The dirty F word

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“Feminism” sometimes seems to have become an utterly filthy word in the last decade or so. For every person who believes that the 21st century woman is a feminist by definition of the time in which they were born, there is another person who thinks that the word means that you don’t wear make-up and that you shout at men who care to hold the door open for you.

Between the days of Emmeline Pankhurst, Sojourner Truth, and Betty Friedan, feminism and the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of women, particularly in the West, have changed spectacularly. If we haven’t shattered the glass ceiling, it’s certainly looking decidedly wobbly, and for the most part men accept us as equal counterparts, and when they don’t they can expect to be clobbered over the head with the nearest heavy object, or at the very least given a disdainful look that implies one’s total lack of willingness to even dignify their opinion with a response. As such, the zeal with which we fight our daily battles has somewhat altered.

As a key barometer and voice for Feminism, particularly thanks to actionist art that burned brightly from the 1950s-70s, art has also changed the ways in which it illustrates this subject. Of course there are those who remain vehemently outspoken, but the visceral qualities of those early campaigners is no longer at the forefront, perhaps because, at least in terms of the vast majority in our very privileged society, it isn’t quite as urgent.

So when it comes to looking back on the works of Valie EXPORT and Friedl Kubelka­‐Bondy, as is shown at the Feminism component of a two part series of Viennese art at the Richard Saltoun Gallery this month, it is easy to view them through our own liberated eyes and see something aggressive. That is until you really take time to look at it. By using their own bodies and documenting their performance art through photography, these artists endeavor to re-appropriate the female body, “rather than being portrayed through the male lens and being the subject of the male gaze” as the exhibition’s curator, Niamh Coghlan, points out.

In the materials as well as in the subject matter, these artists chose to challenge the hierarchy of both the art and social establishments, in a gritty manner that was revolutionary amongst their contemporaries. The upshot is that simply by looking at the images that documented the performances otherwise known as aktions, you still gain an overwhelming sense of the energy, force, and purpose behind their work, transporting you back to the wider context in which this particularly radical artistic movement was born.

Of course, while it may not seem like it in the everyday worlds of many of us, the reality is that the feminist battles, like those against so many injustices are in actual fact still profoundly relevant, it’s just that in amongst the white noise it’s not always quite loud enough to hear. As a case in point and reminder of its ongoing relevance this week saw Angelina Jolie flanked by William Hague in Bosnia, campaigning against sexual violence against women in war zones. So as Coghlan succinctly puts it, this exhibition could not come at a better time, because while on the one hand it harps back to an era and artistic movement that it’s important to remember, the issues “persist, so they are still relevant”, and these are the artists whose voices remain loud and clear in the face of them.

by Bonnie Friend

Viennese Season: Feminism, is at the Richard Saltoun Gallery  in London from April 10 – May 24, 2014.