Appropriation and irony: Postmodeniist Elemmts in the

Work of Three Contemporary Canadian Fanimst Artists

Skai Fowler, Christnie Davis and Joanne Tod

by

Melanie Brown

A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of

Graduate Studies and Research in partial fblfilment

of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

in Canadian Art History

Carleton University

Ottawa, Ontario

August 25, 1999

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This thesis examines the merger of feminin and postmodernist theory in the work of three contemporary Canadian feminist artists: Ioanne Tod, Skai Fowler and Christine Davis. Speciîïcally, it addresses the use of appropriation and irony in their work. A main concem is to analyze key aspects ofboth discourses to determine similar patterns of thought. To accomplish this, feminism's engagement with main theoretical discourses, specifically Manrism, semiotics, psychoandysis and poststnicturalism is discussed. Also, key aspects tiom the writings of three main postmodeniist theorists, Jean-François Lyotard, Fredric Jarneson and Jean Bauddard, wili be analyzed in terms of a feminist application. The practical merger of feminism and postmodemism is assessed in the work of each artist in the subsequent chapters. Interestingly, it is their use of appropriation and irony which gives Tod's, Fowler's and Davis's work a critical edge. 1 wish to express my deepest thanks to and respect for Carol Payne, my thesis supe~sor. Her knowledge and direction served to make the writing of this thesis a memorable and invaluable experience. Thank-you Meg, for your well-timed srniles and laughter. Thanks to Peter St. Jacques, for his hours spent ensuring the illustrations were presentable. Hollie, dthough a simple thank-you seems small in cornparison to the suppon you have given me throughout the past years, 1 would like you to know how much 1 appreciate all you have done, thanks. Table of Contents

List of Illustrations...... v

Introduction,...... -vii

Chapter One...... -1 Feminism and Posbnodemism: Feminism's Engagement with Key nieoretical Discourses and Three Main Posûnodemist Writers: Jean-François Lymrd, Frednc Jarneson and Jean BaudriUard

Chapter Two...... -37 Skai Fowler: Feminisrn and the Cancmical Nude.

Chapter Three...... 56 Christine Davis: The Viewer ohdthe Body.

Chapter Four...... -71 Joanne Tod: Irmy and Popular Culture.

Conciusion...... -89 List of Illustrations

Figure 1. David Sde. Gé~cault%Ana, 1985. 0i1 on Canvas, 78% 96". Coliection of the Museum of Modem Art, New York. Source: An ihfemew wirib RadSale. By Peter Schjeldahl. New York: Randorn House, 1987.

Figure 2. Skai Fowler. Coffiiwith Veacr, 1992. Colour Photograph, 122 x 152 cm. Collection of Paul Crepeau. Source: Iae Female Imaginas.. By Jan Allen. Kingston, ON. : Agnes Ethe~gtonGallery, 1995. Plate 1.

Figure 3. Sando Botticelli. Bi& of Venus. Tempera on Canvas, 1.8 x 2.8 m. Collection of Galleria degh Ufh, Florence. Source: UIStoly. By Madyn Stokstad. New York: Hany N. Abrams, Inc., 1995. Pg. 11 1 1.

Figure 4. Praxiteies. Hennes aad fhe llnfant Dionysos. Marble. Archeologicai Museum, Olympia. Source: Art Hl;story. By Marilyn Stokstad. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1995. Pg. 1111.

Figure 5. Skai Fowler. Curtaias, 1989. Black and White Photograph. Collection of the Artist. Source: meFde Imagiaary. By Jan Men. Kingston, ON.: Agnes Ethenngton Gallery, 1995.

Figure 6.Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Large Wisque.Oil on Canvass, 2'10" x 5'4". Collection of Musee du Lourve, Paris. Source: M Histo~y.By Marilyn Stokstad. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 19%. Plate 2642.

Figure 7. Skai Fowler. Pipe 1992. Colour Photograph, 152 x 122 cm. Collection of the Artist. Source: me Female Imaghq. By Jan Allen. Kingston, ON.: Agnes Et heringon Gallery, 1995. Plate 2.

Figure 8. Jacob Jordeans. Pan and Syrk Oil on Canvas, 173 x 136 cm. Collection of Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels. Source: Jacob Jordaens 1593- 1678. By Michael Jaffë. ûttawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1968. Plate 17.

Figure 9.1. Christine Davis. cleave, 1987. Installation view at WZGallecy. Counesy of Olga Korper Gallery, Toronto.

Figure 9.2. Christine Davis. cleave, 1987. Installation view at YYZ Gallery. Courtesy of Olga Korper Gallery, Toronto.

Figure 9.3. Chnnine Davis. ckve, 1987, Installation view at Powerhouse Gallery Counesy of Olga Korper Gallery, Toronto. vii

Figure 9.4. Christine Davis. cleave, 1987. Detail of installation at YYZ Gallery. Courtesy of Olga Korper Gallery, Toronto.

Figure 10.1. Christine Davis. Unanuin01~fHorizons, 1989. Installation view at S.L. Simpson Gallery. Cowtesy of Olga Korper Gallery.

Figue 10.2. Christine Davis. #5 Untitled: fiom Unartlmorrs Honkom, 1989. SilverpMt/muitimedia, 29" x 32". Courtesy of O@ Korper Gallery, Toronto.

Figure 10.3. Christine Davis. C/ntitIerl:W fiom Unanhous Horizon, 1989. Silverprint, lead, anodized steel plate, 8 1 " x 19". Courtesy of Olga Korper Gallery, Toronto.

Figure 10.4. Christine Davis. #2 Untrtrtlddetail, fkom Lraanimous Worizom, 1989. Silverprint/rnultimedia, 81 " x 42". Counesy of Olga Korper Gallery, Toronto.

Figure 1 1. Joanne Tod. SelfiPomi& 1982. Actylic on Canvas, 137.8"~153 .O". Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Hallisey, Toronto. Source: Joame Tod. By Stan Douglas and Bruce Grenville. Toronto: The Power Plant Gallery, 1991. Plate 7.

Figure 12. Joanne Tod. SelfiPoml as a hstihrte, 1983. Acrylic on Canvas, 149.9"~ 139.7".CoUection of Mr. and Mrs. B. Belzberg, Toronto. Source: Joanoe Tod. By Stan Douglas and Bruce Grenville. Toronto: The Power Plant Gallery, 199 1. Plate 8.

Figure 13.1. Joanne Tod. Mimgmese meen, 1996. Oil on canvas, 48" x 60". Courtesy of Joame Tod.

Figure 13 2. Joanrie Tod. Kùlg V;;nndih,1996. Oil on Canvas, 54" x 66". Courtesy of Joa~eTod.

Figure 13.3. Joanne Tod. Break-îâsf in Berl: 1996. 0i1 on Canvass, 45" x 50". Courtesy of Joanne Tod.

Figure 1 3.4. Jome Tod. LeA Field 1996. Oil on canvas, 84" x 120". Courtesy of Joanne Tod.

Figure 13.5. Joanne Tod. hmof Sad' 1997. Oil on Canvas, 50" x 45". Courtesy of the Joanne Tod.

Figure 13 -6.Joanne Tod. Cool Reception, 1997. Oil on Canvas, 45" x 50". Courtesy of Joanne Tod.

Figure 13.7. Joanne Tod. Amk TwiI, 1997. Oil on Canvas, 54" x 66". Courtesy of Joanne Tod. Figure 13.8. Joanne Tod. Greeaway, 1997. OiI on Canvas, 40" x 32". Counesy of Joanne Tod.

Figure 14. Joanne Tod. A Diamond is Forever, 1984. Oil on Canvas, 167.6% 167.6". Collection of Fust City Trust Company, Toronto. Source: foanne 7''.By Stan Douglas and Bruce Grenville. Toronto: The Power Plant Gallery, 199 1. Plate 12. The uses of appropriation and irony in recent Canadian feminist art have emerged

as key strategies for the purpose of critique. In the work of the three Canadian artists

exarnined here-Joanne Tod, Skai Fowler and Christine Davis-these strategies are

prominent. These artists engage with images and ideas fiom mass culture as well os

canonical art to analyze cultural representations of and assumptions about women.

Appropriation and irony, two elements ubiquitous in contemporary art, are commonly

labeled postrnodemist. Yet, when used in conjunction with a feminist viewpoint, they serve to expose the biases of past art practices and other modes of representation. An

interesting merger, then, between contemporary feminist criticism and postmodeniist techniques arises in their work. This merger itself warrants deeper discussion. It is an interesting approach for feminist artists to empIoy the tropes of appropriation and irony since these elements themselves have been used in harmfùlly ambiguous ways by the patnarchal mistic tradition, including such contemporary figures as David

Salle.' (Figure 1)

A number of writers have questioned the relationship between these two discourses, asking if their merger has been beneficial to feminism's agendas. Most clearly,

Linda Hutcheon argues that the politicai stance of the two are diametncaily opposed. She suggests that,

postmodemkm is politically ambivalent for it is doubly coded-both cornplicitous with and contesting of the cultural dominant within which it operates; but on the other side, feminisms have distinct, unarnbiguous political agendas of resistance.' Ilowever, postmodernist nrategies can be usefbl to a critical feminist practice in its

deconstmction. Janet Wolff, for exarnple, defines postmodemism as

work which self-consciously deconstnicts tradition, by a variety of fomal and other techniques (such as irony, parody, juxtaposition, re-appropriation of images, repetition and so on).'

this clearly can aid a feminist critique. Indeed, Tod, Fowler and Davis use appropriation

and irony as tools to dismantle dominant representations of women in order to make apparent the constructed notions of femininity. As well, the artists negotiate the spaces between postmodemist techniques and feminist theories by using these practices. This thesis will employ criteria presented by critical theory of both feminist and postmodernist writers to evaiuate the theoretical and stylistic merger of postmodenism and ferninism in the work of Tod, Fowler and Davis.

Chapter One is dedicated to exploring contemporary theory from key feminist and postmodernist writers. Indeed, according to Imeida Melehan, the "forms of analysis and definitions of what constitutes the postmodern moment are as heterogeneous as the variety of feminist positions.'" A period contextualization of the cornmon goals of feminism since the 1980's, for example, reveals the different theories feminists have adopted, specificdly

Marxism semiotics, psychoanalysis and poststructuralism. Each of these theoretical models will be discussed in tems of their feminist applications, thus outlining the specific problems concerning women and the approaches feminists use to address these issues.

Indeed, it is a characteristic of feminism to strategically adapt theory to suit its critical needs. Similady, a review of three prominent postmodernist writers provides an understanding of the elements which comprise aspects of its theoretical base. This discussion posits postmodem theory in relation to leading femuiist positions. However,

some scholars argue that it is postmodemism which bonows 6om feminism. As Hutcheon

suggests, feminism has exhibited a strong influence on postmodemism and its proponents.'

Therefore, the discussion of postmodemism will be read through a feminist position. 1 will both acknowledge the roots of critical postmodemism in feminist practice itself and pose the question; what aspects of postmodemist theory, drawn fiom patriarchal authors, can be usefiil to feminist artists.

Specifically, the first discussion of postmodemism focuses on Jean- François

Lyotard's criticism of universal theories or metanarratives and examines his criticism in light of feminism. Also, the writings of Frednc Jameson are examined as defining specific characteristics of postmodemism which are apparent in the work of Tod, Fowler and

Davis. Interestingly, Jarneson's discussion of two main postmodemist components provides a platfonn for critical feminist uses of postmodem theory. Finally. Jean

Baudrillard's theory of sirnulacra will conclude the discussion of postmodernist theones.

The analysis of his theories on simulacra is completed by refemng to Sadie Plant. who outlines the feminist implications of Baudrillard's writings.

These three main ponmodemist writers set the tone for other postmodernist theorists and, indeed for the analysis of contemporary feminist art in this study. Hutcheon suggests that, "postmodern strategies can be deployed by feminist artists to deconstructive ends-that is, in order to begin the move towards change ( a move that is not, in itself, part of the postmodem).'% Although this thesis recognizes that postmodemism is typically without political agendas, prominent postmodem practices andtheory can aid the political xii

agendas of feminist writers and artists. Lyotard, Jameson and Baudrillard, for example,

neatly articulate the dodall of aspects of modemism which in turn outlines the openings

in postmodern culture for the appearance of the Uther-specifically women and persons

of colour.

Following an introduction to Lyotard's, Jarneson's and Baudrillard's work, 1 will

use key aspects of their theories in the examination of feminist art production. This

practice adrnittedly is open to criticism fiom writers who claim patriarchal biases are still

evident in postmodemism and thus choose to disassociate themselves fiom the discourse

altogether. For example, Amelia Jones's opinion is representative of others who are

doubtfùl that feminism, and its various voices and goals, can maintain its independence if a

merge with postmodemist theory occuned,

The incorporation of one kind of feminism into a broadly conceived, even universalking, project of postmodernism cultural critique tends to entait the suppression of other kinds of feminist practices and theories. It encourages the collapse of the specif CS claims of ferninism into postmodernism, allowing the postmodem theorist to claim postmodernism as an antimasculinist (if not explicitly feminist) alternative to an authorative and phailocentric modernism.'

However, as the chapters addressing the artists will show, the use of postmodemist theory

elaborates the possibilities within cultural postmodemisrn which feminists can use to

furt her t heir goais.

Therefore, in the following chapters, the merger of ferninist and postmodernist theory is analyzed in practical tenns through the examination of artwork by each of the three artists at the core of this study. Importantly, many of the theoreticai questions concerning feminism and postmodernism separately, and also their merger, are resolved in .. . xlll

these artists' work. For example, the practice of engaging with the realm of mass

media-conventionaliy deemed a 'ferninine' realm-and the practice of using the female body in an spur ongoing debates within feminism. These example are, in fact, primary topics presented in the work of Tod, Fowler and Davis.

The second chapter discusses specific works of Vancouver artist Skai Fowler and examines her appropriation of "masterpieces7' fiom the history of Western art in the series

Fernale Nudes (1989-1 992). The artist engages critically with these works by inserting a nude image of herself into the original composition. A focus on three images fiom this series allows for a discussion of the implications of using the female body in art.

Appropriation and irony act as crucial elements in Fowler's pointed treatment of the nude.

Furthemore, the application of postmodernist concepts effectively counteract criticism by writers such as Griselda Pollock and Rozsika Parker who view feminist uses of the female body as htile in a male dominated culture.

The third chapter explores two installations by Toronto artist Christine Davis, deave, 1988, and Unanimous HonZons, 1989. Like Fowler, Davis also engages with art historical representations of women, specifically ancient and Renaissance Venus figures.

In her installations, Davis often fragments the original images either into pieces, or by preventing a complete image fiom being displayed. Ironically, this seemingly fetishistic practice is a technique ailowing for a gender critique. Specifically, psychoanalytic theory is used to investigate how the artia addresses the gaze of the viewer. Baudrillard's theory of siniulacra supports Davis's critical use of Venus figures in her installations by providing a theoretical explanation of how meaning can be severed fiom the images. .uiv

in the 1st chapter, specific works by Toronto artist Joanne Tod are explored in

Iight of her practice of appropriating aspects of mass culture in her paintings. Along with

using images fkom mas culture, the artist CO-opts 1950's illustration techniques which

further emulate a popular culture style. Both her style and her subject matter then cd1 the

hierarchy between 'high' and 'low' culture into question. Her appropriation of images

which are either directly of wornen, or allude to the female, are cleverly critical. The

images appropriated in Tod's paintings are referred to and analyzed as 'signs,' thus

uncovering the societal conventions which are embedded in such images. Tod ironically employs these mass culture aspects in her work to question the biases of their origin-the connection of the 'ferninine' to, and the representation of women in popular culture. The writings of David Simpson and Andreas Huyssen, who address the implications of feminism's engagement with postmodemism and mass culture, provide a discussion on the implications of Tod's work. In fact, this examination outlines the effective resutts of

Tod's employment of mass media imagery. ChapterOw

Feminism And P-: Feminisn's Engagemerit with Key Theoretid

Discourses and Three Main Posbnodeniist Witers

An analysis of key feminist theories fiom the 1980's and 1990's wili hetp locate

factors involved in shaping the rnany forms of fenism evident today. Examining the

discourse since the 1980's enters into the continued debate of 'second wave' feminism,"

generally agreed to have begun in the 1960'~.~The diversity of people who subscribe to

second wave feminism has provoked various distinctions between its theoretical positions

However, each branch of the movement is chiefly dedicated to exposing societal

patriarchy and its resultant subordination of women. Donna Landsr and Gerald Maclean

identiG the concept of patnarchy as a "'general power stni~ture."'~The editors explain

that recent feminist thought has expanded the notion of patriarchy corn simply 'the rule of

the father' to include different aspects of social relations that may be constituted as

'patriarcha17-simply, ideas which stem €rom male-based noms and assumptions. " The

attempt to identiw and dismantle patriarchal control is one characteristic which continues

from the first wave of the feminist movement until contemporq times. Admittedly, it is

problernatic to define the basic goals of second wave feminism in a few succinct

statements, nonetheless some general guidelines are helpfidl.

lmelda Whelehan descnbes how many feminists recognized a need to question and dismantle the dominant patriarchal ideology and, interestingly, the political and cultural structures which perpetuated 'ferninine' stereotypes. Whelehan states that around 1968 in the United States, an increasing nunber of women became "disenchanted with their involvement in male-dominated lefi-wing politics" and "were defecting to localized. non- hierarchical women's tiberation groups."" To explain their eventual understanding of the hegemony, Whelehan descnbes women's

disenchantment with the radical political movements of the '60s led them to beiieve that female subordination was more that just an effect of dominant politicd forces; it was endemic to aii social relations to men. . . women recognized the need to challenge the dominant ideological representations of femininity. "

This last statement accurately outlines one of the basic goals embraced by feminisrn fiom the 1960's onwards. Many different fomof theory subsequently have been devetoped ta achieve this goal.

Indeed, today the ferninist movement is heterogenous and diverse. Janet Wolff reports that "[slome women have therefore argued that differences among women can only be acknowledged by a feminism which refuses to 'totalize'."" The tems 'feminism' and 'ferninist' are therefore problematic since they connote an dl-encompassing collective vision, when in fact, they designate distinct strands based on different approaches and philosophies. This insight is indicative of feminism's self-reflective position beginning in the 1980's which tended to study the historical progression of the movenient. Whelehan explains that "an illusion of solidarity had been created because during the '70's feminism remained, primarily the province of highly educated, white middle-class heterosexual women. "'* Although cnticisms of these limitations may have surfaced in the 1WO's, it was only later that feminist writers dedicated their attention to this problem. Around the mid

1980's many ferninists, reflecting concems endent in acadernia, became infiuenced by a range of theoretical writings.

Within the discourse of art, too, feminists have empioyed different theories,

including semiotics, Marxism, poststnicturalism and psychoanaiysis, as tools to analyze

and challenge patriarchal culture and its representation of women. Janet Wolff identifies

ferninism's crucial achevernent in "[tlhe exposure of theory and philowphy as the Iùnited

vision of white, western, rniddie-class male thought" which therefore "renders it a priori@

for feminists, and other excluded groups, to challenge this disc~urse."'~Women artists

and their work, for example, have been systematicaily excluded fiom the canon, texts,

exhibitions, reviews, magazine art ides, etc. indeed, in Fram'ng Feminism, Rozsika

Parker and Griselda Pollock explain that "the paradigm of the artist was unquestionably

masculine and the history of art past and present oRered little space for women."" The

realization of these facts heled ferninist endeavors in the 1960's and 1970's to rewrite a

history of art in order to include women contributors. A Canadian example of this effort is

provided by Maria Tippett's ByA Lady, which documents three centuries of art by

Canadian women." Feminist intervention of the 1980's and 19901s,however, ofien

analyzes how the dominant ideology effects both female artists and the representation of women.

More specifically, one key project feminists have undertaken is the eradication of

Modernism's assumptions conceming the role of women in art. The late eighteenth century is pinpointed by Parker and Pollock as the tirne when a division was established

"between representations of the artist as a man of reason and of woman as a beautifid obje~t."'~Therefore, rigid European bourgeois social constructions positioned the artist as male, whereas the opposite category of 'Woman' was designated as an object for

scopic delectation and possession." This division, unlonunately, still persists today.

Griselda Pollock, in Vision and Drïrerence, provides important insight into the politics

behind sexual distinctions in society

distinction is the act of differentiation, drawing distinctions, a process of definition of categones. Thus, masculine and femuiine are not terms which designate a given and separate entity, men and women, but are simply two terms of difference."

This statement is indicative of an anti-essentialist position which argues that the category of 'Woman' is historicaüy and sociaily constructed." Through the process of diflerentiation women's subordinate position is maintained because patriarchal power depends on the social meanùigs given to biological sexual difference? Many femi~start

historians and cntics therefore investigate how this gender distinction has been perpetuated to become the dominant opinion of two centuries

To begin this investigation, Griselda Pollock in Grnerations and Geugraphies argues that

[fleminist interventions have to disrupt canonicity and tradition by representing the past not as a flow or development, but as confiict, politics, struggles in the battlefield of representation for power in the amcrural relations we cal1 ch, yender and race."

History, then, can be understood as a construction of random events for the appearance of a natural development. Furthermore, the placement of women in subordinate positions is not 'natural' simply because the assumption of inferiority has continued t hroughout the

'smooth' development of history. To de-naturalize this beliec ferninist art historians study the structures which maintain and validate these assumptions. Therefore, typical of feminisrn in general, feminist art historians use prominent theory such as Marxism, psychoanalysis, poststmcturalism and semiotics to study and dismantle gender stereotypes in culture.

Ferninis~71Zeory and Mmism

Marxist theory has been central to the work of many feminist art histonans who subscribe to 'materialist feminism.' Recent feminist engagement with a 'materialist ferninia' practice is often dedicated to questioning the ideology responsible for the constniction of gender. Jennifer Wicke and Margaret Ferguson define 'materialist feminism' as

feminist theory and practice-however, divergent- premised on material conditions, on the social construction of gender, and on an understanding of the gender hierarchy as relational and multiple and never itself shply exhaustive."

Similarly, Wolff contends that

culture is central to gender formation. Art, Literature and film do not simply represent given gender identities, or reproduce already existing ideoiogies of femininity. Rather, they participate in the very construction of those identities. Culture. . . is a vital enterprise, located at the heart of the cornplex order which reproduces sexua! divisions in ~ociety.~~

To analyze the construction of gender in Western culture (and subsequently the represent ation and reception of gender stereospes) Marxist feminist art historians O ften study the larger social context in order to understand how and why structures which impose gendered meanings are in place. A defining characteristic of Marxist feminism is its practice of attributing one's class-in addition to gender-as factors in oppression.

For example, Landry and Maclean explain how socialist ferninists claim that economic inequities and class oppression must be addressed in feminism's analysis of patriarchal

More specifically, Parker and Pollock, in Framing Fcminism, ident9 the expansion of the anaiysis of ideology as a critical development for feminist cultural politics." The authors state, for example, that

'ideology' is now used to designate the social processes of the production of meanhgs and identities in generai. Mormed by other reiated developments in psychoandysis and linguistics, 'ideology' implies not only the production of ideas and beliefs, but the very making of identities, of subjects for those rneanings."

Therefore, in order to understand how meanings both are attached to images of women and are received by the viewer, 'matenalist feminism' requires an analysis of the dominant ideology. It is crucial, according to Pollock, to undentand that ideology

refers to material practices embodied in concrete social institutions by which the social systems. . . are negotiated in ternis of the struggles within social formations between the dominant and the dominated, the exploiting and the exploited. 30

Visual culture plays a role in this operation by validating and naturaiizing hegemonic values. Mar?ust feminist art historians study the subject matter of a work to better understand the social context during specific times in history; this in tum helps to determine the ideological and economic elements which contnbute to women's positions in society. In fact, many Marxist feminist scholars believe, as Pollock articulates, that

culture is the social level in which are produced those images of the world and definitions of reaiity which can be ideologically mobilized to legitimize the existing order of relations of domination and subordination between classes, races, and gender .

Understandably, then, a major task undertaken by Marxist ferninist art historians is to analyze representations of women in culture. in shon, Mdstfemi~sts attempt to understand the Merences (in tems of gender, race and class) created in society which often are presented in cultural images. However, this process is complicated and relies on many factors. Images and ideas presented in art do not simply reflet society's views and ideology at a certain point in time. Indeed, as Pollock in Vision and Diflerence insists

"artists do not passively reproduce dominant ideology; they participate in its construction and alteration. Artists work in but also on ide~logy."~~Similarly, Maggie Humm, who discusses the merger of Manrism and ferninism for the study of literature, states that "the fùnction of Marxist criticism is to prove that art derives from social-historical processes," and therefore offers "both a way of hding historicd evidence of women's oppression and can describe how writers consciously, or unconsciously, transpose that evidence into their texWT3' Therefore, Marxist feminists question the social and econornic conditions which effect cultural production as well as the impact of these elements on individual artists.

Sedotics and Femzmst AppIicalÏons

Strategies employed by structuralism and semiotics have emerged as infiuential means of analyzing representations of women. Ln short, semiotic theory derives fiom concepts of structuralism. A usefùl definition of stnicturalism is provideci by Terence

Hawkes who states that, "this making process involves the continual creation of recognizable and repeatable forms which we can now term a process of st~cturing."~

Hawkes clarifies this process by stating it is a "two sided flair" for not only "does man create societies and institutions in his rnind's own image, but these in end create him.'735 In the act of structuring the world around him, 'man,' in turn creates himself by standardizing the acceptable modes of behavior. Therefore, stnicturalism can be defined as studying the human act of structuring, or explaining, naming and ordering elements in his world. Eric Fernie clarifies that "[tlhe structuralist exacts principles of classification from the confusion of individual rnes~ages."~~Structuraiists contend that individual entities in the world only gain meaning from their relationship with others." Feminists, therefore, have adopted stnicturalism because it provides a systematic method to analyze the process of how meaning is attached to objects and images.

The system of semiotics, first theorized by Ferdinand de Saussure in 19 1 1, to understand how meaning is both attached to words and altered within speech, builds upon concepts of structuralism. Semiotics has been successfùlly adopted by various theorists.

Roland Barthes, for example, uses serniotics for the analysis of ideas in cultures, or what

Barthes refers to as 'myths. ' He defines 'myth' as "the complex systems of images and beliefs which a society constructs in order to sustain and authenticate its sense of its own being."j8 Barthes uses a Saussurean mode1 of signifier, signifieci and sign to study the construction and meaning of myths. Some changes within the semiotic systeni are implernented by Barthes. For example, Barthes refers to the first term, 'signifier' as

'form', and the second term 'signified' as 'concept. ' The third term 'sign,' which is the

"associated totaï'of the signifier and signified, is dled 'signification' when referring to the analysis of myth. " When a histonan or critic, for example, uses the concept of serniotics-signifier (form), signified (concept) and sign (signification)-he/she will, according to Hawkes, encounter an elctremely powefil, because covert, producer of rneaning at a level where an impression of a 'god-given' or 'natural' reality prevails, largely because we are not nonnaliy able to perceive the processes by which it has been manufactured."'

The use of stmcturaiisrn and semiotics to anaiyze the meaning of images are therefore important tools adapted by Ferninists to their analysis of cultural forrns.

Serniotics has been successfÙlly applied to the study of art images. For example,

Charles Peirce's theory of semiotics is as follows,

a perceptible or virtually perceptible item-the sign, or represenkwnen- that stands for something else; the mental image, called the infeprekmk that the recipient foms of the sign; and the thing for which the sign stands-the object, or relèrent.4'

An image of a woman can be used as an example of a sign or rcpresenfamen-something beyond the actual female human body. The inferprefanf is the image or idea which is shaped by the Mewer when seeinp the image.'' Importantly, the interpretant will be different for each viewer. For example, an image of a woman will rnean something different every time it is viewed. Simply, the "interpretant is constantly shifling." "

Unlike Saussure's concept of semiotics, Peirce contends that the process of semiosis is cyclical: "as soon as the mental image takes shape, it becomes a new sign, which will yield a new interpretant.'M Ferninists can then expose the complex rneanings images of women-when understood as 'sigd-convey in various cultural forms. As Chns

Weedon explains,

[tlhe meaning of the signifier "woman" varies tiom ideal to victirn to object of sexual desire, according to its context. . . What it means at any particular moment depends on the discursive relations within which it is located, and it is open to constant rereading and reinterpretation." Pierce's semiotic mode1 provides a systern for feminists to expose and denaturalize yender assumptions as they change in different contexts.

ln her article "Woman's Consciousness, Man's World," Sheila Rowbotham explains t hat,

fiom the outset feminists recognized that images-in films, advertisements, wonien's magazines, paintings, the Venus de .Milo or Wondewoman-were a target of criticisrn. . . No longer could images be treated as discrete reflections-good, bad, false, truthfùl-of real women. The use of the term 'representation' and later 'signification,' marked the importance of the processes by which meanings are produced. The social manufacture of meaning occurs through both technicd devices and codes and conventions, what came to be known as 'the rhetoric of the image.'=

Semiotics, then, is usehl in determining the complicated process of how images are ideologically coded. Images of women are among the most loaded exarnples of this process in Western culture. Karen Edis-Barunan, in her article "Beyond the Canon:

Feminism, Postmodernism and the History of Art," explains that semiotics allows for a

'text-based' andysis, "focusing on the formal processes by which signs are deployed in representat ion, beginning wit h Woman as she is variousIy constituted in social ternis (for example, ''Mrgn," "witch". "muse", "pro~titute").'*~

Mieke Bal is one of the key proponents of semiotics in the analysis of culture signs. She explains her process by stating that

the procedure has in common with ordinary reading in that the outcome is ineaning, that Lnctions by way of discrete visible elements called signs to which meanings are attnbuted; that such attributions of meaning or interpretations, are regulated by niles, narned codes and that the subject or agent of this attribution, the reader or viewer, is a decisive element in the process."

Bal continues to clarie that each act of reading happens within a "social-historical context or framework. called "fiames," which limits the possible meanings?" This procedure. then, explains how the meaning of a sign changes within the larger context of the image's culturd position.

m. PsychomaIytk Theory, and Femi~ism

Psychoanalysis, like semiotics, is used by feminists in part to analyze formai elements in images in order to expose underlying meanings. Pollock explains in Vision and Merence how "[pJsychoanalysis is a tool used to alert us to the historical and social structures which fùnction at the level of the un cons ci ou^.'"^ Ellen Handler Spitz outlines t hat

[plsychoanalytic theory has, since the earliest years of this century, been applied to works of art and used as a mode of understanding in three major areas of concern to aestheticians, narnely, (1) the nature of the creative work and experience of the artist, (2) the interpretation of works of art, and (3) the nature of the aesthetic encounter with works of art."

Laurie Schneider Adams delineates four categories of psychoanaiysis used to interpret art: symbolism, sublimation. creativity, and biography/autobiography. Adams continues,

"[plsychoanalytic syrnbols are restricted to the body and its hnctions (particularly the sexual ones), fdlymembers, birth, and death."" This technique provides feminists with critical terms fiom psychoanalysis to rethink "representations of the body and shows how it has been used as a cntical and methodological tool for a broad range of women artists in the late 1980's.""

Basic similarities between psychoanalysis and art do exist. Adams points out that

"both fields require a historical approach-art history to chronologies of culture, documentation, and style, and psychoanalysis to the developmental history of the

individuai."55 What do the characteristics of psychoanalysis offer the art historian?

Accordiny to Adams, the term 'dynamic' in psychoanalysis, which refers to "the

determination of the human psychology by codicting sources," offers the potential for

dynamic readings of art historical images.% This method differs fiom traditional readings

of art, as Adams continues, which tend

to interpret human behavior in a literal, static mamer. By taking into account the dynamics of intemal conflict, psychoanalysis can make connections between an artist's Me and work, reveaiing rneanings in both that might not othenvise be apparent."

Recent ferninist use of psychoanalysis is often based on the work of the French theorist Jacques Lacan. Mari JO Buhle explains that in the 1970's major feminist psychoanalysts who studied Lacan's work, including Hélène Cixous, Catherine Clément,

Luce Irigaray, and Julia Kristeva, "aimed to advance the exploration of female sexuality by correcting for Lacan's masculine bias."" These feminists attempt, as Weedon States,

to make psychoanalyst theory the key to understanding the acquisition of gendered subjectivity. . . by advocating psychoanalytic theory as a way of understanding the structures of fernininity and rnasculinity under patriarchy, together with the social and cultural forms to which these structures give ri~e.'~

Irigaray and Kristeva, among others, maintained an essentialist position evident in their theory of femaie senlralrty. They praised the differewes between men and women, to the point of renouncing campaigns "for equal rights because they were not only utterly bourgeois but rnas~ulinist.'~According to these theorists, a separation of the sexes would inevitably questicn male-based noms prevalent in society. Their theories prove to 13 be extremely helpfid in analyziny feminist artwork produced in the 1970's. ranging from

Judy Chicago's Dimer P'yto the work of Nancy Spero.

Adams identifies Lacan's crucial difference fiom Freudian psychoanalysis in his attempt to

integrate the structural-Iinguistics approach to symbolism with psychoanalysis, claiming that the unconscious is structured like a language. He envisioned the structure of language as contained within a symbolic order, whose laws are those of a "symboiic father." He calfed this symbolic lawgiver "the narne of the father

"According to Lacan." Adams explains, "the father enjoys the authority to mandate society's noms both sociaiiy and linguistically because, in possessing the phdlus, he reigns as the carrier of speech.'"' "Much of Freud's original narrative of psychosexual development" is preserved by Lacan, who views the "child's submission to the "Law of the Fa!hernas a gradua1 cornpliance with the law of lang~age.'"~Most importantly,

Lacan's integration of a Saussurean linguistic mode1 into psychoanalysis has provided feminist theorists with a specific element, language, as a basis for their criticism.

According to Dan Weatherill, French ferninists like Julia Knsteva and Luce Irigaray,

"advocated separatism for women, struggling with the inadequacy of language stmctures based largely around male significations, which could not express the otherness of

976.8 women's experience. . . .

Chris Weedon explains that for the linguist and psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva,

"gender in the sense of femininity and masculinity becomes an aspect of language." 65 This realization links feminist psychoanaiysis to other forms of feminist theory which identie the power of language to "name," and therefore separate the two genders. Luce Ingaray also identifies language as a central problem. Irigaray suggests, as Eric Matthews outlines, that "language itself . . embodies this masculine bias. even in such simple and relatively trivial ways as the use of the masculine pronoun in cases where no specific gender is intended? îherefore, Irigaray used Lacan's emphasis on language as a starting point for her criticism. Matthews explains Irigaray's belief that

the construction of an identity is the construction of a language of one's own. Women are denied identity in patriarchal society. . . because the language of that society excludes them. Thus, a major tosk for women is to create a lanyuage of their own, fitted to femaie subjectivity and recognizing sexual difference as existing between subjects. Such a language will be capable of expressing specificaily female experience!'

Irigaray's challenge directly relates to the production of feminist art. Artworks that concentrate on the body tiom a feminist perspective are expressing specific female experiences. In fact, the mass of feminist art produced in the past forty years has succeeded in creating a 'language,' and thus a specific feminist art discourse.

The writings of Lacan, tike those of Freud, are easily applied to the study of the visual arts. Lacan related the "symbolic power of the gaze,"Adams explains, "to desire and to the cornplex, often contradictory, functions of the eye. Power, evil, benevolence, envy, and love are among the motivating forces of the gaze (that is, the psychological impact of the eye).'"* The politics of the gaze has become of great importance for feminist art t heorist S." Their concems involve, for example, the objectification of womrn and the implications surrounding female viewers of art. More specifically, Adams States that "[tlhe visual operation of these forces has been related to painting in several ways.

They cm operate within the iconographie or narrative content of a picture, between 1s picture and artist, and between picture and ~bserver."'~' Ingaray elaborates on the femuiist implications of the gaze. For example, Weatherill explains irigaray's beiief that "[mlore than the othcr senses, the eye objectifies and masters. It sets at a distance, maintains the distance. . . The moment the look dominates, the body. . . is transformeci into an image.""

Weatherill fùrther explains that "[tlhe prohibition bears rnainly on women as subject, for there is no shonage of images or representations of women. But in being represented, iheir subjectivity is negated. . . . "" The language of feminist art, created by women since the 1960's. refutes this simply because women artists are presenting themselves rather than being represented by a dominant discourse that misunderstands and neglects women's identities.

Lacan's thoughts on the "irnaginary" are also of great importance to ferninists who use psychoanalysis for the study of art. 73 To explain this term, Matthews articulates

Lacan's belief that

[w]e discover ourselves in an imageas in the mirror, or a statue by which our identity is projected before us in an irnaginary form, or a drearn image of ourselves, and so on. The acquisition of a sense of oneself, the ability to use the word 'I', is bound up with the ability to look upon oneself fiom the outside, by means of such an image. ln this sense, becoming a 'self, becorning fùlly human rather than merely natural, and so becoming able to gain control over one's desires, is inseparable from becoming socialized."

The representation of women in a culture acts as an element in the rnirror stage ofone's development. The importance ofwhat is represented in these images is therefore of geat interest to feminist theorists. For exarnple, Lacan contends that in order for an individual to become "fùlly human," he or she must be able to recognize an image of himself or herself in something extemal (a reflection in a mirror, an image or dream), in order to 16 develop a sense of oneself Sirnply, the characteristics presented in the reflected images must be recognizable as elements the person possesses. Characteristics, perhaps viewed as undesirable by feminists, which are presented in patriarchal cultural images of wornen are reflected back to the femaie viewer who is in a process of discovering herself Indeed, if the unconscious is structured like a Ianguaye, and as Matthews States, "the very formation of a self is a social cowtni~t,"'~then the cultural material responsible for representing wornen needs to be scrutinized in order to denaturaiize it. Ferninist art historians have worked tirelessly to emphasize that images of wornen do not accurately reflect the lives and identity of actual women. Indeed, cultural images of wornen are, in fact, constructions.

Feminism and Pos~~c~mlism

The view that the formation of self is a social construct is shared by poststnicturalist discourse. Weedon explains that the term poststnicturalist "does not have one fixed meaning but is generally applied to a range of theoretical positions developed in and fiom the work of Derrida (1973, 1976), Lacan (1 977).Knsteva ( 198 1.

1981, 1986, ). . . ."76 Although poststructuralism is a general nibric for diverse theoretical models, one common link among its manifestations is a break fiom popular hurnanist conceptions of subject and subjectivity. According to Weedon "'[s]ubjectivity7 is used to refer to the conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions of the individual, her sense of herself and her ways of understanding her relation to the world."" Poststructuralist theory, Weedon continues, "proposes a subjectivity which is precarious, contradictory and in process, constantly being reconstituted in discourse each tirne we think or speak.""

Humanist discourse, however, presupposes an "essence at the hem of the individuai

rr 79 which is unique, fixed and coherent. . . . Furthemore. humanism's assumptions have

long infiitrated the understanding and reception of cultural forms such as Lterature and art.

Weedon explains that

the appeal of seeing 'great' literature as the receptacle of fixed universal meanings which enable us to understand the 'truth' of human nature, which itself is fixed. has been widespread. It is part of the hegemony of liberal humanist discourse on subjectivity, language and culture."

This humanist view has been identified as a problematic position by poststnicturalist ferninists. For example, the "politicai significance of decentering the subject and abandoning the belief in essential subjectivity" Weedon continues. "is that it opens up subjectivity to change." Weedon believes that subjectivity is a "product of the society and culture within which we iive."" Therefore, poststructuralism posits a modei for the possibility of changing women's roles in society. The humanist understanding of subjectivity denotes that human self-knowing consciousness and rationality gives him or her power to. for example, decide his or her position in society. This belief, then, does not account for the acceptance of one's oppression or the oppression of other human beings.

Simply, it does not explain why women accept their subordinate positions in ~ociety.'~

Subsequently, the understanding that a subject is socially constructed exposes the existence of patnarchal institutional oppression of women. Feminist poststruciuralists are not satisfied with the facade of humans as "rational sovereign subject," who have individud rational consciousness and knowledge of the world. " Clearly, such a belief would negate the possibility of change. The poststructuralist's understanding of a subject

that is socially constructed, on the other hand, provokes fùrther investigations into power

structures of society.

Many theories have informed poststructuralist theory, such as Marxisrn and

psychoanaiysis. In addition, poststnicturalism "is concemed with linguistic constructs and their prevalence in every mode of theory. . . ."" Postst~cturalismcan be used as a tool to question hurnanist assumptions within these theories. "In order to hlly understand the usefùlness of poststructuralist theory," Weedon continues,

it is necessary to make explicit the onhodones which it contests. to investigate the nature and implications of those hegemonic versions of languages and subjectivity which rnost people take for granted and which underpin our notions of comrnon sense, social meaning and ourselves.n6

Poststructuralist theory indeed derives from the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure. However, while the study of language is central to poststrucutralism and its investigation into the power structures of society, it differs in key ways fiom a Saussurean model. For example, Weedon points out that both theories understand that "language, fa from reflecting an already given social reality, constitutes social reality for us. Neither social reality nor the 'natural' world has fixed intrinsic meaning which languages reflects or expresses."" Therefore, poststnicturalism views the politics of lanyage as a cruciai point in understanding how meaning is produced. Poststructuraiism, States Weedon,

takes fiom Saussure the principle that meaning is produced within a language rather than reflected by language, and that individual signs do not have intrinsic meanings but acquire meaning through the language chah and their difference within it from other ~igns.'~ However, Weedon contends that critical distinctions among Saussure's theones and poststmcturaiism do e'ust. For example, poststructuralists view language as "a system always existing in historically speçific discourse."* Both theories understand that signs, such as 'Woman' for example. are not "fixed by a natural world and reflected in the term 'Woman,' but socially produced within language, plural and subject to ~hange.'~

Weedon identifies a problem with the Saussurean model in its inability to "account for the plurality of meaning or changes in rneaning. It cannot account for why the signifier

'Woman' can have many confiicting meanings which change over time. . . .'*'

Therefore, the poststnicturalist understanding, indicative of Peirce's model, is crucial when studying images of women. To understand that images are histoncally specific will allow ferninist art historians to uncover the larger social issues during a certain time in history responsible for irnbuing signs with meanings. According to

Weedon, if images or texts,

are read as sites for the discursive construction of the meaning of gender, as in ferninist poastmcturd readings, their meanings will relate both to the original historical conte- of production, understood through the discourses which constitute present day conceptions of history, gender and meaning, and to the concerns of the pre~ent.~'

Poststiucturalism contends that with signifiers, "the signified is never fixed once and for all. but is constantly deferred."" Traditional or negative interpretations of images of women can then be contested, thus allowing feminists to provide alternative, historically specific meanings for signifiers. Weedon clarifies that the "plurality of meaning and the impossibility of fixing meaning once and for al1 are the basic principles of poststructuralism.'"' Therefore, to change negative views held by dominant, traditional discourses becomes a foreseeable possibility. 20

Poststnicturalist theory is therefore used by feminists to study representations OF women, and, in turn, identiS, the problems inherent within other methods used to anaiyze images. For exarnple, Margaret Iversen, in her article "Saussure vs. Peirce: Models for a

Serniot ics of Visual Arts," discusses some shortcomings of serniotics, and, more importantly, identifies the problematic nature of using binary oppositions in analyzing visual representation. Specifically, she outlines the difficulty with traditional critical theory that oflen uses two contrary tems to describe the differences in artwork. Iversen elaborates by stating "[tlhe ngidity of the binary opposition with its privileging of one tenn of the pair is a familiar ruse of power which enforces hierarchies, fixes gender roles and conspires with the politics of exclusion.'* Therefore, a poststructuralist stance aliows theorists to uncover the significance of the binary system, which contrasts positive and negative elements. Poststructuralists, Iversen daims, would "begin by pointing out that the binary opposition marginalizes women as other, as different in relation to the positive identity of man.'*

Like poststmcturalist theory, a central interest of many postmodernist writers. as

Linda Hutcheon expains,

is to de-naturalize some of the dominate features of our way of life; to point out that those entities that we unthinkingly experience as 'natural' (they might even include capitalism, patriarchy, liberal humanisrn) are in fact 'cultural'; made by us, not given to us.9'

.4 similar theoretical basis, therefore, is evident between poststmcturalism and postmodemism, as defined by Hutcheon. In fact, poststructurdist theory shares key characteristics wit h postmodemism. For example, Margaret Ferguson and Jennifer Wicke understand postrnodernism "as a moment that. for theory, might be regarded as the critical historicizing of poststnicturaiisrn. . - to be seen in relation to concrete phenomena of material, social, economic and culturai life.'*8

The theoretical writings of three key figures in postmodernist discourse, Jean-

François Lyotard, Fredric Jarneson and Jean Baudrillard, most clearly outline the prominent concem of what has become the dominant cultural discourse in the West in recent years. Although rnany feminists describe tensions between the two discourses. similarities eist as well between the general concerns of ferni~smand postmodernism.

An analysis of key postmodernist positions, studied From a feminist perspective, can determine the cornpatibility between the two discourses.

Diversity is ofien cited as one of postmodernism's key tenets. John Storey affirms this point by explaining that postmodemism "has entered discourses as diverse as pop music, journalisrn and Marxist debates in the culturai conditions of late or multinational

~apitalisrn.'~When and why did postmodernism become the main concept used to descri be contemporary t irnes? Fredric Jameson States in Postmodernism and Consumcr

Society, that postmodemism is not simply the description of a style. but also

a periodizing concept whose fiinction is to correlate the emergence of new forma1 features in culture with the emergence of a new type of social life and a new economic order- what is oflen euphemisticaily cailed modernization, postindustrial or consumer society, the society of the media or the spectacle, or mu1tinational capitalism. '00

Jameson dates this "new moment of capitalism" as beginning in the Iate 1940's and early 1 950ts, with the 1960's as a vital period. la' Many other writers, such as Jean-François

Lyotard, agee with this periodization. Io' In addition, postmodernism is commonly defined in opposition to modernism. Simply, postmodemism's position opposes many of modernism's central assumptions. Storey situates the beginning of postmodernist theory in the 1960's and believes an important goal was "a populist attack on the elitism of rn~dernism."'~~Postmodemism. was prompted by feminism's project of undermining power structures inherent in modernism and its theoreticai foundations. Wolff articulates why the discourse of feminism rebuked the modemist project by stating that it

"marginalized women and barred any possible feminist dimension, whether painting, sculpture or in criticism."'" Similady, postmodemist theory is dedicated to de- constructing the status quo. In fact, as Story clarifies. "postmodernism was bom oui of a generationai refùsal of the categoricai certainties of hi@ modemism." 'O5

The multiple charactenstics of postmodernism are ofien the descriptive results of the writers who attempt to define the period. An important aspect of postmodernist culture that Fredric Jarneson emphasizes is its habit of blurring the boundaries between

'high' and 'mass' or 'popular' culture. Jarneson believes that this is its greatest challenge to the academy "which has traditionally had a vested interest in preserving a reaim of high or elite culture. . . ."1° From a feminist standpoint too, the leveling of a high and low culture is promising. Of course, 'high' art has long been suspect among many feminist art historians who have addressed the systematic exclusion of women fiom its realm.

Moreover, as Andreas Huyssen has argued, typically modernism rejected mass culture in part by inscribing it 'ferninine.' Huyssen explains that, mass culture is associated with women while real authentic culture remains the prerogative of men. . . It is indeed stnking to observe how the political, psychological and aest hetic discourse around the tum of the century consistently and obsessively genders mass culture and the masses as feminine, while hi@ culture, whether traditional of modem, clearly remains the realm of privileged male activities. 'O'

Irnportantly, ferninists can embrace the non-hierarchal policy of postmodemist theory and

art practices. since traditionally, as Huyssen points out, "wornan is positioned as reader of

inferior literature-subjective, ernotional and passive-whIe man emerges as w-riter of

genuine authentic literaturmbjective, ironic and in control of his aesthetic rneans. "10"

Furthermore, quilting, sewing, autobiographical memoirs, etc.-'women's

activitiesl-were dso relegated to low culture and therefore denied S~~OUSconsideration.

.4n interesting matter arises, however, when feminist artists such as Joanne Tod

appropriate mass cultural images and techniques in paintings. Does this technique

chalienge the traditional hierarchy or perpetuate the notion of mass culture as feminine?

In fact, the ernployment of appropriation, often labeled a postmodem stylistic technique,

ieads to an interesting meryer between critical feminist art and postmodernist techniques

Furthermore, the benefits of ths merger are apparent in the work of the artists

studied in this thesis. Similar to Joanne Tod, Skai Fowler and Christine Davis use

postrnodernist elements-appropriation and irony-as critical tools in t heir work. Ni gel

Whede explains the appeal of such tropes to conternporary artists by defininy irony as

"saying one thing, but implying its opposite throuyh sarcasm and ridicule. Irony is a

knowing, self-conscious process. implying an unstated meaning in the text to which the

readedaudience is alert ."lm Thus, irony represents a subtle code violation in which the apparent or familiar surface meaning is imbued with a new, yet contradictory, connotation through tone of voice, visual dues. or other references. Similarly, appropriation (simply

the act of quoting or borrowing images fiom other sources) also presents one set of

familiar codes or images and then undermines their presumed meanings by

recontextualization. OAen, the leveling of 'high' and 'low' culture is an outcome of these

practices. Janet Wolff, for example, States that

the most usehl definition of postmodemisrn in painting as in other media. is work which self consciousiy deconstructs tradition, by a variety of fomal and other techniques (such as irony, parody, juxtaposition, re-appropriation of images, repetition and so on). ' 'O

The artists examined in this thesis use appropriation and irony as tools to negotiate the spaces between postmodernist techniques and feminist theories by using these tropes critically in their artwork. The implications and benefits resulting fiom Tod's, Fowler's and Davis's use of postmodern theory and practices can be outlined by fkther engagement with the writings of Lyotard, Jarneson and Baudrillard.

The basis of Jean-François Lyotard's criticism is leveled at what he calls

"metanarratives" which are used as the "apparat us of le~itimation.""' Furthemore. in

Pos~modclnCondifion, Lyotard addresses t hose metanarratives "that have marksd modemity: the progressive emancipation of reason and fieedorn, the progressive or catastrophic emancipation of labour . . .""' The metanarrative of modemity, Lyotard explains, is a system with

the yod of legitimating social and political institutions and practices, laws. ethics, ways of thinking. . . They look for legitimacy, not in an original founding act. but in a hture to be accomplished, that is, in an ldea to be realized. This Idea (of fieedom, "enlightenment," socialism, etc.) has legitimating value because it is universal. It guides every human reality. It gives modernity its characteristic mode: 113 the project. . . .

For example, genocide in the Second World War is the example used by Lyotard to explain the "tragic incompletion"of the metanarrative of modernity."'

The existence of what Lyotard labels 'metanarratives' since the Enlightenment, and its project of eradicating heterogeneity for the purpose of realizing universal goals, has been previously identified as extremely problematic by feminist writers, such as Pollock and Parker in Fming Frminism. Therefore. elements of Lyotard's theory may find feminist alliances. Furthermore, Lyotard's emphasis on the ramifications of the

Enlightenment project as the starting point for criticism exposes sirnilarities between feminist and postmodemist agendas. tndeed, the Enlightenrnent project and its theories are identified by Lyotard as bndamental elements to be refuted by postmodemism.

Feminist theorists, too, have outlined key aspects of the Enlightenment period, in particular, the construction of binq gender distinctions as dangerous. In fact. the

Enlightenment metanarrative criticized by Lyotard as a 'universal form of reason' and the edorcement of 'universal rights' was generally not applied to women. t melda W helehan clarifies that "liberaiism tends to cast female nature as separate, an adjunct to the male

1~115 principle, which derives its meaning only as different from masculinity. . . . Whelehan continues to theorize that "because a distinction is made between male and female nature, women are not always enconlpassed under generic man and indeed their daim to the status of rational beings alongside men cannot be assumed. . . ."'16 Thus, the task proposed by the Enlightenment project simply did not take women into consideration as members who could be rational or enlightened. Lyotard's pointed critique therefore emphasizes feminism's positions on this subject. Janet Wolff, for example, understands that

the radical task of postmodemism is to deconstnict apparent truths, to dismantle dominant ideas and cultural forms, and to engage in the guerrilla tactics of undermining closed and hegemonic systems of thought. This, more than anyt hing else is the promise ofpostmodemism for feminist p~litics."~

As Wheale conrends, it is postmodemism's criticism of the "systematic bodies of the

Enlightenment, which had been the European humanist best hope for constmctively acting on the world," and other grand narratives, characterized as "Marxism, Freudianism and the applied science," which unite it with the goals of contemporary feminist thouyht.""

.Accordhg to prominent feminist scholar Linda NichoIson. Lyotard's theory also makes apparent the "locality and historical specificity of that which in previous philosophy had been described as universal and as universally f~undational."~~~A mutuai interest in ensuring that theories recognize socio-economic and historical situations is therefore prominent. For example, Nichoison's critique of Mmism identifies its totalizing practice and explains the effet on women. According to Nicholson, hlarx condernned bourgeois theorists who neglected to realize their totalizing habits and the histoncal specificity of their cultural condition^."^ Yet, the problematic nature of Marxism is carefully outlined by Nicholson. For example, she begins by expIauiing that -Marx's own theory of change

"was aiso an implicit commitment to certain universals, and to the idea that certain categones could cross culturally organize such diversity.""' According to Nicholson, it is

~Mar'risrn'sadherence to 'certain universals,' such as production, which is harmfirl specifically to women. Interestinyly, she outlines -Marxisrnysfocus on production to explain how women are excluded f?om this fundamental point of analysis. Nicholson begins by pointing out that

Mancists most frequent ly understood it [production] in accordance wit h its predominant meaniny in capitalist societies, as an activity outside the home in the forrn of wage labor. Such a use situated oppression outside the home. Moreover, since the theory claimed to account for ail aspects of social Life, this use constructed Marxism as not only irrelevant to explaining important aspects of wornen7soppression, but, indeed as an obstacle in the attempt to explain such obstades. '"

Nicholson therefore identifies ManÜsm's emphasis on production outside the home as a crucial error which negiects the plight of women. She pointedly concludes that

[i]t was the failure of Mar'ùsm to appreciate the 'rootedness' of its own explanatory categories-such as productien, labor, economy, and class-within the hegemonic value system and belief structure of its times that also made it politically oppressive for feminists. "'

In short, Nicholson maintains that each theorist should recognize his or her standpoint in a certain time and place-that is, their histoncai specificity-therefore ensuring that biases are acknowledged as major components in the construction of theory. This, in tum provides an understanding that the position of women as infenor or different is not

'natural,' but rather an opinion that has been perpetuated throughout many discourses.

Nicholson believes that

history not oniy provides us with the context to understand the emergence of specific claims to knowledge but also supplies us with the context to understand the emergence of the criteria by which such claims are e~aluated.'~'

Indeed, to recognize the historical specificity of criteria proves fruithl when applied, for example, to women within the history of art who are continually categorized as infienor artists and represented as objects to be possessed. More specifically, the 28

benefits of this position are made apparent in the examination of the artists studied in the

following chapters. Writers such as Nicholson believe that postmoderrüsm is usehl "in

hel ping feminism eradicate t hose element s wit hin it self t hat prevented an adequate

theox-ization of differences among ~ornen.""~Feminist theonsts must make apparent their

own positions in society and admit any bias when writing. For ewnple, this thesis

highlights the work of three white, rniddle-class, female artists, in part because the author

shares similar classifjing characteristics and conceivably similar experiences.

Subsequently, Lyotard's position cm be used in tandem with a feminist viewpoint in order

to emphasize the historical specificity of dominant theories and discourses.

Lyotard's criticisrn of universalizing theories makes room for other positions.

Simply, his theory calls for a representation of different positions therefore acknowledging

cultural diversity and difference. For example, Storey believes that "postmodernism has

enlianchised a new body of intellectuals: voices kom the margins speaking from positions

of difference: ethnic, gender, class, sexual preferen~e.""~Postmodernism, then, is made

up of several theoretical positions (including feminism) which together strive towards

heterogeneity.

Frcdn'c fameson

Two main characteristics of postmodernism, according to Fredfic Jameson are pastiche and what he terms 'schizophrenia'"' Interestingly, the characteristics of pastiche are similar to those of appropriation and irony. To define pastiche, Jameson compares this technique with the act of parody. Although bot11 use forms of mimicry, parody "capitalizes on the uniqueness of these styles and seizes on their idiosyncrasies and eccentricities to produce an imitation which mocks the original" while still maintaining sympathy for the original.'2g The effect of parody is to ridicule the specific characteristics or 'eccentricities' of the way people talk or write.Iz9 Jarneson clarifies that this characteristic of parody reaffirms the existence of a 'linguistic norm' as a basis upon which the parodist works. "O However, poststructuraiisrn's declaration of the impossibility of the individual subject, which therefore contests modernism's central belief in "the invention of a personal private style" puts the notion of a "linguistic nom" into question.

At this point, Jameson concludes the existence of parody is replaced by pastiche. 13'

Pastiche is, as Jameson explains, "the imitation of a particular or unique style, the wearirig of a stylistic mask, speech in a dead language. . . Pastiche is blank parody, parody that has

Iost its sense of humor."13' Furthemore, because of poststmcturalism's belief in the instability of subjectivity, Iameson asks what are artists to do now?"' Indeed, the expression of a "unique private world" is no longer possible. and therefore today's artists and writers are no longer able to invent distinguishing individual styles.'3' Therefore

Jameson argues that,

in a world in which stylistic innovation is no longer possible, al1 that is leA is to imitate dead styles, to speak through the masks and with the voices of the styles iri the imaginary museum. . . this means that contemporary or postmodernist art is going to be about ari itself in a new kind of way; even more, it means that one of its essential messages will involve the necessary failure of art and the aest hetic, the failure of the new, the imprisonrnent in the pa~t.')~

The preoccupation with nostalgia- the result of contemporary culture's use of pastiche-is, according to Jameson, "a desperate attempt to appropriate a missing -136 past. . . . Jameson maintains that we Iament the past because it represents a better tirne. 13' Representing the past through various techniques of cultural pastiche, such as appropriation, results in artificial meanings. For example. Jarneson describes this postmodern habit as "the ernergence of a new kind of flatness or depthlessness, a new Lnd of superficiality in the most literal sen~e."'~'The result of this, Jameson asserts, is a complete cornmodification of culture. "Postmodern culture," Jameson believes,

has become a product in its own right; the market has become a substituie for itself and Myas much a commodity as any of the items it includes within itself modemism was still minirnally and tendentially the critique of the commodity and the effort to moke it transcend itself. Postmodernism is the consumption of sheer cornmodification as a process. IJ9

The multitude of images experienced today, in the form of magazines, television, movies, etc, hold only superficial meaning for the viewer. Imases today have been banned from authentic meaning because of the cornmodification process. ''O

Jarneson terms this period (what is referred to as the postmodem more commonly) as a "new moment of late, consumer or multinational ~apitalism."'~' The depreciating sense of history is identified by Jarneson as the vital factor responsible for the state of late capitalism. Our social system, Jameson maintains,

has little by little begun to lose its capacity to retain its own past, has begun to live in a perpetual present and in a perpetual change that obliterates traditions of the kind which earlier social formations have had in one way or another to preserve.'"

The concept of living in a 'perpetual present' is linked to what Jameson describes as another characteristic of the postmodem: schizophrenia. His definition is based on

Lacan's belief that schizophrenia is essentially a language disorder related to language acquisition. "' Jameson adheres to Lacan's understanding t hat schizophrenia result s fiom the "failure of the infant to accede fully into the realm of spee~h."'~More specifically.

schizophrenia is seen as a misunderstanding of the relationship between sigaiers, and

their dependence on other signifiers to gain meaning. Jarneson quotes Lacan's view that

the experience of temporality, human time, past, present, memory, the persistence of personal identity over months and years-this existentid or expenmental feeling of time itself-is also an effect of language. It is because language has a past and a fùture, because the sentence moves in time, that we can have what seems to us a coherent or tived experience of tirne. But since the schizophrenic does not know language articulation in that way. he or she does not have our experience of temporal continuity either, but is condernned to live in a perpetual present with which the various moments of his or her past have little connection and for -*hich there is no conceivable fùture on the horizon.'"

Therefore, Jarneson transfers this condition onto the postmodern artist, with the only benefit being an intense expenence of the present world.

According to lameson, the technique of pastiche and the condition of

SC hizop hrenia are the main elements c haracterizing contemporary artistic production.

These techniques interestingly hold potential for a feminist interpretation. For example.

Jmeson maintains that through the practice of pastiche, histofical images lose their connection to the past. In pastiche, "the past as 'referent' finds itself gradually bracketed, and then effaced altogether, IeaMng us with nothiny but texts.?'" What meaning do these texts have? If, as according to Jameson, texts are discomected fiom historicai or past meanings, are they now fiee to absorb new connotations? Furthemore, are artists such as

Tod, Fowler, and Davis who appropriate images fiom history and mass media succumbing to the meaningless production of images? The discussions of the artists' work in the subsequent chapters will outline the advantages of Jarneson's criticisrn when applied to

Ferninist artwork. The writings of the prominent postmodernist theorist Jean Baudrillard7 particularly

his theory of simulacra, seduction and hyperreality, are critically important to the

discussion of postmodemism and ferninism. The concepts of simulacra and simulation

were developed by Baudrillard to describe the state of objects and exchange in

contemporas. culture. Today, according to Baudrillard, we live in a constant state of

''hyperreality," which he defines as "the generation by models of a real without origin of reality: a hyperreai." '" The images and objects of everyday life are no longer attached to a reai concept or an original copy, they are simply simulacra. For example, Baudrillard ex plains,

[b]y crossing into a space whose curvature is no longer that of the real, nor that of truth, the era of simulation is inaugurated by a liquidation of al1 referentials-worse: with their artificial resurrection in the systems of signs, a material more malleable than meaning. in that it lends itself to al1 systems of equivalence, to al1 binary oppositions, to a combinatory algebra. It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the sips of the real for the real. . . . '"

Does 'the liquidation of al1 referentials,' have positive possibilities for ferninist artists? The disassociation of signs-objects, images-fiom their referents may be beneficial for ferninists interested in addressing how meanings are attached to images. For example, cultural images cf women according to Baudrillard's theory, are no longer attached to the 'real.' They are simply simulations of an idea that is detached fiom any reality. Therefore, the images and objects which once had power to form public opinion of how women should be (act, look, etc.) are rendered less powefil because the notion of the 'real' has disintegrated. Baudrillard explains the successive phase of the image; "it is 33 the reflection of a profound reality; it masks and denatures a profound reality; it masks the absence of a profound reality; it has no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure sirn~lacnim.""~It is at this point that feminist cultural cntics can emphasize the arnbiguous nature of cultural images of women. Furthemore, the recontextualization of simulacra-images or objects disassociated fiom original referent s-can create new and diflerent meanings.

The fate of the 'real' is explained by Bauddard as follows,

[njever again will the real have a chance to produce itself. . . A hyperreal henceforth sheltered fiom the imaginary, and fiom any uistinction between the real and imaginary, leaving room only for the orbital recurrence of rnodels and for the simulated generation of difference 15"

What is the real? 1s the realm of the real, of which Baudrillard speaks. inhabited only by men? Sadie Plant's article, "Baudrillard's Woman The Eve of Seduction," suggests that this is indeed the case. This text emphasizes the important possibilities of Baudrillard's wntings for feminists Plant begins by discussiny the death of the subject as the slogan of postmodernism. 15' The concept of the death of the subject, however. is gendered. As

Whelehan explains, the notion of the rationai subject is constituted only by the male sex.

The manner in which BaudriIlard views the possible death of the subject is connected to seduction which is, in tu- connected to the ferninine. Plant explains, for example, that

Baudrillard looks to

seduction to provide a barrier between nothing and something, death and the subject. Seduction becomes the guarantor: as long as seduction is possible, there must be a subject to be seduced. And this subject is masculine, as Baudrillard is quick and happy to assume, while that which seduces is its 'missing dimension,' the feminine.I5* Furthemore, the realm of the feminine and seductiori "represents power over the syrnbolic

universe" and should not attempt, with the help of feminism, to enter into the 'real'

universe, the realm of men."' This act. according to Baudrillard would be a denial of the

ferninine and the destruction of wornen. blany essentialist feminists, such as Iriçaray and

Kristeva, niay agree with Baudrillard's belierthat wornen's demand for "liberation" only ensures their entrance into a systern which is ultimately decided by men. However, as

Plant points out, Baudrillard negatively believes that "when woman demands. desires. and liberates herself, she abandons the seductive mode which is her own and only

Furthemore. Baudrillard believes that if seduction-read feminine-entered into the real world-read masculine-the certainties of t he masculine would dissolve. "'

Irnportantly, this possibility has been increased due to the postmodern condition and the era of simulation which negates the existence of the 'real' masculine realm. For example, in Simulacra and Simu/a!ions, Baudrillard states that in the postmodern age, through the precession of simulacra, there is

[n]o more mirror and being of appearances, of the real and its concepts . . The real is produced fiom rniniturized cells, matrices, and memory banks, models of control-and it can be reproduced an infinite number of tirnes tiorn these. It no longer needs to be rational, because it no longer measures itseif against either an idea or negative instance. It is no longer anything but operational. In fact, it is no longer really the real, because no irnaginary envelopes it anymore. It is hyperreal, produced from a radiating synthesis of combinatory models in a hyperspace wit hout atmosphere. '%

Therefore, the subject is threatened, according to Baudrillard, in the postmodern age because of the emphasized exposure to seduction-the feminine and postrn~dern.~~~ 35

This emphasis on seduction's entrance into the 'real' world has an unexpected result for

feminists. Plant States,

[tlhe point at which the seductive enters into the world is not the death of seduction, but the death of the subject; and in the postmodern world this death is heralded less by the entry of seduction into the real, than by the collapse of the subject into seduction itself '"

Therefore, the death of the masculine subject and its 'real' universe is imminent in the postmodern world, and in its place the possibilities for the feminine are abundant. Indeed. essentiaiist or radical feminist theorists can easily find the positive aspects of the death of the masculine subject and his universe. Within the art historïcal discourse. the death of the masculine subject and the neyation of his 'real' universe are beneficial to feminists. The existence of 'truth,' represented by 'metanarratives.' used throughout the modemist period as standards to be presented in art are questioned by Baudnllard's theories. For exarnple, according to Baudrillard, the existence of truth is negated by the precession of simulacra, which blurs the boundary between real and false. Thus, postulating 'tnith' is impossible. 15'

Feminlsm and Pusimodemism in rhe Works of 'Thrce ConfemporlyAdisfs

.4 major concern of feminism has been to emphasize the dienation of women in dominant discourses. Bauddlard provides a service by simply makiny apparent his mascuiinist idea of the lesser reaim of wornen. Nonetheless, the crucial step for feminism is to investigate postmodernist theory for the possibilities of a feminist adaptation. Indeed,

Lyotard, Jameson and Bauddlard outline the dissolution of modemikt practices in the postmodern current, yet fall short of articulating the implications for female cultural production.

In the following chapters, the writings of Lyotard. Jameson and Baudriliard, as well as other concerns discussed by writers like Huyssen about the use of mass culture for feminist artists, will be used to dixuss the work of Tod, Davis and Fowler. Certainly, the work of these three artists constitutes feminist art, a category which Pollock explains as follaws,

[t]o be feminist at ai1 work must be conceived within the framework of a structural, econornic, political and ideological critique of the power relations of society and with a comrnitment to collective action for their radical transformation. . . It is ferni~stbecause of the way it works as a test within a specific social space in relation to dominant codes and conventions of art and to dominant ideologies of femininity.'60

Pollock continues, "[ilt is feminist when it subverts the normal ways in which we view art and are usuaily seduced into complicity with the meaninys of the dominant and oppressive cultures." 16' In tum, their engagement with certain techniques aligns lhem to postmodernism. As a style, postmodernism embraces parody, the appropriation of mass culture, and kitsch as elements essential to contemporary art production. An analysis of

Tod's, Fowler's and Davis's work exemplifies the truly distinctive type of art which results fiom the combination of a postmodernist style of art and a critical feminist perspective. 1s it the end of original art as so many postrnodernist writers, such as

Jarneson, declare? In the following chapters, the work produced by Tod, Davis and

Fowler will be studied, with references made to postmodernist writers. to demonstrate how contemporary feminist art production has benefitted tiom postmodernisrn. Chapter Two

Skai Fowler Feminisn and the Canoriical Nude:

In her phctographic series entitled Femalc Nudes, 1 989- 1 992, Vancouver artist

Skai Fowler comrnents on historical representations of women. This senes includes both colour and black and white images of appropriated "masterpieces" into which the artist inserts a nude image of herself. Her practice bnngs many theoretical issues into the practical realrn of art making. Feminist and postmodemist concems imbue her work with a cntical edge indicative ofa larser, ferninist practice in Canadian contemporary art

Arguments have been made since the 1970's regarding the merits and demerits of feminist artists using the female body in art. In Fowler's series. the nude is used as an ironic juxtaposition to highlight the unrealistic renderings of women depicted in the canon. Thus, the body is used as a tool to criticize past representations. Mthough feminists such as

Pollock argue against the effectiveness of such a practice, Fowler7sseries clearly provides positive images of women. An in-depth anaiysis of three photographs fiom the Fimak hrude series will accomplish a greater understanding of how the artist effectively uses the body. Sirnply, 1 argue that it is the use of appropriation and irony which prevent Fowler's nudes from being consurned and criticized as passive displays of the female body. This chapter will engage with Hilde Hein's theory regarding the important difference between a

"ferninine" and "feminist" aesthetic to explain how Fowler convincingly uses the nude to criticize traditiond images of women. Also, examples of Jameson7sand Lyotard's writings fùnher vindicate Fowler's use of the nude for critical purposes. Interestingly, the ernployment of postrnodemist practices and the prominence of postmodern theory challenge the earlier criticisms related to the use of the nude.

Fowler became an artist only after working as an artist's mode1 since 1975.16' In

1 985, the artist graduated fiom the Emily Carr College of Art and Design. 16' Fowler's work has been featured in galleries throughout Canada. Specificdly. Fernale Nudes has been e'diibited at the Station Street .Art Center in Vancouver, in January 1994; the Agnes

Etherington Art Center at Queen's University in Kingston, from November 1994 to

Febntq 1995; and recently in an exhibition enti tled Re-Prescnting at the McMichael

Canadian Art Collection in the spnng of 1998. The artist attributes her experience as an artist's mode1 as her primary resource for the series. She explains that

Some years ago, 1 became interested in my historicai counterparts. Every time 1 disrobe 1 had the sensation of this very same act having been done for centuries; in doing this 1 have become aligned with al1 the femaie subjects of the old masters. It is with this perspective that 1 have started my series on the nude. la

-4lthough the artist attendeci art school, she approached the Female Nudc series not from an art historicd or critical background but rather Eom personal experience. -4 highly critical response to art history's representation of women, however, is the result.

conee wiln Venus, 1992

In C'fTèe wilh Venus ( 1992), a photograph from the Female NudL. series. Fowler appropriates BotticeIliYsSirth of' Vcnm of 1492. (Figure 2) Next to the ta11 goddess figure, Fowler's own image appears nude, drinking coffee, while glancing towards the other imaged fernale. The artist's likeness is faint due to the double exposure technique used to make the work. Yet, the contrast between the "real" versus "iconic" body is apparent.I6' Indeed, Venus's npht arm which reaches to cover her yenitals is impossibly long while her head is disproportionately small compared to the rest of her attenuated body. (Figure 3) Both figures, however, are in frontal poses and both are active. Fowler drinks coffee, while Venus preforms the ancient gesture of modesty, the pudica pose. In fact, the action of both figures can explicate how the female body can be used to critique patriarchai representations of the female nude. Knowledge of the pudica pose and its origin in art history is necessary to determine the impact of Cofle~~wih Vmus.

Nanette Salomon explains the specific meaning of the term 'pudica' as shameful or modest, yet clarifies that "it does not actually convey the motivation behind the body language."'66 The result of this act, Salomon contends, is responsible for the subordinate position female nudes have taken since Greco-Roman times. She exploins that

[wlhether the female nude is ponrayed covering her pubis or pointing to it, the result is the same. . . We are, in either case, directed to her pubis which we are not pennitted to see. Woman, thus fashioned, is reduced in a humiliated way to see her sexuality. The form taken for Aphrodite reincarnate results in an endemic and unending exposure of woman whose primary definition is as someone who fears having her genitds seen. What is at stake here. then, is fbndamental to Our understanding of ourselves and our images of self We are defined as pnmarily sexuai, vulnerable in Our sexuality, and deptoyed as a shamed "other" through the conditioning of culture. '"

Salomon's observations are validated by referencing male Greco-Roman sculptures, which display an attitude diarnetrically opposed to the 'shamefùl' pose of the female statues.

Hcrmcs and Ihe Infmf Dionysus, sculpted by Praxiteles in c.300 B.C.E., is a case in point.

(Figure 4) Hermes, for example, stands at ease with his amoutstretched thus unabashedly displaying his entire body. The pudica pose was chosen by Botticelli, a

Humanist, for his Venus, typically following the examples provided by Antiquity. The 30 painter, however, embellishes the luxuriousness of the Venus by providing long flowing hair. These golden locks draw the viewer's attention from the flawtess face, down her curvaceous body, to meet her hand over her genitals. As another variation to the tradi tional pudica pose, Botticelli places Venus's ot her arm over her breasts.

What does this pose mean to the viewer? This question is admittedly problematic. since frorn a ferninist perspective the 'viewer' too is gendered. I6"he assumed audience of the pudica pose proves this point vaiid. Salomon explains that the "pudri-a pose produces the kind of heterosexual desire. . . Merely by placing the hand of the woman over her pubis, Praxiteles-and every other artist since him who used this device-creates

a sense of desire in the viewer."'" The viewer, then is "transformed into a voyeur. . . We yearn to see that which is withheld. The viewer's shamefùl desire to see matches the sculpture's "shameful" desire not to be seen."'" To identiQ the viewer as male provides an understanding of how the pose seduces him. Furthemore. this assertion ieads one to question what would happen if this pose were altered and a different stance adopted?

Does the tension of the desire to see also disappear?

Fowler answers this question in her work. The hidden is revealed and the tension of seduction disappears, dong with the shame. Fowler's naked image shares only a slight contrapposto stance with figures from the past. In fact, her pose assists in portraying a naturai figure, at ease. More importantly, FowIer's gesture ironically highlights that of the

Venus figure. Although both Venus and Fowler are perceived as fiontal nudes, it is the ironic use of the nude convention which gives this work a critical edge. No atternpt is made by the artist to hide her body. Fowler subverts the convention of the nude by 3 1 counteracting the passive, shamehl action of the pudica pose by freely drinking coffee, cornfortable with her nudity. Jan Men suggests that Fowler's presence within this work is effective because it "succinctly sets forth an alternative model of a thinking and active ferninine subject .""' Salomon explains the pudica Venus '5s titillating and provocative in her oven sexud ~ulnerability."~" The nude figure drinking coffee Iacks this seductive quality, which is tùrther eradicated by Fowler's non-sexudized pose.

It is ironic for Fowler to use a nude fernale image to critique the conventions of the nude itself, which often places women in an objectified position in art representation. For the reasons described above, however, Fowler's work is convincing in its appropriation of the female nude and in its employment of the figure to counteract the pathchd representations of women, such as the pudica Venus used by Botticelli. Sirnilar to the irony used in Tod's work, Coffeewilh Venus is also humourous in its positioning of a

'real' femaie nude, undertaking a contemporary prosaic act, with a contnved, fancihl

Venus image. This pairhg makes the unrealistic nature of the Renaissance work blatantly obvious. More importantly, this irreverent act ridicules the seriousness of canonical

Venuses.

Curiains. 1989

In Curiahs, Fowler appropriates another canonical image, Ingres's Lwgc

Odafisqueof 18 14. Again, the artist critiques the original painting by ironicall y inserting her nude image into the original composition. (Figure 5) The most celebrated characteristic of the painting is its depiction of an exotic, 'anticlassical' woman 12 representing a member of a Turkish harem. Thus. the painting exemplifies the fascination artists of the nineteenth century had with the 'exotic' and. more specifically, with

Orientalist subjects. The Lwgc Oda/sque exemplifies the 19& century European tendency to exoticize and pictorially possess the Orientalist Other. Ingres made the female figure physically exotic by exaggerating her body. for example, the figure's back is elongated while the feet are disproportionately srnall. (Figure 6) This embellished body achieves an exotic character, yet renders the figure imniobile. She is condemned to remain rnotionless as an object to be viewed and owned The equation of woman-as-object is therefore achieved.

1s the unusual nude in Large Odafisqucseductive? In fact, the exotiderotic equation is heightened by the sumptuousness of her surroundings. Rendered in deep, nch colour, these objects-the silk sheets and peacock feathered fan, etc.--link to the smooth pink painted flesh of the nude. Therefore, the female figure is visually equated with the other objects to be owned. Furthemore, the figure's passive expression seerns to welcome the gaze of the viewer. Free fiom confiontation within the painting, the male spectator is allowed to visually enjoy the nude.

The Large O&!isque provides a perfect foi1 for Fowler. Fowler's insertion of her image into the composition changes the hierarchical ordering of model and viewer. The artist explains that the hours spent as an artist's model allowed her to reflect upon "the relationship between artist and model, art practices, and a chance to study and experience western attitudes towards the female n~de.""~Her proportioned body is more cornpacted than that of the reclining figure, which emphasizes the liberties originally taken by Ingres to exoticize the subject. Unlike the passive Odalisque, Fowler's body is caught

in the moment of a quick action. She is crouched forward, led by her amthat reaches to

close the curtain-an act chat the original figure was unable to do. Aithough Fowler does

not look at the viewer nor meet with his or her gaze, they are still confronted by this act.

The welcorning glance and position of the Odalisque is neutrdized by Fowler's action. It appears to the viewer that the cumin will be closed within seconds, therefore rescinding the odalisque's invitation.

In its entirety, the FedeNudsseries is an effective critique in part due to our farniliarity with the "masterpieces" that Fowler appropriates and the stories they depict.17'

These images are oflen cited as definitive representations of feminine beauty. lndeed. two of the paintings used by Fowter. Ingres's Lar-gc Odafisqucand Botticelli's BiM of Venus are included in the Kenneth Clark's study entitled Fernininè Seaufy, a popular discourse on the s~bject.~'~Clark's commentary on these two painting provides insight to the typical patriarchd catdoguing of women's appearances. in response to Botticelli's work. for example, Clark States

[h]alhay through the [fifieenth] century there emerges one of the most fatefùl of al1 exponents of feminine beauty, Sandro Botticelli. Since he was first acclaimed by Walter Pater in the 1870's, his Madomas have filled a place in the average man's imagination previously occupied by the prosperous beauties of ~aphae1.l'~

Thus the feminine beauty displayed in Botticelli's work was made solely for man's imagination and equated. by Clark. to a fahion or trend.'" A feminist interpretation of the popular Venus figure is more conguous with Fowier's intentions. In O/d Pdistresscs: WmnAH and f'eo/ogy.Pollock and Parker argue that

paintins is like a language. not a mere reflection of the world, but

[rlather, we have to recognize in paintings an orçanization of signs which produce meanings when they are read by a viewer who brings to the painting both knowledge of the specific signs of a painting-that is, can read the lines and colours as denotiny certain objects-and familiarity with the signs of the culture or society-that is can interpret what those objects connote on a syrnbolic level. Art is not a mimr. It mediates and re-presents social relations in a schema of siyns which require a receptive and preconditioned reader in order to be rneaninyful."'

A semiotic reading of both the Ingres's and Fowler's images will help illustrate how her

use of a nude body is effective in shifiing the original signification of the painting.

Feminist writers such as Bal use semiotics to understand how images of wornen gain

cultural meaning. Ingres's painting signifies a figure which embodies sensuality for the

male gaze. Clark, for exampie, States that "the languid pose, the girl's provocative gaze,

and the textures of oriental silken trappings make it a painting of incomparable

sen~ualit~.""~Thus, it is the combination of many sififiers within the painting that

contribute to the overall effect of sensuaiity. Again, the rich colour used to depict the

sensuous flesh of the woman is visually equated to the renderings of the silk curtain and sheets which surround her. Overall, both the figure and her surroundings signie luxurious objects to be desired, owned and consumed. However, Fowler transfers the oil painting into a biack and white photograph, therefore subverting many of the connotations Largs

Odalisque originally contained. The demotion of the material quality of the painting in, for example, the colouration of the skin and silk, effectively diminishes the appeal of the nude and her exotic nature. Fowler, by photographing the Largc Odafisque in black and 45

white, changes the overall signification of the Ingres which depends on the quaiities of oil

paint to create a rich, sensuous painting.

Typically, the presumed audience of paintings like Largc Odalisque consisted of

nien who have the required disposition to 'read' the specific signs which cater to niale visual domination and pleasure. In contrast, Fowler's image anticipates a diflierent type of audience consisting of viewers who are aware of patriarchal representations of women.

Her photographs effectively expose and thereby critique the patriarchal representations of women in canonical Western art. Indeed, Fowler presents the status quo by appropriating the Ingres, t hen subverts its meanings by contradicting the ubiquitous passive female pose with a syrnbolic action implying that the reign of male domination via the gaze is about to be closed. Again. this is an ironic use of the nude female body to shiîl traditional meaning.

However, the effectiveness of the practice of employing the female nude has been questioned by many feminists. Beginning in the 1970's when artists, such as ludy

Chicago, began to explore central core imagery, some feminist critics argued that t hey merely reinforced perceived gender des. In the eariy 19801s,Pollock and Parker criticized the use of the female body in women's art. Citing their work is therefore necessary, not only to engage with potential critics of Fowler's work, but more importantly, to examine how these feminist arguments have changed twenty years later in a postmodern current. Their position outlined in Old Misfressesexemplifies the ferninisrn of that time period, when the debates about femininity and the patriarchy's use of the feminine stereotype to subordinate women were ptimary. A statement by Pollock and

Parker illustrates their position: Zn art the female nude parallels the ektsof the feminine stereotype in art historical discourse. Both confirm male dominance. As female nude, woman is body, as nature opposed to mde culture. . . the very sign and meanings of art in our culture have to be ruptured and transformed because traditional iconography works against women's attempts to represent themselves. Their intentions are undermined by the meanings or connotations that iconography carries. ''O

Ntematively, Fowler's work presents both a critical and positive use of the female nude. The artist convincingly 'ruptures' and 'transforms' the signs in tradit ional iconography through the employment of appropriation. However, Pollock States that female artists who use the nude figure or images presenting central core imagery exctusive!y-often termed a 'feminine aesthetic' -are

dangerously open to misunderstanding. They do not alter radically the traditional identification of wornen with their biology nor challenge the association of women with nature. In some ways they merely perpetuate the exclusively sexual identity of women, not only as body but explicitly as cunt ."'

However, Fowier's work does not attempt to create a specific ferninine style by using the female body. rather, her use of the body is primarilv for critical purposes.

An explanat ion of the differences between a fèminine aesthetic and a fkminist aesthetic, provided by Hein. is helpfbl in describing how Fowler's critical use of the body does, as Pollock demands, establish a break with traditionai iconography. Hein defines a feminine aesthetic as a style of production which involves "gender characteristic rlements, use of imagery (e-g.,"central core" images) or other gender specific stylistic devices. . . ."18' A feminist aesthetic, however, refers more to a "political conviction that advocates the assumption of the woman's per~pective."'~~Hein maintains that a feminist aesthetic challenges the discourse revolviny around aesthetics, such as the tradition of the philosophy of beauty, etc. '" "Feminist aesthetics" Hein explains, "would challenge this 37

entire network, recast and reconceptualize it from its own alternative perspective. much as a ferninist focus has unsettled some of the foundations of traditional historiography." lus

Fowler's work is therefore more aligned with the feminist aesthetic and its critical approach to traditional aesthetics than a ferninine aesthetic which strives to create an exclusively "ferninine" style, often labeled essentialist . However, there is not a complete separation between these two types of aesthetics. Fowler's work, for exarnple, in its quest to critique the art historical canon, does subsequently provide positive examples of representations of women.

P~pe Drcam. 1992

In Pijw Dream, another photograph from the Fernale Nude series, Fowler has appropriated a Jacob Jordaens painting on the mythological story of Pan and Syrinx.

(Figure 7) The story, evident in the original painting, tells of Pan's obsession with the nymph Syrinx, who tries to escape the half-man, half-goat by changing herself into reed~.'~~Jordaens has captured the moment before Syrinx transforms herself. lS7 Typical of Flemish Baroque depictions of wometi, she appears neither desperate nor concemed about the pursuit, but rather is depicted as a fleshy. voluptuous figure, cornplete with soft, rosy cheeks. (Figure 8) Her white skin contrasts with the darker figures and sky which surround her, thus emphasizing her figure.

Fowler, in her re-prssenfafionof this Baroque work, subverts the conventional meaning of this painting by ironically juxtaposing her own figure. Rather than running away from the sexual advances of the mde, she lunges toward him with her arm 18 outstretched in a welcoming gesture. As her head tilts forward, it meets with Pan's raised hand. Thus, a gentle and intimate caress occurs between the two figures. The gesture does much to neutralize the dominant male sexual overtones which occur in the original mythological story. Fowler has changed the signification of t he image, which ends with passive Syrinx inevitably being possessed by the male figure. The gesture of Fowler's tigure asserts her desire and t hus challenges the perpetual cycle of female-as-submissive.

Athough some, like Pollock, could argue the opposite, the artist believes that the use of her own body in her photographs cancels the objectification displayed in other nude female images. Fowler insists that "being both artist and mode1 solved the unsettling issues of objectification and misuse. I could now displace these views by using my own body instead of someone else's. "lu' Fowler believes she gains a sense of control by representing herself according to her wishe~.'~~

In response to the use of the female body in art, Pollock and Parker ask, "what is the effect of these attempts to validate female experience, to reappropriate and valorize women's sexuality?"?"lgOThey answer the question by statiny that "women, ferninist or otherwise, may well feel affirmed by süch works. recognizing the way it confiants their oppression by exposing hitherto hidden, repressed or censured aspects of their lives.7, 191

Pollock and Parker maintain, however, that although women may feel vindicated, men can still retrieve and CO-optimages for sexual pleasure.'92But is it not tremendously important that women 'feel affinned' and 'vindicated'? To engage with this debate at the end of the twentieth century allows for some realizations. First of all, negative images of

Woman which equate her to a sexud object will continue to be produced. Thus. the 49 production of positive images of Woman as affiirmative and in control of her sexudity rather than deranged and aggessive, as mother ancilor member of the work force, as naked and powerful, not naked and wlnerable, will counteract the dominance of negatiw images. This is a critical approach which works to dismantle the dominance of the patriarchy 's representation of women.

Secondly, viewers, 'ferninist or othenvise,' need to experience these types of positive models. These images acknowledge that the representations of women in mass media and art history, in which "women have been encoded as victims, as passive subjects of male desire" are not natural relationships reflected by art.'93 As noted in Chapter One, imelda Whelehan States one goal of feminism is to "challenge the dominant ideological representations of femininity."19' To darifi the difference between positive representations of women and negative, patriarchal images which subordinate wornen. is a crucial step towards creating a ferninist aesthetic. Therefore, men's sexual reactions to positive images of wornen should be a secondary concern.

Finally, many feminists fî-om a variety of fields recognize the need to intervene in patriarchal representations, as exemplifieci here by the works of Ingres, Botticelli and

Jordaens. Estella Lauter declares that "[tlhis devaluation of women, embedded so deeply in our cultural value system, has inevitably aiTected women's own self-concept."'95 The need women have for a positive 'self-concept7 is supported most ardently by French psychoanalytical theorists who believe women are denied an identity in a patriarchal culture and thus need their own language to express female experiences.'" Also. the agreement between ferninists that the formation of the self is socially constmcted supports 50 the need for favorable images of women- Thus, Fowler's photographs, along with their critique of the patriarchal representations of the female, are satisfjing another need by representing positive images of a woman.

The continued debate since the 1970's which concerns how women can engage with the critical politics of the body takes a new turn in Our postmodern times.

Appropriation of art historical images in which the ferninist artist has ironically-because contradictorily and subversively- inserted her image, as Fowler does in her work. is an effective way to criticize negative images of women. Through appropriation, the artist makes a visual link to patriarchal depiction and in tum provides an alternative represcntation. tronically, patriarchal images (of women as subrnissive objects, for example) are used as tools by Fowler against the patriarchy. Fowler's photographs have affirmed the existence of a female body as active and assertive. In fact, to neglect engaging with the politics of the female body would be to neglect the crucial site of wornen's subjugation. Fowler critiques patriarchal images of the ferninine as inferior, passive and inactive, yet wit hout simply eradicating the existence of female experiences.

Indeed, the assimilation into a patriarchal culture does not question the hegemony.

Poshnodern Thinking

Postmodemism can be cited to explain how feminist artists like Fowler create a positive feminist aesthetic by criticizing patnarchal representations of women. Jameson concludes, as outlined in the first chapter, that the act of pastiche, which differs greatly fiom parody, is a postmodem characteristic. A point of contention is the negative 5 1 emphasis Jameson places on pastiche compared to parody. Parody, Jameson believes. reaffirms the existence of a 'linguistic nom,' whereas pastiche is speech in a dead language. Interestingly, lameson's definition of pastiche proposes that past meanings are effaced when used as references in a pastiche work.

The appropriation of past art historicd images by feminist artists therefore leads to theoretical implications. The purpose of Fowler's work is not to reaffinn the nom of the canon, rather, it strives toward the possibility of rendenng the language of the canon nul1 and void. Fowler attaches new meaning to the iconography presented in the appropriated painting by inserting a contemporary image into it. Thus, the act of appropriation deems

Fowler's own time as a key eiement. The rneaning of the old iconography, then, is set within its histoncally specific time period. Furthemore, new connotations fiom Fowler's time period are then attached to the images. As Jarneson rnaintains, this practice challenges the original meaning. This is the promise of Jameson's postmodernism For feminist artists.

Lyotard's criticisrn of the universalking theories of Modemkm demands that its project of eradicating heterogeneity be realized and refiited. Indeed, feminist writers have also petitioned for the same realization. In the first chapter, Whelehan is quoted as explaining how the Enlightenrnent era and liberalism separated fernale nature as different from that of men, and then proceeded to use this distinction as a point to degrade women on the basis of differen~e.'~'The writings of Lyotard and feMnist theorists recognize the practice of the hegemonic culture to deny difference in order to preserve its dominance.

Within the discourse of art history this problern has been addressed. Postmodernists demand that the metanarrative underlying the existence of the dominant art canon is in

question. Therefore. the success of Fowler's work is contingent upon this particular point

in t ime, the 'postmodem turn' which demands al1 theoretical arguments recognize the

historical specificity of their ongins.

Importantly, historical specificity distinguishes Fowler's work-and the work of

such postmodem feminists as Cindy Sherman-Trom earlier attempts by artists to use the female body. The importance of basing theory in a historically specific penod is articulated by Linda Nicholson and Nancy Fraser. For example, on the merger of feminism and postmodernism, they explain what a successfùl union entails. The authors point out problems with Lyotard's writings, specifically, his cal1 for the end to grand theoretical concepts. Nicholson and Fraser criticize this demand on the basis that feminism needs theory and categories to tackle the real problem of women's subordination. As an alternative to the complete elimination of theory, the authors believe that the type of postmodemism that feminism should adopt is a carehlly constructed one:

postmodernism need not demand the elimination of al1 big theoy, much less theory per se, to avoid totalization and essentialism. The key is to identie types of theorking which are inimical to essentialism. Thus, theorking which is explicitiy historical, that is, which situates its categories within historical fiameworks, less easily invites the dangers of false generalizations than does theorking which does not. t99

Essentialism, as discussed by Nicholson and Fraser, refers to a theoretical position-particularly arnong feminist of the 1960's and 1970's-which contends that dl women share siMlar charactenstics and experiences because of their comrnon sex.'"' The authors believe that "by criticizing lingering essentialism in contemporary feminist theory. we hope to encourap such theory to become more consistently p~stmodrrn."'~'

Therefore, they believe that "postmodernism is not only a natural aily, but also provides a

basis for avoiding the tendency to construct theory that generalizes from the experience of

Western. white, rniddle-class ~ornen."'~'Furthemore, Nicholson and Fraser dari@ the

distinctions thai must be made when engaging with the category of gender:

On the one hand, the recognition of this categocy as central in understanding human thought and behavior has been a major feminist accornplishment. insofar as the use of this category represents a necessary refinement of the encompassing category of "humanity," this accomplishment miyht also be described as postmodem. 'O'

However, they continue to make the crucial distinction that "insofar as the category is given substantive, cross-cultural content, there arises the possibility that it becomes totalizing and discriminating against the experiences and realities of some."'" Hein clarifies that gender should be conceptualized as an "analytical category like class or race, a tool for understanding complex relations.'7Z05

,4s stated in the first chapter, feminism in the 1980's criticized its own totalizing theories. This remains to be an ongoing debate within the discourse. According to

Nicholson, postmodern-ferninism would

replace unitary notions of woman and feminine gender identity with plural and complexly constructed conceptions of social identity, treating sender as one relevant strand arnong others, attending also to class, race, ethnicity. age. and sexual onentati~n.~~

For many feminist thinkers and artists, such as Fowler and Shelly Niro, women's self representation would accornplish this. The creation of self imagery fiom a variety of women would establish and acknowledge differences of the 'feminine gender identity*that

Nicholson and Fraser cal1 for and the recognition of heterogeneity Lyotard demands. No one group would be responsible for defining and representing the entire category of

Woman .

1n Fminik Senfences. Wolff clarifies the distinction between uncritical celebratory images of women-including central core imagery-and postmodemist deconstructive critical rneth~d,'~'which Hein refers to as the distinction between a ferninine aesthetic and a feminist aesthetic. Wolff believes that "it is only those critical and deconstmctive practices which can expose the logic of patriarchal systems of representation in order to clear a space for feminist politics of culture. . . "'O8 Fowler's work succeeds in a deconstructive stance which exposes the patriarchal control of images.

.A qualifier is piaced on this type of practice by Wolff She states that works which attempt to create positive images of women should consider the social dynamic of audience: "It is a matter of audience and of potential readings, and not solely a matter of aest heric orthodoxy."m Nonetheless. the crucial aspect of using the female body in an as an element of feminist cultural practice, is, as Wolff agees, to "address and deconstnict the (idea of the body) in contemporary c~lture.""~

The postrnodern current is Fowler's, and her audience's. historically specific time period. The practice of questioning metanarratives in art history is. in part, a result of postmodemist thinking. However, it has always been the position of feminist art historians and critics to question the dominant ideology apparent in art history. Yet now. with the prevalence of postmodernist thought, other critics, t heorists and artists question the dominance of the canon as well. This is her specific theoretical period which allows

Fowler's work to be seen as something more than the female body. Most importantly, 55

Fowler's work achieves the challenge posed by feminists like WoltTwho demand that work address cultural images of the body to deconstruct the negative, yet dominant notions about femininity which have existed throughout art history. Chapter Three

Christine Davis: The V~ewerWof the Body

Christine Davis's work, like that of Skai Fowler, addresses the body, drawing on several aspects of recent critical discourse. Specifically, readings of the body and its representation, drawn tiom psychoanalytic theory, influence her work. Two installations- in particular contain elements conceming these issues and will be discussed in this chapter:

Ckavc, 1988, and Unani~ousHoniuns, 1989. (Figure 9.1-9.4 & 10.1-10.3)

In both installations, Davis appropriates past art historical images and re- contextualizes details of them in her work. The subtle irony of the installations is dependent upon the use of familiar techniques nuxed with feminist intentions. Her technique, for example, which involves a process of cutting and isolating parts of the female body in a fetishistic manner, will be discussed. i propose, however, that this process is ironically more aligned with a feminist habit of appropriating images of women for the purpose of critique rather than for the fetishistic purpose of providing pleasure.

In addition, reception is crucial to each of Davis's installations. The viewer's gaze and the politics of looking both impact on perceptions of the body. In turn, Davis. like

Fowler, is aware of the presence of the viewer. Typical of a postmodernist approach, the artist denies a definitive answer to the issues presented in her work. Utimately, deciphenng meaning is lefl to the viewer and his or her knowledge. The audience's perception of the work specifically how they look at the individual pieces. can be illuminated by Freudian discussions of scopophilia. This theory describes the process of 57 how one gains pleasure fiom the act of looking and therefore can explain how images of women often become fetishized and objectified. Other elements (particularly in

Unanimous HO~~ORS)invite interpretations drawn fiom the work of Jacques Lacan.

Lacan's theory of the rnirror stage of development links the installation, with its reflective surfaces, to the concept of subjectivity and outlines the implications of Davis's presentation of the body. In fact, Davis's references to theory. specifically psychoanalytic theory, are consistently filtered through a feminist position. In addition, Jean Bauddard's witings on simulacra are usefiil in examining how Davis shifis conventional meanings surrounding the body. For example, Baudrillard contends that images which are constant ly reproduced become separated from t heir original meanings. Interestingly. the use of feminist and postmodet-nist ideas prevents Davis's images fiom being visually dominated and passively consumed.

Although originally fiom Vancouver, Christine Davis received her Bachetor of

Fine Arts degree in 1984 fiom York University in Toronto. Throughout her career. Davis has continually addressed the body. Monika Gagnon States

[tlhe body written through language, by representation and history. is a body that appears again in a multitude of manifestation throughout Davis' installations. . . there is a fluctuating ambivalence toward power and kagility of the body and the exquisite positions that it inhabits." '

Ln Ekquisite PosiCihs, 1985, for example, Davis uses a multimedia approach, combininy photography, texts and drawings to address notions surroundiny representation of the body. Similarly, in a goup exhibit entitled The Embodied Viewer, 1 99 1. Davis displayed a triptych entitled Hjpcr.dewhich presents an image of a woman by Vermeer. Davis's career as an exhibiting artist, beginning fier her graduation, is filled with diversity. Along 58 with rnany North American e'diibitions, Davis has also exhibited work in Spain, France.

Germany and London. The artist was also on the editoRal board of Border/Zincrs magazine fiom 1984-1988, "'and served as a member on the Board of Directors for the

YYZ Artists mn center in Toronto in 1989.

cleavc, 1988

Davis employs the title deave ironically to describe a collection of mixed media works. The verb to cleave means both chopping or breaking apart. and adhering or joining. Consisting of two series, the first series includes a saimon pink wall paper scroll on which images fiom the art historical canon appear in the form of a collage. (Figures

9.1&9.2) Pieces of imaged femaie bodies are extracted or "cleaved" fiom their original context and isolated. For example, the Biküi of Venus by Botticelli (the same work appropriated by Skai Fowler) is reduced to parts. Davis isolates and repeats elements of the original, such as the long, flowing hair of Venus, and the female attendant who is in the process of covering up the naked ~~oddess.'"The iconic Vcnude Mi/o and Giovanni da Bologna's Rape ofheSabhe Womm appear on the scroll which covers two walls of the $allery."' The second series comprising cfeave is positioned opposite fiom the first series. (Figure 9.3) This series consists fifty-six ~iltfrarned photographs based on the book

L 'Histoire Soupie (or knit onepurl one). The ironic appropriation in the first series, however, invites a feminist interpretation which echoes similar uses of appropriated imagery in other examples of Davis's work. 59

The first senes, therefore, is of particular interest to this study. Here, Davis presents images of decorous women interspersed with various sheets of paper and mate rial^."^ By equating the female images with simple examples of paper, the enticement of the imaged female figures is lessened by this emphasis on materials. Elements used in sculpture and painting, media capable of rnimickinç the sensuousness of the hurnan figure. are emphasized and articulated in the molding above the scroll. This molding hangs below eye level at shoulder height, and continues throughout the entire length of the gallery, making it the only solid continuous elernent in the installation. Stenciled words of materials used by artists ("Verdi Gris") appear on the molding. (Figure 9.4) On the scrotl descriptions of the elements used by artists to make these iconic artworks, ("illustrations f?om Diderot of an easel; the moids and hoists used in the casting of a figurative sculpture. a French curve; color chips.") appear as ~e11."~By ernphasizing rnaterials, these admired

'masterpieces' fiom the minds of 'geniuses' are therefore effectively demystified and demoted to the act ofcraftsmanship. Therefore, hierarchical distinctions, which have traditionally deemed the act of painting and sculpture as 'high' art while other practices where placed in the 'lower' redm of crafls, are leveled. Davis, like Tod, challenges the illusion of a hierarchy reinforced by the canon.

Both the discontinuous pink scroll and the continuous classical molding emphasize larger meanings apparent in the installation. First, the scroll may be viewed as the narrative of Western art history, with its linear format and the inclusion of iconic art historical images. However, the narrative Davis constructs is discontinuous, it is 'cleaved' and significantly ends before covering the entire roorn. The artist undermines the illusion 60 of a continuous meta-narrative of art history by physically cutting and preventing the scroll from covering the entire wall.

Monika Gagnon views Davis's installation as *'a celebration and inhabitation of space performed with an ecstatic passion for the detail. In this. these works embrace the

' disruptive' and 'threatening' capabilities t hat such detail entails.""' Gagnon asks the audience to "consider the explosive ornamentation of that which characterizes ckavca. for in spite of its profùse inventory of references, it is at first çiance, the highly controlled design of space and meticulous control of materials that is so stnkiny.""' By emphasizing the act of constmcting or making art within her own installation, Davis effectively foregrounds the production of art and the use of materials. therefore demystieing the illusion of traditional images.

Unmimous ~~o~~~IoRs,1989

Unanh~ousHonkons, 1989, shown in Davis's first solo e-xhibition is-like ckavc-an installation work with serial images in mixed media. it consists of six diptychs and two singular works placed on the fiont and back of the gallery's walls. (Figure IO. 1)

Each diptych consists of two panels, such as a photograph and a sheet of lead."9 Placed beneath the diptychs are sheets of reflective blue stainless steel, which act as mirrors reflecting the different objects in the room. On one end wall, a rnirror is hung veiled by a piece of fabric. On the other end wall, there appears an image of a scriptorium. (Figure

1 0.2) The photographs used are images of Venuses, a scriptorium. and architectural ruins.'" (Figure 10.3) The varîety of classical objects appropnated visualty equate the 61

marble Venus figures to other ancient objects and their materials. The artist therefore has

unanimouslygrouped these ancient objects together, in turn creating a new hon2on of

how one cm view the objects' enforced hierarchical diferences.

The perception of the audience is important to Unanhous Honkons and to ckave. The dynamic of the audience, according to Wolff (as noted in Chapter Two), is a crucial element to consider when discussing the appropriation of pst images of women for critical purposes. Specifically, in Unanimous Honkons the presence of the mirror and its ability to reflect the viewer's own image deems the audience as an important participant in the installation. The immediate question to be addressed in order to determine the impact of Davis's installations is: how does she prevent her images fiom undergoing the process of visuai consumption and domination typical of the appropriated originals? A discussion of the process and politics of the gaze, which links to the dynamic of audience, will help answer this question.

The Freudian theory of scopophilia helps to explain the process of the gaze in

Davis's work. Spe~ificaIly~ferninists can use this concept to explain the pleasure of

Iooking. Carolyn Korsmeyer explains that,

[a]s the child develops a sense of its own separate identity, scopophilia takes the form of pleasure in looking at another. There is also pleasure in identifjmg with what is seen, in being the object of the look. The former, more active position is labeled "masculine," and the latter "ferninine.""'

The concept of scopophilia unfolds as a muiti-stepped experience. In tenns of chiId development, the pleasure gained by the infant's gaze upon his or her mother is soon replaced by an~iety.This anxiety stems from the realization that the infant is not a part of

the mother, but rather a separate entity. Korsmeyer describes this hetyas follows,

[tlhe discornfort at this realization of loss and incompleteness is an instance of what is referred to yenerally as castration anxiety about loss, separation, and absence. which functions deeply in the unconscious and colors the expenence of pleasure."'

This realization, in turn, engenders the development of one's subjectivity, and "[bJecause the developing subjectivity that experiences scopophilia is also forming gender identity. this visual pleasure is both eroticized and gendered."'" The translation of castration anUety to the female subject is developed fbnher bv Lacan's writings. Buhle explains that

Lacan,

cautioned the phallus is definitely not the penis or any object; neither is it a fantasy nor a phenornenon or force directly knowable. . . The phallus is, simply, that which Functions to produce a subjectivity that is sexed. Thus the power of the phallus. like the allure of the penis, remains fixed, a prion. It operates to structure the relations between the two sexes. . . and thereby ensures that the subject, in entering the Symbolic Order, takes a place as either "man" or "woman.""'

The process of scopophilia, however. is useful in reading artwork which depicts a female. Korsmeyer continues,

the image of woman, representiny lost matemal plentitude and the absent phallus, prompts castration anuiety. At the sarne time, as an unconscious reminder of the matemal body, it serves to allay that anxiety Thus, women become the objects of fetishistic pleasure, the fetish being the object that substitutes or stands in for absence. 225

The process of scopophilia, then, posits a theory which initiates an understanding of the prevalence of femaie images and the pleasures which are gained typically by the viewer

Simply, pleasure is gained by visuaily dominatiny the object which causes anxiety.

Furihermore. scopophilia declares that images of females in art are not symbols of actual people. Rather, an image of a woman represents an object which promotes anviety and

simultaneously provides pleasure because it replaces the lost phallus. The problem of this

process, however, is clearly explained by Irigaray who characterizes the gaze as havins the power to objectify, master and dominate. "' The result. according to Irigaray, is that

"women have been denied fÙH subjectivity and reduced to the status of objects of the male

~=e.''~~'

Incidentally, concepts and universal theories of beauty are also implicated in the process of scopophilia. For example, Korsmeyer States an interest in the implication that

pleasure in the experience of visual perception is formed from erotic, unconscious desire; even if beauty appears to consciousness as pleasurable in and of itself, it is really a displaced construct ultimately traceable to fetishistic scopophilia."'

This analysis then does much to discredit traditional theories of aesthetic experience

Korsmeyer continues to explain that

[b]y this analysis, the terms that stand for the pimacle of intrinsic value, such as beauty and other positive aesthetic qualities. actually denote substitute pleasures that either cover an anviety or signai a pleasurable satisfaction fomed fiom infantile, now unconscious drives.""'

According to the concept of scopophilia, the universal appeal of beauty found in images such as Botticelli's Bihh of Venus and chetished by earlier art historians such as Clark, is in fact a subjective, unconscious reaction.

The Venus figures appropriated by Davis in both installations exempli@ scopophilia in art. And indeed, the severed parts of the Venus fiyures may invite the conclusion that Davis has fetishized the bodies. TM However. 1 suggest that the result of this technique is a prevention of both the power of the gaze and the pleasure yained through looking/possessing the objects displayed. In both series Davis prevents the 64

illusionistic appeal of the appropriated figures by using a variety of techniques. In clciavt:

for example, she highlights the production of art by narning artistic materials in the

classical molding. This. in tum, demystifies the reality of the image and decreases the

viewer's pleasure gained by visually dominating the image. Mso, in both installations, the

artist alters the original images, actively limiting a passive viewing by the spectator. For example, each Venus figure is obscured or cropped in some way therefore preventing a complete image. This technique prevents a 'whole' object which is easily understood and consumed visually. Therefore, the viewer is encouraged to actively recoiistruct the figure, rather than passively except the image. Simply. the Venus figures are fragmented, both literally and theoretically.

Davis, like Fowler, subverts the power of canonical patriarchal artworks whch depict women by re-photographing and hence recontextualizing. This negates the original power equation between artist and subject. Gagnon States that by doing this Davis

"circumvents the reversal of the traditionally voyeuristically 'male' gaze of the camera and

7 77x1 places women behind the camera as an 'active looker . More importantly, in

Unanimous Honkons, the viewer is irnplicated in the process of looking at the images when he or she is confionted by the reflective panels placed below the diptychs on the floor. (Figure 10.4) The viewer cannot, therefore. anonymously gain pleasure from voyeuristic visual domination. Moreover, in a variance to the traditional 'vani!as' theme popular in nude paintings, Davis has put a rnirror in front of the viewer instead of the model. She ironicaily subverts this favorite theme of which John Berger directly accuses the (male) artist: You painted a naked women because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a niirror in her hand and you called the paintiny Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you depicted for your own pleasure."'

In Unanimous Hon'zons, it is the viewer who is scrutinized by the presence of the reflective, blue stainless steel panels on the floor

Lacan's mirror theory, regarding the formation of self as well as such Freudian concepts as narcissism and the formation of the ego. are instructive in understanding the function of the minor in Onammous Honkions. Ihor HoIubizky, for example, describes the reflective panels on the floor as traps which catch "the viewer in a moment of narci~sism"~~Lacan's writings on the imaginary explain that in the process of developing one's subjectivity, she or he must encounter an image of the body in an exterior object, For example, in a mirror. Sirnilarly, narcissism is a "form of self-love7' which engenders the formation of the ego. 235 Elisabeth Grosz explains that

the ego is the result of a series of identificatory relations with the images of other subjects, particularly the rnother or even its own image in the rnirror. These identifications, which constitute what Lacan calls the imaginary, are int rojected or internalised, brought inta the psychical sphere of influence of the ego in the form of the eyo-ideal, the idealised mode1 of itself to which the ego strives. 236

Thus, the external images that the ego encounters, dong with the reflection provided by the rnirror, are crucial in fonning the ideal which the ego strives to achieve. Grosz continues to explain that the ego is

both a map of the body's surface and a reflection of the image of the other's body. The other's body provides the fiame for the representation of one's own. In this sense, the ego is an image of the body's significance or meaning for the subject and for the other. It is thus as much a fùnction of fantasy and desire as it is of sensation and perception. . . This sig~ficatory,cultural dimension implies that bodies, egos, subjectivities are not simply reflections of their cultural context and associated values, but are constituted as such by them. . . ."' 66

In Onanimous Hon'zons, therefore, the Venus figures can be understood to represent the body of the other, an ideai for the ego to sttive towards during the process of fonning one's subjectivity. The reflection of the steel plates offers a mirror to the viewers who see themselves as they physically appear. Therefore, it allows for the possibility of a rift in the ego between the ideal and the reai notion of one's self

Furthemore, feminists such as Grosz have declared that idealized images available in culture for the formation of subjectivity may cause unreaiistic expectations. Among other problems, Grosz States that "ftlhe subject cannot remain neutral or indifferent to its own body and body parts. . . The human subject always maintains a relation of love (or hate) towards its own body. . . OAen, it is the relation of hate that rnanifests in many women's consciousness about themselves, which typically can take the form of such disorders as anorexia ner~osa."~Thus, the mirrors in the installation, which ofien provoke associations with the concept of narcissisrn prevalent in art history, also presents the negative possibility of idealized images which contnbute to the formation of the ego ideai and one's subjectivity.

Slindacra

Davis's installations atso reflect theories of postmoderriism as well as psychoanalytic t heory . 1 contend t hat the seemingly fetishized bodies in Davis's installations, for example, can also be interpreted as simulacra. The installations, in fact, ironically critique discourses surrounding beauty and art history's endorsement of universalizing theories. For example, the technique used by Davis can be thought of in 67 tems of what BaudriiIard calls simulacra. Simply, like simulacra. Davis's seemingly fetishistic bodies, which are often repeated, represent something that is no !onger attached to the original concept. The Venus figures only vaguely signifi their original meaning in history-the concept of ideal beauty. Through the process of simulacra, the history and the oriçinal meaning of the Venus figures are blurred. The procedure of changing the originai meanings of the Venus figures into simulacra observes a process as follows.

As noted in Chapter One, Baudrillard states that in the postmodern era, because of the constant state of reproduction, objects and images are no longer attached to their

'real' concepts or original meanings. In short, they become simulacra. These images are not imitations, duplications or parody, but rather, they replace the 'real' or original meaninr with a sign of the real?' Signs-objects or images-have undergone a liquidation of their referents. The concept of simulacra Iends itself readily to the images in

Davis's installation. Her re-presentation process (and in cicave, the repetition of images) succeeds in transfonning the original objects into simulacra. Specifically. the photoçraphic process provokes the constant repetition that Baudrillard attnbutes to the creation of simulacra. For example, lhor Holubizky in the introduction to the cataloç fmclicing Scaury, which includes a diptych by Davis, states thar

[tlhe carnera has become the primary instrument for representation in this century and its authority (once held by painting) as a documentary form, in spite of the proliferation of time based technology, video and film, is best suited to the stiil ubiquitous pnnt medium and the economies associated with advenising. '"

Baudriilard, as well, recognizes the seductive "digital technologies of the information age" as a postmodern phenornena which brings about the creation of simulacra."' The photographs of the original Venus figures transform the sculptures into images, placing them in the same category as media images which are reproduced and marketed

perpetually. Jane Brettle and Sally Rice explain the power of images produced by

p hotographic technology :

Our televised experience is of images transnitted in an endless telescoping of events, information and entertainment. Photographic representations of war zones and wildlife, global disaster and personal tn~mphexplode into our living rooms and redefine the space between a lived and simulated experience. "'

Effectiveiy, the distinction between the reai and the simulated is blurred because of the media process. Davis's photoqaphic technique which represents the orisinal statues through photography and then further distorts the figures through a fetish-like ponrayal succeeds in creating simulacra. Therefore, what appears as a traditional fetish-like structure, is also a simulacrum.

As outlined in the first chapter, the creation of simulacra, with its disassociation of images fiom their referents, can be used as a subversive tool for feminist artists. The images which become simulacra are free from past historical meanings and thus, as

Jarneson argues bbernpty"or "blank." It is upon this tabula rasa that feminist artists, from any background and a variety of positions, attempt to inscribe their own meaning. Hal

Fost er explains the fate of history when contemporary artist s use historical images:

This return to history is ahistorical for three reasons: the conte.xt of history is disregarded, its continuum is disavowed, and codictual foms of art and modes of production are falseiy resolved in pastiche. Neither the specificity of the past nor the necessity of the present is heeded. Such a disregard makes the retum to history also seem to be a liberation fiom history. And today many artists do feel that, fiee of history, they are able to use it as they wish. 1U

Foster's statement is in accord with the position of many feminists. Both argue that postmodernist appropriation is useless unless the past biases and exclusions of history are acknowledged. Specifically, Davis al ters the biases and assumptions present in the

metanarrative of art history by creating simulacra of the original high art images. The

original Venus figures, for example, signi& the standards and criteria of the traditional art

discourse and its canon. By appropriating the Venus images and changing them into

simulacra, Davis disassociates them fiom traditional meanings. Thus, the history which

surrounds the Venus figures is implicated in Davis's process.

Once an object has becorne a simulacnim it is disassociated fiom the 'real.'

Baudrillard's theory States that the seduction of the information age and processes of

repetitive representation in the postmodem world threatens the subject (masculine). '"

Therefore, elements of mass culture (feminine) are responsible for the death of the

subject. Or, as lameson notes, mass culture is responsible for the death of art. However,

it is the death of art controlled by the elitist few, who are also in danger of becorning extinct. In the past, the dominance of the few in power and the subordination of women was assiired by associating women with the inferior mass culture. As Foster asks

[fJor what is this subject that, threatened by loss, is so bemoaned? Bourgeois perhaps, but patriarchal and phailocentric certainly. For some, for many, this may indeed be a great loss. a loss which leads to narcissistic laments and hysterical disavowals of the end of art, of culture of the West. But for others, precisely for Others, it is no great loss at

Davis's ironic manipulation of images, which originally signified patriarchal ideals about art and women, to the point of simulacra and therefore separated fiom its original meaning, is a successful feminist critique, perhaps even a successful dismantling of a~ history's canon and its exclusion of the Other's voice.

Baudrillard refers to the feminine as both 'seduction' and a 'mirror' which reflects 70

"man's mastery of the real universe """ In the postmodern world. however, the mirror no

lonyer reflects man's control. ''13 Symbolically in Davis's installation, the mirror on the

end wall of the gallery is veiled, distorting everything that it reflects. The veil. as well. can

be understood to signie the 'ferninine.' The steel plates on the floor act as mirrors, yet

whose reflections are untrue to the objects in the room. Within the installation, nothing appears as one would expect. Viewers are not granted an easy experience and complete fetishistic enjoyrnent of the figures is prevented. Thus, t his seemingly fetishist ic process ironically averts pleasure.

Why is Davis interested in iconic images of nude women? To retum to classical and Renaissance art is, for artists such as Davis, a necessary step in confronthg a history which posits definitive representations of women. It is from the view point of the late twentieth century that many ferninists cnticize past imaçes. .As Wolff contends "the body has been systematically repressed and rnarginaiized in Western culture. wi th specific practices, ideologies, and discourses controlling and defining the female b~dy.""~Thus. the site of the body remains a critical zone for feminist artists who wish to comment on the representations of the past and present. Chapter Four

Joanne Toû: ïrony and Popular Cuhure

Like Fowler and Davis, Joanne Tod is inforrned by contemporary ferninist thinking.

In her realist paintings, Tod inventively appropriates forms of popular culture in an ironic rnanner to comment on underlying connotations about women. Tod's painting entitled

Scff~Porlmir,1982, serves as an early example of how the artist ironically appropriates mass cultural images in her workAAn in-depth analysis of this key painting displays how ferninist criticism and postmodernist techniques rnerge in the practical realm of her art production. A Iater series by Tod entitled Bcdsi~.'~~1996-97, also warrants yreater attention. In this series, the artist translates 'kitsch' items into the realm of high art t hrough the process of painting, therefore conunenting on the hierarchy in art Notably, these kitsch items are conventionally associated with the ferninine. These works will be analyzed in part through the writings of David Simpson and Andreas Huyssen, who address the relationship between feminism, postmodernism and mass culture, and more specifically ask if feminism can benefit tiom an alliance with postmodernism.

Furihermore, semiotics, addressed in Chapters One and Two, will be revisited in discussing of Tod's work.

Born in Montreal in 1953, Tod attended the Ontario College of Art in Toronto,

From 1970 to 1974.'" Nmost immediateiy, her work received critical attention and during the 1 980's Tod becarne one of the most notable Canadian figurative painters. Throughout her career. Tod has engaged her audience with hard-hitting, ironic paintings which present witty social cnticisms. .!Uthough Tod continued to use the tropes of appropriation and irony, she has explored other themes in the work produced between Sefl'Po~il,1982, and Ssdsitci, 1997. The artist examines diverse interests, however, some unifjmg concerns recur. Tod consistently engages with themes of representation and identity, often addressing women's marginalization. In addition, Tod's work oRen comments on racism.

Painting, and the continued debate of its validity, has also been a central concem of the artist. Karen Antaki in The Disorder of Things explains how Tod7suse of the medium serves her critical purposes,

[b]y positing 'painting' as 'other', its degradations become an allegory for disempowement, paralleling the victimization, or second-citizenship, of women and minorities. Within t his context, and in tandem with Tod' s pictonal concerns, has been an ongoing interest in exploring the divisive [sic], ordering structurations that govem contemporary experience in a hierarchai s~ciet~."~

Tod's adherence to this medium and mode of representation remains distinctive in a time when most feminist artists are searching for new forrns of expression ostensibIy able to subvert or circumvent patriarchal domination. In using ttus medium, she successfully critiques the language of painting by introducing critical subject matter. Her style, as well, presents a variety of influences. When Joanne Tod attended the Ontario College of Art, most of her instructors were influenced by abstract e.upressionism and colour field painting. In fact, Tod considers herself an autodidact as an realist painter; yet she acknowledges that the thin layer of paint she typically uses to describe highly realistic subjects is adapted from techniques cornmon to colour field painting. 253

Tod's subject matter and pointed criticism presented in her work are, like that of

Skai Fowler and Christine Davis, distinctive of feminist art. Many factors in Tod's work come together to provide a critique of patriarchy's representations of women-a characteristic of ferninist art as discussed by Griselda Pollock. Her ironic appropriation of

mass media images and influences are used as a tool to criticize the construction of the ferninine and notions about people of colour Thus, Tod succeeds in subverting the dominant meaning created in patriarchal culture by employing both feniinist and postmodernist techniques.

Tod uses irony, for example, to recontextualize mass media images. htaki clarifies Tod's intent in using appropriation:

While photographic images from newspapers, magazines and personai albums have provided the bais for numerous images, her work is infonned by the larger and less tangible realm of human experience. Original meanings are thus altered by the re-creative process. reappearing as paradox or as ~ign.'~'

Tod's practice succeeds in co~ectingrepresentations of femininity found in popular culture, which typically are patriarchally idealized portrayais of women, into her painting for the purpose of critique. The significance of Tod's strategy is articulated by the authors of Becoming Fcrnhine who discuss the relationship of popular culture to hegemony,

popular cultural forms matter for ferninist materialist struggle because they are involved intimately in securing and producing the consent of women and men to particular hegemonic meanings for gender (the relational categories of femininity and masculinity at a particular histonc juncture) and sexual diReren~e.~~'

SeKPorlrait, in particular, addresses the ability of popular culture to construct notions of femininity for public consumption. (Figure 1 1 ) Joanne Tod painted this canvas for the 1982 exhibition Monumcnta. which was influentid in introducing new figurative art in Toronto at the time. It is now oîlen regarded as her most farniliar art work. Tod's painting is a monumental canvas loosely reminiscent of eighteenth century portrait paintings. The wornan in the center of the painting, clad in a @arnourous evening gown, descends the stairs with her arms outstretched as if to address a crowd. Indeed, the shadows on the bottom tefi of the staircase indicate that she has an audience, she is being watched. Behind her, the Lincoln Memoriai cryptically appears in the shadows. The subject matter depicted in the painting-the woman descending an outdoor staircase-at first seems easily recognizable. Tod is, as she explains. interested in subjects which are

"imrnediately identifiable" and therefore draw the viewer into the work through their farniliarity '" This is enhanced by the eye-level vantage point. another element which places the viewer in an accessible relationship to the painting. However, there is an ambiguity apparent in the work as a whole. Across the gown, in bright yellow pnnt, appears the statement: "neath my ami is the color of Russell's Subaru." Pictorial illusion-the giamourous woman and her setting-is dissipated by these words which are starnped flatly across the image rather than recessing into the pictorial space. The viewer is confionted by this text and lefi to ponder its rneaning and the equdly cryptic title of the painting. It is the sentence printed across the image of the wornan, in fact, which gives the audience an indication that the title SeIfPortrait may too be an ironic play rather than a tmth.

Indeed, the figure in the painting is not, in fact, a likeness of the artist herself, but a rendering of an advertising iniage of an arionymous model. Tod explains that "I've always collected photographs from magazines to use in my work and SeIfiPorlrait was painted directly from a picture in an old Hûrper 5 ~azaar..""' Most viewers would 75

recognize this image as an advertising imase Tod encourages this reading by mimicking

characteristics of photographic realism. For example, the light shining from one spot in

front of the figure, like the bright flash from a camera illuminates her face and the front

of her body and implies a precise instant in tirne."' Tod's thinly applied paint and her

realist-based depiction fùrther the association wit h a tme-to-life photograph. Tod's

intended reference to advertising images is explained by Elisabeth Kidd who describes the

artist's painting style as a combination of "realisrn with colour-boosted 1950's illustration

techniques; her palette of dry, bright colours lends a deliberate playfùlness to her highly

critical paintings.'"" Although influenced by the ethereal quality of colour field painting.

her images are also undeniably inspired by the angular, two dimensional quality found in

advertising illustrations depicting the 'ferninine' woman.

One can only specuiate what the appropriated advertising image meant in its

original context and to its intended audience. Tod has effectively rernoved the image from

its socio-historicd situation and re-contextualized it in a contemporary painting.

Indicative of Tod's other works, such as Bt'dsite, the appropriated advertisement in SdL

Porirai~is a coded image. The implications of the imaged woman are best understood when referred to as a sign which is imbued with societal conventions. Simply, as a sign.

'she' is an example of a constructed notion ol tèmininity typically found in advertising.

The woman featured is elegant, impeccably dressed, and delicately poised. She radiates confidence which stems fiom acquiring characteristics deemed 'ferninine. ' This is. after all, what advertisements want the viewer to believe. Therefore, images of women in culture are constructed to become signs-to represent an ideal femininity, a category which is socially inscribed. In turn, women are presented with these 'desirable,' feminine

characteristics as elements to acquire.

The title, then, ironicalIy coments on representations of women in mass media, and specifically how women-including the artist herself-identi@ with and consume these types of images. Stan Douglas provides an explanation for Tod's witty title,

[ijn these pictures. . . Tod has ''coofiscated" images from a public redm more or less without inflection; but even though she does not presume to express a subjective identification with her protagonists, she consistently implicates herself as a witness and consumer of the various narrative^.'^

In effect, Tod suggests that her painting is a self-portrait in the sense that she sees herself as a consumer of such images which demand personal identification. Ferninists have long been active in challenging the seduction of such advertising imayes. Sheila Rowbotharn, among others, use

the notion of cultural colonialism to underline women's sense of being occupied, dominated, and visible to ourselves only through images constructed of and by the oppressor, the dominator, the coloniser- of mind and b~dy.'~'

Tod, then, addresses the notion of women gaining self awareness and identification through patnarchal cultural images. In a 1985 interview. Tod clarifies her intent in this work:

1 am interested in mass media imagery and sometimes use it as a source for my work. By parodying that material I'm trying to arrive at an objective staternent about the distortion I perceive in the messape communicated by such imagery. "'

The effects of the coercive nature of mass media images are aIso questioned by Tod's ironic title. Effectively, she uses the coded image to subvert its power of illusion by making apparent the process of identification that viewers-f both her work and of mass media-experience. As noted above, ScllfiPorlrai~cleverly ahdes to the notions of one's self and subjectivity. It is plausible that Tod may desire to identie with the image in the painting, as would many females who identifL with glarnourous women. Yet, she additionally critiques the attraction to glamourous and unredistic representations. As stated in Chapter One, feminist theorists such as Kristeva and trigaray stress the importance of cultural images in the development of one's 'self.' Based on Lacan's rrLirror stage of development, these

French theonsts argue that an individual needs to recognize an image of' herself in the form of an extemal source in order to deveiop a complete sense of self These extemal images, oflen found in culture and thus understood as signs constnicted by maxulinist ideas, are problematic. Both psychoanalysis and poststructurdism, for example, maintain that the construction of one's subjectivity or self is dependent on social representations. Therefore. as SelfiPortnit contends, we are, in effect, what we see in magazine advertisements as well as on television, in cinema, and other representations in popular culture.

Specifically, Tod comments on the seduction of mass media images by calling forth the category of "glamour." Stan Douglas notes that the use of the glamourized image in this painting

is more allied with the camp posturing one finds in a drag show. . . Self Portmit deploys that familiar infiection of camp which-with an odd combination of envy and contempt- dwells upon mass-produced images of glamour or subjective coherence that, as is well known tiom the vantage of a latter date. were instantaneously doomed to become ~bsolete.~"

Tod's appropriated image, like drag, exemplifies that femininity is indeed a construction rather than a 'natural' charactenstic. More precisely, Annette Kuhn provides another explanation of the use of giamourous female images by Tod: Glarnor is understood generally to imply a seiise of deceptive Fascination, of groomed beauty, of charm enhanced by means of illusion. A ~amorous/ylamorised image then is one rnanipulated, fdsified perhaps, in order to heighten or even to idealise. A glarnorous image of a woman (or any image of a glarnorous woman) is peculiarly powerfùl in that it plays on the desire of the spectator in a particulary pristine way: beauty or sexuality is desirable exactly to the extent that it is idealized and natta in able.'^

Kuhn's analysis provides insight into how the glarnour image 'works' in Tod's art. As viewers, we are seduced by the mirnicked glossy magazine-like painting. .As Kuhn explains. the image of the glamourous woman is-because her appearance is an unattainable ided-a fûrther enticement for the viewers. To appropnate this image as a self-portrait. then, ironically questions the process of identiGing with images in culture. In Tod's painting, the coercive capability of woman-as-sign is acknowledged. Diana Nemiroff elucidates that Tod's "perspective which she invites us to identiQ with, is one that simultaneously desires and rejects what it encompasses. It is this awareness of the ambiguousness of the relationship between objects and desire that gives her paintings a crit ical ed~~e."'~'

Irony

Linda Hutcheon explains that in postmodem applications of irony, as explicit in

Tod's work, "complicity is used to create an 'insider' position fiom which to enable critique from within." '66 Hutcheon continues,

ironic citation is also a way of exploring the history of visual and linguistic representations of women; its deconstructing power can show up the often unconscious but deeply embedded sexist premises that underlie those representations. . . Feminist artists have used irony in both these ways in their re- examination of the politics of repre~entations.'~' In Se/fiPomi&for example, viewers are enticed by the glamourous image only to be

confronted with an uneasy feeling resulting €rom its ironic edge. This is achieved, for

example, by placing the woman in a disjointed setting in Front of the Washington mernorial.

The odd placement of the subject demands the viewer 'actively' interpret the situation

depicted in the painting. Stan DougIas explains that the image relies

on the conventional notion of interruption and displacement in which a false image of an eleyantly dressed model, appropriated kom a 1940's magazine advertisement, is substituted for a real image of the arti~t.'~~

"1 ofien incorporate anachronistic elements" Tod explains, "such as clothing and costumes

which are somewhat inappropriate to the time and place depicted."'" In this regard.

Hutcheon asks the important question, "What is it &boutthe position of women that makes irony such a powerfùl rhetoncal ~OOI?"'~~She answers her question by stating that

[rnlany feminist critics argue that the condition of rnarginality (with its attendant qualities of muteness and invisibility) has created in women a 'divided self, rooted in the authorized dualities' of culture. If so, then the 'splitting images' they create through their double-talking ironies are a means of problematizing the humanist idea (or illusion) of wholeness, as well as hierarchy and power "'

Most importantly, it is irony which prevents the viewer from reading the image as a true self-portrait and defùses the seduction of advertising images.

The statement printed across the dress of the woman in SeKPorfrait links the fernale figure to an object of cornmodity. The text also replicates advertisers' use of concise, authoritative statements about products. However, it is the absurdity of the text-"neath my arm is the color of Russell's Subarn"-which undercuts the enticement of the image, as well as cntically cornrnenting on the association of women and their bodies with consumer objects. By presenting this statement in the same format that appears in 80 actual advertisements, Tod emphasizes the ludicrousness of advertising 'facts' which bombard us every day. She effectively pokes fun at the senselessness of the advertisement technique which uses images of women in arbitrary ways. The artist states that humour is an important factor of her work: "humour is very important because it is a device which tends to objectify a situation"'" Tod states "1 am interested in the utilization of humor as a rnanipuiative device which dinons and alters rneanir~g.""~ Therefore. Tod uses ironic humor to emphasize the cornmodification of images of women in mass culture.

Tod7semployment of images drawn from popular culture ieads to theoretical implications addressed by contemporary writers. Writing about St.//Tonmif in Toronfo

Lilt;, Gary Michael Dault concludes that it is the bright yellow words written across the gown that prevents the painting fiom being consumed as kit~ch.'~' Simply, the printed sentence in the painting discourages an uncritical consumption of the painting. Cn fact, Tod ironically references 'kitsch7-in the advenising image and in her own reaiist aesthetic-to critically comment on both the representation of women and the separation of mass from high culture. For example, references to mass culture in a form of high art such as painting effectively challenges the hierarchical distinctions maintained by, as Jameson notes, social elites and a~ademies."~Traditionally, the gendered inscription of these cultures by male critics has relegated women to the 'low' end of the hierarchy. lt is therefore ironic for Tod to reference low cultural foms, associated with the ferninine in a form of high culture for the purpose of critiquing images of women.

While Tod employs postmodemist strategies toward feminist ends. writers such as

Huyssen and Simpson address the compatibility of postmodemist theones and techniques with a feminist agenda. David Simpson, who articulates an argument based on the

relationship of ferninism and postmodenùsm, believes that

[tlhe relation of feminism to the feminized postmodern must then be inspected and perhaps contested; the desire to challenge must be set within a possible history of complicity, not to preempt the plausibility of challenge, but in hopes of plotting just where the mines are in the minefield, and thus in hopes for a better fbture. If any feminism is to mount a critical alliance with the postmodern, it must be aware of unacknowledged complicities with those postmoden priorities that are arguably the lesacies of iraditional feminizations process.'76

In fact, past writers ensured their hegemony and the alienation of women in the dominant

discourse by associating the negative aspects of culture, for example, mass culture, with the

ferninine. '77 For Sirnpsoh like critics such as Arnelia Jones, as noted in the introduction.

postmodeniism ofien replicates the patriarchal position typical to modemism.

Huyssen, one of the most influential scholars discussing mass culture, postmodemism and feminism, also recognizes that, traditionally, the 'feminine' was associated with mass culture and both were separated from 'high' art. Therefore, Huyssen contends that "both mass culture and women's (feminist) art are emphatically implicated in any attempt to map the specificity of contemporary culture and thus to gauge this culture's distance from hi& modemism.""* Does postmodernism's engagement with mass culture set Tod's work in alliance with a 'traditional feminization process'? Does Tod work perpetuate the notion of an iderior fernininized postmodem art? In fact, 1 contend that the elements of appropriation and irony are effectively used by Tod to re-present damaging images of women for the sole purpose of critique, and to expose the gender stereotypes extant in both high and low culture. This act, according to Huyssen, prevents a complicity of feminist art with the ferninization process. For Huyssen, it seems clear that feminism's radical questioning of patriarclial structures in society and in the various discourses of art, literature, science, and philosophy must be one OFthe measures by which we gauge the specificity of contemporary culture as well as its distance fkom modemism and the mystique of mass culture and ferninine.'"

Mthough she presents a coded femaie image in Sr.II1Pofinifr, Tod employs familiar postmodem strategies as tools to critically question patriarchal cultural assumptions.

Huyssen continues to point out that

[a]Aer the feminist critique of the multilayered sexism in television. Hollywood. advertising and rock and roll, the lure of the old rhetoric simply does not work any longer. The daim that the threats (or, for that matter. the benefits) of mass culture are somehow "ferninine" has finally lost its persuasive p~wer.~"

Therefore, Tod's use of postmodem methods and her engagement with mass culture also ironically subverts the negative association of mass culture with the ferninine

SdfiPortraiz as Prostiture, f 983

The painting entitled Se/l?orfmi'r as Prostilule, 1983, warrants a discussion to elucidate Tod's ambivalent attitude toward the art market. ln this painting, Tod has appropriated her own work, SeifiPorlrr~i-The painting appem in the background, hung on the wall in an affluent dinning room. (Figure 12) Althouyh the table in the foreground is set, the room is void of people Save for the figure in Tod's painting. This painting, like

ScKPort-ai~,presents an ironic title. ln fact, knowledge of SeJfiPomir is needed to understand the title of ScIfiPorlraif as Prosfitute. For exarnple, if viewers understand the title SelfiPortrait to be an ironic comment on the process of how female viewers are expected to identifi with representations of women in the mass media, then Seli=Pomitas

Prosfdule can be understood as a statement about how female consumers, their identity, desires and images are in fact prostituted.

This interpretation, fùrthermore discredits Jarneson's observation that appropriated

or pastiche images in contemporary culture are sirnply commodities because their original

rneanings have been effaced."' Tod' s intention for ScifiPortmil as. Prosfi~uft'.which

presents ar. appropriated advenising image, is to attach a new feminist meaning to the

appropriated image. Furthermore, the irony of the title efiectively prevents the viewer from

consuming this image as a mere commodity. Indeed, it is the employment of irony for

critical purposes by al1 of the artists highlighted in this thesis which precludes their work

fiom being classified simply as comrnodity

Bruce Grenville explains that by the time this work was completed, the artist faced

the confiicts of "t he increasing cornmodification of her work and a community of peers

who had seemed to reject the commercial art system . "'" Grenville suggests that Tod uses the concept of fetishism as a "denial of difference7'and the process of substitution in the paintingzg3Therefore,

it is not Tod herself who is the subject of prostitution (read comrnercialization) but rather it is her substitute, the ideoloyically constnicted subject of the earlier self portrait, who has been prostituted. We and she are then assured that the real Joanne Tod or the pure subject has not been commercidi~ed.~"

Simply, it is Tod's work, the painting SeJî-Pomit that is being 'prostituted' or sold.

Furthermore, by positioning her successfûl painting (Se/Î-Porlr;ui) in a context which reads as commercialization, Tod may be questioniny her validity as a critical artist by participating within this system. The blunt use of the term 'prostitute' makes her seem apologetic about the successfiil sale of her artwork. However, Tod recogruzes the importance of femaie artists selling their work, statiny that [plainthg has been closely associated with a male histoty of art and the Mar?dst education of my generation said it was a tool of capitalisrn and existed only for itself as a commodity. This attitude forces women out of the conunodity market and denies them power through the denial of financiai self-s~fficiency."~

iMany critics recognïze a chanye in Tod's recent work compared with her early

production of the 1980's. A Globr and Mail headline. for example. characterized Tod in

1998 as "Bad Girl Painter Gets Happy".za6 Bedrie ( 1997) is a recent series of works by

Joanne Tod which exempli@ this change. (Figures 1 3.1- 1 3.8) Comrnonplace mattresses

are continually presented as backgrounds in each canvas. Floating above the mattresses.

which serve as decorative, floral backgrounds, are various objects such as glassware or

serving plates. Tod States that "the series begins with the rnattress surface alone and

progresses" to include ~bjecrs.~"Only a shailow recession of pictorial space exists

between the mattresses and the foregound objects. An intense concentration on the

surface patterning of the objects and mattress is the result. Thick, painterly brush strokes

are used to describe the ~bjects.''~ Tod's style in this series has changed too. As Gary

Michael Dault notes, "Tod, whose vast and sociological ambitious works have always been

made up of flat, carefully painted images (usually in jarring and disorientating juxtapositions)" have been replaced by "easel-size oil paintings on anv vas.'"^^

The artist recounts how she became interestec! in the aesthetic value of these types

of objects,

1 was struck by an object 1 saw at the Museum of Dead Sea Scrolls. lt Iooked just Iike an eight-inch Pyrex pie plate, complete with crimped edges, but it was at least 2,000 years old. Seeing it made my hair stand on end. It was so humble, yet so Tod describes these objects as "costly, gender-biased accessones, but fùnctional objects . ."'91 Why are the mattresses a central theme for this series? Tod States that

the mattress surface is compnsed of two integrated systems, the embroidered motif on the fabric and the dimensional pattern created by the quilt. . . The mattress is a ubiquitous item, recognizable and accessible to a vast number of people. Its almost universal availability makes it an apt metaphor for the everyday."'

Appropriation and irony are apparent in this series. albeit in a more subtle fashion than in

Sc./I=Portrair,in Tod's use of quotidian objects.

Theoretically, Tod appears to be working on the familiar subject of the rich and their luirurious accessories. This theme appeared in her earlier work, such as ScffsPorlraif as Prosfilule( 1983) and A Dimond is Forevcr ( 1984) (Figure 14) which depicts a weaithy. upper ciass couple in a well-to-do salon. Michael Scott, for exampie. explains that Tod's

earlier work explores the sacred gound of privilege and its relation to race and gender. Now, in Scdsifs,the human figures are gone, replaced by echos of their presence: articles of conspicuous luxury hovering above the lustrous surface of new rnattre~ses.'~~

However, other issues in this series are equaily apparent. The objects chosen for

Bedsife are filled with cultural signification: they are signs for domesticity (glassware. seMng dishes) and for the prevalence of beauty in everyday objects (rnattresses). More importantly, the mattress and its intricate partems of simulated ernbroidery alludes to the crafl of quilting or sewing which traditionally have been considered female activities occupying the realm of 'low' or 'popular' art. lt is therefore ironic to aggrandize it by deeniing it worthy enough to be depicted in a painting, traditionalty a 'high' art practice. .4s in Se/f-Porfrai&this act comments on the hierarchy of art objects, and more

importantly, the gender stereotypes existent in that hierarchy . Hussyen believes that

[olne of the few widely agreed upon features of postmodernism is its attempt to neyotiate forms of hi@ art with certain forms and genres of mass culture and the culture of everyday life. 1 suspect that it is probably no coincidence that such merger attempts occurred more or less simultaneously with the emergence of feminism and women as major forces in the arts, and with the concomitant reevaluation of formerly devalued forms and genres of cultural expression (eg Decorative arts, autobiographic texts, letters etc .)'94

Therefore, the appropriation of domestic objects in Bedsife also marks an undeniable link

to the politics of feminism. Although comparisons with pop artists of the sixties, such as

Warhol, may be cited as precursors to Sedsife.one main distinction is apparent. The

domestic objects used by pop artists, such as Warhol, were championed for their design

qualities and 'everyday object' appeal more so than tlieir connection to the fernale. In fact.

the glass-ware and ceramic objects are signs which sipi@, simultaneously, the realms of

mass produced, decorative yet hnctional objects which are then collected and used in a

domestic setting. Furthermore, these are the aspects which Tod embraces. The domestic

objects are emphatically recreated, becoming the center of attention in Tod's canvases.

She addresses the association of the 'ferninine' with mass culture-and their collective

dismissal to 'low' culture-by using these objects in celebratory paintings. This challenge

to the hierarchy. most importantly, provides a space for female and feminist artists to

become extremely successfiil, both commercially and critically. As stated in the preceding chapter, feminist art historians have identified the hierarchy between 'high' and mass or

'popular' culture as a main element responsible for excluding women artists fron~the realm of high art production. Through the process of dflerentiation, wornen or aspects labeled 87

' feminine' are judged inferior because of the difference from men and male qualities. The

use of these 'domestic' objects in art is a brave and ironic act for feminist artists. Bv

embracing elements of the 'infenor feminine.' Tod subtlety critiques the stigma which

surrounds them. As well, the signification (domestic, 'low' culture objects) of these

siçns-the glassware, se~ngdishes and mattresses-+an gain new meanings or referents by Tod's recontextualization.

Appropriation and irony are therefore valuable techniques to be used strategically by feminist artists like Tod. It is postmodernism's endorsement of mass culture that has provided a needed break from traditional hierarchical styles and attitudes. Replacing these outmoded traditions are feminist artworks which give critical readings of cornmon images constantly repeated in popular culture and 'high' art production. Huyssen's conclusion indicates that feminist artists should not abstain from engaging with mass culture (for critical purposes) since,

[tlhe universalking ascription of femininity to mass culture always depended on the very real exclusion of women from high culture and its institutions. Such e>rclusionsare, for the time being, a thing of the past. Thus the old rhetoric has lost its persuasive power because the realities have changed.lgs

Importantly, the existence of fenunist thought in maintstrearn cultural production ensures that postmodernist art is not, as Jameson arçues, "impnsoned in the past." Indeed, the feminist practice of appropriating and ironically critiquing images which negatively represent females is a relatively recent development in art, leading to new theoretical thinking. Artists such as Tod who are interested in past images are not 'desperately tqing to appropnate a rnissing past" as a result of a nostalgic urge.'% Rather, feminist anists are finally able to comment on the past representations. Conclusion

This thesis, through the examination of three contemporary artists, has posed the

question: can postmodemism be beneficial to ferninisrns current agendas? This seemingly

straightfonvard question is more compticated than oflen assumed. Indeed, the task of

answering this loaded question is piagued by two main problems. First, many key

postmodernist writers, such as Jean-François Lyotard, Fredric Jameson and Jean

Baudrillard, rarely take the position of women into account when theo~ngthe political,

cuItural and economicai aspects of postmodernism. Secondly, some feminist theorists, such

as Amelia Jones, consider postmodernism simply a continuation of the patriarchal position

of modernism which effectively excluded women artists, theorists and cntics. In short,

Jones and others posit that postmodemism's theoretical positions fail to address gender in

siçnificant ways. The question of whether postmodernist theory can benefit feminism

therefore remains a contested and yet crucial point to address.

.4s exemplified by the study oFTod's, Fowler's and Davis's production.

postmodemist theory has much to offer a feminist art practice. Similar io and iniluenced by

feminism's standpoint, postmodemism too strives to displace the dominance of white, male theorists and artists in order to create a heterogeneous discourse. Indeed, both

postmodernism and feminism question autonomy in favour of interdisciplinarity. .%O, the challenge posed by postmodernist practice to the conventional modernist hierarchy between

'high' and 'low' culture works in tandem with feminism's intention of eradicating the

negative association of the 'feminine' to 'low' culture as weil as accrediting work traditionally deemed infenor-quilting, autobiography, etc.-as important works of art. 90

Furthemore, postmodemism's cnticism of the (modeniist) emphasis on originality and authorship reflects feminism's interest in defining the Western notion of 'genius' as a characterization of white men. These points are indicative of the benefits postmodernism holds for a feminist agenda. .4dditionally, through postmodernist thought, feminism can engage with the main philosophical discourse concerned with characte~ngcurrent circumstances. Therefore, 1 have aryued that key aspects of postmodemism can indeed assist a feminist critique.

This thesis has identfied the use of appropriation and irony in the work of three contemporary artists as tangible applications of postmodemist theory in ferninist art.

Indeed, whether one begins with the theoreticd debate, as in the case with this study, or with the artworks, a look at aspects of feminism and postmodernism in the practice of art production outlines the implications of a larger theoretical merger.

In C hapter One. the bmad synopsis of central ferninist and postmodemist theory, prevalent in the time fiame of production for the three artists studied, provides an understanding of the similarities of each discourse, thus mappiny possible areas feminists can use. Prominently in the 19801s, feminists were lookinr~to various discourses, such as

Marxism, serniotics, psychoanalysis and poststructuralism, as a means to widen their theoretical base. The discussion of femiriism's interchange with these theories in the first chapter outlined the toois available for feminists. Representing wornen's voices and positions preface any new theoretical approach. Furthermore, the identification of factors responsible for women's subordination typically underlines feminism's merger with other theoretical discourses. Successfùlly, feminists adopt other modes of theory, even those originally from a masculinkt point of view, for their purpose of critique. When

manipulated accordindy, elements within prominent postmodem theory cm indeed serve

feminist gods.

As explicated in the discussion of Tod7s,Fowler's and Davis's production, their

work presents clear examples of how key postmodernist positions cm serve their feminist agendas. For example, feminist and postrnodeniist idluences are cornbined in their work to produce new (feminist) approaches to cntiquing representations of women. Appropriation and irony are specifically the postmodem elements most apparent in their art. Although these postmodern elements have become farniliar throughout contemporary art production. their employrnent in feminist artwork is typically for cntical purposes.

Skai Fowler's FdeNude series, for example. appropriates canonical Western artwork for subversive intentions. ln addition, Fowler's use of her own naked body, as a cntical tool within her photographs, is rooted in both feminist and postmodemist thinking.

However, rnany feminist theorists have argued against the effectiveness of using the female body for critical purposes; writers such as Pollock. for example, believe that such uses are inevitably undennined by the negative connotations attached to traditional representations of nude fernales. Interestingly, Fowler's approptiation of canonical 'masterpieces' intentionaily forges a link to traditional iconography. Ln doing so, Fowler, like both Tod and Davis, creates an insider position for herself. She then provides dternatives to the perpetually passive female mode1 typically depicted in Western art. Fowler ironicaily situates her own image with the original composition thus counteracting the meaning of its iconography Appropriation provides a method for Fowler to cite past representations of women. She then clearly articulates the differences embodied in cultural depictions of women through an ironic juxtaposition of her own nude image. These postmodern techniques, dong with Fowler's feminist sensibility, serve to create a positive feminist aest het ic

The two installations by Toronto artist Christine Davis-ckave and Unamhous

Honkons-address the female body. Indeed, the body, a theme in aU of the artists' work, has consistently served as a site of women's subjugation and, in turn, for theoretical arguments to subvert th. The irony in Davis's work is contingent on her feminist approach and a seemingly fetishistic technique. Davis employs a process of cuttiny and abstracting the body in her installations. Lmportantly, key theories of psychoanalysis aid in reading how Davis manipulates the implications of the gaze in her installations. It is

Baudrillard7s theory of simulacra in particular, which helps to elucidate how Davis ironicaiiy subverts her seemingiy fetishistic presentation of the body.

Baudrillard maintains that images produced in postmodern culture become

'simulacra'-images perpetually reproduced without an oriyinal and without direct experience. By re-photographing traditional Venus figures, which are repeated in both cleave and Unmimous Honions, Davis transforrns them into simulacra. In turn, the mascul ine-determined referents become disassociated. Thus, the universai ideal beaut y these Venuses were thouyht to ernbody is no longer attached to their images. Davis has effectively critiqued an invested assumption of the art canon-universal beauty-by creating a simulacra of Venus images. Ln turn, Davis has provided a mode1 of how postmodernist theory can serve artists interested in subvening traditional meanings of representation.

Tod's use of popular culture aspects in both SefC-Por~raifand the series Bedsie, invokes rnany pressing theoretical questions prominent in contemporq discourse. Her work poses the question: is an artistic engagement with popular culture an endorsement of postmodernism which advocates a traditional feminization process? Theonsts such as hdreas Huyssen and David Simpson, as discussed in Chapter Four, explore this question.

As Huyssen notes, it is the prominence of feminism and women artists as main proponents in art production which counteracts the validity of a nesative feminization strategy. Tod's appropriation of popular culture provides a method of referenciny-for the purpose of critique-traditional, negative images of women. ln St'KPomi~~for example, an u~ealisticadvertising imaye is presented prorninently. Yet, by appropriatiny both the advertising image and advertising stylistic techniques, Tod strateyically gains an insider position. Then, the addition of an ironic caption is used to subtly critique how women both respond to and are represented in popular culture. ln Sedsic, objects connected to both the domestic and mass culture realrn are monumentalized in her paintings. lmportantly, by ironically transfemng these objects into a 'high' art fom, Tod's work comments on the separation of the cultures which is based on the differentiation of the sexes.

The practice in contemporary art of using popular culture images, ideas and styles is both criticized and championed by artists and cntics alike. Elements in postrnodern art. namely pastiche and appropriation, are responsible for enmeshing mass culture aspects in hi& art fonns. Therefore, Jameson recognizes chat the conventional modemist hierarchy between high art and low art foms has been challenged- The art historical canon and its hierarchy then, is subverted by this postmodern practice. -4sevident in the work of al1 three artists, however, critical and engaghg works result fiom their use of appropriation and irony. Furthemore, the leveling of e'cisting hierarchies successfully severs contemporary artistic production fiom the values of modemism. Although, as noted above, some feminist writers observe postmodemism's theoretical similarities with modenùsrn, 1 contend that the engagement with postmodern artistic techniques does, in turn, posit a break.

It has been the position of this thesis to adapt theories articulated by key theonsts in the analysis of three Canadian artists who use postmodernist style elernents for a feminist critique. It is with such work, exempiified in Tod's, Fowler's and Davis's production, that the practicai joining of ferninisrn and postmodernism becomes apparent. Endnotes:

1 hongmany examples, the work of David Salle is indicative of art which uses popular culture imagery in ambiguous ways. For example, in Gcrn'caulr S .4nn, 1985, Salle has appropnated the Romaniic artist's rendering of an arm which is piaced on top of a woman's half-naked body. The femaie figure closely resernbles pornography images. Indeed, it is the positioning of the women's clothing which invites a voyeuristic gaze. See Figure 1.

2 Linda Hutcheon, "Postmodernism and Feminisms," The Politics of Postmodernism (New York. Routledge, 1989) 142.

2. Janet W O l ff, Ferninine Sen fences: Essays on Wmn;md Cuhurr (Camb ridy e, UK. : Polity Press, 1990) 94.

3 Lmelda Whele han, Modem Feminist Tlioughf: From Second Wa ve ru 'Posl-Fcminism ' (New York: New York University Press. 1995) 145.

5. Hutcheon, 142.

6 Hitcheon, 149.

1 Arnelia Jones, "Postfeminisrn, Feminist Pleasures, and Embodied Theories of Art," .M..w Ftm~inistCniicisfn, ed. Joanne Frueh. Cassandra Langer and Arfene Raven (New York: IconEditions, 1994) 22.

5 Whelehan 33. The chef aim of First Wave Feminism is characterized by the rise of the suffrage movements in Europe and the West at the tum of the century. In short, the Suffragettes' main goal was to achieve equality for both sexes, which entailed çaining the vote. as well as access to higher education, and employment equity

6. Whelehan 4.

7. Donna Landry and Gerald Maclean, Ma~enafisfFemhisrns(Cambridye, MA. Blackwell Publishers, 1993) 3.

10. Whelehan 5.

11. Wolff 8.

1 2. Whelehan 129. 1 4. Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock. eds., hmzing Fcm'oism (London: Pandora Press, 1987) 8 1.

1 5 Other examples: Norma Broude and Mary Garrard, The Erpanding Discourse (New York: IconEditions. 1992) Whitney Chadwick. Women. Art and Society (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990)

1 6. Parker, Fmming Feminism 86

I 7. Parker, Frwning Femznism 86.

18 Gnselda Pollock, Vision and Differcncc (London: Routledge, 1988) 33

19. Carol Stabile, "Postmodernism FeMnism, and Marx: Notes from the Abyss," MonMy Rcview 47.2 (1 995): 95 Stabile States that "[dluring the 1980's. the debate within feminist theory revolved around essentialisrn (the argument that there is some foundation for the category "womem" grounded in fernale nature) and anti-essentialisrn (the argument that "women" is a histoncally specific and socially constnicted category ) . "

20. C hris Weedon. Feminist h-acticc and Posfs~nrc~uralisfThcq (Ode rd, MA Blackwell Publishers, 1987) 107.

2 1 . Griselda Pollock, ed ., Generafionsand Geopphies in Ihc Visuai Ans: Fcrninisf Rmdings (London: Routledge, 1996) 12.

22. Margaret Ferguson and Jenni fer Wic ke, eds., Feminism and Pos~odernism (London. Duke University Press. 1994) 2.

23. Wolff 1

35. Parker 89

26. Pollock, Fming Fcminisn~89.

27. Pollock, Vision andDifference 7.

2 8 . Pol 10 c k, Vision and Difft'rence20.

29. Pollock, Vision and Diflcrence 46.

30. Maggie Humm, Feminisi Cniicism (Brighton, Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1986) 73 3 1. Terrence Hawkes, Smcfu~ahhand Ssmiofics(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977) 14.

32. Hawkes 14.

33. Eric Fernie, A/r Histoty and i&M&& (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1995) 352.

34. Hawkes 17

35. Hawkes 13 1

39. Hawkes 13 I.

40. Hawkes 133.

4 1. Mieke Bal, "The Use of Semiotics for the Understanding of Visual Art," The Subjec~s ofktHisfo~, ed. Mark Cheetham, MichaeI -4nn Holly and Keith Moxey (Cambridge, U. K. : Cambridge University Press, 1998) 75.

42 Bal, "The Use of Semiotics for the Understanding of Visual Arts" 75.

43. Bal, "The Use of Semiotics for the Understanding of Visual Arts" 75.

44 Bal, "The Use of Semiotics for the Understanding of Visual Arts" 75.

45 Weedon 25

46. Sheila Rowbotham, "Woman's Consciousness, Man's World," Frming Fcminisni. ed. Rozsika Parker and Griseida Pollock (London: Pandora Press, 1987) 125.

47. Karen Edis-Barunan, "Beyond the Canon: Feminists, Postrnodemism, and the Histocy of Art," The /orna1 ofAestherics and Art Cniicsrn 523 (1994): 329.

38. Mieke Bal, "Reading Art?" Generarions and Geographies, ed. Griselda Pollock (London: Routledge, 1996) 26.

49. Bal, "Reading Art?" 26.

50. Pollock, Vision and Dlïrernce 127.

5 1 . Eilen Handler Spitz, Art and Psyche: A Study In Psyçhoana/ysis and Acsihetics (New Haven, CT.:Yale University Press, 1985) 10.

52. Laurie Schneider Adams, Art and Psychomafysis (New York: IconEditions, 1 993 ) 4. 53. Adams 5.

5 1. Katy Deepweii, ed., !Vew Feininis~Arî Cniicism (Manchester, UK.: Manchester University Press, 1995) 4.

55. Adams 1.

56 Adams 4

57. Adams 4

5 8. Mari JO Buhle, Fcm'nism aad i&Discontcnts (Cambridge, L'MA.: Harvard University Press, 19%) 330.

59. Weedon 43.

60. Buhle 334.

6 1. Adams 5. Lacan discusses the importance of language in Languagc of lfic SeIf: Thc Funclion of Langmge in Psychoanaiysis, trans. Ant hony Wilden (Balt irnore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1968.)

62 Adams 326.

64. Rob Weat herill, Cuitun/ Cdapse (London: Free Association Books, 1994) 92.

65.Weedon 89

66. Eric Matthews, Twtm&h-Cmlury French PhiIosophy(0xford: Oxford University Press, 1996) 190.

67.Matthews 190.

69.Laura Mulvey, Visua/ and Orher Pleasun-s (Bloornington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. 1989.) Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" is a pivotal essay on the masculine gaze in mainstream Hollywood cinema.

70. Adams 6.

72. Weatherill 93. 73. Lacan discusses the imayinary in Ferninine Sc.~uali(y.ed. Julliet -Mitchell and Jacqueline Rose (London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1982)

74. Mathews 143.

75. Mathews 142.

76. Weedon 19

77. Weedon 32.

78. Weedon 33

79. Weedon 32.

80.Weedon 138.

81. Weedon 138.

82. Weedon 33.

83. Weedon 74.

84. Weedon 84.

85. Weedon 27

86. Weedon 75.

87. Weedon 22.

88. Weedon 23.

89. Weedon 24.

90. Weedon 23.

9 1 . Weedon 24.

92. Weedon 138.

93. Weedon 24.

94. Weedon 85.

95. Margaret Iversen, "Saussure vs. Pierce :Models for a Semiotics of Visual Arts," Thc New Art Hisfom ed. Francis Borzello and A.L.G. Rees (London: Camden Press. 1986) 96. Iversen 89.

97. Linda Hutcheon, Po/ificsof-Posfmodemism (London. Routtedge, 1989) 2.

99. JOhn St orey, An Znlroduc f ory Guide to Cultund Theory and Popufar Culrurc (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993) 154.

100. Fredric Jameson, "Post modemism and Consumer Society," The Anri-A esriretic: Essays on Pos&tzodem Cdture, ed. Hal Foster (Seattle, WA.: Bay Press, 1983 ) 1 1 3.

10 1 . Jameson, "Postmodernism and Consumer Society" 1 13.

102. For example. Agnes Heller "Existentialism, .Mienation, Postniodernisrn," Posrmodsrn Condition, ed. Andrew Milner, Philip Thomson, and Chris Worth (New York: Berg Publishers Limited, 1990 ) 7. Jean-François Lyotard, The Posfrndem Condition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984) 3.

103. Storey 156.

104. Wolff 86.

105. Storey 158

106. Jameson, bbPostmodemismand Consumer Society" 1 12.

107. Andreas Huyssen, Ader Great Divide: Modemism. MSs Cu/turt.. Postmodernisrn (Bloomington, IN. : Indiana University Press, 1986) 47.

1 08. Huyssen 46.

107. Nigel Wheale, The Posirnodern Aris f London: Routledge, 1995) 45

110. Wolff 94.

1 1 1. Storey 159

1 12. Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodcrn Explaine4 ed. Julian Prefanis, Virginia Spate, and Morgan Thomas (Mimecpolis: University of hilimesota. 1993) 18.

113. Lyotard 18.

114. Lyotard 18.

1 3 8. Jameson, The Cu/rwal L ogic ofLafe Capifakm60.

13 9.Jameson, The CufturalL ugk ol'lafe Capitaiism x .

1 40. Wheale 54.

13 1. Jarneson, "Postrnodernism and Consumer Society" 125.

142. Jameson, L'Postmodernismand Consumer Society" 125

143. Jameson, "Postmodernism and Consumer Society" 1 18

144. Jameson, "Postrnodcmism and Consumer Society" 1 1S.

145. Jameson, "Postmodernism and Consumer Society" 1 19.

146. Jameson, "Postmodernisrn and Consumer Society" 66

1 37. Jean Baudnllard, Shulacra and Simulations,trans. Sheiia Faria Glaser (hnArbour, .MI. : The University of Michigan Press, 1994) 2.

148. Baudrillard 2.

149 Baudnllard 6.

1 50. Baudrillard 2.

15 1. Sadie Plant, "Baudnllard's Woman the Eve of Seduction," Forgef Saudn'lfard. ed. Chris Rojeck and Bryan Turner ( London: Routledge, 1993.) 88.

1 53 Plant 90.

153. Plant 92.

154. Plant 91.

1 5 5. Plant 97.

156 Baudrillard 2

1 57. Plant 98.

158. Plant 98.

1 59. Baudrillard 3.

160. Parker, Frarning Fcmriisrn 92. 1 6 1 . Parker, i+a.ming Femhism 92.

162. Jan Allen. 7he Fernale Imagrhary(Kingston: Agnes Etherington Ari Centre. 1994) 9.

163. Allen 4 1

164 Skai Fowler, "Artist's Statement" (Kieinburg, ON.: McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 1998.)

165. Aien IO.

166. Nanette Salomon, "Making a World of Difference: Gender, Asymmetry. and the Greek Nude," The Naked Trurh About Classica/ Art. ed . Ann Olga Koloski and Claire L Lyons (London: Routledge, 1997) 209.

1 67. Salomon 204.

168. Shelby Brown, "Ways of Seeing," The Naked Tmfhabouf C/arscafArr, ed. AM Olga Koloski and Claire L. Lyons (London: Routledge, 1997) 15. Brown States that "[tjhe spectator of high art was traditionally white, male, well educated and well off, and his dominance in choosing the subjects ofan and establishing artistic canons eflectively excluded others from doing so."

169. Salomon 21 1.

1 70. Salomon 204.

1 72. Salomon 208.

173. Skai Fowler, "Artist's Statement" (Kieinburg, ON.: McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 1998.)

1 75 Kenneth Clark, Feminlne Beauty (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1980.)

176. Clark 15.

177. Clark 15.

1 7 8. Roszi ka Parker and Griselda Pollock, Old Misiresses: WomAH and Ideology (London: Routiedge, 198 1) 1 19.

179. Clark 151. 1 80. Parker, Ofd Mistresses 1 19.

1 8 1 . Parker, Ofd M'stresses 1 27.

182. Hilde Hein, "The Role cf Feminist Aesthetics in Feminist Theory," Thc fomaI of' A.srhe!r'cs and Art Cniicism 48-4( 1990): 283

183. Hein 290.

184. Hein 283.

185. Hein 283.

186. Edith Hamilton, MytIIoIogy (New York: New American Library, 1969) 77

187. Allen 10

188. Skai Fowler, "Artist's Statement" (Kleinburg, ON.: McMichael Canadian Art CoIlection, 1998.)

189. Skai Fowler, "Artist's Statement" (Kleinburg, ON.: McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 1998.)

190. Parker, Oki Mistresscs 130.

19 1. Parker. Ofd MISacsscs 130

192. Parker, Ofd Mistfesses 130.

1 94. Whelehan 5

195. Lauter 4

196. Matthews 190

197. Whelehan 28.

198. Nancy Fraser and Linda Nicholson, "Social Criticism Without Philosophy: An Encounter Between Feminism and Postmodernism," Fminism/Pos~odcniism.ed. Linda Nicholson (New York: Routledge, 1990) 26.

1 99. Fraser 9.

200. Fraser 28. 201. Fraser 33.

202. Fraser 5.

203. Fraser 1 5.

204. Fraser 1 5.

205. Hein 28 1.

206. Fraser 3 5.

207. Wolff 6.

205. Wolff 6.

209. Wolff 6.

2 10. Wolff 7.

2 1 1. Monika Gagnon, Beaute Convulsive (Toronto: Artspeak Gallery, 1988) 13.

2 12. Christine Davis, "Christine Davis: Cicave," (Montreai: Powerhouse Gallery. 1988.)

2 13. Robert Fones. "Christine Davis," Vmgud 17. 1 ( 1988) 30.

3 14. Fones 30.

2 15. Fones 30.

2 16. Fones 30.

2 1 7. Gagnon, Beaute Con 4siw 14.

2 1 8. Gagnon, Beauce Convulsive 13 - 14.

2 19. "Christine Davis," (Toronto: S.L. Simpson Gallery, 1989.)

220. "Christine Davis," (Toronto: S.L. Simpson Gallery, 1989.)

22 1. Korsrneyer 204.

222. Korsmeyer 204.

223. Korsmeyer 204.

324 Buhle 327. 225. Korsmeyer 204.

327. Matthews 190.

228. Korsrneyer 204.

229. Korsmeyer 204.

230. Monika Gagnon, "Bodies of Knowledge" C 8 (1985): 55. Gagnon labels Davis' work fetishistic in reference to Evquisi~cPosdkms7 which similarly uses body parts.

23 1. Gagnon. "Bodies of Knowledge" 55.

23 2. John Berger, Ways of Seeing (Britain: The British Broadcasting Corporation, 1972) 5 1.

23 3. Ihor Holubizky, Practicing Seauty (Hamilton: Art Gallery of Hamilton, 1 99 1 ) introduction.

234. Pollock, Vision andDifference138.

235. Elisabeth Grosz, "Psychoanalysis and the lmaginary Body," FrminlSI Sub~~cLs. Multimedia: CufhrraIMeüiodologies, ed . fenny Florence and Dee Reynolds (Manchester, UK.:Manchester University Press, 1995) 185.

236. Grosz 185.

237. Grosz 188.

238. Grosz 185

239. Grosz 186

24 1. Holubizky, introduction.

242. Plant 98

24 3. Jane B rett le and Sall y Rice, Public B&s Pnvare SfafcsNew Vkws on Ph~rograp~Represen&tion and Gender (Manchester, UK. : Manchester University Press, 1994) 3. 343.Hal Fost er, Recodings: .W. Specfade. Cuftwal Polirics (Washington: Bay Press, 1995) 16.

246. Foster 136.

247. Plant 97.

249. Wolff 122.

250. The title of this series derives fiom its exhibition in Vancouver at the Equinox Gallery, October 10-November 2, 1996

25 1. Stan Douglas and Bruce Grenville, Joanne Tod(Toront0: The Power Plant Gallery, 1991) 38.

252. Karen Antaki, The Disorder of 7iTlzngs (Montred, PQ. :Concordia University, 1 993 ) 4.

253. Gilbert Bouchard, "The Magic Realism of Joa~eTod in Control." Edmonton BuIlet 3 Dec. 1992: D2.

255. Linda Christian-Smith, Elizabeth Ellsworth and Leslie Roman, eds., Bccomlitg Fmliiine: The Politics of 'Popular Cdfure(London: The Faimer Press. 1 988) 4.

256. National Gallery of Canada (hereafter NGC), Artist's Files, Jome Tod interview with Diana Nemiroff, 8 September 1985.

257. Gary Michaei Dault, "The lrony Maiden," Toronto Ll'tè Dec. 1983: 38.

258. Stan Douglas, "Joanne Tod and the Final Girl," Joame Tod(Toronto: The Power Plant Gallery, 1993) 38.

259. Elizabeth Kidd, Notions of Home (The Edmonton Art Gallery, 1993) 18.

260. Dougias, "Joanne Tod and the Final Girl" 40.

26 1 . Parker, Franting Feminisrn 89.

262. NGC, Artist's Files, Joanne Todinte~ewwith Diana Nemiroff, 8 Septernber 1985 263. Dougias, "Joanne Tod and the Final Girl" 37.

264. Annette Kuhn, The Power of l/rc image: Essays on Repressn&ition and Sexualily (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985) 12.

265. NGC, Artist's Files, Joanne Tod Interview with Diana Nemiroff, 8 January 1992.

2 66 Linda Hu t cheon. Spfittingimages ConfcmporayCanadian Ironies (TorontO: Oxford University Press, 199 1 ) 1 39- 140.

267. Hutcheon 96

268. Douglas, "hame Tod and the Final Girl" 1 5,17

269. NGC, Artist's Files, Joame Tod Interview with Diana Nemiroff, 8 September 1985

270. Hutcheon 97.

27 1. Hutcheon 97

272. NGC, Artist's Files, Joanne Tod InteMew with Diana Nemiroff, 8 September 1985.

273. NGC, Artist's Files, Joanne Tod"Artists and Their Work," (Toronto. Art Gallery of Ontario, 1994- 1985.)

274. Gary Michael Dault, "The Irony Maiden" 38

275. Jarneson, Pos~odernisrnand Consumer Society 1 1 7

276. David Simpson, "Feminisms and Fenzinizations in the Postmodern," Feminism and Pos~odemisrn,ed. Margaret Ferguson and Jennifer Wicke (London: Duke University Press, 1994) 57.

277. Huyssen 50.

278. Huyssen 59.

279. Huyssen 62.

280. Huyssen 62.

28 1. Jameson, The CuffmlLo~c of lafeCapifalism x

282. Grenville, "Joanne Tod: The Space of Difference," Joanne Tod(Toronto: The Power Plant Gallery, 1993) 17. 283. Grenville, "Joanne Tod: The Space of Difference" 1 7.

383. Grenville, "Joanne Tod: The Space of DiEerence" 17

385.Bouchard, "The iMagic Reaiism of Joanne Tod in Control" D2.

286. Gary Michael Dault, "Bad Girl Painter Gets Happy," GIobe and Mail [Toronto] 16 May 1998, Arts: ES.

38 7. Joanne Tod, Personal Letter, 1 0 Aug. 1999

288. Gary Michael Dault "Tod Ventures into Lush New Territory," Globe and Maif [Toronto] 17 Apr. 1997, D3.

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Exhibition Catalogues:

Barber, Bruce, and Jan Peacock. Appropn'afiofixpropnarion. Halifax: Mount Saint Vincent University, 1 983.

Campbell, Kati. The Embodied Viewer Calgary: Glenbow Museum, 199 1

Douglas, Stan, and Bruce Grenville. Joanne Tod. Toronto: The Powçr Plant Gallery, 1991.

Fischer, Barbara. Rdenaclntent Between Self and Othe~Toronto: The Power Plant, 1990. Gagnon, Monika. Beaute Con vuIsive. Toronto. -4rtspeak Gallery, 1988

Guest, Tim. LareCapita/ism. Toronto: Habourfiont, 1985

Holubizky, Ihor. Practicing Beaufy Hamilton: Art Gallery of Hamilton, 1991

Kidd, Elizabeth, and Kitty Scott. Nofhsol'Homci Edmonton: Edmonton Art Gallery, 1992.

MadiII, Shirley /dcntii'y/Identities. Winnipeg: Wimipey Art Gallery, 1988

Monk, Philiip Scauty H. Toronto: The Power Plant, 1995

Tuele, Nicholas. Joannc Ti Victoria: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 1986.

Bouchard, Gilbert. "The Magic Realism of Joame Tcd in Control." Edmonton BuIict 2 Dec. 1992: D2.

Dault, Gary Michael. "Bad Girl Painter Gets Happy." Gfobcand Maif [Toronto] 16 May 1998, Arts: E3.

- "The Irony Maiden." ToronfoLik Dec. 1983 : 38.

- "Tod's Subversion Tums to Confection in High-Calorie Show " Globe and Mai/ [Toronto] 23 Oct. 1998: C 13.

- "Tod Ventures into Lush New Temtory." G/okand Mai/ [Toronto] 17 Apr 1997. D3.

Hanna, Deirdre. "Joanne Tod: Celebrated Realist Dnven to Abstraction." Now 3 Apr. 1997: 33.

Hume, Christopher. "Painter Creates World from Farniliar Faces." Toronto Star 22 Oct. 1998: J4.

Scott, Michael. "Realist Painter Shuns Digital Revolution." Vancouver Sun 10 Oct . 1996: D12.

Taylor, Kate. "Seduction and Portraya!." Ghbc and Mail [Toronto] 6 July 199 1 : C9. Chff'sCi~cDavis. (Toronto: S.L. Simpson Gallery, 1989).

Davis, Christine. "Christine Davis: Ckave." Montreal: Powerhouse Gallery, 1988.

Fowler, Skai. "Artist's Statement," ( Kleinburg, ON.: McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 1998.)

National Gallery of Canada, "'Joanne Tod." Artrsts and Their Work (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1 994- 1985).

National Gallery of Canada, "Joanne Tod." Artist's Files, Interview with Diana Nemiroff, 8 Jan. 1992.

National Gallery of Canada, "Joanne Tod." Artist's Files, Interview with Diana Nemiroff, 8 September 1985.

Tod, Joanne. "Artist 's Statement," (Vancouver: Equinox Gallery, 19 Sept. 1 996.)

Tod, Joanne. Personal Letter. 10 Aug. 1999.