Marah Siyam
Professor Cacolio
Women and Art
Post 3
4/23/20
Women Artists, Gender, and Racism
Women have been subjected to violence and sexism since millennia on different degrees although, out the world, this combines to create a harder path for women artists to be recognized and appreciated for their work. Gender inequality is defined as the imbalance of power between men and women in places of work and social scenes when this is combined with race sexism and racism build a harder wall for women artists to climb over. Women of color are disenfranchised more than white women or white-passing women. Artists like Mona Hatoum, Mine Okubo, Elizabeth Catlett, Eva Hesse, May Stevens, these artists exhibit the struggle women of color have experienced in the United States and elsewhere.
Mona Hatoum is a Palestinian living artist working out of London currently. Hatoum’s work focuses on issues like conflict and war. One of her pieces Measures of Distance 1988 is an installation video piece that shows her mother showering with Arabic writing over it the video with a conversation between Hatoum and her mother playing over the video. This piece speaks about the roles of women and the implication of war and the displacement of women’s faces. The Conflict and occupation of Palestine is a common subject of her work which creates barriers since those who do not support the Palestinian right to return and cause, this racism affect the work of Palestinian artists very negatively alongside the gender roles attached to female artists.
Mona Hatoum
Measures of Distance 1988
Just like Hatoum who was displaced, artist Mine Okubo was always displaced from the States for being Japanese and the intense racism and xenophobia that Japanese people experienced in the 1940s. Whitney Chadwich describes these events and their effect on Okubo “while living in relocation centers at Tanforan and Topaz, she executed many paintings and drawings in charcoal, pen, and ink... That forcefully expresses the effects of dislocation on the lives of America’s Japanese communities and their families” (Chadwick, 318). One of these paintings is Okubo’s Miné Okubo, “Waiting in lines, Tanforan Assembly Center, San Bruno, California,” 1942, the title of this piece describes the situation of it and the way Okubo’s heritage and gender come together to create hurdles but her work spoke volumes about these atrocities making them hard to sweep under the rug.
Miné Okubo, “Waiting in lines, Tanforan Assembly Center, San Bruno, California,” 1942. Drawing. Courtesy of Japanese American National Museum, gift of Miné Okubo Estate, 2007.62.
Elizabeth Catlett was a very prominent African American artist whose work was heavily influenced by the Harlem Renaissance and other very socially conscious issues that impacted the African American community. Catlett traveled to Mexico and took part in a print shop. Upon coming back to the states, she was targeted by the “House Un-American Activities Committee for her left-wing political beliefs, Catlett decided to become a Mexican citizen” (Chadwick, 318). Catlett’s' race not only impacted her work but the threats and the violence against her forced her to even move out of the country for safety. One of her works is Sharecropper that the Harvard Gazette describes as “the exhibition’s most iconic work, “Sharecropper,” a female farmer, her face worn by the elements and years of toil, carries an expression that has been described as both “determined and commanding” (Walsh). Catlett’s work encompasses in a sad way the implications that African American women especially have faced and continue to face.
Elizabeth Catlett Sharecropper 1952
Another African American artist that did a lot of work around the racism the African American community experienced along with stereotypes about them and gender roles, is May Stevens. Stevens worked very closely with the Civil Rights movement and one of the works that address these injustices against African Americans is her piece Big Daddy, Paper Doll 1968. This piece uses all of the racist ways African Americas are depicted in the media at the time while addressing the stereotypes that were still alive and well at the time.
May Stevens 1924 Big Daddy Paper Doll, 1970.
Eva Hesse was a German-born, Jewish American artist whos family had fled Nazi Germany. Because of Hesse’s backgrounds, her experiences of racism and discrimination are on a grand scale that has impacted her since birth. This discrimination is what drove Hesse’s work with items like rope and latex. Along with this racism, Hesse also felt the gender inequality present in her life, a quote from her that states this is “ I cannot be something for everyone… Women, beautiful, artist, wife, house-keeper, cook, saleslady, all these things. I cannot even be myself or know who I am”. One of her pieces that depicts this discrimination and sexism is Hang up 1966 the simplicity of this piece is described by Chadwick as a “characteristic of her work in refusing to declare its meaning or to locate an inner truth” (Chadwick 339).
Eva Hesse Hang Up 1966
All of these women artists paved the way for women artists today, they all encompass the struggle women have been fighting against racism and gender inequality all around the world and their work will continue to inspire future generations of women from all backgrounds.
Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. Thames Hudson Ltd, 2020.
Walsh, Colleen. “Principled Expression.” Harvard Gazette, Harvard Gazette, 31 May 2019, news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/04/principled-expression/.
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