This next video will focus on examples
of feminist art -- so the idea of promoting
equality for women in artworks. This
video will not cover all of the examples
of feminist art, but a few key works that
I think reflect some of these themes and
the desire for equality. On the screen,
you see a work by Beyte Saar. This is her
"Liberation of Aunt Jemima" on the left
side -- and then you see a work by Judy
Chicago -- another feminist artist. This
work is called "The Dinner Party." So the
idea of feminism, as I mentioned is
equality. The definition is the advocacy
of women's rights on the basis of the
equality of the sexes, so really the
whole goal is equality. However, feminism
has often been given negative
connotations with the idea of this
movement being anti-man or promoting
women above men or other groups, but the
idea is equality. So it's important to
emphasize that from the start.
Many of these artworks are thinking
about giving women more agency --
giving women or allowing women to reveal
the perspective of how, you know, women
feel about certain things, and also to
develop their own artistic styles. So
we'll be thinking about that as we
examine these different artworks. So our
first work is Beyte Saar's "Liberation of
Aunt Jemima" -- a work that was made in 1972 --
four years after the assassination of
Martin Luther King, which had a profound
effect on Betye Saar. Betye Saar was
raised in Los Angeles. She went to school
at Pasadena City College, UCLA, also Cal
State Long Beach -- those were some of the
places she received her artistic
training. She continues to keep a studio
in Los Angeles, but this work was made
during a time in Oakland. She was asked
to create it for a community center in
the Bay Area, and she had it on display
for a gallery exhibit, and it really
created quite a stir in 1972. So
if you think of the 1970s, this is really
a time of feminism. This is a time when
people are thinking about the Equal
Rights Amendment -- this desire for women
to gain more equality. And it's often
called "second-wave feminism". So after the
time of women gaining the right to vote
earlier in the [20th] century,
now women are thinking about more rights --
and especially the rights of women of
color -- women who may have been denied
some of the rights of the past. And also
many people -- there was concern that the
feminist movement of the 1970s was
really geared at benefiting mostly white
women, and the important thing was to
think about how can we benefit all
individuals. And so Betye Saar is really
thinking about how can we remove certain
stereotypes -- how can we subvert certain
stereotypes, and she's really doing that
here with the liberation of Aunt Jemima.
Betye Saar is known for works that are
assemblage pieces, so taking multiple materials and bringing them
together.
Betye Saar during this period was
collecting racist imagery -- so imagery of
people like "Aunt Jemima", "Uncle Tom" -- the
kind of imagery that continued to be
shared and sold in the United States and
reinforced really negative stereotypes
about African Americans and reinforced
some of the negative stereotypes that
dated back to the 19th century in the
period of slavery. And so here you can
see a very dark-skinned woman -- an "Aunt
Jemima" figure who was a notepad and
essentially this is where a pencil was
supposed to go and in this case that
she's empowered her by giving her
weapons instead. She's trying to liberate
her and then inside she placed a
postcard of a darker skinned woman
holding a light-skinned child. And this
is perhaps commenting in both cases on
the idea of African-American women
being domestic assistants in
white household -- raising white children
or thinking about how they were
essentially continuing to work in some
of the difficult situations that they
had always worked in and not really
escaping those occupations -- so very
challenging circumstances. And she's
really taking that idea of these women
who have their rights removed and
empowering them -- giving them weapons that
get attention. And she gets attention for
this work -- it really causes a stir, as I
said because people know this figure of
Aunt Jemima. She's recognizable, and so
people come up and they want to see this
work and look at it more closely, and it
has this multi-layered interpretation.
So you have the images of Aunt Jemima
from the pancake batter; you have the
image of this figure -- the mammy whose the
notepad or the notepad holder, and then
this other woman on the postcard, and
then superimposed over it is this Black
power fist. So it's often hard to see but
hopefully you can just see it right here.
You can also see this kind of cottony
quality down in the bottom, which
perhaps references instances of cotton
and cotton cultivation among slaves in
the 19th century. So there's this many
layered way of representing the
art here
that allows viewers to explore it one
layer at a time.
And I always like to compare Betye
Saar's "Liberation Aunt Jemima" to the
way Aunt Jemima in the pancake batter in
the syrup has changed over time. So she
went from being this very dark-skinned
woman who's wearing this handkerchief on
her head to this more full-bodied woman
to this woman who has this glossy hair
and lighter skin. So really this idea of
how is she changing into the 21st
century, and how Aunt Jemima pancake
materials have modified over time.
Okay -- another feminist key work would be
the work of Judy Chicago "The Dinner
Party" also dating to the 1970s. So again,
this period of intense feminism. Judy
Chicago is still known as an important
female artist -- important feminist artist.
She still works on, you know, for the
cause of women -- so both Judy Chicago and
Betye Saar are still alive today. In this
particular case, again, you're seeing a
work that's using a variety of material
or a mixed-media artwork. You can see
that it's made up like a true dinner
party. So you have 13 play settings on
each side, making up 39 play settings [in total]
plus there are 999 women's names
inscribed on the heritage tile floor at
the center. And then each woman -- they're
very important women who get these place
settings or important women according to
Judy Chicago. So that's important to note.
So you can see the idea of the dinner
party
relates to the idea that women give
dinner parties, so there's kind of a
gender play there. Also the idea of
sacrifice -- so many people see this almost
like an altar -- that's how this is
all being presented. In addition to that,
there's a certain equality to this table.
There's no one seat that's at the center,
and many people have said the idea of 13
on each side is very similar to the Last
Supper because you have Christ at center
with his Twelve Apostles. But in this
case again there's no central figure, so
playing on the idea of the Last Supper,
which is such a male-dominated space,
also here in this case though equality --
also the theme of sacrifice -- and also
playing on the idea of women hosting
dinner parties. Judy Chicago was very
interested in the idea of flower
symbolism and also kind of female
genitalia -- the symbol of female genitalia
representing the woman. So if you look at
these individual plates -- not always but
very frequently -- they seem to allude to
the idea of a flower and also
symbolically to female genitalia. Some
women responded negatively to this -- the
idea that women aren't just female
genitalia -- that they're more than that.
But Judy Chicago and other artists that
saw this as the symbol of women's
life-giving abilities, the idea that
this is a symbol of femininity -- this is
kind of the ultimate symbol of
femininity, and so that's why she's chose
it for this particular series. It was
made by many people. She was very good at
getting lots of individuals together to
work on large projects. And this includes
painted porcelain, needlework, so it was a
big project that involved many women who
assisted her and even some men. I wanted
to compare the dinner party to the work
of Georgia O'Keeffe, so Georgia O'Keeffe
was known for these flower paintings
that some critics compared to female
genitalia, as well, which was something
that Georgia O'Keeffe never acknowledged
herself so we don't necessarily know if
that reading is correct. However, Georgia
O'Keeffe does get a play setting at the
"Dinner Party," so she is commemorated at
this at this particular table; Virginia
Wolffe -- the literary figure; Emily
Dickinson; Hatshepsut -- one of the only
female Pharaohs in in Egypt. So important
historical figures are commemorated, as
well as goddess figures are commemorated.
One of the insults about this, in
addition to the focus on genitalia, was
that it was perhaps too white -- again, the
idea that it wasn't diverse enough, so I
think if the dinner party were created
again, you might see additional diversity
included into the the "party." Here's the
place setting for Artemisia Gentileschi,
so you can see it's really quite lovely
and how she's engaging with some of the
colors of the Baroque period -- the style
of the artist, so she's really using some
of these colors in a quite striking
way and and really thinking about what
would these individuals have been
interested in -- what were the aesthetics
that surrounded them and how could she
make the each individual place setting
unique. And then you can see the
individual names down below. For example,
you can see Lebrun here, and this is
probably Vigee-Lebrun, of course, the
portrait artist of [Queen] Marie Antoinette. So
this idea of connecting people -- or
Rosalba Carriera -- you can see her
name here -- so she's connecting her to
different female artists from around the
same time. So this artwork is very very
large. You can see 48 by 42 by 36 [feet] and so
for a long time, it had no place to go. It
was put on temporary exhibit in the
number of museums, and then it was going
to be put into a a university, but there
were government officials that objected
to it because they saw it as pornography.
Eventually, however, it was put on display
in a center for feminist art at the
Brooklyn Museum, and that's where it is
today. So you can continue to see this
particular installation in the Center
for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum.
And it's a great way to learn about
these different female figures. This is a
work by Sylvia sleigh. I know it includes
nudity -- don't be too frightened. But the
whole idea here is -- it's a very 1970s
image -- but the whole idea here is Sylvia
is playing on the idea of the Turkish
bath. And so the Turkish bath was a
subject explored by the French
painting [Jean-Auguste-Dominique] Ingres. And you can see the circular work
where women are in a variety of poses,
and it's this composite, imagined image
of women bathing. And their bodies are kind of
intertwined -- listening to music -- and this
ideal composite were very much the
female form is objectified, and
therefore [is there for] the male viewer to enjoy -- just
kind of this feast of flesh. And so
Sylvia Sleigh -- about a hundred years later --
is playing on that idea. We can see her
husband, who was an art curator and
critic in the foreground, gazing at her.
And he's in this very traditional female
pose -- this supine nude pose, where he is
reclining and he's gazing out towards
her. She also included other male figures,
who inspired her intellectually -- who were
important friends. And I think it's
interesting because there's a strong
naturalism here, too. I mean she's not
shying away from tan lines and body hair,
the same way that we often see in old
master paintings, where there's no signs
of tan lines, there's no signs of body
hair. So there's a certain realism here
that Sylvia Sleigh is really engaging with.
So it's wonderful -- it's a very clear
subversion of the traditional way women
are objectified. But she's not
necessarily objectifying these men; these
were men who inspired her. She was deeply
attracted to her husband, so she's really
celebrating these men, as well in some
ways, but clearly referencing images of
the past. Also in the 1960s, there was an
artist named Alice Neel, who was
exploring the female body -- especially
pregnant women in a way that wasn't
traditionally beautiful. Her portraiture
is often seen as not
traditionally idealized, and so Sylvia
Sleigh might have been working in some of
those channels as she's
exploring her subjects for the Turkish
Bath. And Alice Neel is also very
significant painter. So Monica Sjoo was a
Swedish artist, however, she did spend a
lot of time in the UK, and when she was
in the UK, she created this painting of
"God giving birth" -- probably painted in 1968
actually -- so let me fix that.
So "God giving Birth" in 1968. This was
something she created after she had a
home birth. This was a reaction to a
home birth that she had of her -- I think
it was her second son. And so she'd given
birth at home and had this moment of
really connecting to the idea of the
great mother. And the great mother was
something that was often discussed in
the 1970s. This kind of cult of the great
mother -- the idea of God as woman -- the
importance of women as creators -- as those
who give birth. And so she's really
emphasizing that in this particular
image. She talks about the kind of
visions she had when she was giving
birth. This kind of moment of communing
with the Great Mother with ancestors and
this tradition that goes back
generations. So here, obviously, you see the figure
that's supposed to represent God -- a child
emerging from her vaginal region. You can
see it's set within the universe with
these celestial bodies up above. And then
you can also just see this idea kind of
a void down at the bottom, and it's very
clear the idea of "God giving birth" -- so
it's important to note that these
artists are often working in
representational techniques. At this
point abstraction was so closely related
to men, and so many female artists who
were thinking about feminism were going
away from abstraction. They weren't as
interested in abstraction anymore. Monica
Sjoo was also interested in the idea
of making this figure both black and
white -- the origins of figures from Africa.
She also was in a relationship with a
man who had African origins [or heritage] around this
time so that might have affected it as
well. So it was a very controversial work.
The when it was displayed she I think
she was tried for a number of issues. I
think the show was shut down, so she was
in a lot of trouble for this. Here we see
her with her work "God giving birth" and
then she also wrote a book called "The
Great cosmic mother" along with Barbara
Moore. The work eventually was purchased
by a Swedish collection, but as I said
she did spend a lot of
time in the UK. Unfortunately this kind
of work was often shut down. She actually
was in the area of where Barbara
Hepworth was working. Barbara Hepworth
the very important sculptor in the UK --
kind of in the area of Cornwall --
and she felt very little
support from Barbara Hepworth or other
female artists when her work like "God
giving birth" was being heavily
questioned. So it really was this very
controversial work. Alright, this is the
work of Ana Mendieta, who is from who was
originally from Cuba, although she left
at quite a young age, which may have been
quite traumatizing for her. This -- she
often engages her body in work. She died
relatively young in the 1980s and that
she died very controversially. Many
people believe Carl Andre the artist was
responsible for her death. She fell from
an apartment where they were living, and
many people think that he was the one
who killed her. He claimed that she
committed suicide essentially or fell.
Anyways she would have definitely
continued to create very important work.
Again she engaged her body in her work.
She definitely was thinking about the
Great Mother -- creative forces, woman's
forces. Here we see her engaging her body
using "untitled -- facial hair transplant" -- the mustache. Here you see her "untitled --
blood and feathers" again engaging her
body. She would often recreate kind of
crime scenes or assault scenes or rape
scenes early on. Here you see her work
untitled from 1973. Here you see her "Tree
of Life. She begins exploring this
particular pose with her arms raised --
kind of connecting the earth and the
heavens and the female role in doing
that. These series, however, of course,
are only commemorated in films and
photographs. These were all ephemeral
works. These are things that we cannot
commemorate really in exhibitions unless
through photography or through film.
She had a particular series called the
"Silueta series" where she would
leave behind these silhouettes through
various -- like mud as we see here other
types of natural materials. And again
these were forms that weren't going to
last -- they were ephemeral and so they
would
have them on display or they would be
created by Ana and then photographed
and then recalled only
through those means. And it's important
to think about this is when land art is
very significant with figures like [Robert]
Smithson. And so just thinking about how
she's engaging with the earth, but really
bringing the idea of a powerful feminine
or mother goddess to the fore. The last
subject I'd like to talk about in
relation to female artists and feminism
is murals and this is because muralism
became quite popular in the 1970s as a
means for bringing together communities
and also a way to bring new voices into
the art world -- and also the idea of
public art art that is accessible to all --
art that you don't have to go into a
museum to see.
And traditionally muralists were often
men -- this idea of it's very physical.
It's a big project. You're outside. And so
there were women who wanted to get into
this practice, and so in San Francisco
you had a group called "las Mujeres
Muralistas. And this was a group
that started off as a few cofounders and
then grew from there. Many women wanted
to get involved, and they created some
very striking murals,
particularly in the Mission District.
This is a district that historically has
had a lot of immigrants with Latino
heritage or connections to Central and
South America, and so here you see their
mural Latinoamerica on Mission Street
between 25th and 26th from the 1970s.
Again, engaging with themes colors
subjects that would would be considered
significant for those in the Mission
District. I mean today the Mission
District is really losing a lot of its
heritage because it has become heavily
gentrified and become a popular place
for tech workers to live because
it's in the southern part of San
Francisco so they can easily commute
down from San Francisco down to the area
of San Jose. So this heritage -- this
Latino heritage is being lost. But in
this scene you can see the importance of
family, particular costume, the idea of
the maíz -- the corn --
corne these particular plants that seem
to remind those looking at this of the
homeland -- of this kind of longing perhaps
of the homeland, which is so common among
immigrant communities. Representations of
the Sun  --and again different generations --
different styles of dress being brought
together in a single image. Here you see
the group together or some from the
group -- Graciela Carrillo and Patricia
Rodriguez were important early members.
We also see Consuela Mendez and Irene
Perez or Irene Perez. 
Unfortunately, these particular figures --
this is something that we continue to
need more research about and because
there aren't the kind of numerous number
of our history books about this subject
as there are on other artists -- other male
artists, for example. And murals -- with city
development -- are often sometimes the
first ones to go. They also created this
"Fantasy for children" mural from 1975. And
the way they explained this one was that
it was something for children. It was
supposed to be positive really bright
and engaging colors, but in addition to
that this was a time when a lot of men
were coming back from Vietnam, especially
Latino men. So men who had been to
Vietnam had been through the trauma of
this war, and were coming back with a very
negative outlook. You know, they had been
through this horrible experience in the
war, and so they -- the Las Mujeres Muralistas -- the women muralists. They
haven't necessarily been through that.
They're bringing a more positive outlook
to the Mission District -- something that
can be -- something that can inspire the
community. Alright, the final stop is a
great wall in Los Angeles -- or known as
"The Great Wall of Los Angeles," but its
technical title is "The History of
California." This was put up along a
tributary of the LA River. And its little
apparently the longest mural in the
world. At this point, it's over I think a
third of a mile long -- oh well it's almost
3,000 feet at this point, so it really
keeps growing, and it's getting longer
and longer because they continue to want
to expand it. It was begun in 1976
and again Judy Baca or Judith Baca was
really the mastermind of this work, but
it involved many, many artists and also
hundreds of students and hundreds of
people to help create this vision. So it
involves the Olympics from in Los
Angeles from 1984. It involves history
that doesn't really shy away from race
issues in LA, so that's really important.
Just to show you one example of a
close-up here, you can see Dust Bowl
refugees -- the idea of the Great
Depression. So it's really tracking this
kind of history and these people that
are coming to Los Angeles and and coming
to California. And of course it's doing
it in such a large way. Again really
involving the public, and also teaching
the public history, and exploring areas
that they might not see again at a
museum, but they're seeing it in a public
space. Murals of course they need a lot
of upkeep and a lot of care because
there's a lot of exposure to the
elements, but many people feel like
they're some of the best ways to to look
at art because again they're available
to all. And Los Angeles especially in
East LA,
there was a strong tradition of muralists.
There were male muralists "Los Four" -- also
Judithe Hernández. So there was a
tradition of muralists who were working
in in LA, and this tradition, of course,
continues but was especially strong
right around this time.
