Introduction
To understand why the utilization of one’s female body in performance art is so radical, one must first look at the art historical canon. It is important to note that the "canon" referenced in this project is the Western and European canon, as this is the area of art history which I am most familiar with and have studied. The female body is presented predominantly depicted by male artists in nude oil paintings. The female body becomes an object, rather than a subject, when presented in such a way. She is always the muse and never the artist, edited to appeal to the Male Gaze, and sold as an object. This idea of women as artwork rather than as artists has had a lasting and devastating effect. Women earn 70% of BFAs and 65-70% of MFAs in the US, yet earn 74 cents for every dollar male artists make (NMWA). Women artists are not celebrated as geniuses, and are left out of the traditional art historical canon. Women artists’ work has sold for only a fraction of what male artists’ work has been sold for. For a woman artist to take ownership and autonomy over her body in performance art is radical. Within this medium, she takes up space, chooses the way in which her body will be viewed, and presents her own experience in her own “words”.
Julia Kristeva, in her writing Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, describes the abject as a "violent, dark [revolt] of being, directed against a threat", something "which modernity has learned to repress, dodge, or fake" (1,26). The use of bodily fluids within feminist performance art is a response to the fear and hysteria surrounding the female body, and the ways patriarchy has asserted control over this body. The work, blurring the lines between subject and object, between the self and other, becomes abject. The interior of the body is expelled outward; the female body proclaims its existence and its power, making art about itself using itself. There is no more separation.
Foucault's theory of power, as outlined in The Subject and Power, asserts that power is inseparable from the subject. The subject has two meanings:
Subject to someone else by control and dependence
Tied to one’s own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge
Both definitions suggest a struggle against domination. Women have been controlled by and subject to patriarchal standards, expectations, laws, and ideals. Foucault also explains that power is a mode of action, and action is carried out not randomly against a subject, but rather upon an action. One relevant example is violence against women. Such violence is often attributed to the victim’s actions, such as the victim’s clothing, makeup, or alcohol consumption.
Feminist performance art subverts these ideas of power, often in response to violence or sexual assault, instances of injustice and discrimination, and oppression. Specific performance works researched are categorized by a specific type of body fluid. The categories are tears, spit/vomit, blood, milk, birth, and menstrual blood. I have assigned meaning to specific bodily fluids, and have chosen to highlight works which I feel embody these meanings. In my research work, tears are symbolic of the idea of women as hysterical and dramatic, and the way that these oppressive ideas were used to control a woman who showed emotion. Spit/ vomit show the ways women have been expected to put on a pretty face and smile throughout oppressive and sexist standards. These regurgitations serve as a rejection of these standards. Sweat is a marker of bodily endurance, and contrasts traditional expectations of femininity. Blood is a signifier of violence against women. Milk represents the idea of women as caretakers, as mothers, and as beings of servitude fit only for domestic duty. Menstrual blood outlines the cyclical nature of time in relation to the ever-changing female body. Birth is symbolic of ritual, power, and witchcraft.
I wanted to study this history because I am a performance artist myself. Performance art, which I had never even heard about until pursuing a BFA in Studio Art, became a way for me to make work about my experience as a woman that had a much more intense and intimate connection to viewers. My New Genres professor, Micol Hebron, introduced me to performance art at the time of the Kavanaugh hearings. Like many women, I felt helpless and outraged watching Dr. Ford publicly shamed and harassed. Victim blaming is not a new concept; questions such as "What were you wearing?", and "How much did you have to drink?" are ways women are silenced in instances of sexual assault and harassment. I began a series of works called "Still Not 'Asking For It'" in which I performed some of these actions. I changed my clothing. I applied layers of makeup. I sprawled out on campus surrounded by empty alcohol bottles. I marched through campus in my underwear, yelling "STILL NOT ASKING FOR IT!" into a megaphone. My performance practice has continued to develop, and I began spitting and drooling red dye in response to catcalling and harassment that women face daily. Performance art has been a way for me to respond and fight back against oppressions that women are subject to constantly.
Throughout my art education, it became clear that women's work is often undervalued or ignored. I could name dozens of white male artists, but hardly ever heard about women artists until the development of performance art. I wanted to seek out women artists whose work aligned with my own, and both learn from and be inspired by their art. I found that the issues women faced in the 1970's, such as violence, censorship, and victim-blaming, were issues I was making work about. I found that there were far more feminist performance artists than I had imagined, and felt incredibly grateful that so many women had paved the way for me to continue this work. It was disheartening, however, to see that the work of these women was not being historicized in the way that I believed it should be. I wanted to begin archiving works involving body fluids not only as a way for me to reference in my own practice, but so that others can recognize the amazing contributions of women artists.