coedited. Taking aim at the mostly male bastion of art theory and criticism, Mira Schor brings a maverick perspective and provocative voice to the issues of contemporary painting, gender representation, and feminist art.

Wet on painting feminism and art culture