• Read: Weintraub, Linda. What’s Next? Eco Materialism and Contemporary Art, Introduction. The University of Chicago Press
• Read: The Artificial Divide Between Fine Art and Textiles is a Gendered Issue
• Blog Reading Response: Choose work from the reading to discuss in the context of the previous readings (choose 2 works) and themes (choose 1 or 2).
• DO: Project 1 sketches, concept, etc – upload by Saturday, October 12 midnight – hard deadline
  • be sure to spend some time in the B2 space to consider what you might need:
    • a wall
    • plinths (pedestals)
    • special lighting (we will check if what you’d like is possible – we need to know by this Saturday to have enough time)
    • hardware
  • experiment with materials, start to make small-scale mock-ups

Eco materialism

needs “responsible material interactions”

One point of view that caught my eye was the introduction to New Materialism, where everything, even the smallest daily objects, require a lot of effort and manufacturing in order to appear in this form. Thus our daily living can be disconnected to the natural world, and filled only with artificial objects. In New Materialist and post-Anthropocene situations, culture and nature are unified. There would be a mutually beneficial cycle.

Anni Albers’s works, in mediums such as weaving and embroidery, are not overtly about feminism but they challenge the hierarchy of crafts and textiles as inferior to fine arts. Her works blurred the boundaries between art and craft as she shows formal rigor to textiles. Her textile works, such as “Intersecting”, a pictorial weaving work created by cotton and rayon, promotes the formerly belittled materials.

Judy Chicago’s “The Dinner Party” is an ironist feminist work that honors achievements of women throughout history. It is a multimedia installation consists of a triangular table with individual settings dedicated to an important women. In this installation, the idea, arrangement, and effect are closely related to on another. The triangular shape symbolizes equality and the arrangement of handmade plate, ceramics, and embroidery represents feminine power. The installation as a whole is imposing a grandeur effect on the viewers as they enter the massive space.

The work is utilizing the materials both physically and conceptually: she used craft materials such as ceramics, textiles, tiles, and cutlery and chalices to stress importance on historically-marginalized “women’s crafts” and women themselves. Though the installation is physically static, it is deeply connected to the idea of “activated”. Since the work itself already displays a collaborative nature: it collects works from women and creates the piece together, and turns the work itself into an ongoing female practice. In addition, the way how viewers walk around the work and stop by each plate to engage with the materials can also be considered as a participatory art.

I visited her exhibition “Herstory” at the New Museum last year, though not remembering much, I remember the artworks as bright in colors, and the majority are textile works, featuring even massive pieces of carpet works on the ground. More than these, she also displayed video art in the exhibition. Trying to recall, I remember there was grand pieces of textile works on the rooftop floor, where we need to walk up to it to see each parts closely. According to the article it is her most recent and ongoing project, a mixed-media quilt featuring multiple collaborators, which is similar to “The Dinner Party”. As a textile work, this piece again emphasizes the importance of the conceptual use of traditional feminine materials.

Overall, Judy Chicago uses uses the concept of "feminine" materials, such as ceramics, textiles, and embroidery, to subvert traditional gender norms in art and honors women achievements. By doing so, she not only reclaims these materials historically associated with women’s work, but also amplifies the voices of marginalized women throughout history. Her works are more than an aesthetically pleasing static piece, but an invitation and call for audiences attention to often-overlooked contributions of women to culture and society.

reference:

https://ff2media.com/blog/2023/12/06/eating-together-judy-chicagos-exhibition-herstory-at-new-museum/