NOTE This electronic version of the thesis has slightly different text formatting to the print version submitted for examination. A set of colour illustrations following page 114 has not been included in the electronic version of the thesis. Details of these illustrations are listed on pages 113 and 114. The content of the thesis is otherwise exactly the same.
Queensland College of Art Griffith University Doctorate of Visual Art Undoing big Daddy art Subverting the Fathers of Western art through a metaphorical and mythological father/daughter relationship. Beata Agnieszka Batorowicz Date of Submission: 25th of July 2003 Submitted in the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Visual Art.
ABSTRACT The canon of Western art history provides a selection of artists that have supposedly made an original contribution to stylistic innovation within the visual arts. Although a process of selection cannot be avoided, this procedure has resulted in a Eurocentric and patriarchal art canon. For example, the Western art canon consists of certain white male artists who are given exclusive authority and are often referred to as the fathers of art. As the status of a father of art pertains to the highest level of achievement within artistic creativity, I argue that this excellence in creativity is based on a gender specific criteria. This issue refers to the patrilineage within Western art history and how this father-son model, in a general sense, excludes women artists from the canon. Further, the very few women included in the art canon are not given the equivalent status as a father of art. I address this patriarchal bias through focussing on the father/daughter relationship as a way of challenging the patrilineage within Western art history s patrilineage. Through this process of intervention, I position the daughter an assertive figure who directly confronts the fathers of Western art. Within this confrontation, I emphasise that the daughter has an assertive identity that is also beyond the father. On this premise my paper is based on the argument that the application of a father/daughter model, within a metaphorical and mythological sense, is useful in subverting the father figures within Western art history. That is, I construct myself as the metaphorical and mythological daughter of the Dada artist, Marcel Duchamp and the Fluxus artist, Joseph Beuys. As an assertive daughter, I insert myself into the patriarchal framework surrounding these two canonical figures in order to decentre and subvert their authority and phallocentric art practice. It is important to note that both Duchamp and Beuys are addressed as case studies (not as individual arguments) that illustrate the patriarchal constructs of the art canon. Within this premise, I draw upon the female artists Sherrie Levine and Jana Sterbak who directly subvert Western father figures as examples of assertive daughter identities. Within this exploration of the assertive daughter identity, I discuss feminist psychoanalysis (particularly the object relations theorist Nancy Chodorow and the French feminist, Luce Irigaray) in order to offer metaphorical representations of the assertive daughter. These metaphors also assist in subverting the gender (male) specific criteria for creativity under the law of the father.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments... i Statement... ii Prologue... iii Introduction... 1 Chapter One. Literature Review: Art History, Psychoanalysis and the Father/Daughter Model... 10 Chapter Two. Father figures: Joseph Beuys and Marcel Duchamp... 40 Chapter Three. Feminist Art History, Feminist Psychoanalysis and the Father/Daughter Model... 65 Chapter Four. The Assertive Daughter: Case studies of Sherrie Levine and Jana Sterbak... 83 Conclusion... 102 Bibliography... 106 List of Illustrations... 113
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to sincerely thank: Rosemary Hawker for her supervision and support during my candidature at QCA. Her input has been pertinent to the completion of my thesis. Dr. Kay Ferres, the Dean of Humanities at Griffith University, for her encouragement and assistance in the area of feminist psychoanalysis. Dr. Pat Hoffie, for her encouragement in the conceptual and practical development of this project. Dr. George Petelin, for his contribution in the early stage(s) of my research and project development. i
STATEMENT This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. Beata Batorowicz ii
PROLOGUE I would like to introduce my project by providing a background to my theoretical interests and how these conceptual developments are being explored within my studio practice. Considering the overlapping relationship between my thesis and studio practice is important given the mythological and metaphorical nature of my work. Within this context, both my theory and art practice are concerned with the limited consideration of father/daughter studies within visual art discourses. In particular, my work responds to the few father/daughter discourses undertaken where the focus is predominantly on the father (Sheldon 1997:12-13). My aim is to address the father/daughter relationship emphasising the daughter and the way in which her identity is suppressed when she is considered in the context of her father. More specifically, I focus on giving the daughter an identity that is outside of a defining patriarchal relationship with her father. For instance, I explore this issue within my thesis by considering the daughter figure within the primary context of the family. In this way, I draw upon classical psychoanalytical ideas and representation of femininity in the context of the daughter s identity. These psychoanalytical representations refer to the process of sexual identification during the physical development of adolescent girls and boys. The psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, describes this gender identification by depicting the female/daughter as lacking or castrated to the male s/father s genitalia. I argue that Freud s depiction of the daughter as castrated in relation to her father wounds her identity. Central to this argument is that the daughter s identity is not wounded because she lacks a phallus, but rather that the wound is inflicted through Freud s patriarchal representation of the daughter. This patriarchal wounding of the daughter extends beyond the primary context of the family. That is, Freud further states that as the daughter is lacking or incomplete, she represses her sexual curiosity. According to Freud, without sexual curiosity the daughter lacks the same level of intellectual and creative curiosity as the father (1963). This psychoanalytical account reflects the patriarchal attitudes within Western art history in terms of the way in which the creative abilities of the father figure override the artistic abilities of the women artists (the daughter). iii
Within my studio work anti big Daddy art, I consider how and why the daughter is wounded by patriarchy, but I also aim to offer alternative representations of the daughter within Western art history. My project is based on the argument that the father/daughter relationship applied in a metaphorical and mythological sense, is a strategic model for art that is able to subvert patriarchal figures of the Western art canon. Therefore, I have adopted five father figures within the Western art canon: Joseph Beuys, Marcel Duchamp, Rene Magritte, Sigmund Freud and Clement Greenberg. In adopting five fathers, the daughter is able to exercise different methods of subversion in accordance with the field and strategy of power that each father exerts. As the daughter constantly shifts her critique from one father (power structure) to another, she maintains an assertive daughter identity. That is, the daughter becomes the focus of this project rather than the father. For instance, as the daughter, I have hand-knitted five larger-than-life sculptures as icons of each father: a pair of Second World War braces for Beuys, a knight from Duchamp s chess set, Magritte s pipe, a well-worn Freudian slipper and for the modernist art critic, Clement Greenberg, an large book titled Avant-Garde and Kitsch 1. In these large sculptures the daughter s history is given agency through the hand-knitted fabric, a process that has not been part of the history of fine art. Knitting within Western culture is not considered a serious form of (fine) art because of its traditional association with a woman s craft. When craft - based work is integrated within a fine art context, it is at the very most, considered a form of low art. This categorisation makes apparent the patriarchal view that a woman s conventional processes of art making do not equate to high art disciplines that have been traditionally designated as masculine practices (eg. oil painting, bronze sculpture). Therefore, the daughter challenges this gender hierarchy associated with high art and low art by emphasising knitting as a powerful medium which offers a voice outside of, and as an alternative to, Western art history s patriarchal language 2. 1 Reference to Clement Greenberg is made because as an art critic, he has played a significant role within the construction of the father figures of modernism, and in the process of doing so, he is takes on a similar status. 2 There are many female practitioners such as the American artist, Ann Hamilton and the German artist, Rosemary Trockel who use knitting within their work as a way of challenging the gender hierarchy in terms of the traditional Western art disciplines. Their practices illustrate that the process of knitting is a powerful voice that lies outside the patriarchal language and offers alternatives to the patriarchal structures within Western art history. iv
The language of the tactile/craft is often the basis of a certain kind of feminine power of representation in various mythologies 3. For example, the daughter uses knitting to express her own mythologies, experiences and interpretations of these Western father figures. As she emphasises the humble nature of the tactile, she deconstructs the status of these Western fathers, exposing their phallocentrism in order to position them as just men among men. In placing my work within the feminine language of the tactile and craft, I argue that the daughter s identity cannot be entirely constrained or pinned down by the father as the daughter has an assertive identity that is beyond the wounded self. Within my studio practice, I have been concerned with sculptures/ objects that represent the independence of the daughter. Objects such as a kite, skipping rope, a watering can, a hula-hoop are all items that speak of the daughter without direct reference to the father (See Appendix, fig.1-2). These objects depict the daughter in playful yet sinister light; they articulate that there is more to the daughter s identity than a wound. These daughter objects echo or compliment the work of object relations theorist, Nancy Chodorow. Chodorow s study belongs to the feminine strand of psychoanalysis and one that is concerned with the notion of why women mother. Her inquiry into mothering is developed through a description of the process of gender identification. Chodorow states that as the mother is the primary attachment for the young girl/daughter, the girl/daughter turns to her father as a way of distinguishing herself from this maternal attachment. As the daughter turns to her father as an object of sexual desire, she still retains an attachment to the mother. Therefore, the girl/daughter is associated with the notion of mothering because her connection to the father is secondary within gender identification. This transition from mother to father is understood within object relations theory as a change of object (Eisenstein 1984:87-95). Here, Chodorow s work is important to my project because she uses objects (in this case the mother and father ) to emphasise how the daughter 3 In the book Les Voleuses de langue, (La Princess de Cleves) the writer, Claudine Herrmann depicts the heroine Mme de Cleves cross-stitching her daydream- a duke named Nemours. Her power lies in her knowing that the love she imagines is not realisable. She is also aware that what is realisable is not what she desires. This myth represents the idea that men and women exchange feelings that are not equivalent... Woman s daydreaming is a function of a world in which nothing comes true on her terms (Herrmann in Showalter 1985:350). Hence, Mme de Cleves chooses her cross-stitch of her duke rather than the man himself (Miller in Showalter 1985:350). v
establishes autonomy and a separate identity. Chodorow s object relations theory is important in overcoming the idea of the fetish as the prevailing element within my work. That is, my daughter objects often consist of fur, hair and leather which suggest the fetish. Although fetishism has relevance to my project as it represents the daughter s suppression; this concept does not go beyond the notion of the woman s/ daughter s sexual wounding or enslavement to the man/father. For instance, fetishism, within Freudian theory is associated with the boy s last visual impression of the mother before the separation from the feminine (which is central to identification as masculine). Freud states that velvet and fur symbolise the sight of the pubic hair which ought to have revealed the longed-for penis; the underlinen so often adopted as a fetish reproduces the scene of undressing, the last moment in which the woman could still be regarded as phallic (Freud 1963:217). In light of this, my work is about making objects that do not solely rely on the fetish and its associated problem of representing the daughter only through her wound. On the other hand, I do realise that it is difficult (or impossible?) to represent the daughter as an identity that surpasses her wound altogether. For instance, there is the argument that the daughter cannot be entirely separated from her wound because it is culturally ingrained: Patriarchy is like concrete; it is structured seamlessly and allows nothing through-in theory. In actuality, however are ailanthus trees and less perfect concrete[...] There is nothing about ailanthus trees in concrete theory: the cracks are random from the perspective of the concrete, and the trees grow wherever they can find a foothold; there s no telling where. A theory of patriarchy is useful since its seamlessness and perfect structure provide a coherent logic that is genuinely explanatory, but such a theory does not provide the whole truth. Women s socially obedient gazes, desires, and thoughts are part of what patriarchy allows for and part of what we can theorize: they are part of the concrete. But they are also good places to look for cracks and to plant the seeds for the ailanthus trees of feminist oppositional consciousness (Scheman 1993:128). vi
This concept of female oppositional consciousness is apparent when considering my objects as signifiers of childhood play. That is, the concept of childhood play is important in associating the daughter with her primary source of identification (her mother). This poses an oppositional strategy to patriarchal models because the work overlooks the father to reference the daughter s original/genuine/primary understanding of self. Also, there are two more reasons for asserting the daughter s identity through child objects. Firstly, my objects are related to childhood in order to distinguish the daughter s identity from matriarchy (her mother). For example, the objects of an adult female may be too quickly characterised with motherhood and secondly, childhood objects are used to debunk the seriousness and grandness of the father. Given the purpose of my project, to offer an indepth critical analysis of the patriarchal power associated with the Western art fathers, I have limited my theoretical focus to two father figures: Beuys and Duchamp. The reason for selecting Beuys as a case study of patriarchal authority is to provide a sense of continuation from my previous project (Daughter Aid) and consistency in the development of my mythology as the daughter of Beuys. Additionally, Beuys is generally understood to have been influenced by Duchamp s art practice. For instance, Duchamp, challenged modernist high art ideals by placing a found object into the art gallery. In doing so, artistic creativity associated with the physical making of the work is replaced by Duchamp s intellectual intervention of selecting, signing, titling and placing the object out of its usual context (Judovitz 1995:76). The emphasis on the ordinary object as an intellectual development in art has been adopted within Beuys concept of blurring art and life. This concept was based on stressing art s role and relevance within everyday life (Stachelhaus 1987:61). Therefore, like Duchamp, Beuys art consists of everyday materials that serve as symbolic representations of his philosophical intervention within art history. In this way, the material art object for Beuys becomes secondary. The relationship between Beuys and Duchamp is important because it emphasises the patrilineage within Western art history, a model that excludes the daughter from the art canon. Within this context, the daughter has to become assertive and make herself visible in order to open up some of the cracks within the patriarchal structure. vii
Reclaiming the daughter is also important in offering an assertive female identity/ies that are alternative to matriarchy. viii
INTRODUCTION The misleading conception of Western art history, like other histories, has been that it holds a central truth in its account. For example, Western art history presents certain artists as the fathers of Western art. The feminist historian, Linda Nochlin, states that these artists are constructed as mythical beings who are the apex of human achievement (par excellence) and they are elevated above other artists within a given art movement. In response, Nochlin asks these questions: Why has art history focussed so exclusively on certain individuals and not on others, why on individuals and not on groups, why on artworks in the foreground and something called social conditions in the background rather than seeing them as mutually interactive? (Nochlin in Loeb 1979:4). In this light, Western art history should be discussed as an ideological discourse whereby its representation of art is seen as constructed. Art history is fabricated through the process of selection in terms of artists, art events and debates that are to be recorded. It is governed by certain authorities, philosophies and (racial/patriarchal) biases within a given period of recording that underpins a specific ideological positioning of the art historian. Furthermore, art history is a discourse that is comprised of sexual politics and power relations of sexual difference. For instance, the concept of the father of art' itself, emphasises that Western history is governed by patriarchal power that excludes women: Patriarchy is the power of the fathers: a familial-social, ideological, political system in which men-by force, direct pressure, or through ritual, tradition, law, and language, customs, etiquette, education, and the division of labour, determine what part women shall or shall not play, and in which the female is everywhere subsumed under the male... The power of the fathers has been difficult to grasp because it permeates everything, even the language in which we try to describe it. It is diffuse and concrete; symbolic and literal; universal, and expressed with local variations which obscure its universality (Rich 1979:57-8). In light of this patriarchal power, the art historian Griselda Pollock (1988) argues, along with many feminist theorists, that the criteria for creativity within art history is gender (male) specific. Pollock states that creativity has become an ideological 1
construction of masculinity which places femininity as the artist s negative (Pollock 1988:21). That is, within Western art history, the male has taken the position of the creator and the female role has been represented in terms of the art object, the model, or as the muse (due to a romantic association with the artist) (Pollock 1988: 91). In more straight forward terms, the woman is the ivory carving or mud replica, an icon or doll, but she is not the sculptor (Gubar in Showalter 1985:293). Additionally, Pollock notes that there is also a biological basis for creativity being gender specific. She states that patriarchal discourse within art history has depicted the male as the creator of art while the female is the procreator. Here, women are undermined not only in terms of their power as procreators but also by being associated with the body, while men are associated with the mind. As the mind (intellect) is valued more than the body within Western culture, male creativity is held to exceed female artistic abilities 1 (Pollock 1988:21). This representation of masculine creativity within art history is intrinsically linked to classical psychoanalytical models. That is, classical psychoanalytical frameworks made normal creativity an abnormal variety of maleness which reflected the Romantic s account of the relationship between male sexual energies and cultural creation (Benjamin 1995). Therefore, within contemporary feminist theories, father figures in art history and classical psychoanalysis have been re-evaluated in order to challenge masculine language and preconceived notions of artistic creativity. This has been apparent since the earlier history of feminism, particularly during the late 1960s and 1970s, when for example, there was condemnation of father figures within classical psychoanalysis (such as Sigmund Freud). Female theorists who illustrate such feminist responses include Teresa Brennan, Lisa Applgnanesi, and Naomi Scheman. For instance, Scheman s work Engenderings, Constructions of Knowledge, Authority, and Privilege (1993), particularly her chapter Missing Mothers /Desiring Daughters: Framing the Sight of Women provides a critique of Freudian theories on human development in the context of film. Here, Scheman critiques Freud s analysis concerning the gender identification of the adolescent girl. She states that the young 1 This reasoning could be also associated with women s past exclusion as students from art schools yet their acceptance as models in the same institutions (Pollock 1988:21). 2
girl s acknowledgment of her parents is about acknowledging the father and repressing the mother: Repressing the attachment to her mother amounts to identifying her father as her true parent, forgetting the love and desire for him... By defining female desire as responsive to male-in the first instance, paternal-desire, the culture inscribes fatherdaughter incest [as] a culturally constructed paradigm of female desire. The paradigm shapes that desire as normatively passive, as a responsive to another s active desire, even if only fantasised... (Scheman 1993:133-4) Scheman points out that Freud takes on the assumption that the girl s genuine sexual identity is heterosexual. As a result, her (paternal) desire is considered passive as it only responds to the active father which suggests that the girls sexual development/awakening is dependent on a man who lays claim to her 2 (Scheman 1993:134). This (sexual) passiveness of the female/daughter within patriarchal terms, can be translated within the visual arts, as one that can be sighted and becomes an object of sight. This returns to Pollock s critique of the female (daughter) being the art object, the muse or the model, while the father of art is a master of sight and therefore, the (intellectual) creator 3 (Scheman 1993:159). In order to subvert patriarchal power in terms of its notions of creativity as gender specific, it is important to consider the issue within the context of the father/daughter relationship. There are three main reasons for the father/daughter emphasis in my discussion. First, it is a subject which has been dismissed from collective discussion within psychoanalysis and has not been considered within the history of fine art: [D] aughters and fathers have been the step-children of western empirical research and scholarship. While much research on family has been conducted in recent years most of it has been centred on the mother-child, mother-son or father-son 2 Scheman illustrates this idea by using the analogy of Sleeping Beauty and how the princess awakens only when a prince comes to claim her (Scheman 1993:134). 3 In this way, Scheman argues that feminist visual art focuses on reclaiming women s status as seers. She emphasises the need for the recognition that women do see, desire, and know despite the compelling theoretical demonstrations of the maleness of the gaze, of desire and epistemic authority (Scheman 1993:159) 3
dyads, making fathers the forgotten parents and daughters the forgotten offspring (Moffit in Sheldon 1997:12-13). It should be emphasised here that despite the traditional role of the father being the object of psychological, clinical sociological and theological studies (due in large part to the disintegration of traditional families within the last decade) patriarchal ideology still prevails in terms of the father s position; making the daughter the most insignificant (or absent) member within the family discourse (Sheldon 1997:12-13). This disregard for the daughter figure wounds female identity outside of matriarchy. This is apparent within the representation of the daughter within psychoanalytical discourse. That is, within Freudian analysis of gender identification, the daughter/female is represented as castrated lacking and therefore wounded when she identifies with the father (whose phallus is symbolic of completeness) (Freud 1973:356). This idea of female wounding is expressed through the close relationship between female anatomy and creativity within the visual arts. [...] women experience their own bodies as the only available medium for their art [...] the primary and most resonant metaphors provided by the female body is blood, and cultural forms of creativity are often experienced as painful wounding (Gubar in Showalter 1985:296). Hence, addressing the daughter in the context of the father is an important strategy in reclaiming her identity and offering an assertive female figure that differs from matriarchy. The second reason for focussing on the father/daughter relationship is that it becomes a strategy of considering the broader political issue of patriarchy on a more personal level. That is, by directly addressing the very person who represents it: the father or rather the pater (Sheldon 1997:11). This is also a feminist personal is political strategy whereby, I can consider the father as a metaphor for the established history of Western art and directly subvert his power through the daughter persona (who is representative of the younger feminist art histories). The third reason for using the father/daughter subject is that it serves as a metaphorical and mythological framework for my anti big Daddy art project. That is, 4
within my project, I adopt canonical figures within Western art as my metaphorical and mythological fathers. This mythological and metaphorical relationship parodies the grand myths presented within Western history under the patriarchal system and simultaneously aims to subvert this history through inserting and interweaving a selfcreated mythology. In this context, the central argument of this thesis is that: The father/daughter relationship constructed as metaphor and myth is an effective model for understanding and subverting the father figures of the Western art canon. This model enables female artists such as Sherrie Levine and Jana Sterbak, to insert themselves into the discourse of art history in order to destabilise its patriarchal structure. This discussion will be divided across four chapters. The first chapter is a literature review and a thematic survey which will identify writings and issues concerning the father/daughter model within my project. I will provide a general discussion of Western art history in the context of modernism deriving from the late nineteenth century to its continued influence in the early twenty-first century. This is pertinent to my project as modernist art constitutes a legitimisation of the exclusive power given to certain white male artists who are often acclaimed as fathers of art. Within this modernist context, it should be noted that there are many ways that an artist is constructed as a father of Western art. For example, modernist art literature, modernist art critics (such as Clement Greenberg), curators (such as Rene Block), art institutions (such as art academies, museums and galleries) and artists themselves, all contribute towards constructing certain artists as fathers of art. Although these agents are valid and important, my project aims to deconstruct the status of the father of Western art by addressing the authority of the father in the primary context of the family, particularly the father/daughter relationship. In this way, I will focus on the way patriarchal culture within Western art parallels the dominant role of the father within Freud s psychoanalytical theory on human development. That is, Freud s 5
model makes apparent how the father s artistic abilities override the daughter s creative abilities. This study of the father/daughter relationship is useful to my project as it enables me to deconstruct the patriarchal criteria for artistic creativity. The second chapter considers two father figures within the art canon as case studies to illustrate some of the ways that patriarchy permeates art. The first case study will consider the Dada artist, Marcel Duchamp, whose patriarchal authority can be considered in terms of stylistic innovation. That is, Duchamp has been acclaimed as the Daddy of Dada for his resistance to authorised modernist high art practices (Jones 1994:109). However, as Duchamp uses irony and play to challenge the concepts of high art, he is also often regarded as the father of postmodernism. The contradiction here is that while postmodernism considers itself anti-masculine, it is articulated through yet another art father (Jones 1994:xi-1). This also suggests that postmodernism has its precedents in the working assumptions of modernist art history itself, which relies on the assurance of paternity (Jones 1994:1). Duchamp s patriarchal authority will be considered via analysis of his works such as La Fonte (1917), L.H.O.O.Q. (1919) and Rrose Selavy (1920-1). The second case study will investigate the Fluxus artist, Joseph Beuys, considered the father of the avant garde. I will argue that Beuys stylistic innovation has been influenced by Duchampian practice through referencing his work Toilet with Brown Cross and Brown Base made in 1979 (which can be understood as a direct interpretation of the Duchampian La Fonte). This work not only directly addresses Beuys relationship with Duchamp but also emphasises the patrilineage operating within the Western canon (Jones 1994:217). In this light, I will also examine the phallocentrism at work within Beuys Felt Suit. In this latter work, Beuys masculine suit is not only an icon for patriarchal authority within Western art but it also becomes Beuys shamanistic uniform that stresses his role in healing the German people of the guilt associated with the Second World War (Murken 1979). Beuys shaman persona will be further discussed in relation to the performance Euraisa- Siberia Symphony 1963, 34th FLUXUS Movement (1963). 6
In the light of these two case studies, the third chapter will determine how feminism undertakes an assertive daughter role in challenging the patriarchal figures within Western art. More specifically, I will discuss two central complexities concerning the feminist subversion of patriarchy. First, feminist art has had to confront a more established patriarchal history. This feminist confrontation represents a threat to the male artists, curators, art critics and historians who are in support of the patriarchal agenda within Western art. The second complexity concerning feminist subversion of Western art history lies in representing an assertive daughter identity. Unlike the uniform patrilineage within Western art history, feminism consists of many groups that have very diverse philosophies on gender. This diversity presents a certain complexity (and difficulty) in the general representation of feminism as the assertive daughter. Among the many branches of feminism, I will draw upon feminist psychoanalysis, as this field of study is a foundation for understanding the notion of the assertive daughter. In other words, feminist psychoanalysis is particularly useful to my project because it addresses the daughter within the primary context of the family. Within the context of feminist psychoanalysis, I would like to specifically refer to the object relations theorist, Nancy Chodorow. Chodorow s work is significant because she is associated with the feminine strand of psychoanalysis, a tradition beginning with Melanie Klein. Chodorow s work is about questioning why women mother. Within her project, she discusses how the daughter establishes autonomy and a separate identity by turning from her primary relationship with her mother to her father. Chodorow states that because the girl s primary association has been with a woman, she has a better understanding of herself than the boy (Chodorow 1989). Chodorow s (positive) representation of womanhood not only assists in making a claim in opposition to the patriarchal relationship between classical psychoanalysis and Western art history, but her work can also be used to emphasise the similarities across feminist groups and therefore to strengthen the overall representation of the assertive daughter identity (Chodorow 1989). 7
Additionally, some metaphors and models for assertive daughter identities will be further explored via the feminist psychoanalyst Luce Irigaray (1985). Irigaray is a central figure within French feminist thought who subverts the classical studies of Freud through a critique of Jacques Lacan. Irigaray makes apparent how femininity has been suppressed by only being considered within patriarchal models. Within these patriarchal models, the woman is like a man but never measures up to his standards which mimics the classic father/daughter scenario. Irigaray s work, This Sex Which Is Not One (1985) emphasises gender difference by exploring the plurality of femininity as a way of making apparent how masculine psychoanalytic models and ideals are contrary to female experience or sexuality (Irigaray 1985:99-106). The final chapter will consider two female artists who represent assertive daughter identities and offer strategies for subverting patriarchy. The first case study will be of the American post modern artist, Sherrie Levine. Levine challenges the notion of originality emphasised within modernist art. For instance, in her work Untitled (After Duchamp: Chessboards:3), the strategy of appropriation is used as a direct tool for deconstructing Duchamp s patriarchal authorship and his acclaim for making an original contribution within Western art history (Jones 1994:57). Further, Levine takes on an assertive daughter role by embracing feminism as a strategy to critique the patriarchal practice of Duchamp. Her work Fountain (after Duchamp in 1981) makes explicit the phallocentrism within Duchamp s work and how this agenda perpetuates patriarchy as the universal norm. In this light, the second case study will investigate the Canadian artist, Jana Sterbak. Sterbak uses mythology to subvert the authoritarian and phallocentric practice of Beuys. In her work Absorption: Work in progress (1995), Sterbak transforms into a moth as a metaphor for her attempt to eat away Beuys felt suit (Curz 1998:5). Sterbak s use of mythology as a subversive strategy coincides with my project s mythological approach in addressing the father/daughter relationship. That is, Sterbak makes apparent that the daughter can have an assertive identity outside or beyond the context of the father. Sterbak also offers an alternative approach to Levine s strategy of appropriation. 8
This study incorporates qualitative research methods. A psychoanalytical approach will be applied to describe the foundation of the father/daughter model drawn from classical psychoanalysis and to discuss feminist psychoanalysts who subvert the law of the father. The psychoanalytical father/daughter model will be paralleled with the discourse of Western art history in order to form the central argument that the psychoanalytical father/daughter model is an effective means for subverting the fathers of Western art. The psychoanalytical approach will also assist in taking the broader political issue of patriarchy into the familial-social domain. Further, an art historical approach will be taken to address Duchamp and Beuys as examples of father figures within Western art. The purpose of this historical discussion is to illustrate the authoritative status of both Duchamp and Beuys and to demonstrate that a patriarchal ideology permeates their art practice. In this way, an analytical method will be applied to investigate female artists such as Levine and Sterbak who offer strategies in subverting Duchamp and Beuys. Both Levine s and Sterbak s strategic practices will be compared and contrasted to the metaphors and myths constructed by feminist psychoanalysts regarding assertive daughter identities. 9
INTRODUCTION The misleading conception of Western art history, like other histories, has been that it holds a central truth in its account. For example, Western art history presents certain artists as the fathers of Western art. The feminist historian, Linda Nochlin, states that these artists are constructed as mythical beings who are the apex of human achievement (par excellence) and they are elevated above other artists within a given art movement. In response, Nochlin asks these questions: Why has art history focussed so exclusively on certain individuals and not on others, why on individuals and not on groups, why on artworks in the foreground and something called social conditions in the background rather than seeing them as mutually interactive? (Nochlin in Loeb 1979:4). In this light, Western art history should be discussed as an ideological discourse whereby its representation of art is seen as constructed. Art history is fabricated through the process of selection in terms of artists, art events and debates that are to be recorded. It is governed by certain authorities, philosophies and (racial/patriarchal) biases within a given period of recording that underpins a specific ideological positioning of the art historian. Furthermore, art history is a discourse that is comprised of sexual politics and power relations of sexual difference. For instance, the concept of the father of art' itself, emphasises that Western history is governed by patriarchal power that excludes women: Patriarchy is the power of the fathers: a familial-social, ideological, political system in which men-by force, direct pressure, or through ritual, tradition, law, and language, customs, etiquette, education, and the division of labour, determine what part women shall or shall not play, and in which the female is everywhere subsumed under the male... The power of the fathers has been difficult to grasp because it permeates everything, even the language in which we try to describe it. It is diffuse and concrete; symbolic and literal; universal, and expressed with local variations which obscure its universality (Rich 1979:57-8). In light of this patriarchal power, the art historian Griselda Pollock (1988) argues, along with many feminist theorists, that the criteria for creativity within art history is gender (male) specific. Pollock states that creativity has become an ideological 1
construction of masculinity which places femininity as the artist s negative (Pollock 1988:21). That is, within Western art history, the male has taken the position of the creator and the female role has been represented in terms of the art object, the model, or as the muse (due to a romantic association with the artist) (Pollock 1988: 91). In more straight forward terms, the woman is the ivory carving or mud replica, an icon or doll, but she is not the sculptor (Gubar in Showalter 1985:293). Additionally, Pollock notes that there is also a biological basis for creativity being gender specific. She states that patriarchal discourse within art history has depicted the male as the creator of art while the female is the procreator. Here, women are undermined not only in terms of their power as procreators but also by being associated with the body, while men are associated with the mind. As the mind (intellect) is valued more than the body within Western culture, male creativity is held to exceed female artistic abilities 1 (Pollock 1988:21). This representation of masculine creativity within art history is intrinsically linked to classical psychoanalytical models. That is, classical psychoanalytical frameworks made normal creativity an abnormal variety of maleness which reflected the Romantic s account of the relationship between male sexual energies and cultural creation (Benjamin 1995). Therefore, within contemporary feminist theories, father figures in art history and classical psychoanalysis have been re-evaluated in order to challenge masculine language and preconceived notions of artistic creativity. This has been apparent since the earlier history of feminism, particularly during the late 1960s and 1970s, when for example, there was condemnation of father figures within classical psychoanalysis (such as Sigmund Freud). Female theorists who illustrate such feminist responses include Teresa Brennan, Lisa Applgnanesi, and Naomi Scheman. For instance, Scheman s work Engenderings, Constructions of Knowledge, Authority, and Privilege (1993), particularly her chapter Missing Mothers /Desiring Daughters: Framing the Sight of Women provides a critique of Freudian theories on human development in the context of film. Here, Scheman critiques Freud s analysis concerning the gender identification of the adolescent girl. She states that the young 1 This reasoning could be also associated with women s past exclusion as students from art schools yet their acceptance as models in the same institutions (Pollock 1988:21). 2
girl s acknowledgment of her parents is about acknowledging the father and repressing the mother: Repressing the attachment to her mother amounts to identifying her father as her true parent, forgetting the love and desire for him... By defining female desire as responsive to male-in the first instance, paternal-desire, the culture inscribes fatherdaughter incest [as] a culturally constructed paradigm of female desire. The paradigm shapes that desire as normatively passive, as a responsive to another s active desire, even if only fantasised... (Scheman 1993:133-4) Scheman points out that Freud takes on the assumption that the girl s genuine sexual identity is heterosexual. As a result, her (paternal) desire is considered passive as it only responds to the active father which suggests that the girls sexual development/awakening is dependent on a man who lays claim to her 2 (Scheman 1993:134). This (sexual) passiveness of the female/daughter within patriarchal terms, can be translated within the visual arts, as one that can be sighted and becomes an object of sight. This returns to Pollock s critique of the female (daughter) being the art object, the muse or the model, while the father of art is a master of sight and therefore, the (intellectual) creator 3 (Scheman 1993:159). In order to subvert patriarchal power in terms of its notions of creativity as gender specific, it is important to consider the issue within the context of the father/daughter relationship. There are three main reasons for the father/daughter emphasis in my discussion. First, it is a subject which has been dismissed from collective discussion within psychoanalysis and has not been considered within the history of fine art: [D] aughters and fathers have been the step-children of western empirical research and scholarship. While much research on family has been conducted in recent years most of it has been centred on the mother-child, mother-son or father-son 2 Scheman illustrates this idea by using the analogy of Sleeping Beauty and how the princess awakens only when a prince comes to claim her (Scheman 1993:134). 3 In this way, Scheman argues that feminist visual art focuses on reclaiming women s status as seers. She emphasises the need for the recognition that women do see, desire, and know despite the compelling theoretical demonstrations of the maleness of the gaze, of desire and epistemic authority (Scheman 1993:159) 3
dyads, making fathers the forgotten parents and daughters the forgotten offspring (Moffit in Sheldon 1997:12-13). It should be emphasised here that despite the traditional role of the father being the object of psychological, clinical sociological and theological studies (due in large part to the disintegration of traditional families within the last decade) patriarchal ideology still prevails in terms of the father s position; making the daughter the most insignificant (or absent) member within the family discourse (Sheldon 1997:12-13). This disregard for the daughter figure wounds female identity outside of matriarchy. This is apparent within the representation of the daughter within psychoanalytical discourse. That is, within Freudian analysis of gender identification, the daughter/female is represented as castrated lacking and therefore wounded when she identifies with the father (whose phallus is symbolic of completeness) (Freud 1973:356). This idea of female wounding is expressed through the close relationship between female anatomy and creativity within the visual arts. [...] women experience their own bodies as the only available medium for their art [...] the primary and most resonant metaphors provided by the female body is blood, and cultural forms of creativity are often experienced as painful wounding (Gubar in Showalter 1985:296). Hence, addressing the daughter in the context of the father is an important strategy in reclaiming her identity and offering an assertive female figure that differs from matriarchy. The second reason for focussing on the father/daughter relationship is that it becomes a strategy of considering the broader political issue of patriarchy on a more personal level. That is, by directly addressing the very person who represents it: the father or rather the pater (Sheldon 1997:11). This is also a feminist personal is political strategy whereby, I can consider the father as a metaphor for the established history of Western art and directly subvert his power through the daughter persona (who is representative of the younger feminist art histories). The third reason for using the father/daughter subject is that it serves as a metaphorical and mythological framework for my anti big Daddy art project. That is, 4
within my project, I adopt canonical figures within Western art as my metaphorical and mythological fathers. This mythological and metaphorical relationship parodies the grand myths presented within Western history under the patriarchal system and simultaneously aims to subvert this history through inserting and interweaving a selfcreated mythology. In this context, the central argument of this thesis is that: The father/daughter relationship constructed as metaphor and myth is an effective model for understanding and subverting the father figures of the Western art canon. This model enables female artists such as Sherrie Levine and Jana Sterbak, to insert themselves into the discourse of art history in order to destabilise its patriarchal structure. This discussion will be divided across four chapters. The first chapter is a literature review and a thematic survey which will identify writings and issues concerning the father/daughter model within my project. I will provide a general discussion of Western art history in the context of modernism deriving from the late nineteenth century to its continued influence in the early twenty-first century. This is pertinent to my project as modernist art constitutes a legitimisation of the exclusive power given to certain white male artists who are often acclaimed as fathers of art. Within this modernist context, it should be noted that there are many ways that an artist is constructed as a father of Western art. For example, modernist art literature, modernist art critics (such as Clement Greenberg), curators (such as Rene Block), art institutions (such as art academies, museums and galleries) and artists themselves, all contribute towards constructing certain artists as fathers of art. Although these agents are valid and important, my project aims to deconstruct the status of the father of Western art by addressing the authority of the father in the primary context of the family, particularly the father/daughter relationship. In this way, I will focus on the way patriarchal culture within Western art parallels the dominant role of the father within Freud s psychoanalytical theory on human development. That is, Freud s 5
model makes apparent how the father s artistic abilities override the daughter s creative abilities. This study of the father/daughter relationship is useful to my project as it enables me to deconstruct the patriarchal criteria for artistic creativity. The second chapter considers two father figures within the art canon as case studies to illustrate some of the ways that patriarchy permeates art. The first case study will consider the Dada artist, Marcel Duchamp, whose patriarchal authority can be considered in terms of stylistic innovation. That is, Duchamp has been acclaimed as the Daddy of Dada for his resistance to authorised modernist high art practices (Jones 1994:109). However, as Duchamp uses irony and play to challenge the concepts of high art, he is also often regarded as the father of postmodernism. The contradiction here is that while postmodernism considers itself anti-masculine, it is articulated through yet another art father (Jones 1994:xi-1). This also suggests that postmodernism has its precedents in the working assumptions of modernist art history itself, which relies on the assurance of paternity (Jones 1994:1). Duchamp s patriarchal authority will be considered via analysis of his works such as La Fonte (1917), L.H.O.O.Q. (1919) and Rrose Selavy (1920-1). The second case study will investigate the Fluxus artist, Joseph Beuys, considered the father of the avant garde. I will argue that Beuys stylistic innovation has been influenced by Duchampian practice through referencing his work Toilet with Brown Cross and Brown Base made in 1979 (which can be understood as a direct interpretation of the Duchampian La Fonte). This work not only directly addresses Beuys relationship with Duchamp but also emphasises the patrilineage operating within the Western canon (Jones 1994:217). In this light, I will also examine the phallocentrism at work within Beuys Felt Suit. In this latter work, Beuys masculine suit is not only an icon for patriarchal authority within Western art but it also becomes Beuys shamanistic uniform that stresses his role in healing the German people of the guilt associated with the Second World War (Murken 1979). Beuys shaman persona will be further discussed in relation to the performance Euraisa- Siberia Symphony 1963, 34th FLUXUS Movement (1963). 6