Erotic Ambiguities : The Female Nude in Art

ISBN-13: 9780415170994 / Angielski / Miękka / 2000 / 272 str.

Helen McDonald

Opis

This work explores how feminist artists have responded to traditional depictions of the ideal female body which proliferate throughout contemporary visual culture as a ubiquitous marketing tool. Across photography, fashion, painting and performance art, Helen McDonald shows how feminist artists have employed the idea of ambiguity to counter negative images of women and to dismantle the elusive classical ideal enshrined in the nude. Examining the work of key artists from Barbara Kruger, Judy Chicago, and Mary Duffy, to Zoe Leonard, Tracey Moffat, Pat Barrington and Sally Smart, McDonald traces the shift in feminist art practices from the early deconstruction of patriarchal representations to the more ambivalent contemporary practices, to the tensions between ideas of the performativity of gender identity, and art employing strategic essentialism.

Spis treści

List of Plates Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Feminism, Ambiguity and the Ideal 2. Revisioning the Female Nude 3. Historical Ambiguity 4. Seeing Ambiguity 5. Gender Ambiguity 6. Making a Difference with Ambiguity 7. Turning Ambiguity Around 8. Hybrid Ambiguities Conclusion Notes Works Cited Index

O autorze

Helen McDonald is an Honorary Fellow in the School of Fine Arts, Classical Studies and Archaeology at the University of Melbourne.