Post 4

Rana Yassa

4/18/17

Five Women Artists

As of today, in 2017, many women artists have appeared and put their signature into this world's big art project. Women who have reflected their lives experiences in their paintings, women who presented their ideas in their paintings, and women who protested and fought for their rights in the paintings. As history divides art with years and themes, there are many eras that has passed before. For example there is the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Abstraction, Modernism, Post Modernism, and many more. One that have a lot and some still going till today is the Performing Art. Artists that are pretty interesting are; Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Yoko Ono, Ghada Amer and Marina Abromovic.

Barbara Kruger

Kruger was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1945. First attended school interested in graphic, design, poetry, and readings. She later found her passion in Photography where she started to work later at Condé Nast Publications in 1966. Kruger's style was very unique and obvious and still her work is remarkbly now of a kind. She started photographing in 1977, all her photographs were black & white with either no headlines or red headlines. She was very specific with the colors that she only used this same technique and style through her whole career. All the way at the end she started to enter color but still fading near the white & black style. Every piece of art she did had a huge message for society, fighting for women rights and against social norms. As an artist she inspired many women to say what they think and show it to the world with their own way.

Barbara Kruger, Your Body Is a Battleground, 1989
This piece of art was created for the Women's March on Washington for the support of
reproductive freedom. A women her face is split into half one positive and one negative side of vulnerability.

Barbara Kuger, Face It (Cyan), 2007
In this picture Kruger shows the other side of advertising expensive clothes.  Showing  an hidden message
of how brands get their stuff sold. "This Really makes you look at least 20 years younger", a message that
emphasizes how women should always be young, slim, fit, and beautiful. Although they also have to be mothers, house wives, and always smiling. Always ready for men to be their pleasurable object.

Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman was a photographer who distinctively specialized her work from any other photographer at the time or even after ages. She was born January 19th, 1954, in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. Most of her work was photographs of her self although its not considered self portraits. She uses her photographs to emphasize; the role of woman, the role of artist, the role of wife, the role of mother, etc. Her most famous photographs are "Complete Untitled Film Stills" which is a series of 69 photographs. Cindy challenged many issues to bring it to the eyes of the audience. Many of them where streotypical gender norms where she pointed to at the media. 

Yoko Ono 

Yoko Ono born in Tokyo, Japan in 1933 and began her artistic journey 
in New York City. Yoko married twice the first was the famous artist John Lennon from the Beatles the second was Anthony Cox, the musician/film producer. Yoko had her first son Sean with John Lennon who grew up to be an artist himself. Another daughter Koyoko from her second husband. Ono wrote poems and songs, she also a film producer, a singer, and an activist. She is also a strong feminist who proved many of her points through her art. 

Yoko Ono, Cut Piece, 1964This video presented Yoko Ono completely dressed sitting vulnerably on the floor and having a pair of scissors next to her offering people to cut her clothes in whatever
way they would like. People started by cutting off her sleeves, and kept going and going on until Ono reached this part;


where she reached to the point were her bra was visible. After this point someone cut off her bra where she had to hold it to not show her breasts. Such courage and braveness showed how women are viewed by many people in society, objectified and shown for their bodies. Also showed how the audience reacted they could have stopped they could have refused to participate but they didn't.

Marina Abramovic  

Marina Abromovic was born in 1946 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia to parents who were in high positions in the Communist government. All her art is considered Performance Art, where Marina started her new way into the era. As she was totally untraditional, the artist avoided paint, canvas and etc., instead she used her own body to view to the media. She turned herself, all of herself into the media that she wanted the people to view. Most of her work is contrast between/division between mind and body, nature and culture, female and male. "Marina Abramović's work is typical of the ritualistic strain in 1960s performance art. It often involves putting herself in grave danger and performing lengthy, harmful routines that result in her being cut or burnt, or enduring some privation. She views her art almost as a sacrificial and religious rite, performed by herself for a congregation of viewers. And the physical ordeals she endures form the basis for exploring such themes as trust, endurance, cleansing, exhaustion, and departure."

Ghada Amer

An artist who was born in Cairo, Egypt in 1963, and like many other artists her parent immigrated to France in 1974. She started her artistic career ten years after that. her work is on paintings, sculptures, and garden projects. She is a feminist, therefore all her work is about gender issues, sexuality and etc. "I believe that all women should like their bodies and use them as tools of seduction" - Ghana Amer.

Ghada Amer, Eight Women in Black and White, 2004

The title of the painting depicts the eight different faces painted. This painting 

is illustrating a women on the left nude and a man trying to grab her butt from behind,

and she is not accepting it very much but is vulnerable to give any reaction. Although on the right the women is enjoying and giving in her body to the man. "Because this woman does not appear to be conservative in any of the eight phases, the artist is suggesting that love is not as spiritual as it used to be. Abstinence is not as important as it once was, because many young woman feel pressured to act sexually because they do not earn attention otherwise"- Carly. The painting is protesting against what many women believe today, that sexy is more important than being smart. That being fashioned and showing more of the her body is much worth than her education and so on. 

At the end, many women still fights against many social norms that took over the women's minds. 

Citations; 

http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/feminist/Barbara-Kruger.html
http://www.thebroad.org/art/barbara-kruger/untitled-your-body-battleground

http://www.cindysherman.com/biography.shtml
http://www.biography.com/people/yoko-ono-9542162
Marina Abramovic, Imponderabilia, 1977
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-abramovic-marina.htm
http://perceptionoffemalebeauty.blogspot.com/2011/05/eight-women-in-white-ghada-amer-2004.html