Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

The East is Red, the West is Bending –Martha Rosler.

Someone in the class asked, why is a piece about race considered feminist art? My initial reaction was that feminism goes beyond ‘women’s issues’ into analyzing further ideologies regarding race, class, imperialism, consumerism (sometimes), and mass culture—especially advertisement. Rosler’s piece is still relevant as a women’s issue, with the multiple other –isms embedded in the marking of Orientalism to women.

            The wok in question is aimed for its target audience of women cooking. Even if the brochure Rosler read out loud did not necessarily say “for women,” the traditional use of kitchens, cooking, and food is women’s arena. The categorically female body has been relegated to the kitchen; a woman’s place is in the kitchen is a typical aphrorism that might be extended to the woman’s body’s place is in the kitchen. Although it may be questionable as to whether or not Rosler was actually inside of a kitchen, her props and set-up resembled one. As such, kitchenware marketing can be seen as a direct address to women.

            So what do global politics have to do with the kitchen? The marketing of the wok represented an essentialist, orientalist representation of “the Orient.” Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian cultures have been lumped together into one “type” of “Oriental.” The wok comes from China, but the language used in the brochure and the additional props surrounding the wok reflect Japanese culture and customs (geisha girl postcard, sake, dried seaweed, etc) without bothering to differentiate between the two cultures. This dismissive attitude of Asian cultures is indicative of a larger ruling ideology, one that has normalized white America and exotified other countries in relation to the norm. As a white American woman, Rosler’s performance of the wok brochure shows how the electric wok company ridiculously appropriates, dilutes, and mass-produces a cooking tool into a commodity that reflects a prejudiced mentality.

            Rosler’s body and what she puts on it mimics the orientalist assumptions. She wears a vaguely recognizable mandarin collared shirt with a recognizably “Asian” print and fabric. She occasionally puts the dome-lid on her head, mimicking the image of the conical straw hat used in several Asian countries. The image of this particular hat shape is a symbol of Asian people, appropriated and used often in demeaning ways. A simple wikipedia search informed me that this ‘icon’ is linked to the derogatory, race-based slur “coolie.” (The search also provided me with this link, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/04/18/MN109646.DTL, illustrating how this article of adornment/clothing was appropriated by teen-targeted clothing manufacturer Abercrombie and Fitch in 2002.)

            Another element in the racism towards Asia is linked to politics, to Communism. I’m less familiar with the American representation of Asia as “red” and Communist, and, by extension, “bad,” but the last few minutes of the video show Chairman Mao (at the very end, his body is partially obscured by the title card; yet even just the slivers of his shoulder and face [a political mugshot] is recognizable, loaded with communist affiliations.) Another wikipedia search tells me Chairman Mao died about a year before this video was made or released. The use of Chairman Mao as a symbol of how Americans are exposed to Asian culture feels significant. Linking Communism to Asian people is a way of keeping non-white races separate from white American ‘democracy’. Keeping white women feeling estranged from Asian women is a way to keep America the ‘norm,’ and, arguably, a way to keep women of all races from solidarity against such systems of oppression.

Through the Large Glass --Hannah Wilke

I found Wilke’s play with Duchamp’s art compelling. From my understanding, Duchamp in his time often ‘misused’ gallery spaces. One art piece he did involved wrapping miles of string around a gallery in which other artists displaying paintings or sculptures. The wrapping of the string was his art contribution, his play with the gallery. Wilke invokes this mentality but adds to it. According to Bridget Irish, Wilke was belittled as an artist because she was attractive. I got the feeling, in her deadpan strip tease, Wilke was saying something like, “This is what I am, isn’t it? A sex object? Isn’t this what you want to see? You don’t want to see my art, you only see my body. Well, here it is.” Her body was so out of place in the gallery, behind this artwork—and this is just it: her body should be out of place in the art world, her body should not be an issue as to whether or not her art is accepted. From what I know of Wilke’s photography, much of it is about women’s bodies, and in specific her own body, often naked depictions. So the fact that her art is about her body complicates matters, but the end result is still that her body as an extension of her self should not be equated into the art criticism. If she has been called exhibitionist, this is in the eye of the beholder. Has anyone ever called the nude female models used by innumerous (male) artists exhibitionists?

Vertical Roll –Joan Jonas

I found this piece the most engaging right off the bat. The other works of art I had to speculate on, find outside information, and interact through language to gleam depth from. With Jonas’ work, I immediately responded to it on a non-verbal level. To write about it feels to cheat it of its success, but I’ll try anyway.

            The most compelling aspect of this was how conscious it is of its medium, its form. The vertical roll struck me as film frames; the illusion of the moving image was broken down. It’s comparable to Brechtian theories, alienating the form from the content and making the viewer aware that this is a video rather than another reality to get sucked into. At the same time, the homemade aesthetic evoked the reality of making this video, as Jonas moved her body slowly in an out of the frames.

            The use of the female body engaged the idea of the male gaze, the desiring gaze. The broken up imagery made it difficult to focus on the body, no matter how much the viewer may have wanted to. I know I wanted to focus on it, to see it clearly, and I recognized its female form. The addition of grating, repetitive noise also alienated the viewer from getting sucked into the illusion of film. When the noise started, I was flinching and uncomfortable. However, after a while, I found the noise rhythmic and eerily beautiful; violent but intentional and innocent.  The disconnect between the noise and what was visually happening also reminded me that this is a video, not an illusion, not necessarily reality as I know it.