- A P R I L 2 8 , 2 0 0 7

C H 1 5

:
MAR

R O L E P LAY
H E L E N A A L M E I DA
A R I N A A B R A MOVIC / H E L E N C H A D W ICK
M A B E N GLIS /
O R A N T I N / LY N D
I R G I T J Ü R G E N SSEN
ELEA N L A G E I GER / B
R T / A N N A B E L A N A M E N D I ETA
VA L I E E X P O I A M A IOLINO /
TA / AN N A M A R
S H I G E K O K U B O
R A D Y / Y O K O ONO
L O R R A INE O’ G M ANN
A N E N G U D I / O L E E S C H N E E
SENG T H A R O S L E R / CAR
/ MA R
ADRIAN PIPER C E S C A W O O D M AN
A N N A H W I L K E / FRAN
H
ROLE PLAY:
preoccupations, overarching their but to pose the parallel question of
nationalities, professional forma- whether there exists any sovereign
CHECKLIST Masked Taping, c. 1978/79
tions or cultural milieus. That Sen- and autonomous identity “behind” Black and white photograph
HELENA ALMEIDA
ga Nengudi encased herself with the representation. documenting private performance
Hear Me, 1979 8 x 10” (20.3 x 25.4 cm)
masking tape for her performance Finally, the artistic engage-
Black and white photograph
Masked Taping (1978-9), just as oth- ment with what Griselda Pollock
24 ¾ x 17 3⁄8” (63 x 44 cm) LORRAINE O’GRADY
er artists such as Francesca Wood- characterized as the problem of
Hear Me, 1979 Mlle Bourgeoise Noire Shouts Out
man photographed themselves woman-as-image (rather than Black and white photograph Her Poem, 1981
bound or trussed, that Chadwick, the more sociological problem of 24 ¾ x 17 3⁄8” (63 x 44 cm) Cibachrome print, mounted on Plexiglas
Mendieta, Ono, Jürgenssen, Wilke, objectifying or falsifying “images 30 x 40” (76.2 x 101.6 cm)
and dozens of performance artists of women”) can also be seen to ELEANOR ANTIN
made their bodies the material signifiers—the literal have prompted women artists to play various femi- “Before the Revolution” from Recollections of ADRIAN PIPER
mediums—of their work, signals the ways by which nine roles, but, needless to say, to play them “other- My Life with Diaghilev 1919-1929, 1977-78 I Embody Everything, 1975
Tinted gelatin silver photograph on hard paper Oil crayon drawing on black and white
the critical insights of feminism prompted comparable ly.” Accordingly, Benglis’ Female Sensibility (1973),
ABIGAIL SOLOMON-GODEAU and page of text. photograph
metaphors and symbolic articulations. Antin’s various personae (e.g., Antinova, King of Image: 7 3⁄8 x 5 3⁄8” (18.7 x 13.7 cm) 8 x 10” (20.3 x 25.4 cm)
No, Virginia, Cindy Sherman’s art did not come Notwithstanding the differences between indi- Solano Beach, Nurse Eleanor, etc.), Wilke’s series Text Panel: 11 x 14 ¼” (27.9 x 36.2 cm)

to us from outer space; it was yet another art prac- vidual artists, it is clear that all their work was ani- So Help Me Hannah (1975) operate according to the “The Prisoner of Persia” from Recollections of CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN
tice formed in and by feminist thought and affiliated, mated by their awareness of a new domain of artistic logic of what the Situationists called détournement, My Life with Diaghilev 1919-1929, 1977-78
Tinted gelatin silver photograph on hard paper Portrait Partials, 1970/2004
both directly and indirectly, with the work of many and political possibility, exemplified by those subjects the turning back on itself of a received image from and page of text. Giclee print
women artists active in the 1970s. If this is a news- and themes that had previously been inadmissible in mass or commodity culture. Such a tactic instates a Image: 7 3⁄8 x 5 3⁄8” (18.7 x 13.7 cm) 44 x 44” (111.8 x 111.8 cm)

worthy observation, it represents one positive con- artmaking. These newly representable subjects—rape critical space between its “original” as it exists in the Text Panel: 11 x 14 ¼” (27.9 x 36.2 cm)

sequence of the recent spate of exhibitions focused (and not in the mythological sense of the Rape of the cultural imaginary and its reiteration that permits for HANNAH WILKE
HELEN CHADWICK
on women artists of which Role Play is one. That this
1 Sabines), pregnancy, parturition, domestic and repro- the recognition of the stereotype and the media-driven So Help Me Hannah, 1978
is itself a notable occurrence suggests that women ductive labor, sexuality, the body, the mechanisms of fantasies it embodies. In the Kitchen, 1977 Black and white photograph
Black and white photograph 14 x 11” (35.6 x 27.9 cm)
artists are still far from obtaining fetishism with respect to the imag- It becomes increasingly evident that women
Exhibition print
So Help Me Hannah, 1978
parity with their male cohort, either ery of femininity—were all central artists in the period intuited the profound determi- 8 x 5” (20.3 x 12.7 cm)
Black and white photograph
in museum and private collections, issues within feminism, and it was nations of psychic fetishism (as well as commod- In the Kitchen, 1977 14 x 11” (35.6 x 27.9 cm)
museum and gallery exhibitions, the task of this generation of women ity fetishism) in existing representations of feminin- Black and white photograph
So Help Me Hannah, 1978
or within art criticism in our nomi- artists “under the influence” of fem- ity. Hence, the audacity of Export’s baring of her sex Exhibition print
Black and white photograph
8 x 5” (20.3 x 12.7 cm)
nally post-feminist age. If artists inist critique to invent the forms by in Action Pants/Genital Panic, revealing what the 14” x 11” (35.6 x 27.9 cm)
In the Kitchen, 1977
such as Suzy Lake, Friedl Kubelka, which these could receive aesthetic fetish denies, veils, and disavows.3 In this respect,
Black and white photograph
Sanja Ivekovic, Maria Lassnig, Lee expression. No less compelling for Export’s inscription of the fetish on her own body in FRANCESCA WOODMAN
Exhibition print
Lozano, Yayoi Kusama, Anna Maria women artists working of the period Body, Sign Action (1970) a garter belt strap tattooed 8 x 5” (20.3 x 12.7 cm) I.204 / Self Deceit #1, Roma, 1978
Estate gelatin silver print
Maiolino, Birgit Jürgenssen, Helena was the urgency of the question of on the flesh of her thigh) constitutes a truly radical In the Kitchen, 1977
10 x 8” (25.4 cm x 20.32 cm)
Almeida, and Senga Nengudi (the self-representation, the attempt to gesture, expanding the fetish’s purview to include the Black and white photograph
Exhibition print P.9 / From Space 2, Providence, RI, 1975-76
latter four included in Role Play) are reclaim, resignify, or, indeed, ruin concept of the artist, the work of art, and even the
8 x 5” (20.3 x 12.7 cm) Estate gelatin silver print
largely unknown, there is reason to the conventional visual language of etiology of fetishism, given the tattoo’s contiguity to 10 x 8” (25.4 cm x 20.32 cm)
In the Kitchen, 1977
ask why this is so. Certainly, the relative lack of atten- femininity for critical purposes. the female genitalia and its imagined lack.4 Because Black and white photograph P.21, House # 4, Providence, Rhode Island,
tion paid to their work has something to do with dis- Thus, for example, the stove woman of Birgit femininity-as-image (as ideal, mystique, refuge, object Exhibition print 1975-78
parities other than those of gender; for example, the Jürgenssen (1975) ; the stove “monuments” of Rose- of knowledge and investigation) is itself a fetish, if not 8 x 5” (20.3 x 12.7 cm) Estate gelatin silver print
10 x 8” (25.4 cm x 20.32 cm)
consequences of working in the center or the periph- marie Trockel (1992), In the Kitchen by Helen Chad- the fetish, it is chimerical, multiple in forms, hydra- In the Kitchen, 1977
Black and white photograph P.12 / Providence, 1975-76
ery (and until recently, all artists not based or showing wick (included in Role Play) (1977), Mierle Laderman or medusa-headed. Like the women in Freud’s audi-
Exhibition print Estate gelatin silver print
in New York City were by definition occupants of the Ukeles’ maintenance works (from 1969) and Martha ence to whom Freud redirected his question about 8 x 5” (20.3 x 12.7 cm) 10 x 8” (25.4 cm x 20.32 cm)
periphery). Rosler’s tape Semiotics of the Kitchen (included in the enigma of femininity, “you are yourselves the
In the Kitchen, 1977
While the opportunity of rediscovering so many Role Play) (1975) are all testimonial to the ways by problem,” the woman artist working with the imagery Black and white photograph
extraordinary artists from Europe and the Americas which women artists (who may have been entirely of an always-already fetishized femininity occupies Exhibition print
8 x 5” (20.3 x 12.7 cm) FILM PROGRAM
is exciting it is also somewhat poignant. Not a few of unaware of one another’s work) were mobilized by a position both inside and outside the psychosexual
them have already died, and it does seem as though their recognition of what Betty Friedan called “the and cultural staging of fetishism. (This is quite literally In the Kitchen, 1977 MARINA ABRAMOVIC
Black and white photograph Art Must Be Beautiful, Artist Must Be Beautiful,
a disproportionate number of women artists active problem with no name.” enacted in Chadwick’s In the Kitchen series). If we Exhibition print 1975/76
in the 1970s have had early, even tragic deaths (cf., Friedan’s formulation, “the problem with no have failed to fully acknowledge the formal and the- 8 x 5” (20.3 x 12.7 cm) Black and white, sound
Chadwick, Hesse, Jürgenssen, Lozano, Mendieta, name,” that is, women’s subordination as manifest in matic correspondences and affiliations between the 14:14 min
Wilke, Woodman). Coming upon these works now is their domestic confinement (in her 1963 book The Fem- work of women artists active in the 1970s, it is in part VALIE EXPORT LYNDA BENGLIS
something of a surprise, not merely because of their inine Mystique, white middle-class American women) because of the still operational division of artwork by Action Pants: Genital Panic, 1969/2001 Female Sensibility, 1973
Gelatin silver print mounted on aluminum Color, sound
unfamiliarity, but equally for their quality, suffused as evoked a prior condition or situation. The absence of genre. In other words, categorizing this work by genre
65 x 48” (165.1 x 121.9 cm) 12:00 min
so much of it is with intelligence, wit, inventiveness an articulation of this problem, the (i.e., text/image work, photography,
YOKO ONO
and a sharp critical edge. Sometimes, in its most fear- presiding determinations of what video, performance, etc.) occludes
ANNA BELLA GEIGER Fly, 1970
less and challenging incarnations (for example, Mari- was or was not representable or their common purviews and criti- Color, sound
The Bride met Duchamp before the 25:00 min
na Abramovic’s Art Must Be Beautiful, Artist Must Be speakable, was an absence which cal agendas. In this respect, the
Bachelors, 1975
Beautiful, 1975/76 (included in Role Play); Yoko Ono’s women artists felt compelled to art informed by and responsive to Black and white photograph MARTHA ROSLER
Cut Piece, 1965, or Valie Export’s Genital Panic and address. Thus, Helena Almeida’s the epistemological challenges of 11 3⁄4 x 11 3⁄8” (30 x 29 cm) Semiotics of the Kitchen, 1975
Black and white, sound
Touch Cinema, 1969) it is also deeply disturbing. In 1979 Hear Me photographs remind feminist thought and politics is best 6:00 min
these latter instances (all of which were originally per- us of the Brazilian novelist Clarice situated under the postmodernist BIRGIT JÜRGENSSEN
HANNAH WILKE
formance pieces given second artistic lives as visual Lispector’s celebration of “the canopy in which genres are freely Untitled, 1979 Through the Large Glass, 1976
documents), women artists used their physical selves unleashed tides of muteness;” the mixed, bent, hybridized, subverted, Vintage color photograph Color, silent
28 x 19 ¾” (71 x 50 cm) 29:00 min
as screens upon which private and individual gestures efflorescence of women’s writ- or re-invented, enabling artists
Untitled (Selfportrait), 1973
or desires—all unpredictable—could be inscribed. In ing and women’s art sparked the to deploy whatever means—their
Vintage polyptychon color print
two of the most notorious performances by women feminism’s validation of the issues, own bodies included—deemed 10 ¼ x 7 ¼” (26 x 18.5 cm)
artists, one in 1965, one in 1975 (I refer to Shigeko contradictions and aporias implicit in women’s estate. appropriate to the artistic task at hand. For these and IMAGE CAPTIONS
Untitled (Self with fur), 1977
Kubota’s Vagina Painting and Carolee Schneemann’s The blindfolded or muffled subject who demands rec- other reasons, it seems fair to say that there was and Vintage color photograph (TOP TO BOTTOM)

Interior Scroll) the recesses of the female body pro- ognition of her silencing, the woman of color who is no such thing as a feminist style, or (in any simple 5 x 3 ¾” (12.6 x 8.5 cm) HANNAH WILKE So Help Me Hannah, 1978
duces not babies, but writing or other markings. Thus, violates her embourgeoisement by screaming (and way) something called “feminist art.” Rather, and Untitled (Self with fur), 1977 Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York

the physical (as opposed to psychic) locus of fetishism creating) as in Lorraine O’Grady’s Mlle Bourgeoise from the perspective of more than 35 years of artis- Vintage color photograph ANA MENDIETA Untitled (Glass on Body
5 x 3 ¾” (12.6 x 8.5 cm) Imprints – Face), 1972 (detail)
(“Probably no male human being is spared the fright Noire Shouts Out Her Poem (1981), and Francesca tic production informed by the powerful presence of
of castration at the sight of a female genital,” wrote Woodman’s vitrine-encased figures are all exemplars feminism, we are beginning to grasp the outlines of HELEN CHADWICK In the Kitchen, 1977.
SHIGEKO KUBOTA Courtesy Leeds Museums & Galleries (Henry
Freud) was, from the outset, specified as such, and of this bringing into visibility, bringing into represen- an art of feminism, a widespread, international, con-
Vagina Painting, 1965 Moore Institute Archive)
reconfigured as a challenge. (“Let the priests trem- tation what had been, with all the discursive weight stantly evolving set of practices which whether or © The Helen Chadwick Estate
Black and white photograph
ble,” wrote Hélène Cixous in 1975, “we’re going to implied by the term unauthorized. not they endorsed (or rejected) notions of feminine by George Macivnas SENGA NENGUDI Masked Taping,
show them our sexts!”2) Like the women in Freud’s That so many of these artists should have begun specificity, or whether or not they sought to invent 20 x 16” (50.8 x 40.6 cm) c. 1978/79
audience to whom Freud redirected his question about to photograph themselves—working with themselves, artistic languages of and for sexual difference, col- Courtesy Thomas Erben Gallery, New York

the enigma of femininity, “you are yourselves the prob- deploying their images or their bodies as the material lectively sounded the death knell for the presump- ANNA MARIA MAIOLINO (ON REVERSE)
lem,” the woman artist working with the imagery of an foundation of their work, enacting a range of roles—is tion that there is either a universal subject, a univer- Entrevidas/Between Life, 1981 BIRGIT JÜRGENSSEN Untitled (Self with
always-already fetishized femininity occupies a posi- also inseparable from many of the issues raised by sal viewer, a universal producer, or a universal art. Three black and white photographs fur), 1977
3 panels, each: 34 5⁄8 x 23 ¼” (88 x 59 cm) Courtesy Galerie Hubert Winter, Vienna
tion both inside and outside the psychosexual and cul- feminism itself. For in the broadest sense, the ques-
tion it poses—what are the political and psychologi- Abigail Solomon-Godeau is one of the leading contemporary crit-
tural staging of fetishism. In this respect, it is possibly
ics and art historians; she has written and lectured extensively ANA MENDIETA
of some relevance to note that certain of those artists cal consequences of being born a woman? —encom- on post-modernism, photography and feminism, including the first
Untitled (Glass on Body Imprints – Face), 1972
who most directly used themselves and their bodies to passed that more possibly immediate question, what monograph on Francesca Woodman. Her next book, The Face of We extend our sincere thanks to all the
Suite of 13 lifetime black and white
is it to be a woman artist? Although both questions are Difference: Gender, Race and the Politics of Self-Representation,
explore the imbrication of fetishism with femininity— photographs Artists; Abigail Solomon-Godeau for her
will be published by Duke University Press. counsel and her essay; Cheim & Read, New
Benglis, Jürgenssen, Mendieta, Ono, Wilke, Wood- at stake in those works where women artists consid- Each 8 x 10” (20.3 x 25.4 cm)
York; Electronic Arts Intermix, New York;
man—were all themselves quite beautiful women and ered their relation to the canon, as in both Anna Bella Galeria Filomena Soares, Portugal; The Helen
thus lived their femininity in a particular way. Geiger’s The Bride met Duchamp before the Bache- SENGA NENGUDI Chadwick Estate; Jon Hendricks, The Gilbert
1. Upcoming and current exhibitions of women artists informed and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection, Detroit;
Breaching taboos of various kinds, many of them lors (1975) or Wilke’s Through the Large Glass (1976), Masked Taping, c. 1978/79
by feminism include WACK!: Art and the Feminist Revolution at the Galerie Hubert Winter, Vienna; Leeds Museum
Black and white photograph
linked to the representation of the physical body, wom- it would seem that the prior question was more fun- Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Global Feminism at & Galleries (Henry Moore Institute Archive);
documenting private performance
en artists individually and collectively can be said to damental. Accordingly, the deployment of alternative the Brooklyn Museum; Agents of Change: Women, Art & Intellect Marian Goodman Gallery, New York; Patrick
8 x 10” (20.3 x 25.4 cm)
at Ceres Gallery, Femme brut(e) at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, Painter, Los Angeles; P.P.O.W., New York;
have worked to desublimate, de-fetishize, and resig- personae and alter egos (e.g., Eleanor Antin’s black New London, CT, and the current exhibition. In a recent article in Masked Taping, c. 1978/79 Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York; Sean
nify the notion of “the feminine;” ballerina Eleanora Antinova, Lynne The New York Times on the occasion of New York MoMA’s first Black and white photograph Kelly Gallery, New York; Thomas Erben Gallery,
to have contested mass cultural Herschman Leeson’s alter ego ever symposium related to feminist art, Holland Cotter observed documenting private performance New York; Video Data Bank, Chicago; Richard
that “…curators and critics have increasingly come to see that 8 x 10” (20.3 x 25.4 cm) Janko; and Aisha Burnes, Tumbleweed Design
fantasies of femininity; the status Roberta Breitman, Adrian Piper’s feminism has generated the most influential art impulses of the Studio, New York.
or identity of the artwork; the role Mythic Being or Jürgenssen’s self late 20th century and early 21st century.” Cotter, Holland. “Feminist
of the artist, and, hardly least, the portraits) put in question the very Art Takes Center Stage.” The New York Times January 29, 2007.

meaning of the aesthetic tout court. notion of a stable, “authentic” and 2. For two excellent discussions of this work see Regis Michel,
unalienated self. Such work operat- “I am a Woman” in Valie Export (exh. cat., Vienna: Sammlung
But no less significant in the work
ESSA, 2005) and Mechthild Fend, “Zeichen in der Oberfläche: Valie
of women artists of this period is the ed not merely to expose the fantas- Export’s body sign action”in Psychoanalyse im Widerspruch, vol.
coincidence of themes, motifs, and matic aspects of femininity or race, 15, no. 29, 2003, pp 51-59.