This blog will keep you up to date on the Year 2 Contextual Practices Lecture/Seminar Series. You are encouraged to post your research, thoughts, comments, images and links relating to the themes under discussion. More info available on Mooooooodle...
antichrist
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
Frida Kahlo
Ive previously looked into the artist frida kahlo and her work. I came across this passage which also links to the monstrous feminine, thought it was quite interesting
A political,social and personal statment all wrapped up in a grotesque disfigurement of herself. It's interesting to note that she is making herself vunrable through this rather than powerul and taranical as other grotesques do, Carrie, alien queen and Ursular.. dare i mention teeth?
"In portraying herself as grotesque, hybrid, and misshapen, Kahlo presents herself as monstrous. I argue that it is through this element of monstrosity that Kahlo resists the patriarchal order by opposing the standards of classical beauty and ideal femininity."
It's interesting that the element of 'monstrosity' is equated as something radical and revolutionary, a social statement, in this article. Many monstrous representations of women are not so empowered but are reviled....think 'wicked' stepmothers, 'ladettes', working mothers and others that have suffered negative stereotyping by mainstream media, damning them for not fitting into norms of safe, heterosexual, traditional family, domestic settings. Frederic is right that Kahlo has avoided being cast as 'tyrannical' even though she was a determined and single minded woman.
A political,social and personal statment all wrapped up in a grotesque disfigurement of herself. It's interesting to note that she is making herself vunrable through this rather than powerul and taranical as other grotesques do, Carrie, alien queen and Ursular.. dare i mention teeth?
ReplyDelete"In portraying herself as grotesque, hybrid, and misshapen, Kahlo presents herself as monstrous. I argue that it is through this element of monstrosity that Kahlo resists the patriarchal order by opposing the standards of classical beauty and ideal femininity."
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that the element of 'monstrosity' is equated as something radical and revolutionary, a social statement, in this article. Many monstrous representations of women are not so empowered but are reviled....think 'wicked' stepmothers, 'ladettes', working mothers and others that have suffered negative stereotyping by mainstream media, damning them for not fitting into norms of safe, heterosexual, traditional family, domestic settings.
Frederic is right that Kahlo has avoided being cast as 'tyrannical' even though she was a determined and single minded woman.