Guest Post by Jen Lewis
Jen Lewis | Rob Lewis | “Getting Unstuck” |
From inception to the present, my art project Beauty in Blood has been a positivity-fueled whirlwind. In the very early stages I shared my concept with just two people, my husband and one of my dearest feminist friends. The positive and open way in which they received the message behind my concept helped me flesh out my thoughts and forge ahead with the execution without concern for any potential nay-sayers. Based on my preliminary research into menstrual art, I expected to face hateful trolls every time I introduced a new person to my work but that hasn’t been the experience at all. In the real world, when I tell people about Beauty in Blood their faces typically brighten in response to the casual mention of such a taboo topic. In fact, at social gatherings it can actually take over an entire conversation; I’ve watched women have micro feminist revelations in front of my eyes when discussing the secrecy and silence around menstruation. If that’s not a testament to the power of art, I don’t know what is.
Don’t get me wrong, detractors cross my path but they are few, far between and significantly politer than the hateful trolls in the comments sections of online articles. Typical detractors suggest I alter my art in order to follow the “sanitary” path laid out by menstrual product manufacturers, i.e. “It would look better if the blood was blue; the red is so offensive and difficult to digest.” Or “You’d probably sell a lot more if the prints were black and white.” Or “The message is great but people don’t want to talk about this stuff; they’re not ready even if you are.” Overall, the latter does not represent my experience in the least. Men and women alike have expressed curiosity, support and encouragement to continue developing and growing the scope of Beauty in Blood.
As Jenny Lapekas discussed last month on re:Cycling, there are many, many menstrual art haters online with vile things to say about women and our bodies. However, there are also many women who will not be silenced or, is more likely the case, who will not hear the trolls. Just about any student who took a 20th Century American Art survey course can tell you that menstrual fluid, along with a wide variety of biological substances, are nothing new in modern art. Carolee Schneemann’s “Interior Scroll” and Judy Chicago’s “Red Flag” are often referenced in basic art survey texts as examples from the feminist art movement of the 1970s and 1980s. However, what I discovered when I started digging around the internet in search of “menstrual art” was that there are many women artists both from the past and presently working with menstrual fluid. Their visual art spans thematically from addressing political issues that pertain to women’s bodies to linking women’s bodies to natural earth cycles to simply creating something positive from an occurrence that is usually negative. Artist Vanessa Tiegs even coined a term for this art, Menstrala. The number of young women taking to livejournal.com and Tumblr to share their menstrual creations or DIY tips is as surprising as it is inspiring. Regardless of the haters and trolls, contemporary art made with and/or addressing the menstrual cycle are popping up across the globe. In Sweden, SMCR’s own Josefin Persdotter curated Period Pieces, a wildly successful travelling exhibit that features the work of 13 artists including Arvida Bystrom, Chloe Wise, and Petra Collins. In 2013, the Sunday Times Magazine introduced us to British artist Sarah Maple and her incredible oil painting “Menstruate with Pride”. In Australia, Casey Jenkins made headlines with her 28-day performance, “Casting Off My Womb,” where she knits one skein of wool that unravels from her vagina daily to mark a full menstrual cycle. Most recently, Egyptian feminist artist Aliaa Magda Elmahdy (photo NSFW) shocked the world by using her nude body and biological substances, her menses and excrement, to make an extreme political statement about the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Trolls and haters be damned! Women have some things to say and there will be blood, lots of menstrual blood.
Despite the large number of emerging, professional, and outsider female artists whose work focuses on the menstrual cycle specifically or even “women’s issues” more broadly, opportunities for these artists to show their work in galleries and/or museums is extremely limited due to gender discrimination in the art market, dealer priorities and collector bias. The Guerrilla Girls famously advertised this gender discrimination with their billboards directed at major museums, such as their original campaign against the Metropolitan Museum (New York City) and more recently taking aim at the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston):
Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum? Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art Sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female. (Statistics from their original billboard slogan in 1984-85)
Do women have to be naked to get into Boston museums? Plenty of the nudes in the Museum of Fine Arts are female, but only 11% of the artists are women. (Statistics taken from MFA 2012)
Because SMCR is focused on making the menstrual cycle a visible and vital part of life, the 2015 biennial conference provides not only an ideal venue, but also an ideal audience, for such a special exhibition. The goal of this show is to give artists an adequate venue to display their creations while enriching the conference setting for researchers. Selected artworks are expected to echo research findings, innovate new approaches, stimulate creative thinking, and add a fresh façade to the mainstream menstrual dialogues. I believe these selected pieces will be able to act as a conduit in shifting mainstream perspectives away from the traditional negative attitudes to those that are neutral or even positive.
The Internet may love to hate feminists and menstrual art. Collectors, dealers and the institution of fine art may be biased towards women (and all other minorities for that matter) and their role in art history. However, one thing is clear: women artists are not daunted by this negativity. They have critical commentary on personal, political and social matters, and will continue to express themselves in the medium most suited to their soul whether through oil paint or menstrual fluid. It is this collective creativity and determination that instigated a curatorial buzzing inside me that couldn’t be silenced or ignored. I am ecstatic for this opportunity to curate a special exhibition for SMCR’s 2015 biennial conference, entitled “Widening the Cycle”. So, if you’ve been making thematically appropriate visual art, don’t let anyone harsh your menstrual buzz. Keep the creativity flowing and submit to “Widening the Cycle” today!
Curator’s Note:
Submissions for “Widening the Cycle” have been steadily rolling in since July. If you know any self-defining female artists whose work deals with themes of menstruation or reproductive justice, please encourage them to submit! Last day to submit is November 1, 2014, 11:59 PM (MST).
For complete submission details and the official “Call for Art” please visit: https://www.beautyinblood.com/call-for-art.html
