The Chocolatiest Sex

'The Chocolatiest Sex' (2012) appropriated doll, condom, chocolate

Nina Power, One Dimensional Woman:

"Almost everything turns out to be 'feminist' - shopping, pole-dancing, even eating chocolate... it's every woman for herself, and if it is the Feminist woman who gets the nicest shoes and the chocolatiest sex, then that's just too bad for you, sister... to Freud's infamous question, 'what do women want?' it seems, then, that we have all-too-ready an answer. Why! They want shoes and chocolate and handbags and babies and curling tongs washed down with a large glass of white wine and a complaint about their jobs/men/friends... but a hip young feminist must have her indulgences... chocolate has come to represent that its female devourer is a little bit, well, 'naughty'... chocolate represents that acceptable everyday extravagance that all-too-neatly encapsulates just that right kind of perky passivity that feminized capitalism just loves to reward with a bubble bath and some crumbly cocoa solids... what makes women happy? Ask them and they'll reply, in roughly this order: sex, food, friends, family, shopping, chocolate."

The Oedipal Triangle, Capitalism and Consumer Feminism

Developing my ideas upon desire, I began to reconsider the ideas of Lacan, and, after re-reading 'Sexuality and its Discontents', the theories of Deleuze and Guattari, particularly in relation to the connections between desire and capitalism. They argue that capitalist society imposes constraints to regulate "allowed" desires - those which centrally relate to the reproduction of the family. uch psychologists argue the Oedipal triangle, a concept introduced by Freud, in which the child comes to sexually desire the parent of the opposite sex, and simultaneously resent the parent of their own, 'is the personal and private territoriality that corresponds to all of capitalism's efforts at social reterritorialisation'; as such, the family framework is trapped within the capitalist concepts of sexuality, which in turn distort the production of desire, and is 'complicit with how capitalism has constructed social order'. 

Reconsidering Maslow's Hierachy of Needs, I started to contemplate the manner in which we are marketed products and services based upon our desires, and our need for fulfilment and 'self-actualisation'. Reading articles upon "Cupcake Feminism" and how to "brand" modern feminism, it appeared to me that contemporary feminist thought seemed almost like a strategy to market a product - as Nina Power points out 'the height of supposed female emancipation coincides so perfectly with consumerism', presenting the 'remarkable similarity between 'liberating' feminism and 'liberating' capitalism'. As the The F Word states 'we are not interested in pushing forward a hip, 'fashionable' kind of feminism', and these ideas around consumerism and capitalism, combined with my previous work upon sex dolls and the sex industry could be an interesting way to develop my practice.
 

'The body of a woman exists in the battlefield of male control'

Reading through various Guardian articles in relation to the Slut Walks, I came across one reporting upon the Newcastle version of the march. Referencing the speech given by organiser Lizi Gray, she claims "woman have the right to dress how they like and not be attacked", announced to a crowd carrying signs baring slogans such as "My Clothes Aren't My Consent." The emphasis upon clothing in relation to the body reminded me of the current Sarah Lucas exhibit at the Sadie Coles Gallery, in which clothing such as tights are used to represent the female body, and, in my opinion, reflect the textural and sensual qualities of skin. Works such as 'Make Love', left, appeared to me like a play upon the controversial furniture of Allen Jones, and yet simultaneously managed also to tie the female body to domestic objects, in a sense merging them into one. Strong management of the space enabled the pieces to interact with each other, and gave pieces like 'Tit Teddy', below right, a sense of narrative - the work seemed almost like a child had misplaced it on the window sill, and it was simply waiting for its owner to return.

While I was not particularly pleased with the outcome of my previous experimental works around language, I found it curious that I had returned to childhood toys, and began to rethink my work utilising dolls in relation to the human form. Though I had hoped that by merging human speech with almost alien objects I could transform an object of comfort into one which confronts and challenges, it actually forced myself to reconsider the Slut Walks, and to question to what extent they accurately represented women's liberation and contemporary feminism; they seemed to suggest that rather than allowing others to see you as an object, you should instead make yourself an object first, a move which I saw as more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than a celebration of a liberated body. In relation to language, I'm particularly inspired by Lucas' use of a title as anchorage, steering us to consider the work in a way perhaps not initially considered. Playful use of language made me think of Louise Bourgeois' 'Fillette'; 'playing on the ironic contrast between the title and the work, Fillette [little girl] represents a penis', a 'disjunction of word and object'. I feel her influence can also be seen in the sculptural work below, which I believe lies somewhere between her pink fabric forms such as 'Arch of Hysteria' and the 'Uro-Genital Systems' of Kiki Smith. While I had originally intended for the figure to consist of breasts and legs, reducing the female form to the body parts frequently referenced as targets by Slut Walk banners and slogans, as the piece developed I felt it seemed to take on the suggestive of ovaries and a uterus - perhaps reflective of issues prevalent in previous waves of the feminist movement, such as abortion, birth control and biological sexual difference. As my previous doll works have been on a far smaller scale, I feel a more life sized figure manages to relate my enthusiasm for childhood objects with their adult counterpart, here seeming disturbingly similar to a sex doll. Considering how to install the piece, my partner suggested hanging it upside down, and through this a phallic form was created, managing to visual express the idea of the woman "being" the phallus through making herself an object of desire, while simultaneously referencing both the male and female form, and presenting the body as 'a site for deployment of power relations'. I feel that through taking my influence from language, and creating objects which act as a play upon form, I can combine my interests in the patriarchal and phallocentric nature apparent in a number of aspects of society with my desire to "play" with appropriated quotes and phrases to create visual manifestations of language.

'The body of a woman exists in the battlefield of male control' (2012) tights, cotton wool, appropriated textiles

Street Harassment and Slut Walks

The F Word, a blog 'dedicated to talking about and sharing ideas on contemporary UK feminism', last week posted an article regarding women's views on 'lads mags'. Describing our society as a patriarchy and 'culture that persistently objectifies women', I was keen to think about the manner in which women are presented as sexual objects and the effect this has upon both ourselves and society as a whole. Everyday harassment is a concern addressed by BBC Radio 4's 'My Name Is Not 'Hey Baby'', a programme which discussed such issues surrounding street harassment and where men and women draw the line 'between a flirtatious comment and unwanted attention', while online communities such Hollaback! London offer a space for victims to tell their stories, and, I feel most importantly, bring light to events that occur daily and yet are often overlooked.

I myself was present at the Newcastle Slut Walk in 2011, not as a protester but the document the event - the walk, and others around the world were organised in reaction to comment from a policeman in Toronto, stating "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised." Both women and men took to the streets dressed as "sluts" to argue that women have to right to dress as they choose and not feel they are to be blamed for sexual harassment, assault and rape. Visiting the  Gillian Wearing at the Whitechapel Gallery, works such as her iconic series 'Signs that say what you want them to say, and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say' bought to mind the signs of the Slut Walkers, and of Suffragettes before them. Wearing's work forces us to consider how we present ourselves to the world, whilst also often presenting a chance to take on a different role through works such as 'Confess All On Video. Don’t Worry, You Will Be In Disguise. Intrigued? Call Gillian… (1994)', in which the use of a mask allowed speakers to voice secrets in anonymity. piece '10-16' in which adults lip synch the voices of 7 adolescents who discuss their lives and concerns. A separation between voice and representation is something I am keen to explore in my own work, the beginnings of which can be seen in the experimental work below. Here, developing from previous ideas of desires, security, comfort and childhood, I manipulated appropriated children's toys to incorporate text from the signs of the Slut Walkers. Toys functional as transitional objects in childhood development, and, as Winnicott proposes, takes the place of the mother; the realisation that the mother is separate from the child causes a sense of loss, and such toys allow the child to "create" what it desires. The lack of phallic signifier eradicates a sense of a gendered speaker, and thus the direct address of their messages are interchangeable. Similar to my earlier patchwork quilt, I hoped that the combination of objects traditionally associated with comfort and confrontational, and even sexually suggestive, text would present an uncomfortable viewing position, and blur the line between speaker and representation.

I felt that perhaps these text pieces were too literal; use of slogans from a specific event gave them a very fixed context, and it was commented that they seem almost like advertising, in which the audience is hit with the message and "get it", without them, or the work having to do more. While the idea of phallocentrism, particularly in relation to childhood, is something I want to develop in my work, I have to question whether such blunt text is the most accurate way to explore such thoughts - these pieces, after all, present a view which the majority of my audience will already hold, and I hope to create works which challenge and question rather than reaffirm. 

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

After a discussion upon my former text pieces, I started to realise the emphasis in my work upon desire, and of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, a pyramid of human desires, right, beginning with the Physiological, and concluding in Self-Actualization. Reconsidering the use of bedding as an instigator for feelings of security, and the play upon words presented by Othello's Iago, in the idea of a woman only working when she goes to bed, I began to examine the image of the dormant, sleeping woman apparent throughout Orientalist paintings, and this juxtaposition between the bed as a place of security, and a place in which the woman becomes a spectacle and victim of the male gaze. We are forced through such works as Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres 'Le Grande Odalisque' to identify with the male as controlling the narrative, and watching such an "unconscious other". This notion of the female "performing the spectacle" links to the performativity of language, which, as Lacan suggests, constitutes desire, predicated upon absence or lack. With these ideas in mind, I created the piece below, appropriating a line from The Smiths' 'Well I Wonder', a song discussing the painful longing of unrequited love - after a tutorial in which we considered the ability of music to identity with both and male and female audience regardless of a gendered speaker, I felt that a lyric written by Morrissey, a man who has never publicly stated his sexuality and claims 'I was never a sexual person' would be particularly relevant. The contradiction between the comforting bedding with the almost sinister questioning of the speaker plays upon the desire for safety, shelter and stability, and the manner in which sexual desire can disrupt this. We are not sure whether it is the sleeper or the viewing questioning, and this uncertainty and unclarity of desire further destable or viewing position and create a disturbing sense of ambiguity.

Why Women Have Sex

'You Could Be My' (2012) spray paint on appropriated textiles

Upon re-reading Anne Koedt's 'The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm', and Jane Gerhard's revisiting of it, I began to consider the sexual presentation of women in relation to male desire. Koedt claims in her essay that men perpetuate the myth of a vaginal as opposed to clitoral orgasm as it satisfies a model of male desire, with the vagina the best physical stimulant for male penetration. She continues to discuss ideas of 'The Invisible Woman' and 'The Penis as Epitome of Masculinity', and the phallocentric nature of desire and its impact upon social function; 'sexually, a woman was not seen as an individual wanting to share equally in the sexual act, any more than she was seen as a person with independent desires when she did anything else in society'. As the embodied "other", the women can "be" the phallus to the extent that she is the object of male desire, and as such can enter into the symbolic order. Considering these prevalent themes throughout my practice, I complated the notion of creating a series of works in which language suggested an ungendered speaker, and as such an uneasy spectator position. While the work above shows a continuation into my re-contextualisation of female personal adverts, I felt that the pieces below, appropriating anecdotal text from Cindy Meston and David Buss' psychological study 'Why Women Have Sex' explored a far more varied approach to female sexuality, whilst still remaining ambiguous in its authors sex and sexuality.

'The Thing Called Love' (2012) felt on glass

'What Turns Women On' (2012) felt on paper, and block print experimentations below

'The Thrill of Conquest' (2012) appropriated textiles on paper, thread and appropriated beads

Here, we are unsure as to who the speaker is directing their words to, or if in fact this is how we are intended to think of the author, however I felt the feminine visuals, particularly use of traditionally "female" media such as pink fabric and beads, on their own suggested a strong sense of female voice, and perhaps it is through connecting these to other contrasting elements that this blur of layered identities and lack of pictorial representation that I wish to develop to explore female sexuality and sexual identity will become far more grabbing. As presented by Lacan, the sexed individual is constituted by a world of language, and in regards of sexuality 'there is no insistent sexual desire which pre-exists the entry into the structures of language and culture'. I believe that these initial explorations into sexuality and desire open new areas of thought concerning previously considered ideas surrounding Freudian and Lacanian positions upon desire and feelings of absence or lack - as Naomi Wolf remarks 'what little girls learn is not the desire for the other, but the desire to be desired'.

Women Seeking Men (Dirty Housewife)

In 1991, Barbara Kruger was asked to write about "American Manhood", an ideal she summed up as an image of perfection for us to desire; advertisers 'want interchangeable figures, not bodies', she claimed. I find this particular quote incredibly relevant to my current practice, and for considering the stereotypes of femininity and masculinity with which we are constantly presented with. Taking of transvestism, Grayson Perry stated male cross-dressers to be ‘boys who have been constricted in some way in that very narrow male role’, and I believe it is through exposing the extremes of these roles and stereotypes that we begin to break them down. ‘The paradox of phallocentrism…depends upon the image of the castrated women to give order and meaning to its world’ claimed Laura Mulvey in the seminal 1975 ‘Visual Pleasure and NarrativeCinema’, and it is through the lack of penis that the woman becomes embodied "other", existing as a binary opposite to men, and as Butler argues, gender distinctions are only valid upon accepting a social system based upon binary opposites. The woman can only hope to enter into the male - and penis centred - world by becoming an object of male heterosexual desire. Employing the layout of newspaper adverts, the patchwork quilt below employs traditional "feminine crafts" to re-contextualise both this domestic object, and the adverts presenting women as the sexual other and object. When discussing the work of Tracey Emin, Rosemary Betterton described her work as a subversion of 'techniques and genres historically gendered (albeit not exclusively) as feminine, such as embroidery and patchwork quilts... on the one hand, the patchwork quilt was a confirmation of daughterly or wifely skills and virtues, a symbol of the long tradition of domestic femininity... on the other, appliquéd texts and banners were used in Suffrage demonstrations and were revived in women's peace protests in the 1980s as public and political statements of women's rights and identities'. In relation to blanket works such as 'Helter Fucking Skelter' 'the iconoclasm of the texts is at odds with the painstaking and detailed procedure of sewing each letter one by one onto the ground, just as the violent expression of the words belies the warmth and security implied by the blanket... the work refuses any simple reading of female identity' - it is this sense of a multi-narrative work which I hope to have created through selecting examples informed by Lakoff's study of 'women's language'.

'Women Seeking Men (Dirty Housewife)' (2012) embroidery, appliqué and image transfer on appropriated textiles

Kruger states "direct address has been a consistent tactic in my work", and I believe such influence can be seen clearly in this work, using appropriated images and text drawn from mass media, manipulating meaning and cultural value whilst feeding upon ’the image repertoire of popular culture’ (Kruger, 1982). Direct address however requires spectatorship, a position which naturally will be embodied and gendered. Here the speaker has no 'body', and thus I hope to question, confuse and perhaps even to collapse traditional gendered readings and viewing positions - presented alongside sexuality suggestive images of women, the selected text forces us to consider how we view these bodies. Phrases such as 'I WANNA MAKE U COME' and 'WANT 2 HELP U' sends mixed messages - are these figures here for our sexual pleasure, or is this how we should feel towards them. Ultimately, the 'I' and 'U' are interchangeable, unfixed and ungendered, and call into question such a presentation of female sexuality, in which 'we are taught that the needs of women are in direct conflict with the needs of men' and that sexuality and desire is in effect based upon a power struggle; reporting upon sexual violence, an article in the Guardian summarised this struggle as 'an insistence on "purity" [which] is just the other side of the coin of insisting on sexually servicing other men. In both cases, the body of a woman exists in the battlefield of male control.'

Charlie Snow; Dream Patchwork Quilt Project

I was thrilled to be invited to take part in fellow Fine Artist and craft enthusiast Charlie Snow's 'Dream Quilt Patchwork Project'. Relating strongly to my own current work, I felt the project captured the essence of traditional quilt making; ultimately, the coming together of different ideas, memories and experiences to create a snapshot of culture and society. The project asks contributors to create a patch representing a dream they have experienced - my patch below depicts a reoccurring dream of owning a vintage tea room, using appropriated bedding and padded appliqué.

The finished piece can be seen at the Northumbria BA (Hons) Fine Art Show, private view on June 14th 2012 and The Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, private view 5th July 2012.

How To Make A Patchwork Quilt

While working upon my current pieces, I came across 'Let Me Tell You', right, in the Eldon Square Shopping Centre, Newcastle. The piece, created by the Northern Engagement into Recovery from Addiction Foundation (NERAF) aims to present various stories surrounding 'the good and bad days' of caring for someone recovering from addiction. I was instantly reminded here of the 1995 films 'How to Make an American Quilt' - working on her master's thesis and unsure of her recent engagement, 26 year old Finn decides to spend the summer with her grandmother and great aunt, where she meets a quilting bee of local women working upon a quilt for her wedding, and, in joining them, hears tales of romance and sorrow, as they 'question of whether monogamous life long marriage is a realistic goal'. As suggested by Sally J. Scholz, 'society perpetuates itself through the rituals and signs that constitute the 'symbolic order'', and these are learned through language; she highlights the phallocentric nature of our use of language, offering examples of marital titles, and customarily patronymic family names. As such quilts were a common wedding gift, often utilising sentimental fabrics from memorable events in the lives of the makers, I felt a female craft so strongly linked with the traditionally phallogocentric ritual of marriage could both compliment and contradict the contemporary dating adverts, while the use of bedding was loaded in itself with suggestions - as claimed in Shakespeare's Othello, females are 'players in [their] housewifery, and housewives in [their] bed' - ultimately, women only go to "work" when then go to bed, suggesting a sense only of sexual worth. This "housewife-whore" opposition references a view of women only in terms of satisfying male desire, and an 'active/male and passive/female’ position - even through language, women are still considered in relation to the way they are "seen". As considered by Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune in their text 'Reclaiming the F Word; The New Feminist Movement', 'a girl can't win. If she doesn't portray herself as 'sexy' and desirable, she's called frigid. Yet if she's sexually active, she's a slut... women learned to see themselves as sexual objects, not subjects'. Developing from my earlier attempts, I began drawing upon adverts both looking for partners, and those advertising the sexual services of women. Taking these phrases out of context, and with no representation of the speaker, it is never made explicit as to the sex or gender of either speaker or reader.

'Untitled' (2012) embroidery on appropriated textiles

'Untitled' (2012) embroidery on appropriated textiles

Elizabeth Price; 'HERE'

While back in Newcastle, I was able to view the latest works on show at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art - after speaking to friends, I was particularly looking forward to experiencing the video pieces of Elizabeth Price in her exhibition 'HERE'. Price's practice sees her appropriate existing film, photography, music and text to create 'immersive video installations' which explore our commodity culture and consumerism. Upon being lead into a darkened room, three works were spread across three screens, 'Choir', 'West Hinder', and probably my favourite piece of the exhibit, the 2009 work 'User Group Disco', below; here we are presented with a 'Hall of Sculptures' in which various consumer goods are combined with text and the almost surreal addition of A-Ha's 'Take On Me'.

Elizabeth Price, USER GROUP DISCO, 2009 from Contemporary Art Society on Vimeo.

I recognised the ending quote, which suggests we will realise that we are all 'a mere appearance, dreamt by another' as a reference to Jorge Luis Borges' 'The Circular Ruins' - the story tells the tale of a wizard who dreams of a young man, and calls upon the God of Fire to bring him into existance, on the condition he accustoms him to reality. Sent to live in a distant temple, the young man becomes famous for his ability to walk through fire unharmed; the wizard hears of these stories, and visits his creation to find the temple ablaze. Walking into the flames he notices he remains unharmed - it is 'with relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he too was a mere appearance, dreamt by another.' Such themes of undefined reality and idealism I feel are clearly mirrored within Price's work. 'User Group Disco' questions the nature and language of categorisation and draws attention to the classification of objects, which I believe forces us to question whether our perception of reality is an elaborate illusion created through language. Utilising text appropriated from celebrated male authors, I found the complex weaving and subversion of various sources a great area for contemplation in relation to my own work.

Appropriation has always been a key aspect of my work; taken from the title of a BBC debate, 'Is Porn Bad For Society?', below, was inspired by a comment made on the show, in which one speaker described women in the porn industry as 'blow up dolls made of flesh'; by merging a mould of my mouth and jaw and a mannequin's head to create the bust of a sex doll. Similar to the mannequins seen through out Fassbinder's 'The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant', these figures represent a relationship based upon complete subordinance, and a master-slave relationship detrimental to the sexual position of women. By subverting this symbol of female domination into an object of decoration via the use of traditional "feminine" crafts, we are forced to reassess the presentation of female sexuality. As Lakoff suggests 'speech about women implies an object, whose sexual nature requires euphemism, and whose social roles are derivative and dependent in relation to men. The personal identity of women thus is linguistically submerged', and the the direct nature of the text in this work, similar to the work of artists such as Kruger and Emin, leaves us unsure as to the speaker and of to whom the "I" refers to - the sexualised yet dominated "female", or the audience for viewing her in such a way.

'Is Porn Bad For Society?' and details (2011) mannequin's head, plaster strips, appropriated and embroidered textiles, buttons

Developing from this earlier work, I began to consider the importance phrases in which the signifer has no fixed signified, and as such vary from each discursive instance. As presented by Kaja Silverman in 'The Subject of Semiotics' 'the signifer "you" addressed by one person to another immediately translates in the mind of the second person into "I"... "I" derives its value from "you"... just as "black" refers to "white", or "male" to "female".' With this in mind, the use of pronouns such as "I" and "you" present us with the chance to subvert speaker/audience positions, and challenge ideas of gendered speech. The piece below, taken from an advert for a "call girl" company, when taken from its original context, has no fixed speaker, and as such no fixed gender.

'I Wanna Make You Come' (2012) embroidery on appropriated textiles

Eye Object Private View

Eye Object; featuring works from Georgina Low, Mary Lister, Eve Matthews, Katherine Miller Craig, Jennifer Morgan, Gemma Murray and Rosa Nolan-Warren.

I was rather startled today to come across an article regarding a woman who had used Facebook to pose as a man in order to sexually assault young females; it seemed incredible to me that she could "perform" the gender so well, with the culprit herself claiming she 'wanted to become "the perfect boy"' for the girls she became involved with. If, as Sarah Salih claims in relation to Judith Butler's thinking 'gender is "a regulated process of repetition" taking place in language', we rely upon language to order our reality. Will Hill highlights the 'contradictions that exist between words and images, and thus between description and representation', yet via channels of communication such as Facebook and online chat rooms, we need not even match up to our declared identity - as seen in this instance, be it in a more dangerous manner, access to mass media and cyberspace has given us the chance to play with and even create our own identity, in which we can construct ourselves through language. Language is used to distinguish us from the "Other", and, as proposed by writers such as Fanon and Sartre, it is through the look of the other that we come into being, explored in the previous appropriated text works of Glen Ligon. After discussing Ligon's pieces within 'Weighted Words' exhibition with a friend, he directed me to the embroidered text messages of 'Ginger Anyhow' - this method of laboriously creating a permanent form of such passing and ultimately disposable words brought to mind an essay I had recently read entitled 'Memory Embroidered', in which it is suggested the ritualistic nature of craft itself can be translated into a form of dialogue. Jean de La Fontaine claims 'ritual expresses cultural values because 'it 'says' something and therefore has meaning as part of a non-verbal system of communication', and I believe it is this ''oral-pictorial' intercommunication' with which these personal messages were presented to us, giving no idea of who had written or received them, that is of particular interest to me. It was as I was considering this kind of "voice with no face" that I came across the dating section of a local newspaper and I began to contemplate how we present ourselves to others, and the ways in which the language used in such personal adverts can be used to analyse the psychology behind "Lonely Hearts". Continuing from my earlier research into Butler, the performitivity of speech acts and how we declare ourselves, I found these dating adverts an interesting area of consideration, as explored in the piece below.

'Janette' (2012) embroidery on appropriated textiles

While I was unsure about the success of this work in its very lateral presentation of a chosen advert, I did wish to refine the use of embroidered words, perhaps in a more abstracted sense; I felt there was was strong potential in the use of this appropriated text, possibly selecting certain phrases instead to highlight the effect of certain words and their gendered connotations. In his essay 'Language and Women's Place', Robin Lakoff discusses both the ways in which women are expected to speak, and the ways in which they are spoken of - Lakoff suggests that certain euphemisms exist in language used to talk about women, notably "lady", which he claims does not hold the same "unpleasant or embarrassing" sexualised connotations of "woman". From the work below, a section of one woman's personal advert, it could be proposed that these connotations effect the way women declare themselves, and how they wish to be seen by the "Other".

'Talking Like a Lady' (2012) embroidery on appropriated textiles

Weighted Words

Humans, as linguistic beings, require language in order to be - as suggested by Butler, a body not yet given a name or social definition is not yet accessible to us. One comes to exist by dependency upon the address of the other, and, as proposed by philosopher Frantz Fanon, we cannot exist individually in the context of here and now, but come to represent and be understood in the light of our race, ethnicity and gender as a whole. The work of Glenn Ligon currently on display at the Zabludowicz Collection's 'Weighted Words' exhibition address such issues surrounding the construction of race, gender and sexuality. The gallery claimed the exhibit wished to 'focus on the affect of language' His text-based paintings 'draw on the writings and speech of diverse figures', such as the neon work 'Warm Broad Glow II', left, which quotes from “Melanctha,” a 1909 novella by Gertrude Stein. I enjoyed the manner in which Ligon had appropriated such phrases, removing them from their original context to question the important relationship between what is said or declared, and who declares it. Such works reminded me of the speech act pieces of Sharon Hayes, and of the account given in 'Domesticating Barbie: An Archaeology of Barbie, Material Culture and Domestic Ideology', of the 1970 Women's Strike for Equality 'when a young girl raised a sign reading "I AM NOT A BARBIE DOLL"'. The relationship between what is declared and the declarer is a one I am particularly interested in exploring, specifically in relation to gender, and the manner in which language is used to define and, in a sense, govern us in society.

EYE OBJECT

Barbie's Queer Accessories

I was incredibly excited to view the retrospective of the late Lucian Freud at the National Portrait Gallery this week. Freud's scrutinising study of the body and human form has always been of strong influence to me and my work. Throughout the exhibition, I was incredibly curious as to the frequent use of animals in his portraits, almost as if to draw some kind of parallel; in his 'Naked Man With Rat' (1977-8), the tail of the rat in the right hand of the male sitter hangs close to his penis, suggesting perhaps that they are both simply a type of appendage. It is hinted here that 'Freud did not care about gender or ego; people were simply another species of animal' (National Portrait Gallery, 2012). These ideas led me to consider the importance of such biological and physical features such as genitalia in creating identity. Wanting to develop my earlier experimentation into the manipulation of the doll's body, I moulded my sculpted penis onto the body of the Barbie whose arms created the appendage. The use of paper mache, for me reminiscent of childhood crafts and television shows such as 'Art Attack', is highlighted by the use of metallic silver spray, heightening the awareness of texture, material and process. Inspired by the fragmented and distorted dolls of Hans Bellmer, I wanted to move away from the human like quality of the doll and create something separate, and almost alien. Here, the almost absurd sight of such a recognised cultural item with a penis forces us to question why we are willing to accept that this inanimate figure is female, despite her lack of vagina, hormones and reproductive system.

'Barbie's Queer Accessories' and details (2012) Barbie doll, paper mache, spray paint

Lynda Benglis

In Lynda Benglis' latest exhibition at the Thomas Dane gallery - her first UK retrospective - the artist employs a variety of media (wax, rubber, clay, bronze and glitter to name a few) to create forms as extensions of the body. I personally found the pieces shown across the gallery's two spaces to display a consideration of material process, managing to marry organic forms in a very unnatural way. Her works almost blur the line between painting and sculpture vividly coloured latex seems to ooze across the floor, while works such as her 'Sparkle Knot IV', right, appeared to me at initial glance to be constructed from torn and knotted canvas.

Entering the second gallery space, we are greeted with Benglis' video work 'Female Sensibility' (1973), below left, which shows the artist and a friend gently kissing. Through their knowledge of the camera, and hence the viewer, and sense of very controlled and constructed gestures, the women here elevate themselves above the status of objects, and as such perhaps escape the tyranny of the male gaze. Set to the soundtrack of an appropriated American radio station, punctuated by country music tracks, as described Aesthetica magazine, it is 'uncomfortably stereotypical in its

masculinity, made worse by the later introduction of a preacher sermonising on the creation of Adam and Eve.'

The press release claimed "Her defiant nature was exemplified by a mythical advertisement in the November 1974’s edition of ArtForum, in which she posed naked brandishing a dildo – satirising the machismo of the art world." In an interview concerning this collection, the artist herself claimed she was interested in showing 'that an artist can be both masculine and feminine. But most importantly, an artist is an artist.'For me, this work attempts to display masculinity and femininity simultaneously, perhaps displaying visually both having the phallus in a physical sense of the signifier, and being the phallus, through the female form of her exposed breasts and hips. Continuing my exploration into childhood toys, I recreated the pose of the photograph below, using my manipulated "drag king" Barbie as my "penis" (I was, coincidently, wearing an almost identical shirt); this experimentation allow me to begin to consider the function of the Barbie in a child's development of a sense of self. Which the little girl can identify with this image outside of herself, it is precisely this outside otherness which presents the child with a sense of the female body as object.Through editing, I was able to heighten the lighting and contrast to remove my face, adding a far more ambiguous quality, and I found it gave more clarity to my previous ideas.

Developing from this initial concept, Inspired by the surrealist works of Hans Bellmer and his search for the missing female phallus through drawings such as 'L'Aigle Mademoiselle', in which the girl's "penis" is made visible, I created the collages below. Taking images from a section of a local newspaper, I created the collages below, taking inspiration from the gender splicing of Hannah Höch's photomontages. While I do not feel these works to be particularly successful, they do open up areas for further contemplation and manipulation; I am particularly interested in Barbie's lack of genitalia, its penis like shape, and the acceptance of her as a "woman" despite this biological lack.

GemmaGem