Feminism & Photography Initial Research: Jemima Stehli

 I am looking at the work of Jemima Stehli as my initial research for my photographic project.  I chose to start with Stehi as; 'she places herself as either subject or object of the image and often as both. In so doing she explores the relationship between sculpture, photography and performance and underlies the tensions that exist between these mediums.' (Jemima Stehli: Galeria Miguel Nabinho (n.d) 

From Strip Series (2000) Jemima Stehli

From the 1980s Stehli intended to make photographic work that provoked and the Strip series (above) created much controversy, Schwabsky writes; 'I had already heard several people say that they had no intention of seeing it. What was it that had gotten on their nerves? Apparently, they were revulsed by “Strip,” 1999/2000, an earlier group of photographs, which Stehli had made in collaboration with a number of male critics.' (Schwabsky, 2001)  The idea here of turning the male gaze on its head and confronting this in a rather uncomfortable head-on situation (Stehli stripping, the critic watching).  Stehli does this in several works where she has remade great artworks so that the feminist perspective is shown.  In After Helmut Newton's "Here They Come" (1999) Stehli recreates Newton's statuesque model using her own body and in a postmodern version (a little like Jeff Wall's 'Picture for Women' (1979)) the remote cable can be seen and Stehli stares directly into the lens looking directly at the viewer/voyeur of this image.

After Helmut Newton’s “Here They Come,” (1999) Jemima Stehli

Helmut Newton's "Here They Come" (1981)

These recreations all have a performative aspect which appeals to me as I enjoy creating performative photographic images and although I am not intending to recreate as Stehli does here, I need to find a way to express the issues for feminists today.  We appear to be entering the fifth wave of feminism and yet it seems even more fractured than at any other time, and no one yet can agree on what this is or how it should look.  What is clear though is that women are still battling with everyday sexism, misogyny, lack of equality, and many other serious issues surrounding women's rights and their own bodies, the rape crisis in the UK with a percentage of convictions so low (1%) that the message seems to be that you can get away with rape.  Domestic violence, abuse, and so many other issues that affect women seem to still be living large.  

Stehli, in her images, confronts the men staring defiantly out or almost shouting that she exists as a person, not an object/objectified being.  Schwabsky asks; 'What draws such a rancorous reaction is that Stehli undermines the basis of her own critique by displaying the female body as a glamorous object. Is this naïveté or a calculated ploy to have it both ways? ' (Schwabsky, 2001).  This is often a question asked of women artists who use their own bodies in their work, here I would argue that clearly, a woman's body is a powerful symbol that has been objectified and women taking back control of how their bodies are used with art is a powerful statement.  

References

Hohl, K. (2022) New scorecards show under 1% of reported rapes lead to conviction – criminologist explains why England's justice system continues to fail, City, University of London. City, University of London. Available at: https://www.city.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2022/04/new-scorecards-show-under-1-of-reported-rapes-lead-to-conviction-criminologist-explains-why-englands-justice-system-continues-to-fail (Accessed: October 26, 2022). 

Jeff Wall Photography, bio, ideas (no date) The Art Story. Available at: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/wall-jeff/ (Accessed: October 26, 2022). 

Jemima Stehli: Galeria Miguel Nabinho (no date) Galeria. Available at: https://www.miguelnabinho.com/jemima-stehli (Accessed: October 26, 2022). 

Schwabsky, B. (2001) Barry Schwabsky on Jemima Stehli, The online edition of Artforum International Magazine. Artforum. Available at: https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/200102/jemima-stehli-49250 (Accessed: October 26, 2022). 

Project Plan: Feminism/Photography

 Please find my project plan here.  I will complete the tasks each week and I will explain them in more detail in the project posts.

Project Sign Off: Feminism & Photography

 I have now completed my project sign-off for my negotiated project.  Below is one of the artist's works I will be discussing through my research; Jemima Stehli, Table 2.  This work references the work of Allen Jones which can be seen below.  Through this work I will look at the second to the fourth waves of feminism and discuss. 

My own work has an element of performance and through analysing these works I hope to explore ideas of performance and photography in relation to a woman's body.

Table 2 (1997-98) Jemima Stehli

Objectifying women, 1969, Allen Jones

Please find my project sign-off: Feminism, Performance & Photography here.

SMART Objective: Feminism/Photography

 

Robert Morris with Carolee Scheeman , 1968

SMART Objective: Major Project Feminism & Photography

In my photographic project this term I will be creating an Image and Text book, this will be both digital and hard copy and will be created on Blurb.  The concept of the book will be a feminist 'performance piece' that has been photographed to create a narrative, that celebrates women and art using boundaries and instructions.  The images will be taken on my Olympus DSLR OMD MkII and I may also use polaroids. My target market for this work will be Generation X as I believe it will appeal to my own generation and will reference forms of feminism and photography that they will be aware of.  I will complete this and upload to a gallery on my website by the beginning of December.

Milanote Research Ideas for Feminism & Photography Project

 I have created a Milanote board to explain my ideas and my ideas for the research I will carry out for my proposed feminism and Photography project.  By doing this I realised I was more interested in the idea of performance and using the text/image book like the artists; Schneemna, Ono, and Stehli to put forward a feminist perspective through the work I will produce.

Please also find the link to my Milanote Board here.

Ideas Generation for Major Project: Feminism/Photography

 Continuing on my theme of Feminism for the term I would like to do work about Feminism through photography.

This could take various forms - I could work with my own body as a woman, or I could work through objects and stories like Sophie Calle and her work Striptease where Calle worked as a Striptease artist and turned this into her artwork.  'Calle's oeuvre has flirted with these opposites: control and freedom, choice and compulsion, intimacy and distance.'(Jeffries, 2009)  I like the idea of a small book and a narrative and like Calle and Yoko Ono following a set of instructions or using boundaries to create images.

Sophie Calle's Striptease (1979)

Here are examples of Yoko Ono's instruction paintings 

Yoko Ono Instruction Paintings

I would like to consider instructions for photographs further and perhaps use existing ideas or stories that would work for my instructions for photographs.  I do also enjoy photographic instruction manuals and This is also something I might like to play with as an idea for creating a photographic instruction manual.

Polaroid Instruction Manual for the Land Camera 1970s

This could be really good for the feminism and photography theme and this is definitely an idea to be explored further through research.  I have many Photography books and manuals as I collect these so the source material here would be original and very useful. 

I will consider all these ideas and I will add more when I feel I have decided on the idea I would like to pursue.

References

Jeffries, S. (2009) Sophie Calle: Stalker, stripper, sleeper, spy, The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/sep/23/sophie-calle (Accessed: October 20, 2022). 

Feminism Campaigns Advert Research

While creating my own advert I looked at other feminist campaigns and consider how they worked, how successful the message was and who the target market was.  I began by looking at Emma Watson's Un Speech as what I wanted to convey was very much in line with the ideas that Watson is talking about in her speech.

Here Watson talks about the importance of men and boys being involved in change, she discusses the word 'feminism' and how unpopular this is and how women have turned away from this stating; 'my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word. Women are choosing not to identify as feminists. Apparently, I’m among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, and anti-men. Unattractive, even.' ( Cole L.N. 2020)  This speech really does have the basis of good Feminism that if these values were embraced by both sexes perhaps real change could begin.  

HeforShe is still going strong and their website has resources and action kits and ideas so that YOU can get involved and promote change. HeforShe website.  The target audience is all men and all women, so we can really work together for gender equality.

Another campaign - 'This is what a Feminist Looks like' was high profile and the Fawcett Society & Elle the fashion Magazine promoted this campaign.  'The Fawcett Society's story begins with Millicent Fawcett, a suffragist and women's rights campaigner who made it her lifetime’s work to secure women the right to vote.' (FawcettSociety 2022)  now it still continues and promotes women's rights across the globe.  The campaign that we are discussing here - 'This is what a feminist looks like' (2014) started well with many male celebrities and politicians wearing T-shirts to promote feminism. Conscious Magazine stated;  “This is What A Feminist Looks Like” shirts that you might have seen on the chests of some of the most in-demand men in Hollywood to raise awareness for this movement (in the guise of consumerism, of course, but we can save capitalist holidays/agendas for another time). In theory, the idea of getting influential men to spread the word about, and trying to normalize, feminism, sounds like a decent way to attract more men to join the cause'(Katebi, 2014) and it really did and it is a pity that teh fashion idustry acyauly brought thsi campaign with a bang as it was disciveered that teh T-shirts were being made by women in sweatshops in Mauritius for pennies an hour causing the men to withdraw from the campaign, all the profits from the T-shirts were going to promote women's rights and women's charities. 

Benedict Cumberbatch, 'This is what a feminist looks like' 2014

I have looked at these two campaigns as they were of the same mindset as my own, engage men and change could happen.  Education, conversation and understanding will get us further and we should be trying to do this everyday and speak up when we see a woman being treated in a way that is not equal or fair.

We do need to keep going, we are now entering the 5th wave of feminism, what will it bring?  What will we contribute to change?

References

HeforShe (2022) HeForShe. Available at: https://www.heforshe.org/en/champions (Accessed: October 16, 2022).

Nicki Lisa Cole, P.D. (2020) Full transcript of Emma Watson's 2014 speech on Gender Equality, ThoughtCo. ThoughtCo. Available at: https://www.thoughtco.com/transcript-of-emma-watsons-speech-on-gender-equality-3026200 (Accessed: October 16, 2022).

FawcettSociety (2022) The Fawcett Society. Available at: https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/ (Accessed: October 16, 2022). 

Reporter, S. (2014) Nick Clegg: 'I wouldn't have worn pro-feminism T-shirt if I knew, Evening Standard. Available at: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/nick-clegg-i-wouldn-t-have-worn-profeminism-tshirt-if-i-knew-where-it-was-made-9836819.html (Accessed: October 16, 2022). 

Katebi, H. (2014) This is what a feminist looks like. The Feminist Shirt Controversy, Conscious Magazine. Available at: https://consciousmagazine.co/the-feminist-shirt-controversy/ (Accessed: October 16, 2022).