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Introduction : artemesia gentileschi
In a world where feminists artists, like Pussy Riot in Russia, are imprisoned for protesting, where the president of the USA is elected despite leaked audio tapes of him describing how he enjoys molesting women, and where women are ritually mutilated, and even murdered by their families, art which holds up a mirror to our conscience is needed more than ever. To bring the biblical story of Susanna and The Elders up to date she would be trolled, stalked and threatened in the most savage way for simply saying 'NO'. |
This exhibition has been curated by MOMA on behalf of the collective 'After Artemesia' to honour the life and work of Renaissance artist Artemesia Gentileschi (1593-1656).
In a world where feminists artists, like Pussy Riot in Russia, are imprisoned for protesting, where the president of the USA is elected despite leaked audio tapes of him describing how he enjoys molesting women, and where women are ritually mutilated, and even murdered by their families, art which holds up a morror to our conscince is needed more than ever. To bring the biblical story of Susanna and The Elders up to date she would be trolled, stalked and threatened in the most savage way for simply saying 'NO'. We are delighted to be showing the version of 'Susanna and The Elders' 1610 which the young Artemesia, aged only 16, painted in the months before her rape while she was fighting off the advances of Agostino Tassi. This biblical story had been used before by painters like Bassano, Veronese and Tintoretto but in a titillating way, with Susanna depicted as a temptress or coy seductress. Gentieschi refuses to follow this trope of soft porn voyeurism and tells the story as it is, abuse. Her Susanna is horrified to realise that she is being watched. With her hands outstretched shielding her face and ears rather than her breasts, her head looking away and her mouth open calling out, she clearly shows her fear. But what fear? Like the more teasing versions where Susanna fails to really cover herself, this Susanna is not afraid of being looked at. Gentileschi had posed nude as a model since childhood. What this Susanna is afraid of is the entreaty, the words, the blackmail and what the consequences of acting on those words would be for her. The painting is an exquisite portrayal of the vulnerability of her identity as a woman, a daughter, a chattel. This exhibition tries to place a lens over the art world reaction to and influence on the promulgation of female stereotypes: stereotypes that stretch from the virgin, to the early angels, into the Madonna/mother earth, to the tease and the muse. Why is it necessary to adopt the label 'woman artist'? "If women abandon their husbands and children, and society tolerates their action both legally and socially, as it does in the case of a man; if women achieve all of this - then they will achieve an equally copious creativity." Austrian performance artist, Valie Export 1970 Export was not her birth name. She adopted the name in an effort to create an identity based on her offering of herself to the art world rather than her label of daughter and wife. She took ownership of her own definition - her name. "One is used to artists leading a life that suits them and to citizens turning a blind eye to this. But when a woman does the same, they all open their eyes." German Surrealist sculptor, Meret Oppenheim 1975 Oppenheim's early works from the 1930's are erotically charged. They are expressions of her interaction with Surrealism and her rejection of the " taboos that have held women in subjugation for thousands of years." 1975 Kunstpreis de Stadt Basel There is no reason to label art by gender except to belittle and to control. Such treatment is about expression of power not expression of worth. it is about preserving the male status quo. Contemporary female artists stand on the shoulders of those women like Judy Chicago who brought feminism into art. They owe a debt to the anonymous genius of The Guerrilla Girls of the 1980's who created marketing campaigns, demonstrations and protest campaigns to bring political issues from rape to abortion, women at war to homelessness, into public debate. Out of this has come a new artistic trope, the post-feminist ladette/ball breaker/sexualised drab... where heightened sexuality, ultra-realism and 'woman as object' has allowed artists like Sara Lucas and Jemima Stehli to make provocative and challenging art. It is also right for us to ask why is it worthwhile for Sara Lucas to present to us provocative headless body casts of women with cigarettes poked into their anus or vaginas ? Is it still relevant to turn the female nude tradition on its head by asking a series of art critics to mark a striptease performance 'out of ten' like Jemima Stehli? (Strip no.3 Critic. 1999) Maybe these are processes, acts in a sequence of events towards the answer to female identity in art, helping it to become irrelevant? Or at least no more relevant than male identity. Events along a timeline that ends with throwing the phrase ' a woman artist like Gentieschi' into the garbage where it belongs. "For feminists in Italy she has become an icon of feminism:first violence then success, her grand artistic accomplishment." Eva Menzio, University of Padova. When her mother died the twelve year old Artemesia begged to be allowed to stay with her father and to learn to paint. It was because her brothers showed no talent for art that her father relented and agreed. Without this permission she would not have been able to study. Women were not allowed into the Guilds or the Academies. No atelier would have accepted her. The women who did paint, who could afford private lessons, were only permitted to paint small household objects not the great themes from the bible and classical tradition. She would have met and watched Caravaggio paint when she was young because he was a close personal friend of her father. Being part of her father's studio, mixing paints, taking lessons and watching the other students brought her to the stage that at the age of 16 she felt capable to tackle a nude self-portrait. She had posed nude for others, why not for herself? It was a prescient painting, her 'Susanna', because it heralded the rape that she was to suffer. As a result of the rape she suffered the indignity of an internal examination by two midwives in court and was tortured under oath with thumb screws. Her rapist was never truly admonished because his patron was The Pope. Artemesia went on to paint scenes which give the control to women or if they do not have control they protest. The women in her paintings are strong and colourful. Often they are refusing sex like her painting of Danae where the maid holds open her apron and receives the golden shower from Zeus on her behalf. Often there are two women doing together a deed which a man would traditionally be seen doing, a vengeful act or assassination: her message - female solidarity. Despite this difficult and painful start to her artistic career Artemesia thrived. Some art historians have made an argument for her rape causing her to become a celebrity. It is hoped that this arguement has now been left behind with her being included in the major exhibition 'Beyond Caravaggio' at the National Gallery, London 12 Oct - 15 Jan 2016. Her paintings use colour expressively with vivid blues and hot reds. She had watched Caravaggio paint when he visited her father's studio and her own approach to light and shadow were against the established creed of her time. She painted life from life, without idealism but with a realistic sense of the moment. She became a celebrated European artist with powerful patrons, even King Charles I of England. She was the first woman to be accepted to the Academy in Italy. Galileo was a personal friend. Her powerful personal vision communicated through her paintings put her life into her art...and we are standing on her shoulders. |