Art, the Body and Identity

The total situation of art making, both in terms of the development of the art maker and in the nature and quality of the work of art itself, occur in a social situation, are integral elements of this social structure, and are mediated and determined by specific and definable social institutions, be they art academies, systems of patronage, mythologies of the divine creator, artist as he-man or social outcast. - Linda Nochlin






Barbara Kruger






Ana Mendieta






Orlan

Is there a difference between body art and adornment?

Can the figure still represent the idea of beauty?

What does the body represent outside of the sexual sphere?

What cultural representations does the body hold outside of sexuality?

Can the body be present without political significance?

Can the body ever be neutral? And if so, how?

In it’s absence can the body still be present? (ex. Barbara Kruger)

Can the body be separate from identity?

In every instance, women artists and writers would seem to be closer to other artists and writers of their own period and outlook than they are to each other.

Identity, is there a distinct line between gender and time period?
-bumper sticker: Well- behaved women seldom make history

Thus the question of women's equality--in art as in any other realm--devolves not upon the relative benevolence or ill-will of individual men, nor the self-confidence or abjectness of individual women, but rather on the very nature of our institutional structures themselves and the view of reality which they impose on the human beings who are part of them. As John Stuart Mill pointed out more than a century ago: "Everything which is usual appears natural. The subjection of women to men being a universal custom, any departure from it quite naturally appears unnatural . . . . unlike other oppressed groups or castes, men demand of them not only submission but unqualified affection as well; thus women are often weakened by the internalized demands of the male-dominated society itself, as well as by a plethora of material goods and comforts: the middle-class woman has a great deal more to lose than her chains. - Linda Nochlin .