The Fourth Wave: A Feminist Series (Pt. 1)

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (We Don’t Need Another Hero), 1987.

Hello all, Steph here. This is a new series I'm starting that basically shows appreciation for some of my favourite feminist artists throughout history. Aside from my own personal experiences with gender discrimination, a big part of what influenced my feminism are artists I stumbled upon at galleries, learnt about in school or just came across through personal research.

I think it's also relevant for me to explain the title of this series as it has some historical context which  as it should, informs the series itself. "The Fourth Wave" refers to the hypothetical fourth-wave in the feminist movement. There have been 3 waves so far, the first occurring in the late 19th century and early 20th century. It was focused on allowing women the right to vote alongside other legal issues. The second (which I would say is the OG wave and really pioneered and opened up many avenues and leeways for feminism) was focused on key issues like giving women the right to decide on abortion, gender roles, patriarchy, sexuality and domestic violence. The second-wave was a lot more blatant and explicit taking place between the 60s and the 80s and coinciding with the "Swinging 60s" that heralded a non-conformist movement in terms of drugs, sexuality and social constructions in general, making it the perfect time for in-your-face feminism. Finally, the third wave, which started in the 90's and is still going on has taken everything from the second wave and added unequal wage distribution and a focus on women from BAME (Black Asian Minority Ethnic) groups and their struggle with both race and gender. It's also paid attention to the LGBTQ community and their battle within this white, cis, supremacist, patriarchal world we live in. So my title "the fourth wave" is majorly just a play on the sequence of the waves and an attempt to encompass all the waves into one term. 

To start off this series, I'll give a brief review of this exhibition I stumbled upon at the Photographer's Gallery in London titled "Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s". How perfect right? The exhibition featured a lot of the artists that were already on my radar and a few others that I wasn't familiar with so I guess I could say it was a pleasant surprise. I'll talk about a few artists and my perception of their work as well as a bit of background research I've done on them. (p.s. the exhibition is on till the 29th of Jan 2017 and its free if you're 18 and under or if you're a student you get a discount ;)).

  Mary Elizabeth Edelson

A bit of wikipedia history, Edelson was born in 1933 and was very much active throughout the second and third waves of feminism. She is considered one of the pioneers of the feminist art movement. Edelson's piece, "Some Living Women Artists/Last Supper" ,was featured at the exhibition.  It is a remake of DaVinci's "Last Supper" with a (not so) slight twist. The twist is, instead of having all of Jesus' predominantly male disciples (I say predominantly because my homeboy DaVinci slid in one female face, I'll give more deets later), she placed faces of female artists over their faces, having Georgia O'Keefe, legendary painter famous for her paintings of flowers, as Jesus Christ. The piece took a stab at the relationship between religion and patriarchy. I think DaVinci's piece was very convenient to use because, touching on the point I made earlier, he included the one female character-Mary Magdalene. Magdalene is also sort of a stab to the patriarchal religious system given the claims that Jesus left Mary Magdalene as the head of the church (although she was subsequently suppressed by the egotistic men-for more info, read the DaVinci Code by Dan Brown or google it). So, I think it's an incredibly interesting link. It is sort of saying these are the people (women) who deserve a seat at the "big boys table". 

 Lorraine O'Grady

12. Mlle Bourgeoise Noire shouts her poem

10. Mlle Bourgeoise Noire whips herself with the whip-that-made-plantations-move.

O'Grady was the only (I assume) woman of colour at the exhibition so I was buzzing when I saw her work mounted on those crispy white walls. She is a conceptual artist who combines performance art, poetry and installations to discuss issues dealing with black female subjectivity, hybridity (mixed races/cultures) and diaspora. Her most notable work is a persona she created, Mlle Bourgeoise Noire (Miss Black Middle-Class). The persona always invaded art gallery openings, wearing a dress made of 180 pairs of white gloves and whipping herself with a cat o-nine tails, used in times of slavery to whip slaves and delivering a poem to the audience she is presented with, which varied from white petite-bourgeois settings to the black suburbs. She did this from 1980-83, with the most notable and the one featured in the exhibition was her 1981 invasion of the opening of the "New Museum" art gallery in New York. Though her performances then were called a failure, they had a great reception in the 90's and were widely recreated. She took on the beauty pageant look wearing a sash and a tiara. The title implies "Miss Black Middle-Class" and we all know the beauty pageants are famous for reducing women into voiceless objects of admiration and things to be paraded, so it's an interesting juxtaposition that she walks into the space looking like a beauty queen and then switches up and screams poems about segregation and inequality in the system. 

Well guys I've already given you such a huge backstory & I don't want to overwhelm you so I'll end the post here. If there's any feminist artists you would love me to feature just pop his/her name down in the comments and I'll look them up. Also tell me what you think about this post? Do you agree or identify with feminism or no?  Thanks for reading :*.

Steph.