作为纪录片,从1970年选美比赛的风波切入很吸引人。但后面开始分别讨论女性艺术家的作品和诉求的时候就有些散碎了。一部分原因可能是由于这一运动的自发、复杂和持续性。就像是片中所说的,这些女性艺术家提出的并不是关于艺术的论断,而是探索和邀请。开篇的受访者直言,今天的人们可能很难理解过去五十年间这些激进的尝试了。但反观现下女性身处的境遇,与半个世纪前相比仍有诸多仿佛,是否我们仍可能从此前的激进中汲取和创造,这部片子或许也是一个尝试和开始吧。
不算是影评,摘录了片中给我留下了比较深的印象的一些话,一些作品。以下。
她们的话
- Frances Morris: It is very difficult now to understand how pioneering this generation was. They were breaking through all sorts of conventions and hierarchies that absolutely governed the visual arts for centuries.
- In 1970, only 3% of the exhibitions held in NY were by women artists – a pretty indication about what is happening around the world.
- Judy Chicago: I knew what I was experience in the LA art scene was sexism. I mean there wasn’t even that word then, you couldn’t talk about it, (because of) there is no language for it. Nobody talked about gender discrimination, nobody talked about sexual harassment, nobody talked about sexism. That was all ahead of us. So being an artist was a tough career choice.
- Judy Chicago: I need to get hold of my own image, take it over. That’s why I changed my name. Cause I took hold of my own identity, and I said ‘I shall determine who I am’. I reject the definition the society has given to me.
- Griselda Pollock: The function of feminist art is an investigation and exploration, not an affirmation of ‘this is what it is’. We didn’t know, we had to find out.
- John Berger: A woman in the culture of privileged Europeans is first and foremost a sight to be looked at. In the nudes of European painting we can discuss some criteria and conventions by which women were judged. We can see how woman was seen. What then is a nude?
- Carolee Scheneenann: I was very concerned about the question that could I be both the subject of a nude, and the artist transforming the positions and proportions of that nude?
上面两段话,经由剪辑形成了很有意思的对话。Berger也成了本片中唯一的男性艺术家/评论者(但同样是从女权主义的批判视角出发的)。感觉男性视角和对立观点的缺乏可能也是本片的一种不完整。
- Frances Morris: You could do things subtly and gently, but you know, nothing had happened. Shocked artists felt like name of the game.
- Judy Chicago: As long as women’s history is consigned to the corners and margins, as long as the women’s art is added-on to the mainstream of male narrative, women are disadvantaged, women artists are disadvantaged. The only way that’s gonna change is when young women can build on everything women have done before them.
她们的作品
Suzanne Lacy & Leslie Labowitz, Three weeks in May (五月的三个星期), 1977
艺术家在1977年五月,将一面大幅洛杉矶地图置于市政厅附近的公共场所,并且在接下来的三周里,把本市发生强奸案的地点实时喷涂记录在地图上(数据从警察局得来),后来也在案件发生的现场喷涂标示。目睹了艺术家对强奸案视觉化的呈现,公众震惊于身边案件的频繁。而此前的社会对于性侵案件却鲜有公共关注和发声。这件作品由此引发了一系列的反暴力行动。目前成为了洛杉矶 Hammer Museum 的永久收藏。
Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party(晚宴), 1974-79
Judy Chicago 的 The Dinner Party,虽然在题材和风格上都影射了“最后的晚餐”,但没有沿用传统作品中主次昭然的座位排序,而是代之以象征平衡和循环的等边三角形餐桌。“就餐者”都是在历史上留下了自己的成就和名字的女性,但她们均以不在场的状态出现,就像更多的被历史湮没的无名女性一样。
复习一下 Artemisia Gentileschi 的作品:
Carolee Schneemann, Eye Body (1963)
Carolee Schneemann 的作品真的是…很有挑战性了。
在1963年以“Eye Body”为题的一组摄影中,Schneemann 试图讨论:女性是否可以在艺术作品中既是被观看和消费的客体,又是以创作来改变客体身份的主体?她挑战的传统即是约翰·博格曾指出的,数世纪以来在西方视觉艺术中占据主导地位的主题:作为男性欲望投射的女性裸像。
西方绘画史上一些被认为是男性凝视下的女性裸体形象:
最后要反思一下,为什么自己观看片中一些女性宣示sexuality的作品,会有比观看传统西方艺术中表现“劫掠”(rape,中文翻译有时太委婉)的题材,或者克利姆特、席勒、达利笔下的erotic场面更大的不适呢(虽然我看这些内容普遍都有不适,但是程度还是有所差别)?
的确,长期以来片中一些女性艺术家的作品都被斥为流于浅薄和低俗。但另一种可能的解释是,在不知不觉中观者的确已经习惯了由男性凝视建构的一些主题。而反叛的女性艺术家挑战了它们,给观者带来不适的同时,也带来认识上新的可能性。

叛逆女性:伟大的艺术反击Rebel Women: The Great Art Fight Back(2018)

上映日期:2018-06-18(英国)片长:59分钟

主演:Judy Chicago Daria Dorosh Rose English 

导演:Clare Tavernor / 

叛逆女性:伟大的艺术反击的影评