City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 10-2014 A Feminist Inheritance? Questions of Subjectivity and Ambivalence in Paul McCarthy, Mike Kelley and Robert Gober Marisa White-Hartman Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/334 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] A FEMINIST INHERITANCE? QUESTIONS OF SUBJECTIVITY AND AMBIVALENCE IN PAUL MCCARTHY, MIKE KELLEY AND ROBERT GOBER by Marisa White-Hartman A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Art History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2014 © 2014 MARISA WHITE-HARTMAN All Rights Reserved ii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Art History in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Dr. Anna Chave ––––––––––––––––––– Date Chair of Examining Committee Dr. Claire Bishop Date Executive Officer Dr. Mona Hadler Dr. Siona Wilson Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii Abstract A FEMINIST INHERITANCE? QUESTIONS OF SUBJECTIVITY AND AMBIVALENCE IN PAUL MCCARTHY, MIKE KELLEY AND ROBERT GOBER by Marisa White-Hartman Adviser: Professor Anna Chave This dissertation assesses the impact of feminist art of the 1970s on specific projects by three male artists: Paul McCarthy’s performance Sailor’s Meat (1975), Mike Kelley’s installation Half a Man (1989) and Robert Gober’s 1989 installation at the Paula Cooper Gallery. Despite the general absence of feminist artists as possible influences in the critical literature on these artists, I have found that feminist sources have been hidden in plain sight in regards to these works. These artists all take up the problematic of identity formation within the domestic sphere, which was made a legitimate area of inquiry in art by numerous feminist artists in the 1970s. The artists under discussion responded to feminism at different points in its development from the 1970s to the mid 1980s, and so I trace the debates surrounding feminism relevant to the works under discussion during this period. Chapter One contextualizes McCarthy’s performances of the 1970s with his male forebearers and feminist contemporaries and focuses on themes of personae and rituals. Chapter Two explores Kelley’s referencing feminist art via the idiom of craft, both in terms of its implications for different expressions of masculinity, and for his deeply ambivalent relationship with feminism. Chapter Three proposes a connections between Gober and feminist art founded on the shared exploration of the ways subjectivity is constituted by the daily repetition of activities within the domestic sphere. In this regard, his work is iv discussed in relation to works by artists working in the 1970s as well as his contemporaries that highlight the psychic emanations of particular household objects, and conceptually, to those that demonstrate how the domestic environment socially conditions its subjects. I conclude the project by discussing how a younger generation of contemporary women artists have reinterpreted works by McCarthy, Kelley and Gober in ways in which they are able to recognize and recover strands leading back to feminism. The dissertation aims to demonstrate that the contributions of feminist art had a greater effect on the field of contemporary art than is often acknowledged. v Acknowledgments Anna Chave generously took me on as an advisee while I was questioning the direction of my dissertation and encouraged me to uphold my political-intellectual commitments. I am thankful for her guidance throughout the often rocky road of the writing process, and for her many insights on feminism that broadened and complicated my point of view. My dissertation committee, Mona Hadler and Siona Wilson, offered careful readings and pushed me towards important refinements. Thanks also to Jennie Klein, my outside reader, who provided me with valuable advice for moving the project forward. I am grateful to a number of my professors and professional mentors who have served as intellectual touchstones for me: Romy Golan, Geoffrey Batchen, Molly Nesbit, and Luis Camnitzer. In very different ways they have shaped and sharpened my critical eye. I am fortunate to have Christina Stevenson as friend, whose belief in the value of my work was essential to me. She was extremely generous with her intellectual advice, as well as her time, editing draft after draft. I thank my parents for their unquestioning and continued support for all of my academic enterprises. I could not have mustered the stamina required to complete such a project without the encouragement of my husband, Jacob Hartman. My debt to him in the currency of patience and childcare is great. My son, Reed (as well as my daughter-to-be), have been a source of inspiration to continue and complete this project, and to be a mother they can be proud of because I have persisted in my own pursuits. vi CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS…………………………………………………………....ix INRODUCTION: FEMINIST ART’S OBSCURE TRAJECTORIES……................... 1 The Context: An Ever Evolving Movement An Aesthetics of Experience The Domestic as Psychic Locus Reconceiving Genealogies The Drag Gambit and the Avant-Garde Chapter 1. PAUL MCCARTHY’S SLIPPERY PASSAGES ………………...………. 48 The Stage Set Performing Southern California: The Chronicle and the Community The Lived Body/ The Performed Body Personae: The Primal and the Personal Habitual Rituals Ritual Unfoldings Kaprow’s Intimate Encounters Myths of Influence The Endurance of the Objective Body Vulnerability and Ambivalence Chapter 2. MIKE KELLEY: ROCKING THE CRADLE………………............……. 116 Half a Man Family Tyrannies A Bellicose Backdrop: Essentialist Debates and the Sex and Culture Wars Craft as Cross-Dressing “Just Pathetic” Adolescence and Dysfunctionality vii Crisis Masculinity Chapter 3. ROBERT GOBER: THE DOMESTIC FANTASMIC ………………….. 181 An Early Return Home Standard Stories Base Sentimentality The Installation Everyday Litanies Domestic Unease Confinement and Fantasy Trapped in the Domestic Mirror Family Matters Categorical Contamination and the Desire for the Dress CONCLUSION: REVOUTION AND REVERB……………………………………. 252 Bibliography…..……………………………………………………………………... 283 Illustrations…………………………………………………………………………... 297 viii ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page 1. Paul McCarthy, Sailor’s Meat, 1974 297 2. Mike Kelley, Half a Man, 1988 298 3. Robert Gober, Installation at the Paula Cooper Gallery, 1989 299 4. Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Maintenance Art Performance Series, 1973-74 300 5. Martha Rosler, Semiotics of the Kitchen, 1975 301 6. Paul McCarthy, Sailor’s Meat (Detail), 1975 302 7. Paul McCarthy, Sailor’s Meat (Detail), 1975 302 8. Paul McCarthy, Sailor’s Meat (Detail), 1975 303 9. Nancy Buchanan, Wolfwoman, 1977 303 10. Paul Best as Octavia, 1978 304 11. Eleanor Antin, Eleanor Antin as Eleanora Antinova in Before the Revolution, 1979 304 12. Eleanor Antin, Representational Painting, 1971 305 13. Eleanor Antin, Carving: A Traditional Sculpture, 1972 305 14. Judy Chicago, Suzanne Lacy, Sandra Orgel and Aviva Rahmani, Ablutions, 1972 306 15. Allan Kaprow, Time Pieces, 1973 307 16. Paul McCarthy, Whipping a Wall with Paint, 1974 308 17. Bruce Nauman, Thighing, 1967 309 18. Bruce Nauman, Black Balls, 1967 309 19. Vito Acconci, Openings, 1970 310 ix 20. Vito Acconci, Conversions, 1971 310 21. Mike Kelley, Half a Man, 1987 311 22. Mike Kelley, Three-Point Program/ Four Eyes, 1987 312 23. Mike Kelley, Untitled, 1990 313 24. Harmony Hammond, Floor Pieces, 1973 313 25. Mike Kelley, More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid, 1988 314 26. Miriam Schapiro, Architectural Basis, 1978 315 27. Miriam Schapiro, Wonderland, 1983 315 28. Mike Kelley, Nature and Culture, 1987 316 29. Barbara Kruger, Untitled (You are not Yourself), 1981 316 30. Mike Kelley, Let’s Talk, 1987 317 31. Mike Kelley, Plush Kundalini and Chakra Set, 1987 317 32. Mike Kelley, Eviscerated Corpse, 1989 318 33. Mimi Smith, Knit Baby, 1968 318 34. Eleanor Antin, Domestic Peace, 1971-72 319 35. Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy, Family Tyranny and Cultural Soup, 1987 320 36. Robert Gober, Installation View, Paula Cooper Gallery, 1989 321 37. Robert Gober, Installation View, Paula Cooper Gallery, 1989 321 38. Installation View, Anni Albers, Robert Beck, Cady Noland, Joan Semmel and Nancy Shaver: Black and White Photographs 1975-77, Matthew Marks Gallery, 1999 322 39. Robert Gober, Untitled, 1975 323 x 40. Robert Gober, Untitled, 1976 323 41. Robert Gober, Detail of interior, Burnt House, 1980 324 42. Robert Gober, Burnt House, 1980 324 43. Robert Gober, Small Sink, 1984 325 44. Robert Gober, Floating Sink, 1986 325 45. Robert Gober, Sink Inside Me, 1985 326 46. Camille Gray, Lipstick Bathroom, 1972 326 47. Robert Gober, Detail, Wallpaper, 1989 327 48. Robert Gober, Detail, Wallpaper, 1989 328 49. Marina Abramovic, Art Must be Beautiful, Artist Must be Beautiful, 1975 329 50. Chris Rush, Scrubbing, 1972 329 51. Robert Gober, Corner Bed, 1986 330 52. Ree Morton, Of Previous Dissipations, 1974 330 53. Ree Morton, Many Have Run Away, To Be Sure, 1974 331 54. Robert Gober, Distorted Playpen, 1986 331 55. Distorted Playpen installed with Two Urinals and the Corner Bed, 1986 332 56. Robert Gober, Installation view, Paula Cooper Gallery, 1987 332 57. Mimi Smith, Steel Wool Peignoir, 1966 333 58. Yoko Ono, Still from Freedom, 1970 333 59. Robin Schiff, Nightmare Bathroom, 1972 334 60. Mimi Smith, Stairs, 1974 334 61. Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Container), 1980 335 62. Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Deluded), 1980 335 xi 63. Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #3, 1977 336 64. Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #10, 1978 336 65. Laurie Simmons, Purple Woman/Kitchen/Second View, 1978 337 66. Laurie Simmons, Kitchen/Woman in a Corner, 1976 337 67.