Bibliography

Borzello, Frances. A World of Our Own: Women as Artists Since the Renaissance. United Kingdom: Watson-Guptill Publications, 2000. Print.

Much of this book is dedicated to addressing works of women throughout the years and the techniques and subject matter that has been addressed as well as what each individual woman artist accomplished in life. It shows much of their work and talks about the thought process behind it and the history of why the work was created and what it means for women in art as well as talking about the feminist movement and how women are starting to be represented in art in a different way rather than just being the subject of the male gaze in a painting.

Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. Third Edition. Singapore: Thames & Hudson Inc., 2002. Print.

This text talks about the struggles women have gone though in society and in the art world and community through all of history. What women have done to obtain positions of power in art galleries but yet still faltering in the area of publicity for women's artwork. It addresses every era and art movement and the women who were the head-runners among men but without as much recognition. It also gives a small overview about individual artists and their accomplishments and why they are of worth among women artists and artists in general.

Guerrilla Girls, The. The Guerrilla Girls Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. Penguin Group, 1998. Print.

This text gives an overview of the activist group and what they represent and who they represent. This group gives their statement about the rights women should have in art and not only women, but artists of color and women artists of color. They represent the minorities in art and stand for the equalization and for non-discrimination among artists. The history of the group is given and what roles they play in the art world as well as their accomplishments and past women artists since the beginning of time and what they have done for fellow women artists or artists of color.

Nochlin, Linda . "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?." Women, Art and Power and Other Essays. (1988): 147-158. Print.

This text has been the one of the top contributors as to why women are starting to really shake up the way people look at art and how they see women. Accompanying the activist group of the Guerrilla Girls, this text in the eighties has started many discussions as to why women artists have basically been thrown under the bus and not given as much credit as needed or deserved and why women artists are not recognized in the community as well as men and trying to find the underlying reason as to why this epidemic has been occurring over the past few centuries.

Mullarky, Maureen. "No More Nice Girls: Feminism Art in Revision." 22.4 (2009): pgs. 486-490. Print.
This text talks about feminism and how it was introduced in the late 1960's and early 70's. This article also introduces Judy Chicago and her contributions and beginnings in the movement of feminism which I applied to my blog. It also states how women came together to protest and stand for their equality as artists.


Reilly, Maura, and Nochlin, Linda. "Women's Review of Books." Art Without Balls. (2007): 304. Print.

The point of this text was to address the problems with why women are overshadowed by men and what the real reason is for why women are not recognized as much as men for their accomplishments. It also addresses Linda Nochlin's article of “Why Have there Been No Great Women Artists?” and how that article has addressed the underlying problems of the art community.

Reilly, Maura, and Linda Nochlin. Global Feminisms. New York, New York: Merrell Publishers Limited, 2007. Print.

This source was used to introduce the views of feminism on art. It gave listings of women who have accomplished much in the art world. It also gave a historical background through the ages of the arts and how women contributed but have been overshadowed. The woman as an artist was introduced in this text and what it means to have this profession. The last chapter, which was greatly interesting, expanded upon feminism which is the core of what my blog was about.

Viewing Art

 The feminist way of addressing art became a new way of viewing art. “It's new way of looking at the art establishment gave women the confidence to express their feelings and state their demands. Women artists wanted success and recognition, as they had always done, but this time they were willing to shout for it...” (Borzello, 195). There were also other critics that weren't sure that the new feminist art movement was worth fighting for or legitimately an issue. "In debunking the myth of the Great (male) Artist, the women’s movement hatched myths of its own. Art was hailed as one of those things that women do naturally, like lactating or menstruating. Instinct is art; we are the earth" (Mullarky, 3). Back in the 1970's, many women started to protest the way the art world looked at art. They fought for equalization and no more discrimination or the exclusion from male-dominated exhibitions and institutions. Women, such as Judy Chicago, also began creating artwork that was centered around the female body. She began replicating forms, shapes, lines and colors that resembled a woman's breasts, stomach, vagina, and anything else that brought out the strong subject matter of femininity. This began a movement created within the art community, specifically with women artists to stand for their gender and replicate the female form through any way possible in their work.

While women typically stuck to making art forms through paintings or sculptures, after the 1980's, a new art form was introduced: performance and video. This became the major focus in the art world and was a new outlet for women to base their ideas upon. Women started to find it easier to express oneself and performance and video started to dominate. Female artist Pipilotti Rist was well known for her videos. She featured a video performance in 1986 titled, “I'm Not the Girl Who Misses Much.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJgiSyCr6BY&feature=related

In the video she continuously sings the same line over and over again as she dances around. The screen is blurred and her voice is distorted. Rist's technique of editing and video production became her style for all of her work and she became one of the few women who opened the art world to a new medium while other women artists were bringing forth humor and irony to their work.

No matter how large the number of women in art becomes, I doubt our popularity will increase anytime soon; it hasn't for centuries. Despite this fact though, women will continue to introduce new techniques and new forms of expression that maybe a male would not have thought of, and continue to fly under the radar. What will it take for women to become the new sensation in art? The new driving force, a storm that's taken over? Like the Guerrilla Girls who constantly stand for equality, we can only hope we will no longer be overshadowed by men.

Presenting One's Art

If a woman's work is comparably similar to a man's in regards to line, color, quality, technique and subject matter, why is it not considered to be of the same value or worth? Is it really the painting, or is it the woman? If it's not the painting, then surely it has to be the woman, and if it is said that women and men are treated equally in the art business, then it must be the way the woman presents herself and her work that is not getting her the same success as a man. Wrong. Women put forth just as much effort to sell and distribute their work just the same as men do, so why is there still no recognition?

http://www.mookychick.co.uk/icon/guerrilla_girls2.php

A group that was founded around 1985 called the Guerrilla Girls, stand for all of the above when it comes to women in art. Their group was created out of a concern of the under representation of women in modern art. Their statement reads:

"We are a group of women artists and art professionals who fight discrimination. We're the conscience of the art world, counterparts to the mostly male tradition of anonymous do-gooders like Robin Hood, Batman, and the Lone Ranger. We have produced over 80 posters, printed projects and actions that expose sexism and racism in the art world and the culture at large, We wear gorilla masks to keep the focus on the issues rather than our personalities. We use humor to prove that feminists can be funny. Our work has been passed around the world by kindred spirits who consider themselves Guerrilla Girls too. We could be anyone; we are everywhere" (The Guerrilla Girls).

The Guerrilla Girls gives art for women a new hope. They've created a group that any woman artist in need of support can count on and depend upon by basically paving a new way for women artists and supporting the equalization of men and women in art. They do this by showing all the past women in art who should be recognized as great contributors. They've created a bond and will hopefully keep building from it.

The main issue they constantly address is why the white male seems to be the only successful kind of artist you can find ever since the beginning of art. What is hard to understand is that if you were to step into any art gallery, I guarantee that it would be almost impossible to point out which artwork has been made by a woman and which has been made by a man. Therefore, why the separation and the discrimination?! Another point that the Guerrilla Girls have made is that, “less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art Sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female” (The Guerrilla Girls). It's sexist the way galleries and even exhibitions are run in general and it really shows that it is still clearly, a man's world out there. To put it bluntly, do women need to have balls in order to be worth talking about? (Reilly, and Nochlin). Do we need to have this arrogance about us and act like we own the place?

http://www.artandwork.us/2009/12/selected-moments-in-the-history-of-economic-art/

It's a constant battle trying to figure out how to act, what to do, what to create, how to create it, what kind of message to send to an audience, what kind of subject matter to address, and now how to succeed not in just terms of money, but by becoming above or equal to men. Why is there a standard that women are held to within the art community and why is it impossible to just remove our gender from the work and have the focus be specifically about the work? It seems to be miles within a woman's grasp.

The Creation of Art

Why is there a disconnect between women and art? Women are taught how to create art, all the aesthetics of art, they create art and then present their art in galleries, continue to make MORE art and present it in MORE countless galleries, sometimes succeeding the number of galleries men present their artwork in, but yet, still do not become worthy of the title as a “great” artist, or even if they are awarded that title, they are still not widely known. What does it take for a woman to be recognized by many?

It was thought that maybe women were not going about creating art in the equal manner or stages that men create art or maybe that women are not covering the right subject matter. But if you look throughout history, women have covered every end of the spectrum in subject matter just as men have. Not only have women created art concerning subjects such as social aspects of life, politics, or creating cartoons and doing animation, but they have also covered every range of material to be used in art; painting, sculpture, installation, ceramics, etc., yet still not succeeding as well as men. Therefore, it's not that women haven't given up everything feminine and worked towards a different perspective, because we have. What is even more astounding is that men have covered feminine subject matter and still been more successful than a woman who could create a similar piece.

Every artist wants to say something different and in some degree, every artist wants a different kind of success. Though, in contrast, does every artist want to be treated equally in the sense of being given respect and to be on the same level despite gender? Yes. The success rate of a woman artist is low and rare, even without considering the overall success rate of artists in general, but when there are women out there who are covering a broad range of subject matter and are using line work and techniques that even men are envious of, why are they not more successful?

Take for example, two women who have been successful, though of course, not as successful as a male artist: Georgia O'Keefe and Jenny Saville. Their paintings are vastly different, yet incredibly similar. O'Keefe painted beautiful flowers that which resembled the female reproductive parts and her paintings were always so feminine and used vibrant colors.

http://absenceofalternatives.com/2010/06/dear-wired-georgia-okeeffe.html

Now look at Jenny Saville who does these larger than life oil paintings of the female nude (which as a reminder, women at one point were not allowed to address). Her paintings are so grotesque and fleshy with her thick application of the oils. She uses these muted colors blended with some more vibrant flesh-like tones that accentuate every curve she paints.

http://absenceofalternatives.com/2010/06/dear-wired-georgia-okeeffe.html

Both painters cover similar material, both quite well known, both admirable in the way that they paint and how they use technique. But when comparing them to a male painter such as Lucian Freud who covers the same subject matter, which is in fact very, very similar to Saville's technique in painting, the women stand no chance. Freud's paintings are worth millions, Saville's paintings are only worth thousands, and both are still living. All of these facts make me question a very controversial and appalling subject: Are women worth as much as men?

Women in Art

Women in Art is not a very common thing to see unless you are talking about the model in which you are gazing upon in the hundreds of paintings made by men. A great and very popular woman artist is just about as common as a blue moon; one comes around every few years. As an art major and a fellow woman artist, it's even hard to name popular women artists myself, and those that I can name, a common individual who isn't strongly interested in art, nine times out of ten wouldn't even recognize the artist. 

Artists such as Mary Cassat, Berthe Morisot, Cindy Sherman, Tracey Emin, Georgia O'Keefe, Dorthea Lange, Louise Bourgeois, Helen Frankenthaler, Frida Kahlo, Lee Krasner, Barbara Hepworth, Joan Mitchell, Jenny Saville, Judy Chicago, and Kara Walker, may all be contemporary and historical artists that I am familiar with, but it would be pure luck if a common person could say that they knew two names out these fifteen “great” women artists. It's also sad to say that I hardly know of many great women artists, and maybe there are many out there, but my point is that they are not talked about. It's hard to find them in the media and they are not as prominent and well known as some of the most popular male artists of all time. Almost anyone would recognize artists such as: Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Salvador Dali, Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and Picasso. 

Women have been struggling in art ever since art became art, something to view and analyze. Back in 1768 the British Royal Academy of art was introduced, and believe it or not, was founded by two women painters by the names of Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser. Although this is a big feat for women in art, following Kauffman and Moser, no woman was allowed membership to the Academy again until 1922. While Kauffman and Moser had a big accomplishment founding the academy, there was still a problem because they were not recognized as members except for on paper. When paintings were created of the members of the academy, Kauffman and Moser were not included and they were also banned from the study of the nude model as well for any of their work. This then became the basis of training and representation from the sixteenth century until the nineteenth century (Chadwick, 7). 

There always seems to be a reoccurring theme in the art world; women always hold the positions of art directors for galleries, or they are the founders of the academies, but they are very rarely considered to be the “great artist” in which we all drool over the piece that they have just created. Maybe there are no great women artists because it is the women who are too busy setting up every opportunity for the men to be successful.