Cheesecake
Joan Arbeiter. Cheesecake, 2004.
Description:
Cheesecake
(part of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl Fulfilling Society's Limited Expectations Series)
Scantily clad, attractive women have been and continue to be used to sell just about anything. In these 1950's new car advertisements, the implied message is "When you buy the car you get (control over) the girl."
But what were we gals thinking as we mindlessly entrusted ourselves to the guy behind the wheel or obligingly draped ourselves over the hood of his car? ... I'm afraid we bought into the whole thing.
Today, N.O.W. encourages us to reshape our image and rewrite the message to reflect our considerably more pro-active potential. - Joan Arbeiter
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl Fulfilling Society's Limited Expectations Series
There are three main elements in the mixed media assemblages. Each begins with vintage photos of me during my formative years, then documents the timeframe in question with an authentic period magazine illustration and finally, updates and completes the message by including position statements from contemporary feminist books and periodicals e.g. Kate Millet, Betty Friedan, N.O.W., Feminist Majority, and Girls, Inc.
It took the Women's Movement to help me to see these cute snapshots in a different light: as a record of my being prepared to assume the then prevailing gender roles.
Medium:
Mixed Media
Tags:
car, assemblage, vintage advertisements, N.O.W., mixed media, appropriation
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