Politics of Representation

Tracing the Subversion and Reclamaition of the Female Body in

American Art
Grace Tully, History 310















1
Looking and looking back, women involve ourselves in a process whereby we see our history as counter-
memory, using it as a way to know the present and invent the future.

These words, penned by feminist and author Gloria Jean Watkins (hereafter referred to by her pen name,
bell hooks), encapsulate the ideology of feminist artists throughout the twentieth century. The feminist art
movement of the 1970s was both a catalyst for the eventual recognition and ongoing transcendence of traditional
gender roles, and a broader reflection of the sociopolitical ideologies of the timebut for African American,
queer, and working class women in particular, it became an ongoing quest to reclaim the body from the
oppressive artistic representation that had contributed to their paradoxical establishment as both the sexual
possessions and the sexual pariahs of the West. While Civil Rights marches, antiwar protests, and student
movements ushered in a graffiti-stained era of artistic protest across the United States, American feminist artists
produced an influx of vibrant, textured art that sought to reconstruct and redefine female representation in
contemporary visual culture.

Part I. The Capitalist Representation of the Female Form
In the tumultuous sociopolitical climate of the twentieth century, pop culture attempted to communicate
the human experience through visual representation. Throughout human society, social constructions of gender
and sexuality act simultaneously as reflections of and driving forces behind visual representation, perpetuated by
the practice of capitalism. The omnipotence of a capitalist system, and the vital part it plays in the subjugation and
exploitation of the human body, is identifiable in the systems self-immortalization, achieved through a calculated
dependency on the self-interest of mankind. Through pervasive necessitation of materialism, and a tendency to
draw dichotomies between what is autonomous and what can be owned, capitalism has historically enabled the
rise of power-based economies in which the human body can be bought and sold. This capitalistic
commodification of the human form, coupled with the obscured differentiation between man and material it
creates, generates a subjective definition of humanity upon which systematic inequality is able to permeate a
given sociopolitical climate.
The capitalist fixation on ownership is inextricably tied to human physicality, as noted by author Patricia
Hill Collins, who explains, Sexuality is not simply a biological function; rather, it is a system of ideas and social
practices that is deeply implicated in shaping American social inequalities.
1
The highly sexualized visual culture

1
Patricia Collins, Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism (New York: Routledge, 2004), 6.


2
of the West has established a powerful representational presence, fueled by fantasy and phobia, property and
propagation, commodification and control. It is therefore unsurprising that, in a nation where consumption
became obligatory by virtue of omnipresence, the systematic maltreatment of American women has historically
thrived on a particular form of capitalismthe commodification of sex, fueled by various visual representations
of the female form.

Part II. The Body and the Gaze: Black Female Representation in Western Art
Never able to establish itself as a fully unified image, female bodily representation in the West has
historically existed in visual duality: with an obverse (white) and reverse (non-white) side. Therefore, although it
is ironic that an ongoing effort to deconstruct racial and gender roles can best be addressed using binary terms, it
is only through the dichotomous cultural lenses of male versus female, white versus non-white, civilized versus
primal, and material versus visceral, that the modern viewer can truly understand the archetypes of the Black
female body against which African American feminist artists of the 1970s juxtaposed their work. Although
philosopher Michel Foucault encouraged Black artists to explore the various margins and gaps of their own
bodies in order to find the sexual and artistic agency within which he believed there is necessarily a possibility of
resistance,
2
many African American women, haunted by a specter of bodily subjugation barely rivaled in human
history, found this form of aesthetic introspect impossible. A body that is already colonized, Lorraine OGrady
explains, a body that has been raped, maimed, murderedthat is what we must give a healthy present.
3
And
this lingering sense of shame and lack of ownership in Black women was not limited to the physical body; just as
a plantation owner in the Antebellum South could punish a female slave for holding an impetuous stare, white
male capitalists used their ability to control the Black female gaze in order to reinforce a distinctive power
structure within Western visual representation.
4

One classic paradigm of the sexual stereotypes that plagued Black women in the West is Edouard Manets
Olympia (Appendix A, Fig. 1): a sensuous depiction of a white woman clad in nothing but a pair of heeled
sandals, lying on a bed and staring directly at the viewer. Identifiable as a prostitute by her name, Olympia
reclines in a manner reminiscent of Venus of Urbino, receiving flowers from a Black female servant who

2
Hooks, Bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1992) 115
3
O'Grady, Lorraine. "Olympia's Maid: Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity" Afterimage 20, no. 1 (1992): 18.
4
Hooks, Bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1992) 117


3
represents her Venus noire (Black Venus).
5
The composition of Olympia reinforces the concept of the Black
female body serving the primary function of enhancing and maintaining white womanhood as object of the
phallocentric gaze,
6
with the Black servant acting as part of the backdrop: inspiring carnal thoughts in the
audience while simultaneously ensuring that their lustful attention remains fixated on the central (white) figure.
Her body exists, like some bizarre form of racial chiaroscuro, to personify the white womans sexuality and to
enhance her desirability by emphasizing the fairness of her skin; and while Olympia herself confronts the
observer by starting directly out of the frame, the eyes of the Black servant remain downcast.
In the late twentieth century, black feminist artists Adrian Piper and Renee Cox both challenged Manets
implicated stereotypes of the sexual servitude of Black women, emphasizing their efforts to recover the artistic
representation of the Black female body and the Black female gaze. In a private loft performance in 1971 entitled
Food for the Spirit (Appendix A, Fig. 2), Piper photographed the physical changes she underwent over a period of
time spent fasting and reading Kants Critique of Pure Reason,
7
and uses the transformation of her own body to
bridge the dichotomy between the tangible and the transient, the visceral and the ethereal, the enduring and the
evanescent. The philosophically fueled physicality of Pipers performance was recognized a paradigm for the
willingness to look, to get past the embarrassment and retrieve the mutilated body.
8
Twenty years later,
photographer Renee Cox also established a distinctive representation of her physical body through her artwork:
successfully combatting sight-based artistic barriers by utilizing what bell hooks called The oppositional gaze.
9

In her seven-foot tall self portrait entitled Yo Mama (Appendix A, Fig. 3), in which she acts simultaneously as
photographer and model, observer and object of observation, Cox challenges the stereotype of the Black female
mammy: standing naked except for a pair of black high heels, holding her son like a weapon in her arms, her
eyes trained unflinchingly on someone or something off-camera. Her unapologetic utilization of her own ability to
look is on constant display in her photographsneither timid nor openly aggressive, Cox challenges the audience
with the raw humanity of her gaze.




5
Gilman, Sander L.. "Black Bodies, White Bodies: Toward An Iconography Of Female Sexuality In Late Nineteenth-Century Art,
Medicine, And Literature." Critical Inquiry 12, no. 1 (1985): 204.
6
Hooks, Bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1992)
7
O'Grady, Lorraine. "Olympia's Maid: Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity," Afterimage 20, no. 1 (1992): 18.
8
O'Grady, Lorraine. "Olympia's Maid: Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity," Afterimage 20, no. 1 (1992): 18
9
Hooks, Bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1992)


4
Part III. Absence of Imagery and Presence of Memory: Queer Female Representation in American Art
If the race-based representation of women in American visual culture was dichotomous during the
twentieth century, then queer female representation was entirely contradictory. Although it was designed to
accommodate and inspire women who wish to seek an alternative to patriarchal reality,
10
lesbian photography
was essentially an autobiographical paradox, establishing an array of conflicting images surrounding female
sexuality that reflected the socially induced shame and self-loathing felt by homosexual women in America. Artist
and essayist Ann Gibson theorizes that no form of artwork is entirely naturalist, and that although photographys
ability to preserve an image essentially allows it become a manifestation of memory, fantasy saturates even the
most fleeting human of perceptions. Photographs therefore lend a tangible presence to ideality, Gibson argues, but
function not as reflections of reality but as alternatives and enhancements to it: fulfillments of wishes, idealized
models cast ahead of us as visual guideposts to what we hope to become.
11
Because of this, representational
absences in photography (forgetting) become as important as representational presences (remembering), with
neither acting as a completely accurate depiction of situational reality, but both providing valuable insight into the
autobiographical nature of the work. With this in mind, the absence of sexuality in lesbian photography
throughout the 1980s seems equally as symbolic and meaningful as its eventual inclusion at the end of the
twentieth century.
The social justice movements of the 1970s were largely unaccommodating to American lesbianism: the
connections between homophobia and misogyny resulted in the eventual erasure of queer women from the Gay
Rights Movement, while their exclusion from Second Wave Feminism was finalized when Betty Friedan called
lesbianism a lavender herring against the feminist cause.
12
In their pursuit of social acceptance, many lesbian
artists attempted to visually normalize female homosexuality: emphasizing its spiritual and emotional components
while ignoring its sexual connotations altogether.
13
In doing so, these women underwent a sort of self-induced
representational sterilization in their photography: posing with their lovers for conservative portraits through
which they sought to evoke normalcy and domesticity (Appendix A, Fig. 4). Surrounding themselves with house
pets and furniture, the subjects of these 1980s portraits of lesbianism engage in what Gibson describes as a

10
Klein, Jennie. "The Lesbian Art Project." Journal of Lesbian Studies 14, no. 2-3 (2010): 238-259.
11
Grover, Jan Zita. "Framing the Questions." Stolen Glances: Lesbians Take Photographs. London: Pandora Press, 1991. 71.
12
Hirshman, Linda .Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution (Kindle Locations 1988-1990). Harper. Kindle Edition. 2012.
13
Grover, Jan Zita. "Framing the Questions." Stolen Glances: Lesbians Take Photographs. London: Pandora Press, 1991. 75.


5
complex forgetting of present realities,
14
which insulates them from the hostility of their environment and
creates an alternative reality in which they can live conventional lives. But by denouncing, or at least
disregarding, lesbian sexuality, these artists subjected themselves and their communities to a sort of
representational female castration. Even more problematically, their self-isolation from physical desire
inadvertently delegitimized a crucial factor in their identity as lesbiansfor as Gibson notes, To ignore the
physical sexuality of lesbian intimacy is to dilute its most radical potential.
15

It was not until the end of the twentieth century that the lesbian art community finally began to reject the
cultural representations of lesbianism as asexual in American art. As lesbian artists slowly came to recognize the
power of their unique ability to resist patriarchy by disallowing male power to determine female desire,
representations of female sexuality by lesbian artists become freely and unabashedly erotic, as the communities of
queer female artists aimed To let it be known that lesbians have sex too.
16
In 1990, two lesbian feminist artists,
Lizard Jones and Susan Stewart, showcased an exhibition entitled Drawing the Line (Appendix A, Fig. 5).
Appearing at first glance to be simply a sequence of erotic photographs featuring a lesbian couple engaging in a
variety of sexual desiresfrom light kissing and embraces to whipping, bondage, and voyeurismDrawing the
Line actually invited viewers to consider where they would draw the line between permissible and pornographic,
even allowing female spectators to write their reactions on the panels on the walls.
17
In acknowledging that
identity is a form of representation, and that lesbianism is fundamentally tied to sexual preference and desire, the
photographers behind Drawing the Line created a controversial and ingenious body of work that was
characterized by the breaking of taboos around womens bodies and spirits.
18
Their exhibition made stunningly
clear the consequences of insufficient subcultural representation, and through the array of fetishizes depicted in
the photographs, diversified the sexual representation of lesbianism in Americas visual culture. For the first time
in history, lesbian representation in American art became self-generated, self-dictated, and inherently self-
gratifying.



14
Gibson, Ann. "Lesbian Identity and the Politics of Representation in Betty Parson's Gallery." Journal of Homosexuality 27, no. 1-2
(1994): 245-270.
15
Gibson, Ann. "Lesbian Identity and the Politics of Representation in Betty Parson's Gallery." Journal of Homosexuality 27, no. 1-2
(1994): 245-270.
16
Grover, Jan Zita. "Framing the Questions." Stolen Glances: Lesbians Take Photographs. London: Pandora Press, 1991. 75.
17
Grover, Jan Zita. "Framing the Questions." Stolen Glances: Lesbians Take Photographs. London: Pandora Press, 1991. 75.
18
Klein, Jennie. "The Lesbian Art Project." Journal of Lesbian Studies 14, no. 2-3 (2010): 238-259.


6
Part IV. Pornography, Prostitution, and Pleasure: Working Class Female Representation in American Art
The final degradation of the female body through visual representation, predictable in its initiation but
startling in its magnitude, was the commodification of working class women that accompanied the rise of the
American sex industry. Enabled by the practice of prostitution and popularized by the development of video
pornography, the sex industry in United States provided economic opportunity for women of the working class
while simultaneously exploiting them through what essayist Jacqueline Rose describes as A series of positions
on female sexuality: each a kind of consumption, each with its own nexus of knowledge, pleasure or power.
19

The most egregious examples of the American sex industrys physical and visual degradation of working
class women and their bodies began in 1972 with the enormous commercial success of the Deep Throat
(Appendix A, Fig. 6)an American pornographic film in which a sexually frustrated woman (played by working-
class actress Linda Susan Boreman, under the pseudonym Linda Lovelace), pays a visit to her doctor, discovers
that her clitoris is located in her throat, and develops, by necessity, a set of remarkable oral sex skills.
20
Following
the theatrical release of Deep Throat, American society witnessed the ten-year period of dramatic transformation
within visual culture that would later become known as The Golden Age of Porn, during which many working
class American women (if they had not already joined the estimated 84,000 prostitutes working in the United
States at the time
21
) entered into the vibrant commercial industry of video pornography. Unsurprisingly, this era of
commercial eroticization brought the standards of visual representation for working class women to almost
unprecedented lows.
The astonishing commercial success of Deep Throat, which made Variety's chart of the 50 top-grossing
films in both 1972 and 1973,
22
was oddly prophetic for the rest of the porns Golden Age: for although the film
was intended as a comedy, its singular focus on male pleasure, unapologetic degradation of female actresses, and
reinforcement of the notion that sexual satisfaction and female brutalization are fundamentally intertwined, made
it a fitting cultural predecessor to the misogyny and female subversion that characterized the rest of this Golden
Age. The very word Pornography, which became newly popularized in America during the late twentieth
century, actually derived from word porn!: a derogatory term used in Ancient Greece to refer to the lowest of the

19
Rose, Jacqueline. Sexuality In the Field of Vision. London: Verso, (1986) 225-233
20
" Williams, Linda. "The Money Shot and Deep Throat." In Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the "Frenzy of the Visible". Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1989. 510.
21
Vito, Gennaro F., and Ronald M. Holmes. "Prostitution." In Criminology: Theory, Research, and Policy. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth
Pub. Co.,1994. 363.
22
Lewis, Jon. Hollywood v. Hard Core: How the Struggle Over Censorship Created the Modern Film Industry. New York: New York
University Press, 2002.


7
brothel workers.
23
In Ancient Greek culture, the only images of sexuality disgraced by the name pornography
were those that included graphic depictions of the vile porneiabut contemporary language adopted the term for
all depictions of sexuality in which a woman is paid to participate, and so all of the female sex workers in the
twentieth century became, in essence, American societys porneia: existing as public property by virtue of
necessity and representation. The American whore belongs to all male citizens, essayist Andrea Dworkin
observes. Buying her is buying pornography. Having her is having pornography. Seeing her is seeing
pornography. Being her means being pornography.
24

But in stark contrast to these demeaning images of femininity being propagated and popularized by visual
representations like Deep Throat, widespread feminist and artistic sentiments of the 1970s allowed for the rise of
a new kind of sex worker: an American woman who celebrated her right to seek pleasure and claim autonomy
through sexual exploration and vibrant performance art. Beginning with artist and former prostitute Annie
Sprinkles self-pleasuring performance, Legend of the Ancient Sacred Prostitute (Appendix A, Fig. 7), in which
she masturbated live and onstage in front of her audience, physical and visual representations of masturbation and
other forms of self-gratification became the primary modes of expression through which female sexual ecstasy
could be explored.
25
Women in the sex industry were particularly influenced by the sexual freedom and
independence that masturbation offered them: as Dworkin later notes, The image of the masturbatory female
haunts a great deal of pornography; but the masturbatory femalein no dire need of a man to satisfy her, is new.
This woman is simultaneously insatiable and satisfied, capable of both continuing her pleasure indefinitely and
satisfying herself through her own efforts at clitoral stimulation.
26

Universal, accessible, and celebratory of the solitude and independence of female sexuality, images of
masturbation permeated mainstream culture more effectively than almost any other feminist redefinition of
physical female representation at the time. For the duration the twentieth century, American feminist artists, and
especially those of the working class, treated masturbation as an antithesis to exploitative sexual industries.
Through performance art and personal exploration, former prostitutes and pornographic actresses initiated a

23
Dworkin, Andrea. "Pornography." In Pornography: Men Possessing Women. New York: Perigee Books, 1981. 199-202.
24
Dworkin, Andrea. "Pornography." In Pornography: Men Possessing Women. New York: Perigee Books, 1981. 199-202.
25
" Williams, Linda. "The Money Shot and Deep Throat." In Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the "Frenzy of the Visible". Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1989. 510.
26
" Williams, Linda. "The Money Shot and Deep Throat." In Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the "Frenzy of the Visible". Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1989. 511.


8
public reaffirmation of their right to visceral pleasure. Their actions and art manifested themselves in a public and
powerful rejection of the misogynistic undertones of Americas Golden Age of Porn.

Part V. The Road to Intersectionality
Physical representation within visual culture is, and always has been, a reflection of the power balance in
any given society. In the post-Communist era, the preexisting Eurocentric, Christian, heterosexual, capitalist male
ethos of the United States was further imposed in order to maintain a unique American identity, making it nearly
impossible for minority women to substantially influence mainstream visual culture. Nevertheless, by engaging in
countless aspects of the body and gaze discourses in modern artistic theory, Black, queer, and working class
feminist artists spurred the mainstream feminist avant-garde to initiate a new and lasting discourse on and art and
culture. By fearlessly examining the intricacies and interconnections of various aesthetic and social histories,
these artists fostered a creative climate within which it eventually became, according to American feminist and
author Michele Wallace, hypothetically possible to publicly review and interrogate that very history of
exclusion.
27

Despite facing substantial opposition from the capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal structure of
American society, the feminist art movement of the 1970s challenged, and in some cases successfully
reconstructed, conventional visual representations of Black, queer, and working class women. While Black
feminist artists established their autonomy by reclaiming the representational independence of their bodies and
their gaze, queer feminist artists validated and diversified lesbian and bisexual eroticism in American art, and
working class women publicly reaffirmed their right to seek pleasure and sexual independence. Thus, in the
nation that struck a characteristic balance between pop culture and the avant-garde, amidst the very commercial
culture in which the female body had first become public property, American feminist artists of the late twentieth
century transcended circumstantial restrictions of their respective realities, enabling the vibrant potency of
their work to secure a lasting place within the history of American visual culture.




27
Jones, The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader, 212.


9
A. Image Appendix



Figure 1. Eduoard Manet, Olympia, 1862
Figure 2. Adrian Piper, Food for the Spirit, 1971


10
















Figure 3. Renee Cox, Yo Mama, 1996
Figure 4. Conventional photo of lesbian couple, Sage Sohier, 1980


11

















Figure 5. Photo excerpt from Drawing the Line, 1990
Figure 6. Theatrical advertisement for Deep Throat, 1972


12














Figure 7. Photo from Annie Sprinkles Legend of the Ancient Secret Prostitute, 1975


13
Works Cited
Primary Sources
High, Freida, In Search of a Discourse and Critique/s that Center the Art of Black Women Artists
Theorizing Black Feminisms: The Visionary Pragmatism of Black Women, 1993.

Dworkin, Andrea, Pornography: Men Possessing Women. New York: Perigee Books, 1981.

Gilman, Sander L."Black Bodies, White Bodies: Toward An Iconography Of Female Sexuality In Late
Nineteenth-Century Art, Medicine, And Literature." Critical Inquiry 12, no. 1 (1985)

Gibson, Ann. "Lesbian Identity and the Politics of Representation in Betty Parson's Gallery." Journal of
Homosexuality 27, no. 1-2 (1994)

Grover, Jan Zita. "Framing the Questions." In Stolen Glances: Lesbians Take Photographs. London: Pandora
Press, (1991).

Hooks, Bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1992.

O'Grady, Lorraine. "Olympia's Maid: Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity" Afterimage 20, no. 1 (1992)

Rose, Jacqueline. Sexuality in the Field of Vision. London: Verso, 1986.

Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn, Stanlie M. James, and Abena P.a. Busia. "Theorizing Black Feminisms: The Visionary
Pragmatism of Black Women." Contemporary Sociology 24, no. 4 (1995)


Secondary Sources

Collins, Patricia. Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism. New York: Routledge,
2004.

Jones, Amelia. The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader. London: Routledge, 2003.

Klein, Jennie. "The Lesbian Art Project." Journal of Lesbian Studies 14, no. 2-3 (2010)

Lewis, Jon. Hollywood v. Hard Core: How the Struggle Over Censorship Created the Modern Film Industry.
New York: New York University Press, 2002.

Robinson, Hilary. Feminism-Art-Theory: An Anthology, 1968-2000. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2001.

Vito, Gennaro F., and Ronald M. Holmes. "Criminology: Theory, Research, and Policy. Belmont, Calif.:
Wadsworth Pub. Co., (1994)

Williams, Linda. "Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the "Frenzy of the Visible". Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1989.





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Images Cited

Figure 1
"Olympia (Manet)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Apr. 2014. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.

Figure 2
MSVUArt: The Essays -- In/Visible Truths." MSVUArt: The Essays -- In/Visible Truths. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr.
2014.

Figure 3
Sarah Larrabee: Renee Cox." Visual Culture at Bryant University Spring 2013. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.

Figure 4

"Sage Sohiers Portraits of Gay Couples in the 1980!s." A Still World. http://astillworld.com/sage-sohiers-
portraits-of-gay-couples-in-the-1980s/ (accessed April 28, 2014).

Figure 5
"Drawing the Line: Lesbian Sexual Politics on the Wall Paperback May 13, 2002." Drawing the Line: Lesbian
Sexual Politics on the Wall: Susan Stewart, Persimmon Blackbridge, Lizard Jones: 9780889740303:
Amazon.com: Books. http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Line-Lesbian-Sexual-Politics/dp/0889740305 (accessed
April 28, 2014).

Figure 6
"Deep Throat." Wikipedia. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Deep_throat_PD_poster.jpg (accessed April
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Figure 7
"Annie Sprinkle." Feminist Art. http://psicologiadelarte.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/annie-sprinkle-031.jpg
(accessed April 6, 2104).