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Body Language: The Presence and Absence of Cindy Sherman, Sherrie Levine and Barbara Kruger
Bowlen, Joan E.
Bowlen, Joan E.
Abstract
The effects of Postmodern Art of the late 1970s and early 1980s have already become indoctrinated into the vernacular of established, institutional Art of the millennial age; however, are these works still viable as critiques and a deconstruction of a patriarchal, male-driven canonization process in High Art? This paper focuses on the work of three female artists from this Postmodern era who use a variety of media to continually re-establish High Art as a playing field for the politics of gender, sexuality, and representation. Whether through the complete absence and negation of authorship, as in Sherrie Levine's work, the predominant physical presence of Cindy Sherman or Barbara Kruger's brilliant interplay of text and image, all three of these women reflected and critiqued America's male-centric art culture, thereby attempting to engage and challenge a reconstruction of the preconceived notions involved in the act of viewing. This paper examines the impact of these women on the 20th Century's redefinition of High Art and authorship through a historical and gendered analysis of their work within the context of the larger Post-modernist scene and the development of their individual oeuvres within it.
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Thesis is part of Honors ETD pilot project, 2008-2013. Migrated from Dspace in 2016.
Date
2009-05-14
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Keywords
Modernism, Postmodernism, Feminism, High art, Canon
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Department
Art and Art History