Five Women Artists

     Cindy Sherman is a Postmodern female artist who is the subject of all of her works. She makes herself the subject by showing her body in all of her pieces in different ways. Sherman is a unique type of artist due to her being known by photography and not drawing or painting. She believes painting is not necessary to express herself and her message towards the discrimination of women. Chadwick goes further into this by stating, "Cindy Sherman's (b. 1954) photographs reveal the instability of gender, and challenge the idea that there might be an innate, unmediated female sexuality. She does this by exposing the fiction of a "real" woman behind the images that Western culture constructs for our consumption in film and advertising media," (Chadwick 383). When Sherman photographs a piece of herself, she does not do it in the style of a self portrait. Her work depicts her pretending to be someone else. She comments on television and the movies by stating how they help shape the American identity. This leads to women being put in a box due to all the sexual content for women. Given her female gaze, she exposes herself critically.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled, 1979

     There are other artists who also are known for photographic pieces besides Sherman, and one of them is Sherrie Levine. Sherrie Levine is a Postmodern female artist who challenges male authority during the Modernist era. She does this by taking the piece of a male artist from that time and represents it as her own. Chadwick exposes Levine's style further by stating, "Rephotographed works, like Walker Evans's Alli May Burroughs (1936), which she has exhibited as her own, raise questions about originality and works of art as property in a culture which experiences much art only through its reproduction," (Chadwick 384). Levine presents the idea of presenting another artist's work, not stealing it. She would take photographs of Walker Evans's and present them as her own. She believes that even though Walker Evans took those pictures, she questions his motives. This is most likely due to the idea of a man taking a picture of a woman is different from a woman doing it during the Modernist Era. Men during Evans's time were living in a patriarchal society that belittles females, so Levine being a female feels the need to most likely question the morality of the picture. She believes she can appropriate his work. Evans puts in Modernism in his work and puts patriarchy at its peak. Levine living in Postmodernism, realizes the previous era is dead. If it really is, she can super kill it and use it in later conversations.

Sherrie Levine, After Walker Evans, 1981

     Women were no doubt tired of being treated in an inhumane manner, but not a lot of them were willing to speak up against society for putting them in that kind of position. Few were, and one of them is Barbara Kruger. Chadwick goes deeper into her by stating, "Barbara Kruger's (b. 1945) blown-up, severely cropped photographs of women, and their short accompanying texts subvert the meanings of both image and text in order to destabilize the positioning of women as object. She emphasizes the ways in which language manipulates and undermines the assumption of masculine control over language and viewing," (Chadwick 382). When men tend to look at a drawing or photo of a woman, they tend to conjure mixed opinions. Given the position of women in society, these opinions tend to be against their gender. Kruger's work has given people a chance to look at them in a more positive manner. The texts she puts in these pictures are meant to give the viewer a chance to do better for females by not thinking of them in ways that belittle them further than they already are. 

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face), 1981

     Photographs or any type of illustration of women in general was not the only method used to spread awareness of gender equality. Mary Kelly is a female artist who had a different approach towards this. Chadwick explains her methods stating, "Mary Kelly (b. 1941), an American who lived in London during the 1980s, also refused the direct representation of women in her work in order to subvert the use of female image as object and spectacle. In 1979, she exhibited the opening section of her Post Partum Document (begun in 1973) at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London," (Chadwick 403). Most female artists would get an illustration of women in order to express the need for gender equality. Instead of doing this, Kelly has taken a unique approach and expresses herself on this matter in the form of a sculpture document. No sight but words put together to formally spread the awareness. 

Mary Kelly, Post Partum Document, 1978-79

     Not all Postmodern female artists based their work to promote gender equality. There were those who made pieces that express the need to help society overall such as Jenny Holzer. Chadwick goes further into Holzer's art topics by stating, "The topics range from the scientific to the personal and include "thoughts on aging pain, death, anger, fear, violence, gender, religion, and politics." Although they sound familiar to our ears, Holzer invents and polishes them until they assume the authoritative "voice" of mass culture," (Chadwick 382). Holzer creates a style of ads that uses poetry. The poetry itself is used as a way in which society is expressing itself by presenting them in a way in which everyone sees the issues that need to be resolved. The purpose of it is to help them be aware and perform action that can resolve these issues.

Jenny Holzer, Selection of Truisms, 1982

Work's Cited

Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, And Society. Thames & Hudson, 2007.