Dear All,
This week's reading will be fairly brief, as will the questions/topics, since we're running slightly behind.
If you have not heard of Suzanne Lacy before, I am proud to introduce her and her work to you. She is widely believed to be the pivotal feminist artist of the latter half of the 20th century. Her work, over 3-4 decades, reflects changes in feminist thought, action and theory. I chose this book for us to read because her work is not only aesthetically important; it is research-based, public and communal. I hope you will regard her as a stellar role model.
First, I'd like you to read the Preface and Acknowledgements. While the acknowledgements typically aren't very interesting, I want you to pay attention to Irish's preface. Notice the "I" language. Speaking in the first person, she explains her own position in relation to Lacy and lays out some of the basic ideas in the text. This continues into the Introduction.
The Introduction is quite theoretical in places. For this reason, I advise you to read as follows: PhD students, read the whole Introduction and make sure you understand all the terms. Each term is like a door opening onto a world of ideas, research, theory and dialogue. It's very important that you make the effort to appreciate the richness of the subject matter. The first chapter of your dissertation will resemble this chapter in terms of its structure.
MAE students, you may skip over paragraphs that befuddle and frustrate you. This, of course, is only if you aren't overwhelmingly keen to know and understand important developments and trends in feminist theory from the 70s - 90s. There was a significant shift. However, much of the chapter is mostly descriptive of Lacy's early works. Please read these sections.
Now for Chapter 1, Visceral Beginnings. Of course, first read it. Then choose one of the following questions to respond to in depth:
1. Why is the body so central to feminist or woman-centered art?
2. How and why does Lacy include non-artists in many of her artworks?
3. How and why did Lacy integrate the popular media into her projects on rape?
I'm sorry to be so brief in this introduction to Lacy's work. However, I think that once you start reading the book, and especially after you get through the Introductory chapter, you will find it very engrossing and will have much to share on this blog.
I will check back soon! For now, I only have internet access in the hotel lobby, which is very busy and distracting.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
carolyn
All throughout the book the author kept a sense of body in the textual imagery. From the beginning pages in the preface, Irish stated,
ReplyDelete“I am sitting in a second-story office on campus, breathing, tired, a little bit hungry, stiff from yesterday’s activities, and always impatient to get on with the next task.” (Irish, 2010, p. xiii)
This very statement gives one the image of the real sense of having a body that tires, gets hungry, and needs to breathe. We all have a body, we all exist with the frailties of hunger, thirst, and breathing; this commonality immediately creates the bond of our humanity. Later, on the same page, Irish reaches out to the reader in an evocative, human way,
“I want to extend my hand to you and feel your touch.” This is a powerful outpouring that draws the reader into her dialogue; a rarity in most graduate texts. I personally love this aspect of Irish’s writing. She goes on to connect with the reader, even further:
“Instead, I am touching the keyboard in my lap and imagining future readers, where and how you might be sitting, who you might be. These hypothetical relationships are in my head, and it is difficult to acknowledge my body in relation to yours as I sit here, alone.”
It is this desire to bridge the gaps in our society that impels woman-centered, Feminist Art. Women through the ages have been the healers, the nurturers, the lovers; they have been the ones who kept life going for families and communities. We give our bodies to create, to bless, and even (at times) to feed our young ones. We are basically “down-to-earth”, tied to the earth and the moon through the cycles of our bodies. I feel that using the body as a metaphor in feminist art is powerful; it is simple and true. The female body is a beautiful image that has often been misrepresented by unethical people for gain; it remains, however, a curvilinear, earthy, and lovely symbol for life, itself.
A woman’s body has also been vulnerable to the display of power and exploitation of evil men. During times of war and conflict, women and children have been tragically beset by the vile actions of unethical men. Lacy was instrumental with her feminist sisters in opening the dialogue about this horrific issue in the lives of women. (Irish, 2010, p. 31-32) It is a universal evil that transcends culture, class, geography, and time. Thus, using the female body to illustrate this concern is paramount, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteSuzanne Lacy’s work has depicted the feminist thread of the body as metaphor throughout the chronology of her art. From the beginning, she studied dance, a visual art form that presents the body as both canvas and medium. (Irish, 2010, p. 23) Lacy’s degree in zoology also reinforced the connections for using blood, organs, and body images in her powerful, visceral work. When I read the descriptions of her collaborative piece with Chicago (Irish, 2010, p. 32-35) titled Ablutions, I wondered how the young women who enacted the binding portion must have felt during that part of the art performance. I probably would not have been able to withstand such restrictive measures even for art. It is an interesting fact, as well, that Suzanne Lacy did not place her own body in a position to depict victims. (Irish, 2010, p. 36)
As Lacy continued her search for bridging the gaps in society through her art performances, she began to make multi-racial and cross-cultural investigations. (Irish, 2010, p. 37) For me, this was the only direction that she could have journeyed. The most powerful force of feminism is the struggle to create a healthy balance of power without one hegemony overlording the rest. It is easy to forget the great injustices that women have undergone, and still suffer, in some societies today. I appreciated the history of feminism through the sixties and seventies (Irish, 2010, p. 7) that Irish explained in her book about Lacy. For young women, today, it is difficult to remember that women could not have a loan, bank account, or credit card of their own, could not make reproductive decisions of their own, could not participate in athletics as men and boys could, or deny sex to their husbands. Much has been accomplished, but much is yet to be done.
Suzanne Lacy includes non-artists in many of her works for coalition building. This inclusion enables her to “cross over” into another’s existence, to learn from others (p 13).
ReplyDeleteThese non-artists are collaborators, participants, immediate audience members and those of the media as well as part of the audience of myth and memory (p 14). As participants they are important to her for her community-engaged art (p 14). The inclusion of members of the public into her performances allows her to bridge the two worlds, the art world and the non-art world (p 19). When the public is part of the performance, then the public has a better reception of it. She seeks collaborators outside the art world to bridge the differences and to bring value to their work (ie, the Quilters of Watts, p. 19-20).
I feel she can understand the necessity of community within art practices as her background involves art and many other disciplines, interests and experiences. Judy Chicago was not at first convinced to allow Lacy (and Wilding) to join the FAP because she thought Lacy was not going to be a professional artist (p 26). The Introduction and first chapter have done a fine job pointing out Lacy’s extensive experience and breadth of education. Her interdisciplinary approach and background informs her work as well as the discussion of her work.
“To create her art in line with her vision, Lacy has made substantial sacrifices in terms of opportunities, income, and fame. Since the mid-i98os, she has worked full-time as an arts administrator, producing her projects in the spaces between her job and life maintenance. To finance her work, she has raised funds from foundations and corporations, receiving little in the way of remuneration for her art projects. While she has remained a committed daughter and sister and has bonded deeply with several young people, she is a single woman creating ways to survive well on her own.”
ReplyDeleteSharon Irish. Suzanne Lacy: Spaces Between (p. 3). Kindle Edition.
This is why I think Lacy includes non-artists in many of her works. She has a day job, just like the rest of us. We have read about artists who follow their passions all over the world and have the financial wherewithal to travel all over the world doing art to raise social awareness and no mention of a job. Lacy can see the plight of the ordinary woman. She can talk the talk, because she walks the walk. I found her project with the Women of Watts to be particularly interesting. I can only imagine how it must have changed the lives of the women. “While the women sewed, they shared their personal histories and their fears about actions of the neighborhood teens.”
Sharon Irish. Suzanne Lacy: Spaces Between (p. 19). Kindle Edition. Marginalized by society and terrorized by their own youth. I can’t comprehend how overwhelming that sadness must be.
I think she uses non-artists (in the very narrow sense) because she truly cares about the issues.
What I meant about non-artists in the very narrow sense: everyone has creative talent and I really don't like categorizing anyone as a non-artist.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Irish, there was some criticism that performance artists would come into a community, raise awareness and hopes only to move on to the next cause, leaving the non-artist participants hanging. Further proof that Lacy has true concern for the participates is in evidence on page 16, “As early as 1982, she asked, "What is the artist's responsibility to her collaborators, performers, and audience after the performance is over?" She then offered several examples of long-term, community-based art but also suggested a larger model, "a network of women across the country who are working together on a single project with local goals as well as a sense of belonging to a nation-wide project."
ReplyDeleteSharon Irish. Suzanne Lacy: Spaces Between (pp. 16-17). Kindle Edition.
Why the body so pivotal to feminist or woman-centered art? From my point of views, there are three aspects we can consider about: 1. the body as a space; 2. the body as a real life; 3. the body could be deconstructed and then be reconstructed as body of the new bodies. First of all, the body as a space means that body to feminist or woman-centered art is a site to show the confrontation of the individual space and public space. Secondly, the body as a real life offers an authentic daily life for art and for the writing of history.
ReplyDeleteThe body could be the struggle space for race, gender, and class. As Judith Butler point out in Body that Matter (1993), “The category of “sex” is, from the start, normative; it is what Foucault has called a ‘regulatory ideal’.”(p.1) that means a body at its beginning of being gave birth has been the site of struggle. The struggles come from public. A “regulatory ideal” is form by a regulatory of power,
“the line of forces” is the term that Foucault used to describe the powers that exist in the public spaces and also implant in an individual body. The interaction between the individual spaces and public spaces will form the performativity of a body. Artist could, therefore, represent these struggles between individual and public space by using their body in their work. As Irish points out in her Suzanne Lacy--- Spaces Between (2010):“We perform, moving between art and life, built space and human flesh. This ‘betweenness’ creates tension, at once dynamic and troubling.” (p. 21) Artists not only made the betweeness visible but also agitated the public space with their bodies.
Then, the body as an individual space allows feminist or women-centered art to represent the various individual experiences. This individual body could demonstrate the experiences that they have ever experienced, no matter it was emotional, traumatic, or political. This is a very significant medium for the feminist or women-centered art. In this way, feminist or women-centered artists could demonstrate the authentic experiences or events through their art other than signs, texts, or languages that were constructed mainly by patriarchism. By using the body, artists represent the events visually, without using the media that have long been controlled. Also, the body shows the difference by its own. For example, Irish mentioned in her book that rape is rarely discussed by male intellectuals even in 1960. (2010) In Ablution (1972), Lacy investigated into the issues of sexual and domestic violence that grew in complexity and sophistication. Also, Mendieta, between 1970 and 1973, replicated a brutal rape violence scene of Sara Ann Otten to present the rape issues to the public. These using of body in art specific evoke the emotions and the reflection to the suffering of the female.
By using the body in the works, feminists or women-centered artists deconstructed the body that is constructed by the line of forces and re-examined reconstructed the body for the future. “Body without organ” is one of the most famous theory of Deleuze, mention about the power of a becoming body. In Deleuze’s theory, the organs of our body are systemized by the existed authorities. In order to become stronger and escape the traditional constructed systems, the body has to be a body without organ. To feminist or women-centered artists, using their body in their art work are to re-organize the system of their bodies by their own. These reconstructed bodies then will allow women get power to gain equalization in a society.
Bibliography
Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies that matter: on the discursive limits of "sex". New York: Routledge.
Irish, Sharon, and Suzanne Lacy. 2010. Suzanne Lacy: spaces between. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
I agree with Suzanne that there is a strong element in Lacy’s work regarding a bridging of societal gaps. It seems society has done so much to not only separate the body from the mind but also to rationalize the reasons to do so. In some ways, it is a good thing. For believers of Buddhism, the body is only a temporary shell, something that will ultimately distract the spirit away from deeper fulfillments when too much attention is given to it. We see a certain aspect of this in Leavy’s Chapter 3 with the accounts of identity management. The responses of the participants were consistently centered on their body image. One thing I took from this was an amazement how, not only women, but men as well succumb to societies standards of how they should look, causing us to focus on our bodies through an aestheticized set of ideals.
ReplyDeleteBut here, with Lacy, there is an active effort to reconnect mind and body through more visceral sensations. I felt there was a more universal meaning even beyond the intention of raising awareness for the tangible, physical effects of rape. Irish makes a point early regarding Lacy’s “aesthetic response” to internal organs and how the sight of them fascinated her (Irish 2010, p.23). Again, later Irish points to how Lacy’s study of zoology had “primed her fascination with living in a body vulnerable to pain and destined to die” (Irish 2010, p.30). She follows up that with noting how Lacy’s concerns with the body was, at the time, more closely connected with mortality than with gender. The idea of dying and having to come to terms with it is an intimate transition from degrees of denial to degrees of acceptance. Due to our life’s circumstances, some of us are able to accept it more than others. But, for most of us there is a considerable amount of conscious thought devoted to our own mortality. This individualized awareness is one of the defining, universal aspects of human existence. We individually recognize a collective consequence of having a physical body.
Part two...
ReplyDeleteI think this was what Lacy’s deeper fascinations were tapping into. The body for Lacy was this tangible, physical space that we not only occupy from within but also from a position next to. Our bodies are predisposed to endure what could seem like infinite pain and suffering. These phenomena, today, are experienced internally when we feel them coming inward towards our consciousness from consequences acted upon our physical bodies in the external world. We also revisit our own pain and suffering again when it moves outward, leaving our consciousness and entering the external world through our expressions and articulations of it.
Society, as a whole, distracts the mind away from our awareness of this level of connectivity our consciousness is required to share with our bodies. We try not to think of moments of pain and to wish them away as quickly as possible when they do occur. We focus instead on living healthy as a way of prolonging the time of suffering and keep ourselves perpetually distracted from the reality of what-is-to-come with a life-long game of judging our physical appearance with a variety of administered standards meant to help us measure of our social status.
So I feel a major part of why bringing attention to the body is critical in feminist works is a reflection of how artists like Lacy were acutely aware of how disconnected society has become from the sense of suffering and mortality. For so long, there was an entire gender that considered rape as something not to be too concerned with. By connecting rape and the social context it was poorly acknowledged in with the visceral, tangible recognition of organs, feminist works are able to extend their subject matter to the more universal understanding of suffering. One can only empathize with what one has encountered personally. You do not emphasize with another’s situation unless you know something intimately about going through a similar situation. Not everyone knows the physical sensation of rape, but we all know the physical sensation of pain.
Now, partly because of Lacy and others working with similar issues, we have inched our collective consciousness a little closer to realizing how suffering, no matter whose it is, is a universal aspect of our tangible, temporary existence. And as such, we all share in its consequences.
I'm glad you brought this up, Francesco. I don't know if you've read Elaine Scarry's (1987) book, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World, but it is a strong example of how feminist scholars have brought the suffering body - the way the body's vulnerability to suffering is exploited in warfare and other forms of violence - to the forefront of consciousness. The work of Nel Noddings, whose scholarship I mentioned in reference to Suzanne's research, also theorizes embodied, corporeal existence and what, in particular, this means for women.
DeleteAs I read both your comments and the comments of Suzanne, I kept thinking of a woman whose story I heard through a friend. This woman is Iranian and lives in Tehran. She has been married to the same man for 30 years; they have several children, including a 27-year old daughter. My friend and the woman went to grade school together - this is how they know each other. She found him on Facebook.
My friend has lived in the US for the past 23 years. The US granted him asylum in the mid-80s because he fought for the US-friendly Shah of Iran in the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88 (Iran lost the war and was taken over by Muslim hard-liners).
Once they made contact, the two old friends talked on the phone several times. The woman told him that she has been very ill for the past several years. When he asked why she was ill, she said she has had 15 abortions. Her husband doesn't know about the abortions. Basically,her husband rapes her at least once a day.
She offered my friend the equivalent of 30,000 US dollars to marry her daughter and bring her daughter to the US. My friend is 52 years old; the daughter 27. He thought about it for awhile, but in the end he declined the offer. He felt that the family was trying to use him.
The story of my friend's old school mate reminded me of something I heard once on PBS: in Russia and many other countries, abortion is the #1 method of birth control. In many countries, the Pill isn't widely available. As a result, the women suffer health problems - infections, etc. - and die an early death.
I couldn't help thinking of this when news broke of 6 male religious leaders confronting the US congress on birth control insurance.This happened only about a month ago - you probably remember. The men maintained that free access to birth control violated their 1st Amendment rights, which is Freedom of Religion. Whatever your position might be on this issue, you might wonder what these men really know about their wives, mothers, sisters and daughters when it comes to birth control and other women's health issues. My thought is that men don't want to know the details of messy gynecological issues. Historically, it has always been up to women to take care of these things. The men who are devout practitioners of religions that object to birth control don't really know, nor do they care to know, what their wives, daughters, sisters and mothers do for their sexual health. Yet they think they have the right to stand before congress, objecting to free access to birth control insurance. You may be offended by my point of view, but the bottom line is suffering and violence unique to women's experience.
Lacy and other feminists started addressing sexual violence in the 1970s, but the issues are far from resolved. Domestic violence such as incest and spousal rape continue unabated because they take place behind closed doors and many women are afraid to speak up.
Sorry for the diatribe ... Please don't think that I want you to agree with me. I thoroughly expect you to have your own position on issues, especially issues as controversial as birth control insurance. You are free to express your ideas in this forum without recrimination.
I totally understand what you are saying Dr. Erler. I had tears reading your post. I know many women who have been raped, way too many and we are scared by it, our lives forever changed. I thought the birth control issue was settled decades ago, I am pissed at the nerve of those who think it violates their rights, what right do they have to impose their beliefs on me, my daughter and my sons? Empathy, real empathy is needed. Rape is not just pain, it is life changing, to never see that intimacy for what it should be. And Birth control, having full control over ones own body..., would make abortion almost obsolete, but regardless, it needs to be safe and private, a difficult decision that no one else should get a vote on, it does not effect their life...OMG, I could just scream... I can't even think of an art-ward direction for my feelings on this! :(
DeleteAllison, I see you share my sadness and outrage. You are right that abortion should be completely obsolete. It is a horrible thing, a visceral violence that effects men and women differently. Women feel it in their bodies.
DeleteThere are experiences specific to men that I can never fully understand because I'm not embodied as a man. For example, the craze among men in my age group for ED meds. One of my male friends uses Viagra to enhance his sex life. He's a very buff, manly & sexy 55 year old. At first I laughed and mocked him for using the drug. "Just as men start to mellow out and become more like women, they invent a pill to make them feel 18 again." I suggested a TV ad of a 60-year old woman gazing out her window at some shirtless lawn crew boys. The women would lustily say "I can't wait to invite them in for some lemonade, thanks to my gynagra!" Wouldn't the spectacle of a sexual older woman gross most men out? We all know it would.
My buff, sexy 55-year old friend set me straight on the ED issue. He told me in no uncertain terms that I don't know how important it is for older men to stay sexually active. For him, Viagra was a life-changer. He has since become Johnny Appleseed.
So men have man issues and women have woman issues that neither can fully comprehend in the other. I think that if men want to confront congress about ED treatment and other health problems specific to men, they should absolutely go for it. I'm not so sure they are ethically entitled to confront congress on women's health issues under the guise of religion.
exactly- thank you.
DeleteAs always, I am enjoying the diversity of your comments and interpretations of Lacy's work. I am glad that some of you mentioned the problematic nature of her art. Anyone who has taught knows that every student represents at least 1000 different variables. So if you multiply that by the number of students in the class, and multiply it again by the number of classes you are teaching, you quickly realize the potential for something going wrong. Therein lies the difficulty, challenge and joy of teaching. Some of you may have heard me say before that my 88-year old mother, who has taught for over 60 years and still is teaching to this day, periodically tells me, "I think I'm finally getting the hang of this teaching thing."
ReplyDeleteI mention this because, as you will see, Lacy's work progressively pulls in more and more people, to the point that she spends 2-3 years researching and organizing in a community before actually presenting a project. The potential for something going wrong increases as the work grows in complexity. I have always admired her willingness to risk failure and criticism in her quest for a more egalitarian art form that can, and sometimes does, actually change public policies that directly impact communities.
I am pleased that A Ta saw a linkage between Lacy and the American feminist theorist, Judith Butler. Butler is one of the most influential feminist theorist of the 1990's. Her book, Gender Trouble, which first appeared in 1990, shifted the dialogue among white western feminists from a preoccupation with neo-Freudian interpretations of film (a la Laura Mulvey) and art (a la Mary Kelly) to performance. Butler introduced the radical idea that gender is PERFORMED - not biologically determined - according to the norms and dictates of a person's social millieu. This new focus on gender as performance validated the importance of Lacy's work.
ReplyDeleteLacy's later work was further validated by the emergence of highly influential feminist theorists of color from the U.S. (bell hooks, Gloria Anzaldua, Chela Sandoval) India (Gayatri Spivak, Chandra Talpade Mohanty), Vietnam (Trinh Minh-ha), etc. The fact that Lacy realized the limitations of white western feminism and wrestled with it openly in her art/community development/research projects - successfully and unsuccessfully - gained her respect across race/class divisions. Few artists have been able to pull this off.
I am sitting in my 109 year old home at my computer watching the cursor on my screen flash and listening to the evocativeness of my favorite song, Consequence, by The Notwist. I just bridged a gap with you, a complete stranger, whom which in my lifetime I will probably never meet. The hypothetical relationships are now in my head, as I sit here wondering if my body is in the same relation as yours when you were touching and feeling the keyboard imagining of me, your reader. Your hope of exploring with me happened. I moved along with you page by page, some uncomfortable (too close to home) but I felt I had to keep reading for the sake of your words to be acknowledged and spread. Through the balance of art and conventional conversation you have closed a parallel gap of unknown to the now aware. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI believe Lacy’s short exposure to Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) was a major stepping stone and path to becoming a hero. She is the voice of others silence, she is the vision of others blindness, and she encompasses your body and soul with her images and performance. Her loyalty to social service grew between radical politics and activism.
Rape Was… and Is, is the reason why and how Lacy integrated it into her projects. Rape was dismissed in the 1970’s and still today an under-reported crime? That just blows my mind. Lacy uses popular media to expose the crimes against humanity and to break the silence of the vulnerable and to shout out towards the monstrous. Her use of performance art in Ablutions validated rape victims emotions, it allowed them to heal from sexual assaults. Lacy knew the perfect way to approach the performance installation, she approached it with real-life scenarios. Her use if symbolic visuals made a victim relive their incident from sight, smell, and engaged them to accept what social injustice was done to them and taken away from them. “Lacy was never willing to assume the role of a victim and risk that victimization being normalized; her work abstracted sexual violence in a powerful way to address the politics of rape.” (Yoko Ono, Irish, pp. 36) In some way, it seems as though Lacy is trying to give back a victims innocence by replacing it with strength to accept “yes, you were raped, but yes, you are a survivor”.
“Ablutions was the start of a long-term artistic investigation into sexual and domestic violence that grew in complexity and sophistication.” (Irish, pp. 36)
That is a great song.
Delete