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FEMINISM NOW

Brandi Lin
Art 371: Contemporary Art: 1970 to Present
May 6, 2015

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I mean Marilyn Monroe, shes quite nice\But why are all the pretty icons always all
white?\Put some colored girls in the MoMA
- Jay Z, Thats My Bitch
Feminism Now is an exhibition in response to a deficiency in the art
community. Art history has a reputation of reflecting the marginalization and
prejudices in society at large. The idea that art resists fixed structures, makes it
difficult for the art community to recognize its own racial and gender exclusions. This
exhibition is an attempt to put even the smallest dent in this centuries long exclusion
and oppression. There are countless artists, movements, and cultures that have been
ignored by western galleries. This exhibition cannot highlight all of them but will
attempt to shine a light on one small part. This is contemporary feminist art by women
of color, specifically the art of Mickalene Thomas, Coco Fusco and Danni Lin.
Art history often describes the Feminist Movement as something that began in
the 70s and ended in the 70s. Women have their chapter and then it closes; back to
the men. As opposed to some textbooks, feminist art is alive and well and has a
whole new story to tell. The movement is wider, deeper, and stronger than ever and it
deserves to be recognized. Feminism is and always has been relevant but there has
been a disparaging lack of representation for these artists. Even worse, is
representation of female artists of color. For this reason, Feminism Now has selected
Mickalene Thomas, Coco Fusco, and Danni Lin to exhibit in particular. While there are
a multitude of significant feminist POC artists, these women were chosen to represent

the multiplicity of contemporary feminist art. This exhibition has no intention to label
or tokenize these artists, but to recognize them as individuals with their own specific
art practices. Feminism Now is constructed to bring contemporary feminist art to the
forefront, attempting to combat the continued marginalization of female POC artists
today.
It is in the opinion of this curator that art historians and curators alike historicize
and glorify the Feminist Movement of the 1970s. While this movement was important
and those women deserve recognition, feminism has developed and expanded.
Feminism cannot be confined by this history. While it was important, to idealize such
a movement is problematic. The original feminist movement was rife with issues that
must be recognized. In the article Feminist Time: A Conversation, artists reveal that
the movement consisted of primarily privileged white women, eurocentrism,
heteronormativity, exclusion of transwomen, and a celebration of a common
sisterhood which inadvertently erased difference and race/class/sexuality issues. 1 A
respect for these artists is important but an idealized nostalgia is dangerous. One of
the artists in the article, Aruna DSouza, states that the problem with nostalgia is that
it often paralyzes political possibilities in the present moment2 Contemporary
feminism is diverse, relevant, and deserves recognition. It deserves to be normalized


1 Rosalyn Deutsche, Aruna DSouza, Miwon Kwon, Ulrike Muller, Mignon Nixon, Senam
2 Aruna DSouza, Feminist Time: A Conversation, 52.

rather than historicized. Feminism Now seeks to acknowledge the new discourses,
different conversations, diverse perspectives, and updated issues that women artists
are addressing.
Mickalene Thomas is a New York based artist who is best known for her
paintings with rhinestones, arylic and enamel. She also utilizes photography and
collage. Her work largely deals with women and female empowerment along with
definitions of beauty and sexuality. Many of her paintings reference art history and
classic western masterpieces, along with 1970s aesthetic. She has many influences
including Manet and Matisse, but her most significant is Carrie Mae Weems. Within
her works, she infuses her contemporary perspective with pop culture and pop art.
Her artwork is unapologetically formal as opposed to much feminist art which
prioritizes the conceptual. Mickalene received her MFA in painting from Yale
University School of Art in 2002. She has had multiple solo exhibitions, including I
Was Born To Do Great Things at the Kavi Gupta Gallery, Frmmr su divan I at the
Galerie Nathalie Obadia, and Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Women at the George
Eastman House.3
Mickalene Thomas deals with a multitude of themes within her paintings and
photography. The works on display in Feminism Now highlight her depictions of
strong, beautiful, black women. These works are an intersection of racial and feminist

3 Resume, Mickalene Thomas, Mickalenethomas.com.

discourse while exploring formal techniques. One in particular is Hotter than July
which is a painting in enamel, rhinestones, and acrylic on wood. It depicts a confident
black woman in an elevated position, staring defiantly out at the viewer. Her breasts
are bared and her legs are spread but her outward gaze confronts the viewer rather
than allowing them to enjoy her nudity. Thomas interest in 1970s aesthetic is
apparent with her use of colors, styles, and dcor that echo 1970s soft core porn or
Blaxpoliation films. By using this period and its trend of objectifying and stereotyping
black women, Thomas reveals this exploitation while replacing it with her own strong
female subject. According to Derek Conrad Murray in his article, Afro-kitsch and the
Queering of Blackness, in this painting Thomas endeavors to present a new black
female subjectivity thatis both defiant and playful, even as it directs a critical lens on
the culture that has all too often neglected or objectified the bodies of African
American women.4 Her female subject is a strong, confrontational woman who
embraces her sexuality while denying the male gaze. Instead she uses the style of
heteronormative depictions of Venuses, prostitutes, and female objects while
reinterpreting them through a distinctly queer-feminist desiring lens.5 Although this
is not apparent in Hotter than July, her works often identify the gazer through
reflections in the background; they always belong to another black woman. Along

4 Derek Conrad Murray, Afro-kitsch and the Queering of Blackness, American Art, Spring
2014, 11.
5 Ibid.

with being a queer woman herself, her gaze and those indicated within the works
replace the male gaze with a queer female one. By exploring these themes, Thomas
opens a conversation about racism and sexism within art history, American history,
and the present.
Coco Fusco is a Cuban-American contemporary artist that deals primarily in
performance and video art. She exploits technology by combining her performances
with large-scale projections, Internet streaming, and live chat audience interaction.
Fusco often confronts the realities of being a Latina woman and the influences of
Latin culture and her life as an outsider in a hostile society. Stacy Shultz describes her
performances in Latina Idenity: Reconciling Ritual, Culture, and Belonging as
subsisting in a state that highlights [her] existence within the parameters of
gendered/cultural/ethnic Other.6 Some of her more recent works explore
contemporary torture by the United States and the involvement of female
interrogators. She confronts the capability of women to be perpetrators of violence,
not just victims, and refuses to succumb to an oversimplified feminism. She has
shown throughout the United States and internationally. Some of her most important
works have exhibited at the Tate Liverpool, MOMA, and the Walker Art Center. 7She


6 Stacy Shultz, Latina Culture: Reconciling Ritual, Culture, and Belonging, Womans Art
Journal, Spring Summer 2008, 19.
7 CV, Coco Fusco, Cocofusco.com.

has also written numerous books about Cuban culture, feminism, torture, and politics.
She received her P.H.D in Art and Visual Culture from Middlesex University in 2007.8
Of the different video performances on display in Feminism Now, A Room of
Ones Own: Women and Power in the New America will be examined in particular.
This video performance from 2006 -2008 was one of Coco Fuscos most significant
pieces. In this performance, Fusco acts as a female interrogator turned lecturer. With
a full PowerPoint presentation, Fusco reveals the interrogation and torture methods
of the U.S. army utilized in Guantanamo Bay. When this work was made, issues of
torture at Guantanamo bay were at their peak. She concentrates on female
interrogators in particular and what they do when given a room of their own. She
references Virginia Woolfs 1929 essay by suggesting that the interrogation room is
the new space of female emancipation.9 She does this ironically, instead of this room
liberating women, it reveals them to be just as violent as men. In this idealized
feminism, Fusco examines the consequences of uncurbed power and establishes that
woman are no more immune then men. And yet, this interrogation room is still not
equalizing, for the violence female interrogators participate in are sexually
objectifying and subordinate to male interrogation techniques. She goes on to draw
analogies between the militarys sexist power structure to the contemporary art


8 Ibid.
9 Karen Beckman, Gender, Power, and Pedagogy, Framework, Spring Fall 2009, 134.

worlds. In a review of the field guide, The Art of Interrogation, that Fusco wrote to
accompany her performance, Jill Dolan states that Fusco is drawing analogies
between the militarys exploitation of female sexuality under the guise of empowering
women with the art worlds tokenization of feminist work under the sham of womens
arrival10. This is a stinging blow to the art community and sheds light on the
consistent marginalization of feminist art work by Fusco and her colleagues.
Danni Lin is an up and coming artist based in Los Angeles. She is of half
Chinese and half Jewish descent and often discusses her mixed identity in her
artwork. The art community has largely ignored the specific issues dealing with mixed
race individuals and Lin attempts to bring them to the forefront. In her artist
statement, Lin states that her focus is on issues of not relating to a community, being
seen as divided rather than whole, exclusion from [her] own cultures, and issues of
subtle racism, being born with white privilege while not being completely white.11
This investigation of the mixed race experience is a new avenue for feminism. Her
works describe the interlocking issues that are face by women and mixed women in
particular. She deals mainly in painting, often utilizing large scroll format that harken
back to classic Chinese ink paintings. She often combines this with Chinese
propaganda imagery and contemporary references. Lin deals with identity, visibility,

10 Jill Dolan, Review: The Art of Interrogation, The Womans Review of Books, March
April 2009, 3.
11 Danni Lin, Artist Statement, Dannilin.com.

privilege, and feminism through a traditional medium and extremely formal


paintings. Lin received her BA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2012.
She has shown in multiple exhibitions since then including Klusterfuck at the
Picklock Gallery, B I T C H at Cell Space, and Golden States at the Diego Rivera
Gallery.12
Cho Chang in Chinatown (Stairway to Heaven) is part of her Chinese
propaganda series. This is a large scroll format with oil paint on paper. She uses these
materials to reference the western tradition of oil paint while superimposing it on the
Asian tradition of scroll paper. She goes on to describe that by working in oil paint
[she is] co-opting the most traditional western masterpiece materials [and by using]
paper [she is] accessing low culture mass-consumer imagery and materials.13 Cho
Chang in Chinatown depicts a group of babies, many of them depicting family
members, rocketing away on a spaceship. In the foreground is a large baby, her self
portrait, riding a peach and accompanied by a monkey. These symbols of space
travel, babies, peaches, and monkeys reference 1960s Chinese propaganda posters
and their promise of innovation, abundance, and wealth. By assimilating these
symbols and injecting her portrait within them, she is asserting herself into that
history. In a personal interview, Lin speaks to this history and what is means for her


12 Ibid. Resume.
13 Danni Lin, Artist Statement, Dannilin.com.

mixed culture, stating that within this painting she is trying to create a history for
[her culture] that has only a very recent history14 In this painting, and all her paintings
in this series, she is describing the experience of a mixed race person and the trails of
being considered in parts. She frequently uses self portrait and even repeating
portraits within the same piece as in Cho Chang in Chinatown, to answer the question
constantly asked of mixed people, what are you? She states that she likes to answer
that question ambiguously going on to divulge that she doesnt like to describe to
people what [she is] made of rather that she is 100% something else.15 Lins works
are very personal and that is what makes them interesting. She uses her own
experience because that is all she has to reference for mixed culture. She is one of the
first generations she is the history. And in her paintings she claims her identity as
one who is not halved but a mixed whole. Lin then is able to put a face on what
people see as an equation.16
Feminism Now is an exhibition that demands attention for a group of artists
who have diverse and meaningful artwork. Contemporary feminist art is now more
important than ever. A new age of feminism is here, new issues need discussing, and
new artists need a place to be seen. Third wave feminism has its own art movement
and Feminism Now is attempting to shine a light on three artists who support this

14 Danni Lin, in-person interview, April 1, 2015.
15 Ibid.
16 Danni Lin, in-person interview, April 1, 2015.

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development. Mickalene Thomas, Coco Fusco, and Danni Lin describe a kind of
feminism that is complicated, ambiguous, diverse, and intertwined with class,
sexuality, race, and identity. These women and countless others have new stories,
new perspective, and new issues to tackle in feminism. The art community needs to
recognize the severe gap in representation and actually do something about it. No
more tokenization of female and POC artists. Feminism Now is only the beginning of
what will hopefully be a surge of exhibitions that refuse to marginalize these artists
any longer. It is with this vision of a future where exhibitions like Feminism Now are
not necessary, a future where feminism is normalized, and POC artists and female
artists are simply artists with no label necessary, that this exhibition was created.

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Bibliography

Beckman, Karen. "Gender, Power, and Pedagogy in Coco Fuscos Bare Life Study #1
(2005), A Room of Ones Own (2005), and Operation Atropos (2006)."
Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 50, no. 1/2 (2009): 125138.
Accessed March 14, 2015.
Dolan, Jill. "Review: The Art of Interrogation." The Womens Review of Books 26, no. 2
(2009): 34. Accessed March 25, 2015.
Fusco, Coco. CV. Cocofusco.com, Accessed March 25, 2015.
Landers, Sean and Mickalene Thomas. "Mickalene Thomas." BOMB, no. 116 (2011):
3038. Accessed March 14, 2015.
Lin, Danni. Artist Statement. Dannilin.com, Accessed March 25, 2015.
---. interview by the author, April 1, 2015.
---. Resume. Dannilin.com, Accessed March 25, 2015.
Murray, Derek. "Afro-Kitsch and the Queering of Blackness." American Art 28, no. 1
(2014): 915. Accessed March 14, 2015.
Shultz, Stacy E. "Latina Identity: Reconciling Ritual, Culture, and Belonging." Womans
Art Journal 29, no. 1 (2008): 1320. Accessed March 14, 2015.
Shultz, Stacy E. "Latina Identity: Reconciling Ritual, Culture, and Belonging." Womans
Art Journal 29, no. 1 (2008): 1320. Accessed March 14, 2015.
Thomas, Mickalene. Bio. Mickalenethomas.com, Accessed March 25, 2015.
Walker, Kara. "Artists on Artists: Mickalene Thomas." BOMB, no. 107 (2009): 7273.
Accessed March 14, 2015.

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