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WOMEN ARTISTS AND SURREALISM

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Page 1: Art 216- Women Artists

WOMEN ARTISTS AND SURREALISM

Page 2: Art 216- Women Artists

Women Artists

Women have played a more prominent role in the history of twentieth-century Latin American art than they have in that of either European or North American Modernism.

The prominence of women may spring, paradoxically, from eh machismo long inherent in Latin American culture.

This tends, at its most extreme, to categorize all the arts as belonging essentially to the feminine sphere, while the male arena is that of political and military action.

There is also the idea that women have the right to make statements about private feelings, while men must confine themselves to public statements, since the admission of the power of personal emotions in them counts as a weakness.

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The Tehuana dress originated in Oaxaca, a southeastern region of Mexico. This typical attire came to be a symbol for female power in a matriarchal society.

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Ex-votos An ex-voto is a votive offering to a saint or to a divinity. It is given in fulfillment of a vow (hence the Latin term, short for ex voto suscepto, "from the vow made") or in gratitude or devotion.

Ex-votos are placed in a church or chapel where the worshiper seeks grace or wishes to give thanks.

Ex-votos can take a wide variety of forms. They are not only intended for the helping figure, but also as a testimony to later visitors of the received help. As such they may include texts explaining a miracle attributed to the helper, or symbols such as a painted or modeled reproduction of a miraculously healed body part, or a directly related item such as a crutch given by a person formerly lame.

The most common type of ex-voto in Mexico is the painted kind.

Typically tin plates are painted by local ex-voto makers and have 3 sections. The heavens, the terrestrial where the situation happened, and the text.

Unknown. Ex-Voto dedicated to La Virgen de Guadalupe. 1929. Oil on tin. Mexico.

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Frida Kahlo1907-1954

• was a Mexican painter who is best known for her self-portraits. Kahlo's life began and ended in Mexico City, in her home known as the Blue House.

• Produces some of the most personal work up to date in Mexico at this time.

• Her work is often labeled as surrealist, although her work is more about her own biography versus her dreams or subconscious

• Every painting confronts us with the woman herself her joy, her defiance and her pain

• Kahlo prophesied the future preoccupations of Mexican art- the fact that it would turn away from Pre-Columbian themes and begin to look, instead, at the uniquely rich heritage of Mexican folk culture.

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Frida Kahlo

Art: closely intertwined not only with her relationship with Rivera but also with her chronic ill-health and her fierce Mexican nationalism.

Her paintings became way of trying to deal with her misfortunes, by allegorizing and thus exteriorizing them.

- Essentially untrained artist

- -inspired by Mexican retablos (ex-votos)

- Inspired by the work of Hermengildo Bustos

- Later influenced by the work of Rivera and other muralist

Self-Portrait with Diego and My Dog. 1953. Oil on Canvas

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Hermenegildo Bustos

Still Life with Fruit, Scorpion, and Frog1874 oil on canvas

Mexico• was a Mexican painter of mestizo

heritage; known mostly for portraits, although he also created religious paintings and still-lifes.

• His still lifes are of clear impact on Frida Kahlo’s work.

• Bustos, like Rivera, was a native of Guanajuato, and this may have been one reason for Frida’s interest in him and for her knowledge of his work

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FRIDA KAHLOPITAHAYAS1938Kahlo's depiction is realistic, even including two pitted rocks and round cactus to suggest the fruit's habitat. First, these pitahayas are decomposing; the healthy yellow skin has over-ripened to a garish red-orange. The skins have burst open, and brown rot has set in. One has been sliced open to reveal what we would expect, the white flesh and black seeds. The sectioned fruits stare out with other-earthly eyes. Presiding over the fruits is a small seated skeleton who holds a scythe that identifies it as the grim reaper–death itself. This figure is a calavera.

The still life is a meditation on death. Because of its watery freshness that can provide sustenance in the most barren of terrains, the pitahaya is known as the "fruit of the shipwrecked man." But even this most life-giving of fruits is given to decay.

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The Wounded Deer1946

Oil on Masonite Frida shares her enduring physical and emotional suffering with her audience.

This painting in particular was created towards the end of Kahlo's life, when her health was in decline.

Kahlo combines pre-Columbian, Buddhist, and Christian symbols to express her wide spectrum of influences and beliefs.

Pre-Columbian ideas and traditions, holds the belief that the right foot is represented by a deer. Kahlo adopted the deer as a symbol for herself because of its connection to the right foot, and in the Aztec calendar, she was born on day nine.

These two symbols together were not good, as nine was a symbol for earthly elements as well as the underworld, which was made up of nine phases.

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Henry Ford Hospital 1932

oil on tin (exvoto)This painting was inspired by the miscarriage Frida suffered at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, on July 4, 1932.

It was her first painting on tin

Frida depicts herself bleeding on the hospital bed. Her stomach is still swollen from the pregnancy and her eyes are filled with tears.

The six objects that surround her are connected to her body by red ribbons that resemble umbilical cords, and refer in some way to her miscarriage. Although bedridden, Frida does not depict herself in a hospital.

The Detroit skyline, with its smokestacks and industrial factories, serves as a backdrop.

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Self-Portrait on the Borderline Between

Mexico and the United Sstates

1932In 1930, when Diego received several commissions to paint murals in the United States, the couple packed their bags and headed north. At the end of four years, Diego remained content in his American surroundings, but Frida was homesick and miserable. Her experience living in "Gringolandia" inspired the painting

Frida on a pedestal, forms the diving line between two civilizations. The right side displays the industrial might of the United States, the left side pre-Hispanic civilizations. At the base of the pyramids, a pile of stones alludes to the development of Mexican archaeology n the 1930s, including several pre-Hispanic pieces from different cultures.

With earth tones, blooming flowers and light fluffy clouds, Frida contrasts Mexico’s industrialized northern neighbor with the natural surroundings of her homeland.

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The Two Fridas(las dos Fridas)

1939. oil on canvas Painted in 1939 at the time of her divorce from Diego, The Two Fridas is believed to be an expression of Frida's feelings at the time. This double self-portrait was the first large-scale work painted by Frida.

On the left is the Frida that Diego no longer loves wears a European dress, hinting at her dual heritage (her mother was Mexican and her father a German-Jewish immigrant). This Frida has an exposed broken and damaged heart, she sits stoically bleeding to death.

On the right: Although an open chest, the heart of the loved Frida remains whole. In her lap she clutched a miniature portrait of Diego.

The long red vein that emerges from the frame suggesting that Diego was not only her lover but her child as well.

Dressed in traditional Mexican garb- a Tehuana skirt and blouse- this is the Frida that Diego still loves . http://www.pbs.org/weta/fridakahlo/

worksofart/

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Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird 1940

Kahlo painted the self-portrait after her divorce from Diego Rivera.

The painting depicts Kahlo wearing a white dress with a monkey on her right shoulder and a cat on her left, wearing a necklace made of thorns and a dead hummingbird. The thorns dig into Kahlo's skin, making her bleed.

Kahlo was driven by the circumstances of her own life to produce a series of intensely personal self-portraits, which depicted a world of inner struggle and fierce determination to live.

According to Rivera, Kahlo was “the first woman in the history of art to treat, with absolute and uncompromising honesty, one might say with impassive cruelty, those general and specific themes which exclusively affect women”.

Elsewhere, he commended her as “the only example of in the history of art of an artist who tore open her chest and heart to reveal the biological truth of her feelings”.

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María Izquierdo1902-1955Mexico City

María Izquierdo is known for being the first Mexican woman to have her artwork exhibited in the United States.

She committed both her life and her career to painting art that displayed her Mexican roots

Classified by some as a surrealist painter, María Izquierdo never identified herself as a surrealist.

Still, many of her paintings contain unusual subject matters and interesting juxtapositions. Known for her use of bold, rich, and bright colors, most of Izquierdo's paintings were done using oil paints or watercolor.

Although she was and is still often compared to Frida Kahlo because both woman launched their careers at similar times, the two have very individual styles.

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Self-portrait1946

oil on canvas Early on, Izquierdo established herself as a painter of still lifes, altars, circus scenes, and portraits of women.

Making it a point to tie her art with Mexican popular tradition

She painted images that held personal meaning and was rooted in Mexican traditions. Images of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), the Mexican country side, and Catholic saints were common in her paintings. Her self-portraits often depicted her in traditional Mexican garments, for example Autorretrato (Self Portrait) made in 1946.

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The Open Cupboard

1946oil on canvas

Like Kahlo, María Izquierdo believed that the future of Mexican painting was not in Pre-Hispanic works but in works that idealized truly Mexican artifacts and culture.

Cupboard scenes are typical of Mexican Colonial paintings.

Izquierdo has continued with this tradition incorporating actual objects from her home that she associated with Mexico.

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Tony y Teresita actuando, 1945. Óleo sobre masonite

She saw art as communication to the soul and her frequent images of the circus traced back to her memories visiting the circus with her aunt and grandmother in San Juan de los Lagos, Jalisco

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Tina Modotti 1896-1942Udine, Italy

Italian born Tina Modotti moved to Mexico City after working in a photography studio in San Francisco with her father.

She instantly became associated with the bohemians of Mexico City including Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.

She was a member of the Communist Party and many of her photographs deal with the Revolution and were highly politically motivated.

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Workers Reading El Machete

1927gelatin silver print

She is also seen as one of Mexico’s first in a line of important women photographers, particularly her photographs of peasants, women and children and political iconography.

El Machete was a left wing newspaper founded in 1924. It was an outlet for the Syndicate of Technical workers, Painters, Sculptors, Writers and Revolutionary Printmakers of Mexico.

It was directed by Xavier Guerrero, Fermín Revueltas, Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros.

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Worker’s Hands 1927

gelatin silver print

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Illustration for a Mexican Song

1927

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Tehuantepec Type 1929

gelatin silver print

Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, Mexico. The city is known for its women and their traditional dress, which was adopted by Frida Kahlo.

Tehuantepec has a reputation for being a “matriarchal society.”

Women do dominate the local markets and are known to taunt men.

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Graciela Iturbide1942- present Mexico City

Graciela Iturbide was born in Mexico in 1942, the eldest of thirteen children. She was exposed to photography early on in life.

Iturbide's six-year-old daughter, Claudia, died in 1970; after this death she turned to photography.

Iturbide photographs everyday life, almost entirely in black-and-white.

She became interested in the daily life of Mexico's indigenous cultures and has photographed life in Mexico City, Juchitán, Oaxaca and on the Mexican/American border (La Frontera.)

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Nuesta Señora de las Iguanas

(our lady of the iguanas)

1979In a documentary style notable for its humanistic grace, the series focuses on the indigenous Zapotec people in the town of Juchitán, in southeastern Mexico, where women dominate all aspects of social life, from the economy to religious rituals.

The most emblematic image of the series, Our Lady of the Iguanas, shows the power and dignity of a Zapotec woman, who carries on her head live iguanas that form a bizarre crown.

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Untitled Graciela Iturbide1979 silver gelatin printHer photography is of the highest visual strength and beauty.

Graciela Iturbide has developed a photographic style based on her strong interest in culture, ritual and everyday life in her native Mexico and other countries.

Iturbide has extended the concept of documentary photography, to explore the relationships between man and nature, the individual and the cultural, the real and the psychological.

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Untitled. Graciela Iturbide.1969

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Lola Álvarez Bravo (1907–1993)

Born Dolores Martínez in Jalisco, Mexico. One of Mexico’s most important photographers. Like other women artists linked with famous male counterparts, her work has often been overshadowed by that of her husband, renowned photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo. They married in Mexico City in 1925 just as Manuel’s photography practice began to develop.

Manuel introduced Lola to the camera, the darkroom, and photography techniques, and she assisted him with developing and printing his images

Her keen eye produced stirring and expressive images of Mexican life with a contemporary sensibility

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Lola Alvarez BravoEl sueño de los

pobres (The Dream of the

Poor) 1949Began producing surrealist like photo-collages in 1935

This socially conscious work portrays a child clothed in asleep within a mix of shoes to be sold

Focuses on the urban and rural realities of the country and its traditions, as well as on the conditions for women and the less fortunate.

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Sirenas en el Aire(Mermaids of the

Air) 1958Alludes to the new role of women in post-

revolutionary Mexico.

In the 1930s, the opportunities for women’s intellectual and professional development were limited.

Alvarez Bravo observed “those of us who worked and succeeded in doing something and were respected for our efforts in our field were few and far in-between”

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Rosa RolandaSelf Portrait

1952Shows the influence of surrealism

Hands over her ears as if she does not want to hear what is happening around her.

The canvas is filled with figures and objects that refer to an event in her life

Uses painting in order to access the unconscious

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Rosa Rolanda Autoretrato

(Self Portrait)1945

Because much of the art of women surrealists was self-referential in nature, portraiture was an ideal vehicle for exploring identity. Within that genre, self-portraits were essential, whether they were presented as straightforward depictions, autobiographical or fabricated stories, or symbolic still lifes.

Artists make many choices about how to represent themselves in a self-portrait.

Carefully planned facial expression, body gesture, costume, and accessories can tell us more about the artist’s personality or identity and can evoke a certain mood, emotion, or experience.

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Marisol Escobar 1930-2016

(Venezuela)

Venezuelan sculptor and painter

Reached popularity during the Pop Art movement in 1960s New York.

Her work is inspired by Pre-Columbian sculptor and family/social dynamics.

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The Family1963

she renders a middle class outing and saturates it with satire. The stylish mother, whose hat covers her eyes, grips the bar to her babies' carriage and wears an elated, but seemingly mindless smile.

The deliberate placement of the children alongside the mother suggests the weight of responsibility on the mother and becomes a visual affirmation of the mother's existence, role and reality. The assemblage of the father towers above the other figures and possesses a surprising autonomy, perhaps since his role in society was the most fixed at that time. The doll clutched by the elder child is a small stuffed image of the artist herself

The artist has noted "The boy represented America holding me.“

Her work can be understood as an ongoing dialogue between the self and society that depended, in the 1960s

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Ester HernándezSun Mad

1982Ester Hernández grew up in California’s San Joaquin Valley, where she unknowingly bathed in and drank polluted water and worked in an environment contaminated by pesticides. The Hernández family was actively involved in the struggle for farm workers’ rights, an issue of great concern to César Chávez.

Questions about the effects of pesticides on agricultural workers prompted her to create Sun Mad.

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Cildo Meireles Insertions into

Ideological Circuits: Coca-Cola Project 1970

(Brazil)explore the notion of circulation and exchange of goods, wealth and information as manifestations of the dominant ideology.

For the Coca-Cola Project Meireles removed Coca-Cola bottles from normal circulation and modified them by adding critical political statements, or instructions for turning the bottle into a Molotov cocktail, before returning them to the circuit of exchange.

On the bottles, such messages as ‘Yankees Go Home’ are followed by the work’s title and the artist’s statement of purpose: ‘

To register information and critical opinions on bottles and return them to circulation’.

The Coca-Cola bottle is an everyday object of mass circulation; in 1970 in Brazil it was a symbol of US imperialism and it has become, globally, a symbol of capitalist consumerism.

As the bottle progressively empties of dark brown liquid, the statement printed in white letters on a transparent label adhering to its side becomes increasingly invisible, only to reappear when the bottle is refilled for recirculation

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Rubén Ortiz-TorresThe Revolution will be Televised (La revolución será televizada) 1994 (Mexico)

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Mario Ybarra & Juan CapistranStick ‘em Up (Slanguage Bandito) 2003