Research Project Historical and Rhetorical Context Drafts

Anna Stone

Dr. Brown

English 306

April 9, 2015

Historical Context draft

               The 1960’s and 1970’s are major time period in feminist history in the United States, what historians now refer to as “second wave feminism”(Baxandall). The second wave feminist movement began in the 1960’s due to the changing of the nation after the ending of World War II and the beginning of the Vietnam War (Baxandall). Women that took part in political anti war organizations were dissatisfied that their work in the movement was to make flyers and do desk work, while men were the leaders and speakers. This dissatisfaction by women lead to the beginning of feminist organizers in the 1960’s, who had goals focused around employment, with ending sex discrimination in the workplace and getting women into politics (Baxandall). The first major victory of the second wave feminist movement was the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women, enacted by President John F. Kennedy in 1963 (Baxandall). The Presidential Commission on the Status of Women proposed a measure that enabled women commission’s at the state level and succeeded in forming commissions in all states by 1967 (Baxandall). These state level women’s commissions were the beginning of many of the first influential women’s rights groups, such as the National Organization for Women, started in 1966 (Baxandall). This organization laid the framework for the many women’s rights groups to come, and without it the first Feminist Art Programs at California State University Fresno and The California Institute of the Art’s would have never emerged.

               Another facet to the second wave feminist movement was women’s liberation, most influential to the women involved in the Womanhouse protest. The women’s liberation movement began around 1968 and was more popular among young women who did not advocate for women in politics but instead critiqued the current social and political systems, while challenging the idea of public and political space (Baxandall). The theory developed from this school of thought was the idea of the personal as political, and was used in the Feminist Art Program “In the classical women’s liberation technique, the personal became political. Privately held feelings imagined to be personally held “hang-ups” turned out to be everyone’s feelings, and it became possible to act together in their solution”(Schapiro, 247).  Here co-founder of the Feminist Art Program Miriam Schapiro describes the women’s liberation movement was a major influence on the teaching of the program and in the creation of Womanhouse where women created artwork out of their shared societal experiences.

               The Womanhouse protest was not only influenced by feminist politics of the sixties and seventies but also the popular art styles of installation and performance art. Similar to the birth of 1970’s feminism 1970’s art was influenced by turmoil of the 1960’s, and as Rebecca Lowery examines performance art became the dominant art expression in Los Angeles at this time “women artists in particular developed mutually implicative performance practices that engaged a yet undefined horizon of experience: art as a shared occasion of social and political dynamism” (Lowery, 121). As Lowery demonstrates performance art allowed artists to better connect to their social and political identities, which was also a major tenant of women’s liberation feminism (121). Installation art also arose in the sixties and seventies and was often used by feminists due to its objection of having a correct way to interpret art (Bishop). Installation art emerges out of poststructuralism and is intended to oppose Renaissance viewing of art “it states that the correct way in which to view our condition as human subjects is fragmented, multiple and decentred-… by an interdependent and differential relationship to the world, or by pre-existing social structures”(Bishop, 13). This definition of poststructuralism translates into installation art by putting the subject in a position where they are forced to look at the work from all angles, and are not fixed or have a privileged view of art, but are thrown into the middle. This concept can arguably be applied to performance art as well, where the viewer is also being forced to see the art in three-dimensional space.

               The founders and teachers of the California Institue of the Art’s Feminist Art Program were Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro (Wilding), but this was not the first Feminist Art program created. Judy Chicago started a feminist art program at California State University, Fresno in 1969, prior to the program she created at The California Institute of the Art’s (Wilding). Chicago chose to create a program on this campus because of their “Experimental College” (Wilding, 32) in which many radical politically charged classes were held including Marxist and anarchist studies, Chicano and black theory, and women’s studies (Wilding). Chicago’s reasoning for creating a female art program was to “address the unique problems of women artists, or women wanting to be artists” (Gerhard, 22). This program had 15 students and was focused on discussions and consciousness raising in order to evoke emotion with the women and to inspire their art. These sessions were accompanied with group and individual art assignments done based on their experiences as women. When Judy Chicago was hired to work with Miriam Schapiro at the California Institute of the Art’s in 1971, it was with the intent to create another Feminist Art Program, which was based on the principles of the first at California State University, Fresno (Wilding). The Feminist Art Program at the California Institute of the Art’s had more success, with 21 women joining the program (Schapiro). The area of protest examined in this essay is the crisis stage; in which the women created and showed their installation art work Womanhouse. The Feminist Art Program and 21 female artists involved in the protest worked to object to the sexism faced by female artists at this time. This oppression came in all spectrums of the art world, with primarily male art instructors, primarily male art was displayed, and critically reviewed “On a typical day in 1971 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, art made by women comprised a mere 1 percent of what was on display”(Gerhard, 23). These obstacles deterred many women from becoming artists or conforming to male art styles in an attempt to be seen as equal, and this suppression of female experiences is what inspired the art in Womanhouse.

Rhetorical Context Draft

               The rhetorical context surrounding Womanhouse were in line with many of the women’s liberation movement of the 1970’s, using techniques mentioned earlier such as consciousness raising and “the personal is political” (Schapiro). This theory stated that women’s experiences were not all separate and unconnected, but had similar experiences living in a society as a female (Schapiro). This concept was the basis on which the protest of Womanhouse was founded, that women could create art based on their experiences as women and have it reach a wide audience of women with the same experiences (Musteata). This concept was actualized through Womanhouse simply by creating the installation art piece inside of a physical house. The use of a house is symbolic to the societal expectations associated with women as their domain in society for centuries, and is immediately registered by all viewers of the work in this way. The rhetorical goals of the Womanhouse protest were to use collective art as a critique of modernist male art, and to apply rhetoric from feminist theory of second wave feminism to art in order to create a critique of their oppression as women, and female artists.

               The concept of personal experiences connecting women with similar experiences was applied in Womanhouse through collaborative artwork, or art in which several artists work together on a piece (Wilding). Collaborative or collective artwork are terms used repeatedly by the founders of the Feminist Art Program, the women working in it, and scholars reviews of this work in the modern day. This practice was significant in the making of Womanhouse because it created an installation work of over 20 women but had a common theme: the exaggerations of roles of domesticity women were confined to (Musteata). One example of collective art work in Womanhouse is the kitchen, which was created after a consciousness-raising session where Vicki Hodgetts sketched a picture of fried eggs on a wall, and other women interpreted these eggs as breasts, leading to the ceiling of the kitchen covered in fried eggs, and transitioning into breasts as you move down the wall (Chicago). Although Hodgetts ultimately created this room, she feels it was this session that she owed the credit “although I was the one who finally carried through that aspect of the kitchen (in the main) the idea was really a collective one. It simply would never have existed if women had not tried to work together” (Chicago).  The use of this collective style was in defiance of typical modern male art practices that came before it, where men created work that was interpreted as a manifestation of their singular genius (Musteata, 7). As a result the idea of a collective female artist identity was fostered through Womanhouse.

               Although there was an emphasis on collective work in the making of Womanhouse each artist brought her own specific meaning and intentions with each piece. The work as a whole critiqued the role of women in the home and the restriction of this space, however this idea was interpreted through every piece of art created in the house. For example in Robbin Schiff’s Nightmare Bathroom she constructed a woman in the tub entirely made of sand, and revealed her intent for the piece “I wanted to convey the idea of vulnerability”(Chicago). When examining the rhetorical goals of feminist movements at this time and the project Womanhouse as a whole, the idea of vulnerability can be read as counterproductive by showing women as weak. However in the context of Womanhouse it is a representation of another aspect of women’s scrutiny by society that leaves them vulnerable to impressions.

               Chicago and Schapiro created the Feminist Art Program with the intent to provide a new more productive learning environment in which female artists could openly express themselves through their art. Schapiro described their style of teaching as “Traditionally the flow of power has moved from teacher to student unilaterally. Our ways were more circular, more womblike; our primary concern was with providing a nourishing environment for growth” (Schapiro, 247). This teaching method of providing motherly and emotional support to the female artists in the group is connected to the use of collaborative artwork in Womanhouse, where this idea of creating art as a collective rather than isolated process originated. The language of “womblike” and “nourishing” is not only a reference to their teaching style but also the art created in Womanhouse that dramatized ideas of motherhood (Gerhard). This teaching style enacted by Chicago and Schapiro worked to create an environment where women felt comfortable expressing their art (Wilding).

               The goals of the Womanhouse protest as described by co-founder Judy Chicago were “In essence you walk into female reality and are forced to identify with women”(Time). This forced identity is one achieved through the use of installation and performance art, in which the audience is forced to feel the experiences of women through art and performance as more than one-dimensional. Art in this form is meant to invoke immediate feeling from the art, to elicit a response from the viewer. In this way installation and performance art were used in Womanhouse as rhetoric for conveying protest through art.

               Another rhetorical strategy conveyed through art in Womanhouse was what is now known as “cunt art”, or the depiction of female genitalia and breasts in art (Wilding, 35). Faith Wilding, a graduate student working as a teachers assistant on the Womanhouse project, explains the use of this art “the idea of doing images of “cunts”—defiantly recuperating a term that traditionally had been used derogatorily and thereby opposing the phallic imagery developed by men”(Wilding, 35). Wilding goes on to explain how the “cunt art” was not intended to evoke the essentialism views that it has now become associated with, but rather was a harnessing of the female artists own sexual expressions (35). Through this art the women were able to proudly establish their identity as female artists, and protest the idea that women had to base their art off of socially acceptable art concepts. Art of this nature was used rhetorically to add surprise and shock to viewers of all genders and critique the idea that women, and women artists, were not allowed to discuss or make art about genitalia (Wilding).

               Common rhetoric created in the 1970’s and examined by the Feminist Art Program was the concept of the male gaze, which is defined by Judy Chicago in her recent work Institutional Time: A Critique of Studio Art Education as “In terms of visual art, this referred to the male artist looking at and representing the female body” (60). Chicago argues that the male gaze has affected female artists in the pasts and continues to today, as women often do not know how to interpret concepts in their own art, when the dominant model given is from the view of a male (59-60). The female artists in Womanhouse also confronted this concept in their work, by creating art that was not attempting to compete with the styles of male art, but creating a new genre in which they show the struggles of women from their own point of view. The Womanhouse project was an objection not only to the societal oppression of women but specifically women’s restrictions as artists. Chicago and Schapiro went into the program intending to inspire and create community between female artists, as a protest to the conventional views of how male art has been done historically (Wilding).

Works Cited

Baxandall, Rosalyn and Linda Gordon. "Second-wave Feminism." A Companion to American Women's History. Hewitt, Nancy A. Blackwell Publishing, 2005. Blackwell Reference Web. 5 April 2016.

Bishop, Claire. Installation Art: A Critical History. Millbank: Tate, 2005. Print.

Chicago, Judy, and Miriam Schapiro. Womanhouse. Valencia, CA: Cal. Inst. of the Arts, 1972. Print.

Chicago, Judy. "Women and Art." Institutional Time: A Critique of Studio Art Education. New York: Monacelli, 2014. 49-73. Print.

Gerhard, Jane F. “Making Feminist Artists” “Making Feminist Art.” The Dinner Party: Judy Chicago and the Power of Popular Feminism. Athens: U of Georgia, 2013. 21-75. ProQuest. Web. 2 Apr. 2016.

Lowery, Rebecca "Second-wave Feminism." A Companion to American Women's History. Hewitt, Nancy A. Blackwell Publishing, 2005. Blackwell Reference Web. 5 April 2016.

Musteata, Natalie. "Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro, and the CalArts Feminist Art Program, Womanhouse (1972)." Mousse: Magazine Gratuito D'arte Contemporanea 51 (2015): 1-16. Web. 06 Apr. 2016.

Schapiro, Miriam. “The Education of Women as Artists: Project Womanhouse”. Feminist Collage: Educating Women in the Visual Arts. New York. 1979. 247-253. Print.

Wilding, Faith. “The Feminist Art Programs at Fresno and CalArts, 1970-75.” The Power of Feminist Art: The American Movement of the 1970s, History and Impact. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1994. 32-47. Print