Tell Her Story

I started this blog because I wanted to focus my attention on women in art. I wanted to keep up to date with women in the art world. Luckily I have been a busy bee creating my own exhibition around women and art through the art collection of Darlington, North East England.  

This exhibtion came from me looking at how women are represented in collections around the North East of England. It was not great, many permanent collections had no women artist displayed. 

I had an opportunity to explore the Darlington collection in response to women artists. I found in the collection a lot of subject of women, who were not known and the artist unknown. This created Tell Her Story,  how many works of women have been lost though time. 

Tell Her Story is a new exhibition, curated by me! Which looks creatively at the images of unknown women in the Darlington Borough Art Collection and considers what they are saying to us now? Many art collections come together over decades or centuries and contain mysterious works. Sometimes little is known about the subject, artist, the work itself or how it entered the collection.

Darlington’s Art Collection has around 500 original works, including portraits of women now listed as ‘unknown’ and pictures with women who are not named. This exhibition includes paintings and a drawing from Darlington’s art collection, where information on the women involved was either absent, has been lost through time, or where images were drawn from the imagination in the first place. Tell her Story invited artists working today to consider such works and to generate new work in response, with both incorporated in this exhibition.

Artists working today involved in this project are Alyson Agar, Mircea Cirtog, Sarah Cooney, Tallulah Lines and Helen Winthorpe-Kendrick and Darlington's own Jonny Lancaster, Norma Kyle, James Quinn and poet, Helen Steel. This project has been supported through a Grants for the arts award from Arts Council England.


Preview Wednesday 23rd November, 5.30 till 7pm

Candy says I'd like to know completely: Looking at Trans artists

I remember being 15 and doing an art project on the Klub Kids, who I was obsessed with and still totally obsessed with. Since then I have been obsessed with gay culture. I am not gay myself but I have always had a connection, I think it's because I felt like an outsider and could relate to these incredible colorful characters. Over the years I have followed, researched and just enjoyed what the LGBT community has to offer. However, I have never really looked into the T.

Amanda Lepore…. Chaz Bono…. That's about how many trans people I have heard of back when I was 15, thank god things have changed.

Amanda Lepore

Now we have modeled such as Carmen Carrera and Hari Nef (who I totally fell in love with in transparent). Actors such as Laverne Cox, Trace Lysette, Ian Harvie and Candis Cayne. This is just a few names just in the limelight. There are many others people out there being who they truly believe they should be. Of course everything is not rosy, there has been numerous of trans people being murdered just because they are trans. Don't even get me started on the bathroom drama in America. There is still a long way to go, but let's celebrate these artists who have paved the way and creating amazing work today.

Tuesday Smillie

I came across Smillie whilst researching for this blog and just loved her work. Smillie is a Brooklyn based artist who works in employs watercolours, collage and textiles as media to explore transgender feminist politics. She is interested in art as a form of protest and as a means of celebration. By cultural production to honor those dearest to her as well as queer and feminist icons. Smillie resists the hetero-normative eraser of non conformist queer identities.

There is not much information about Tuesday Smillie work online but I find it fascinating. I have always been impressed with photo montage. I feel it is a brutal way to create art, expressing your vision with humorous images, distraught figures and political messages, just look at Hannah Hoch and George Grosz work. Smillie photo-montage work are self portrait, she places herself with scissors, needles and thread and shapes which look like broken glass. To me this works looks like her representing her transition, the sharp hard images representing the pain and sacrifice she has physically and mentally been through. This is just my interpretation of the work, it could mean something else to others.I love the vulnerability of her work and I am looking forward to see more of her creations.

Kate Weakley

Weakley is an American visual artist who incorporates her experience as a transgender individual. She uses herself as a subject matter to depict the changes she has experienced going through her transition. She deals with gender, sexuality, masculinity, femininity. In her work called Dissociation, 2014 has all these themes are represented beautifully.

Dissociation, 2014

This picture shows the changes of a man transitioning to a women. Her breast are forming but her face doesn't “match” her new womanly body. Her Self Portrait, 2014 is my favorite, it's a very simple message but yet still powerful. The man with the disjointed face is the artist when she was still in her old body, the figure on the right is the artist five month into her transition.

Self Portrait, 2014

It is a very simple idea for a portrait but that's what I like about it. The artist wants her body of work to allow cisgender, heteronormative audience to experience the transgender narrative, in which that make the subject approachable and relatable. I believe this piece does this in a more gentle way. I am sure this artist is just at the beginning of her career and I am looking forward in seeing her work evolve.

Greer Lankton

Greet Lankon is such an unusual artists and had such a unique talent. She was a big character in the east village art scene, where she crafted dolls modeled of her friends she worked with. Her work is like how Nan Golden described her, “beautiful, glamorous, fragile with a disarming sweetness.” She used her friends and celebrities she knew and made them into modern day sculptures. Did she know that her friends and style were all going to be icons of their time! Hello Liza, Candy Darling and Jackie O.

She created her work with found objects, making them look distraught and twisted. She would change the sizes of the models making them fat, then skinny, then fat again, changing the faces and clothing. This obsession of change was prevalent in her work and her life. Her work can easily relate to her transformation from man to woman but I think her work is more about the pressures of being a woman. Even as a punk rock New York City artist you still have pressures of looking good. Not being pretty enough, thin enough, smart enough, these are the pressures that women (and men) go through day to day. Lena Dunham, who is producing a documentary about Lankton said it very well about her work,

“We all feel that sense of being lost in and betrayed by our own bodies. She made it poetry.”

My favorite piece is of her bust of Candy Darling. A Warhol superstar, she was herself  transgender who starred in many Warhol films. The bust is a beautiful yet painful piece of a homage to her friend. On the back of the bust is the song, Candy says by the Velvet Underground and on the front is a heart shape cut out. In the cut out are objects, relating to the song and her personal likes, such as makeup. Again it's a theme of the body as the first lyrics of the song was, Candy says I've come to hate my body.

I only scratched the surface with trans art and trans identity I need to come back and look at different artist who have different transition stories. I hope if anyone reads this that I didn't suck understanding the work and that we should research and understand more about trans identity.  

MAW

Understanding Women in Video Art

Follow on from my blog about women directors, I want to get back into art and how women were pioneering the medium of video in art. This is a media where women excelled, there was no history competing with men. No man claimed it as their own. Women jumped on video because they had no movement for themselves.

Technology/Transformation Wonder Woman

My connection with video art is very bumpy, I haven't had the greatest experience with it. I recently went to the Omer Fast exhibition at the Baltic in Gateshead and I found it lacking for a better word, my little modern brain just did not want to take in the information and I just wanted to leave, which I did. There has been other experiences were I have enjoyed video art. I went on holiday to Venice, with my beautiful friend, who has no interest in art (even though she has a degree in it). We went to a contemporary art gallery, (which is what you don't expect in Venice) The gallery,  Punta della Dogana which is a stunning building which was funded by Francois Pinault, who is one of the wealthiest men going and Salma Hayek’s father in law! So this collection of exhibitions are not just there because they are “great work” I saw “big bucks” as most of it was, *emoticon confusing.* I entered the room with my friend and from memory,  I remembered a chaotic scene of sun bed, shades and random sculptures that looked like beds. Maybe it wasn't chaotic, maybe just when I reached for those headphones and discovered the crazy video that the space became dysfunctional. When I put those headphones on it was like a mix of disturbing art, drag culture and stereotypes. Many things going on, but all I really thought was how fun this this!!! Did I love it because of its bright fibrous colours? That I had witnessed an evolution of art history? Or that I had to pay 15 fucking euros to see this!? Who knows……...

Ryan Trecartin exhibtion at Punta della Dogana  

When I talk about video art I do not mean people who do performance art and video tape it, this is all about women taking the media of video and creating art. This is not my perfect curated show this is me exploring video art and seeing what I like.

Dara Birnbaum

Dara Birnbaum is an American video and installation artist who lives and works in New York. One of her most famous pieces was, Technology/Transformation Wonder Woman. Imagery from the 1970s tv series Wonder Woman, Birnbaum isolated and respects the moment of her real woman's symbolic transformation into superhero. Challenging the gendered biases of the period and television was growing presence within the American household. This series points to gender as a subject to on image chain of reproductions. Repeated transformations expose the illusion of fixed female identities in media and attempts to show the emergence of a new woman through technology, (not my words, from Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to mass communication). I had to repeat these words because I just do not understand the work. Is it that times have changed? That superhero wonder women, maybe not the best representative for women? Or I am so tired when I write these blogs? WHO KNOWS! I have watched this video over and over and it just doesn't pack a punch with me personally. Can someone help I feel my feminist powers have been taken away from me!

Martha Rosler

Martha Rosler is basically one of the first names you hear about in feminist art 101. She is an icon and was one of the first pieces I saw when it came to feminist art.  I am talking about Rosler, 1975 video, Semiotics of the Kitchen. This video is a 6 minute parody of a women listing off kitchen supplies. This video is considered a critique of the commodified versions of traditional women's roles in modern society. In this video she lists off kitchen supplies, she creates angry movements with each equipment, you should see her with the measuring instruments. This video is all about how women are represented to be in one place, the kitchen. I can relate to this as even today, men will joke about getting in the kitchen! WTF!! Its 2016 I can't cook!! Let me get Martha Rosler to come at you, see what she likes to do with a cheese grater. This video really stays with me because, we all know about the stigma of the housewife image and that a lot of women in the 1960/70 were stuck in this situation. Today it's a choice to be a housewife, which again is great. Would love to see the opinions of people who have dedicated their lives to the home, see if they find this video offensive.This piece is as important as it was in the 70s, I don't know if that's a good thing.

Hannah Black

I think I found Hannah Black work on a list of video artists, I believe she is British artist living in Berlin. She does many videos about the female body and the representation of women. I first became obsessed in her work with, Team Jolie. This video is all about a celebrity rivalry what never was and the media turned it into one of the biggest stories of the century. This video is all about the “rival” about Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie. The media pinned these women together one being the injured lamb the other a wild wolf. This was not the case and we were split with half of us being Team Aniston or Team Jolie. I am not going to lie when this was going on I was 15/16 years old, I was so team Aniston. How did Brad do that do her! Now I know it was total bollocks and that the media loves to tear women down and pin women against each other.I love this video and her work because it in a poetic view on these strange perceptions we have with women hating women. .

And that's it, I have loved looking at women in video art, that they claimed it for themselves. I still don't get it all. But who does!!

Till next time

MAW

Why Have There Been No Great Women Directors?

I have done many blogs about art and identity and at the moment I am developing an exhibition about feminism. So with my personal blog I want to do something very different and go down a different root in the arts, film. I always forget that I have a degree in film, as I focus all my attention on art but it's a very big part of my life and would call it my hobby to see as many amazing films as I can. I am a big movie buff! If I was telling an intellectual crowd what my favorite film is I would say the 2004 masterpiece by Fatih Akin called Head On. I love this film it's a powerful story about love, regret and passion. However I have a very dirty secret…. My all time favorite film is actually,  Shakespeare in Love. I know it's a corn fest but I just love the over the top, love fest and I love a good cry in a film. Other films I would call my favourite is Terminator 2, The Royal Tenenbaums and Ed Wood.

In this blog, all about women there is something lacking in every single film that I love - WOMEN DIRECTORS! I could name you reel after reel of woman artist but I actually have no clue about women directors. So to start this series of women in film I want to discuss women directors. I am going to look at directors in Hollywood, Documentary and a little about women's contribution to Video Art.  

The title of this piece is, Why is There No Great Women Directors? This question is based on the iconic essay from Linda Nochlin, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artist? Which I am taking the basics of there is great woman artist but overshadowed by the male counterparts because of the time in history. This essay was written in 1971 and unfortunately for women in film nothing much has changed. This essay is just a starting point of showing different women directors in the business and hopefully to put light on why women are over shadowed by their male counterparts.


I did some research and found out that only 7% of directors in Hollywood are women and only 13% are writers. The reason this is because the industry believe that women can not bring in the big bucks for the Hollywood Studios, even though last year two of the biggest films were directed by women, Pitch Perfect 2 and Fifty Shades of Grey. So why isn't there more in Hollywood? With Hollywood I am going to look at two different filmmakers, one who was in the business and created an impact on romantic comedy. The other is a up and coming who created a stir with Selma.

Elizabeth Banks directed Pitch Perfect 2

Sam Taylor - Johnson directed 50 Shades

Nora Ephron 

Nora Ephron is one of the biggest names for women in Hollywood, you might not know her name but you know her work, she wrote one of the biggest romantic comedies ever made (also one of my mothers favourite films) When Harry Met Sally. She directed great classic films such as Sleepless in Seattle and You Got Mail. I have chosen Ephron because many people believe that the only films women watch are “chick flicks” that we, as women are desperate for a man to sweep us off our feet and take our trouble away. A lot of chick flicks have this message, Pretty Woman and Bridget Jones Diary spring to mind. Don't get me wrong I love a romantic comedy or “chick flick.” HELLO! look at one of my favorite film it oozes that gooey love story. With Ephron’s films she creates something different and she really shaped the way of romantic comedies we see today.

I'll have what she is having

When re watching Sleepless in Seattle, my mind was rather brainwashed because I just love this film and find both characters, empathetic. Also they reference another movie, An Affair to Remember, so the nostalgic tone of this film is over the top. So to mix it up and to try not to get my option in it, I wanted to do the Bechdel Test. Created by Alison Bechdel in one of her comic strips, Dykes to watch out for. This strip is two women discussing their rules in watching a film to determine if it's sexist, the three simple questions are -

• Does your movie have at least two female characters?
• Do they talk to each other?
• Do they talk about something other than a man?

These seems like a very simple premise but you would be surprised what films do not have this, here are a top ten,

• The Social Network (never seen it never want to)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 (shocked as Hermione Granger is a modern day feminist icon apparently the only one!)
• Avatar (again never seen it, but funny how it lost to hurt locker)
• Star Wars trilogy original (again iconic Princess Leia, who doesn't talk to any other women, least it's changed in the new film)
• The entire Lord of the Rings (hate these films, now I know why)
• Run Lola Run (never seen but it seems like she is the only women in the film)

This is a list I found online just to show you the different movies.Just a FYI all the films I said were my favorite passed the Bechdel test. What's the smug emoji face called? …..

Sleepless in Seattle, just passes this test and some blogs will disagree, to me this film, like her other romantic comedy films, have a balance of the male story line and the females. She picks amazing actors who portray her characters in a realistic light and even though the situation isn't realistic with these actors you believe the story.

This test does not mean that the film is bad, or morally wrong but it addresses that just because you have one good female character that you think that the movie has done good, we make up for half of the population. Who do you thinks buys the movie tickets the most, it's not rocket science to have females equal to men in film, that's are in front and behind the camera.

Anyway… Nancy Ephron films are not smashing any glass ceilings, but she created some iconic films and I bet you, you didn't think that a women did these films and you would look at Meg Ryan's characters a lot differently knowing she was written by a woman.

Ava Duvernay

Ava Duvernay could be called an up and comer compared to Nancy Ephron. Her first “Hollywood” full length feature created a controversial buzz last year for not being nominated for an Oscar for best director and best lead actor. Selma, is a woman's vision of one of the most iconic figures of American history.

This film is set in 1964, the segregation of blacks and whites had been abolished but black people did not have the full rights they deserved, especially in the south where the registrar could decide if a black person could or could not vote. So Martin Luther King (played by David Oyelowo) and his followers pressed forward in a town in Alabama called Selma, where they marched from Selma to Montgomery, this changed American history were President Johnson signing the voting rights act of 1965. This film just shows one moment of his life, which I found brave because they could have gone way out and did a huge epic biography. It just focuses on one of his many incredible achievements, but narrowing the story down doesn't mean everything gets shown. There are many different character, male and female which I wanted to see more of but what I saw I was impressed. With this film you realise quickly that Devernay portrays Martin Luther King as a human being with faults.

I was watching this film very differently to a Nancy Ephron movie because I was watching it with the fact that a woman directed this film. So one of my favorite scenes was when Coretta Scott King (played by Carmen Ejogo) was confronting her husband about his cheating. The scene starts when she is notified by the FBI (who are watching them) that her husband is cheating on her. The scene is very powerful because it's at the point of view of the woman and Martin Luther King is a small trapped creature stuck in a chair and does not know what to do. I feel other directors would have filmed him having sex with his mistresses. Devernay purposefully did not show him in the act, not to protect his character but to protect his wife's. The whole film is beautifully shot, perfect? Not at all but it stood perfectly with other Oscar nominated films and will stand the test of time. This film created a stir because it was a woman director, who is black, and black actors who weren't getting the recognition they deserved. Devernay said it perfectly, “Selma shouldn't have been the only hope.” When it comes to the Oscar films or just films in general why do they have a “token black” movie and sometimes none at all! I am digressing because the next film maker I am talking about is one of the greatest documentary filmmakers ever, who made a lasting impression for all the wrong reasons.

Documentary Women Filmmakers

I love documentaries, it's mine and my partner's favorite thing to do together (I know so sexy), we have watched classics like Hoop Dreams, Super Size Me and Bowling for Columbine. But I have watched documentaries about people who dress up as superhero to save the world, people who are obsessed with former pop sensation Tiffany and showing us the people who dress up on Hollywood Boulevard. You name a documentary I have probably seen it, apart from animal ones that's a NO NO. My all time favorite is Paris is Burning, which is another women director, Jennie Livingston who could be in part 2 of,  Why Have There Been no Great Women Directors?

If you haven't seen Paris is Burning, stop reading and go watch it!!

Women in documentaries are more recognised within their peers, many woman have won major awards for their work. I knew I wanted to talk about this woman because she did a lot for documentary film and for women but with her talent she created devastating effects.

Leni Riefenstahl

Leni Riefenstahl is one of the pioneer of documentary filmmakers, unfortunately she created striking and powerful images for the Nazi Party.

Hitler saw Riefenstahl as an actress first, in 1932 Riefenstahl produced her own work called, The Blue Light. The film won the silver medal at the Venice Film Festival. In the film, Riefenstahl played a peasant girl who protected a glowing mountain grotto. Hitler was taken with her as the epitomises of the ultimate German women. In 1933 when Hitler was appointed chancellor he appointed Riefenstahl to be film expert to the national socialist party. In a time where women played second role to men, Riefenstahl was given a free hand by Hitler to produce propaganda films for the Nazi regime.

Her first full length film was, Triumph of the Will which I watched recently and it's totally unwatchable as any sort of entertainment purposes. However you can see why these films were so powerful at the time to show how great the Nazi party could be to the people. Riefenstahl used dramatic camera angles rarely seen before and frequently used shadowy images as opposed to images that were visually clear. The cameraman also did some of their work on roller skates. So she was very passionate in making these films striking and appealing to the eyes, not just a point and shooting a documentary. Her next feature was Olympia which was a documentary all about the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. This film also won many awards for its technically dazzling shots but the film was of course a propaganda piece and was only showing you what the Nazi party wanted to show you. After the war she was accused of being the visual mouthpiece of the Nazi party. She disagreed with this as she made these films by her own independent film company and they were not mere Nazi Stooges. She also stated the fact that she never became a member of the Nazi Party.

She was not imprisoned for her action and I am in two minds if I believe she knew she was doing wrong. She was forbidden from making films and her films remained banned in post war Germany for years. This concerned some as Veit Harlan, the maker of Jew Suss which is a horrendously anti Semitic film made during Hitler's regime was allowed to return to film making after the war ended. Some believe that Riefenstahl was forbidden to return to film making simply because she was female in an industry dominated by men.

As much as Riefenstahl did much damage with her striking images, she was one of the first women directors who paved the way for other directors to take more risks with the camera. The next director I am going to talk about is rather different to Riefenstahl as her striking approach is the subject matter.  

Amy J. Berg

Amy J. Berg is one of my new favorite directors, I have watched and heard of many of her films and never knew that she had directed them all. Janis: Little Girl Blue, West of Memphis and Deliver us From Evil are to name a few. Berg is a hard hitting journalist filmmaker talking about subjects we are too scared to talk about. Her most famous documentary which created quite the scandal was Deliver us From Evil.

Deliver us From Evil documents the case of convicted pedophile Oliver Grady who as a priest in northern California, molested the children of his parish, apparently with the knowledge of his superiors in the diocese. This film is extremely hard to watch, watching the survivors talk about what Grady did to them and their families. To Grady himself who just didn't give a shit of what he did and he's talking about these horrendous acts like he's talking about the weather. This film is important and Berg was very brave to come out with this film because the catholic church have been sweeping this under the carpet for years and people like Berg are showing the world that this happens and still is happening. This year, Spotlight won best picture at the Oscars, the film is about The Boston Globe investigating an allegations against John Geoghan, an unfrocked priest accused of molesting more the 80 boys. This film is alright but doesn't pack the punch like Deliver us From Evil. She has also shed light on the sexual, financial and spiritual abuses heaped upon members of the fundamentalist church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints by their former leader, Warren Jeffs. Prophet’s Prey is a great documentary and Berg never belittles anyone who believed this man, or says anything bad about the Mormon church, she just lets the people talk about their experiences in the church and the people around trying to help.

Amy J Berg is one of many women in documentary film making that is making an impact in cinema and I am looking forward to seeing more of these women's work.

Women are fighting to be taken seriously in film and I could go on and on about the issues women have to face. So why are women not taken seriously in film? Women in the art world have struggled to dominated the art world as women artist have always been overshadowed by men. So when film recording came accessible to all, women artist thrived with using video art and have taken it as their own. They experimented with there performance art with uncharted territory for experimentation. Pioneering women like Valie Export, Joan Jonas, Dara Birnbaum and Martha Rosler quickly adopted the new tech, and today they are celebrated for their trailblazing legacy that paved the way for tenacious artists. My next blog will be all about women in video art and how they dominated the movement.

Thanks for reading,

MAW