Tell me more.
This painting depicts the dress worn by Native American women who were members of the Ghost Dance religion.
The Ghost Dance religion is an intertribal Native American movement that emerged in the late 19th century. Performing the dance was said to reanimate the spirits of dead Indians, who would join together with the living to force out white settlers and reassert native peoples’ way of life.
The artist's work explores her own Native American heritage and the ways her heritage intersects with white settler society both past and present.
My teenager wants to know what’s up with the Wonder Woman video.
The artist is using actual footage from the Wonder Woman television show that was popular in the 1970s. She cuts together various scenes of Wonder Woman's transformation, meant to make the viewer consider the change more closely.
The artist felt that the way Wonder Woman was depicted, and considered by some to be a feminist icon, was unfair. She believed that Wonder Woman was in fact a woman denied any way to live "in between," going from plain jane to unrelatable superhero and back again.
Here's a great quote from the artist: "How dare you confront me with this supposedly super-powered image of a woman who is stronger than I am and can also save mankind? I can’t do that, and I won’t—and there’s no middle ground in between. The middle ground is what we need to work from.”
Great point!
What’s going on here?
Inspired in part by the accoutrements of her fashion commissions, Minter created this video for the Brooklyn Museum’s "Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe" exhibition in 2014. Rather than highlight the glitz and glamour of the designer shoe, Minter’s video is more foreboding. The model’s feet are uncomfortably squeezed into the heels, which slowly and ominously destroy the glass pane separating the subject from the viewer.
Minter actually purchased the shoes the dancer is wearing from a two-for-$50 sale rack and embellished them herself.
Her feet move among and across a surface of what looks like water but is actually silver paint, adding drama and visual interest to the work.
The dancer is Akira Armstrong. She is based in the Bronx and she is the founder of Pretty Big Movement, a "full-figured dance company" that specializes in Hip Hop, Jazz and Ethnic dance. They are currently touring with the band Salt-N-Pepa!
Is this banarasi fabric? Does this work have to do with the Indian transgender Hijra community?
Interesting thought! This flag is actually sewn from six gele. A gele is a head scarf worn by Nigerian women for important events.
Tugbiyele identifies as a queer woman of Nigerian descent. By bringing together six Nigerian textiles associated with womanhood, and putting them together in a spectrum like the "rainbow" of the gay pride flag, she is combining and affirming two aspects of her identity.
Wow! I thought it was banarasi sari fabric! Thanks for informing me!
Tell me more.
This is a print by the artist Marisol. The work is called "Saca La Lengua," which translates to “Stick out Your Tongue.” It's interesting that she chooses the tongue to highlight in this work, because at age 11 Marisol choose not to speak again until her late 20s.
Tell me more.
This artist, Chakaia Booker, is known for sculptures made from repurposed tires. Her use of tires is a reference to industrialization, consumerism, and environmental impacts. She likens the tires' surface to human skin in the way that they age, wear, and bear scars.
What is the relationship between Thomas and the models?
Thomas typically works with friends and family members as models for her paintings and photographs. Madame Mama Bush is Thomas's own mother, Sandra Bush. Bush herself worked as a fashion model in the 1970s.
Thomas has said: “I believe that the sitter has the power (or more power than I have) over what’s being presented. I’m not overly choreographing the women I work with; I’m really trying to capture a quality within them. They are presenting to me, through their lens, how they want to be represented."
What are Spero’s specific references and how has she rewritten their story?
Spero means to "construct a simultaneity of women through time." She said: "The history of women I envision is neither linear nor sequential. I try...to show that it all has reverberations for us today. And then it makes sense." In “Fertility Totem,” she reproduces image from Prehistoric, Ancient Greek, and Australian Aboriginal traditions including a woman masturbating with dildos as an act of bodily autonomy based on a kylix in the collection of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. “Hieratic” includes images of Egyptian goddesses including Nut, one of Spero's favorites. She often used this stamp of Nut with additional breasts, a nod to the she-wolf that raised Romulus and Remus, to emphasize her maternal and powerful role.
What is the significance of blue mush in the Nestle box?
Pop artists like Strider frequently used commercialized packaging or other ubiquitous imagery in their work to question the nature of fine art. The blue mush (or any color mush, for that matter), here, is something specific to Strider's work. This two-dimensional work is based on three-dimensional works she created by allowing urethane foam to rupture and freely expand from packages. It sort of suggests she can't be contained by societal norms.
Aaaah! My daughter thought it was smoke!
I can see why! In reality, the foam would have poured out in a similar way!
These posters are incredible; it’s amazing that the most recent one is from 1997 and they all remain so relevant. How did the curators make their decision and narrow it down from 50 posters?
Aren't they?! The Guerrilla Girls were founded in in NY in 1985 in direct response to an exhibition at MoMa and to protest gender and racial discrimination in the art word. Many of their points remain relevant to institutions today, it’s true.
As for how they narrowed it down, I believe the answer has to do with the ones which resonate even today, as you noticed. The current social and political climate was a major factor in the selection of all of the artworks for “Half the Picture.” This exhibition was actually named for one of the posters, the one which reads “You're seeing less than half the picture without the vision of women artists and artists of color.
Looking at it now!
It's so simple but communicates its point graphically and effectively.
