Research - feminist interventions

"Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that societies prioritize the male point of view and that women are treated unjustly in these societies."

- Wikipedia.

Feminine intervention is an emphasis on the complex interplay between internal and external factors in women's lives, feminist interventions are designed to promote women's safety health, positive lifestyles, personal strength, competence, and resilience. It holds the position that societies prioritize the male point of view and that women are treated unjustly in these societies. Efforts to change this include fighting against gender stereotypes and improving education, professional, and interpersonal opportunities and outcomes for women.

Feminist art seeks to challenge the dominance of men in both art and society, aiming to gain recognition and equality for female artists and question the assumptions of womanhood. Feminist artists used a variety of mediums, including painting and performance art, and crafts were historically considered 'women's work' in the 1960s/70s to make work aimed at ending sexism and oppression and exposing femininity to be a masquerade or set of poses adopted by women to conform to societal expectations.

In art, this relation is reflected in the sublimation of sexuality. Traditionally, the key elements associating gender themes with visual issues have been female sexuality and nudity. These two factors are the predominant aspects of gender themes in Renaissance and Baroque visual art.

People who represent these feminine interventions are artists such as Janine Antoni. She was born in Freeport, Bahamas. She received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College in New York and earned her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1989. Antoni is known for her unusual processes, using her body as both a tool and a source of meaning within the conceptual framework of her practice.

Using the body as a tool Antoni shows the unequal equality of the sexes with the female being objectified, as if to be looking like a table with a cloth wrapped over the top. As if feminism is struggling to intervene to make a stand for themselves, rather than men making them stay at home and take care of the house and children, as if women should he the house furniture themselves.

It is called Saddle.

"It is a full raw cowhide draped over a mould of Antoni’s body. When the material hardened, the mould was removed. Like a ghost, the cowhide holds the memory of the artist’s body. When confronted with the object one feels the absence of both the artist and the cow."

- Antoni's website

Another piece of art of Antoni's that feels like this is Inhabit.

"Antoni turns her attention to the complex role of mothering. After years of exploring her relationship to her family and most specifically to her mother, Antoni now focuses on herself in this role. Embracing the necessity of shape–shifting to accommodate this position, the artist renders herself half–spider, half–hermit crab. It is unclear whether her body is suspended or ascending: whether or not she is entrapped or the structure of support. On closer inspection, it is clear that she is holding space for a very delicate creation."

Sarah Lucas, an English artist, is internationally celebrated for her bold and provocative use of materials and imagery. Using ordinary objects in unexpected ways, she has consistently challenged our understanding of sex, class and gender over the last four decades.

She is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged in 1988. Her works frequently employ visual puns and bawdy humour by incorporating photography, collage and found objects.

It was in the early 1990s when Lucas began using furniture as a substitute for the human body, usually with crude genital punning. Throughout her career, Lucas has continued to appropriate everyday materials (including, for example, freshly made fried eggs) to make works that use humour, visual puns and sexual metaphors of sex, death, Englishness and gender.

Lucas' art also goes with intervenes art with feminism and bypasses the patriarchal society by showing art looks like each gender made out of household objects, such as shoes, chairs and some sort of pillows, to the point where the viewer is easily able to recognise which set of objects is one gender.