Sexual Politics in Art - Essay Example

RUNNING HEAD: SEXUAL POLITICS IN ART Sexual Politics in Art Name Institution Date Introduction Sexual politics is normally viewed as a biological and physical activity that largely concerns human affairs. It concentrates a lot on how men and women shares power and how the power sharing affects the relationships of the sexes (Pollock & Sauron, 2007). For many years, the structuring and arrangements of power has resulted to a scenario whereby a group of person’s considered as dominant develops control over another group. Men in particular, throughout history, have been dominating women. The system of sexual relationship is thus viewed as dominance and subordinance relationship. Art, for the past thirty years, has also developed the sexual politics kind of thinking. Many artists such as Cindy Sherman, Tracy Emin and Rita Ackermann have really tried to address sexual politics in their various artworks. This particular paper therefore looks at the rise and theoretical underpinning sexual politics in art for the past thirty years. The rise and theoretical underpinning sexual politics in art of the past thirty years Sexual politics, with regard to personality, role and status, have developed for the past thirty years through socialization of the sexes. Males have always been given superior status than females. Human personality, for a long time, has been formulated by basing on the requirements and values of a dominant group. The personality of individuals has been dictated by what members of the dominant group value the most and find suitable in subordinates. Men in many cases were believed to be aggressive, intelligent, energetic and efficient. Women on the other hand were believed to be ignorant, obedient, compliant and ineffectual. The role of each sex greatly elaborates individuals’ conduct, attitude and gesture. Domestic services and looking after the infants are believed to be females’ affairs. Individuals who normally receive higher status tend to adopt mastery roles since they are highly encouraged to enhance temperaments of dominance (Pollock & Sauron, 2007). The relationship between male and female has not been that simple. The dominance of men over women has greatly affected their relationships. As portrayed in Tracy Emin artwork, difficulties in relationships among females have made them feel suicidal. Tracy Emin, in her art work, my bed, displays her disappointments with relationships by showing a disorganized bed room. The bed sheets on her bed had yellow stains and items such as condoms, empty cigarette packets, a pair of knickers with menstrual stains and detritus, slippers included, were on the floor. Tracy Emin presented the bed in such a way that aspects of betrayal and disappoints can be depicted very easily. The work of Tracy Emin concentrated on the invisibility of feminine. She tries to challenge the value-system that undermines female perspective. Tracy adopts conceptualism’s language and converts it into something more personal. As an artist, she intends to inspire others with her lifestyle and to discourage them from following rigid way of living. Tracy Emin is highly motivated with thematic complex such as body, gender and sex. She uses this physical art to question the traditional images of the body and human situation. The work of Tracy Emin explains a lot of things that relates to women. Her art has aspects of sadness, happiness and weirdness. Tracy’s artwork narrates about bad luck, bad sex, bad men, survival and bad betrayal. Tracy Emin is considerably honest in her artwork. She openly narrates about her personal development that is not common. Tracy display herself as a drunkard and as a woman who is tough on men. She considers herself as a voice of unmarried urban women. The work of Tracy tries to find rational and cultural validation for women delicate existential state. She displays this through drawings, video appearances, sculptures and photographs. Tracy therefore is a diverse artist who uses art to express and control her emotions (Pollock & Sauron, 2007). Cindy Sherman in her artworks portrays herself as unhappy woman. She is not happy with the way women are relating, particularly with men. Cindy Sherman is a sole performer. Her photographs are produced when she is in different scenarios. She wears wigs, uses complicated make-up and wears costumes. Cindy Sherman uses her artwork to develop sexual politics. She makes herself look like majority of women who are under thirty years of age. Cindy makes herself look like these women who in most cases seem to be bored and boring, sad and self-absorbed. Majority of Cindy Sherman images displays her as a woman who is artificially glamorous in advertisements for Vidal Sassoon remoisture crème and secret lingerie of Victoria. Majority of images does not display any humor, campy and vampy strutting. Sherman is not happy with putting on the wigs, dressing the clothes that is not hers and changing to a completely different person. The work of Cindy Sherman has attracted attention of many feminist critics, who view the work as a positive act of resistance to the prevailing femininity development (Sherman & Durand, 2006). Sherman, in majority of her photos, assumes the personality of a different woman. All the elements in Cindy Sherman artwork are real. It is very hard to mistake the work of Cindy Sherman with a real woman moving down a real street. The work of Cindy Sherman has really improved for the past thirty years. In Cindy’s artwork, such as the fairy tales, she replaces the typical images with death and decay. The monsters and individuals with ugly body parts overstated stereotypes of males and females in western art. In fairy tales, Cindy Sherman looked at horrors and violence among individuals. She also tackled the sexual underpinnings these horrors and violence. Sex picture had ugly and strange images that were made with mannequins and prosthetic devices. Most graphic photos of Cindy Sherman utilize the body parts that were obtained at medical schools and added them into her artwork. Cindy used the body parts in her artwork so as to question the sexual tendencies of people’s culture. The horror that is displayed in several film stills vanishes with utilization of projected back screen. The space around the figure is full of psychological storm and a strong sense of hope still prevails. The defenselessness of women and their reliance on men who are expected to transform them from their desire less and unexciting isolation relates with the way women are presented in pop art. Though the work of Cindy Sherman displays an ordinary woman and not symbols of attractiveness, sex and status of bourgeois, it has a lot of stereotypes. Cindy Sherman looks at the boundaries of imposture in majority of her artwork. She highlights the likelihood that provides an existence to individuals and objects by virtue of unlimited capacity to transform. Cindy does suggest neither dependability nor faking game but portrays women as a series of self-deceptions. The consistency and endlessness of self-deception has transformed Cindy’s work into the highest form of truth. Rita Ackermann, for the past thirty years, has pushed the limits of painting-based practice that holds social role’s embarrassment and an equally wide range of artistic media. Ackermann participated in various artworks. She participated in shadow puppet theaters such as the deer slayer, performed as a member of the band in the art collaborative angel blood and curate exhibitions such as the Perfect Man and the Kate Moss Show. Rita Ackermann seductive artwork and displaying of young girls idling in different streets made her gain cultish recognition. Through her paintings she has sustained questioning the traditional ideas of paintings and support, thus developing mixed media murals huge freestanding collages that provide similar seduction and violence themes (Gronlund, 2006). Ackermann drawings and collages portrays characters and narratives that draws semiotics of fertility charms and pornography so as to develop anthropomorphic woman man-child. The overlay images that comprise the life-size freestanding collection on Plexiglas emerged from Rita Ackermann personal sketches. In her collections she displays a row of women putting on bowler hats and holding tennis rackets. She also displays Madonna and a child positioning on the heart of the figure (Gronlund, 2006). The ability of Ackermann to develop gender and fantasies that subtend has maintained her scale and material’s transformation. The huge cruciform nun, skeleton or mother displays identities of objects desire. Rita Ackermann does not ignore womanhood’s tropes but displays them as activities and processes of being dizzying and in conflicting relief with and within each other. Conclusion It is clear from the discussion that sexual politics has a strong basis on art of the past thirty years. By concentrating on various artists, such as Rita Ackermann, Cindy Sherman and Tracy Emin, the art has proved to develop sexual politics. The artists, Rita Ackermann, Cindy Sherman and Tracy Emin have openly displayed social politics in various ways. Social politics, as explained in the discussion, concerns with the male-female relationships and how their association affects the parties. The dominance of men as illustrated in several artworks has made women to feel sad and disappointment with male-female relationships. Cindy Sherman in her artworks portrays herself as unhappy woman. She is not happy with the way women are relating with men. Rita Ackermann, for the past thirty years, has pushed the limits of painting-based practice that holds social role’s embarrassment and an equally wide range of artistic media. Tracy display herself as a drunkard and as a woman who is tough on men. References Sherman C. & Durand R. (2006). Cindy Sherman. New York: Flammarion. Gronlund M. (2006). Frieze Art Fair Yearbook. New York: Frieze. Pollock G. & Sauron V. (2007).The sacred and the feminine: imagination and sexual difference. New York: I.B.Tauris. Read More