Amelia Jones - Womanhouse

Homework - Amelia Jones curating the feminist though

brainstorm/map questions you have about the viewing of art.

Think about questions that consider social, political, cultural and historical contexts.

3. Watch Amelia Jones: Curating in Feminist Thought
https://vimeo.com/204758083  (52 mins)
Jones lecture discusses three time periods of feminist practices and explores specific curated/group exhibitions within these time frames. Select one exhibition from each time period and share key points Jones makes.

Waiting, Faith Wilding, 1972

 Amelia Jones: Curating in Feminist Thought: Woman-house

Linen closet, Woman house, 1972

One of the Exhibitions Amelia Jones discusses is Woman house  organized by educators, professional artists and feminists Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro and twenty one students apart of the feminist art program in January 30 – February 28, 1972. Students built walls, fixed floors, installed windows, and worked without heat or running water. Composed of twenty-five mixed-media environments and six performances, Woman house sought to explore the complex relationship between a woman and her home by both embracing the creativity that women have exhibited in decorating maintaining their homes, as well as questioning certain gender roles as normative. Amelia Jones notes that Chicago in Particular aimed to empower women by encouraging them to mold their personal stories into political feminist art and performance and by giving them the knowledge to build, create and generally assert themselves in the public realm of the art world, she also notes that Woman-house showcased a women's role and relationship within the domestic life, and their experiences, as shown in performances such as Waiting by Faith Wilding was a quieter, more contemplative piece which was concerned with the passivity of women’s lives, waiting for things to happen to them rather than actively pursuing things "Waiting for him to give me pleasure... Waiting for the children to grow up and leave home ... Waiting to have some time to myself... Waiting for life to begin ... Waiting ... . and artworks such as the linen Closet, depicting a woman who is trapped between sheets in her linen closet, however the image suggests so much more. This image represents the larger idea that as women are forced into their gender specified role as housewife they become physically confined by their everyday duties. Women are “placed on a shelf” where they are not to be touched unless another individual physically manipulates them.

charlyfap. (2019). Feminist Art and Womanhouse. [online] Available at: https://charlyfap.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/feminist-art-and-womanhouse/ [Accessed 28 Feb. 2019].