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FAM's foundation of 2nd wave feminism interrograted the patriarchal culture and history of both culture and the art world. New expansive mediums were integrated such as performance art, film, and photography expounding on themes of gender identity, women's experiences, discrimination, and hierarchy's of power surrounding arbitrary rules of the gender binary. FAM utilized the body as a new embodied subject, rather than an object. The works challenged normative ideas of women's roles in society.
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Yoko Ono
Cut Piece
Carnegie Recital Hall, New York In Ono's performance art she sits monk-like in the center of a stage with a pair of scissors, offering the audience to interact by coming on stage and cutting her clothing. This work shows the sacrifice of feminine domesticity, as well as the casual violence against women in sexual objectification. This work shows a huge amount of trust in the viewer, and evokes fear. As the work goes on the audience becomes more emboldened, taking more. -
Bringing the War Home
Martha Rosler
photomontage
20” x 24”
MoMA Rosler’s series highlight the American compartmentalization of war-time. This export of violence maintains the appearance of an imaginary American purity. Referencing the post WWII return to domesticity for many women as solider’s returned from war and reclaimed employment.
This work shows the stark contrast and surreal expectation of a return to a so- called “normalcy.” Framing recalls Grant Wood's 1939 Parson Weem's Fable. -
Ana Mendieta
Untitled: Silueta Series
Color photograph
16” x 20”
Mariam Goodman Gallery Mendieta’s earth-body work Silueta Series depicts figural forms enflamed, engulfed, and entrenched in the earth. These images communicate an often overlooked theme in modernity: our human connection to nature. Mendieta's film/performance works discuss themes of violence against women, and there is a connection here to a tandem environmentalist ideology- personifying violence against Mother Earth. Ophelia! -
Dara Birnbaum
Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman
MOMA In this film Birbaum utilizes video editing and sampling to create a disorienting video collage of the 1970’s Wonder Woman TV show. The explosive disruptions discomfort the viewer into considering the impact of transformations women make to adapt to feminine expectations. This video has a proto-meme quality to it in - the y2k dadaesque video formats called “YouTube Poop” collaging video into an estranged recreation of the source. -
Jenny Holzer
Lustmord Table
bones, engraved silver, wood table
MoCA Referencing violence in Yugoslavian war, Holzer utilizes her trademark text to label human bones, associating them with women violence against them. This disturbing work uses text-on-flesh in tandem to illustrate sexual crimes of power played out on women’s bodies. Her language comes from the perspective of the trinity: perpetuator, victim, and observer. This work confronts the viewer with bodily tools.