Introduction
For this semester’s project research and creation, I have chosen the theme of Gender. The main reason why I choose this theme is that I want to study the topics including gender, feminism, sexual orientation, sexual perversion, sex and so on. For Bridge 1 Part 1, I have chosen seven images that I believe represent some of the topics I want to study and explore, and have highlighted formal elements and principles. I also recreated the images with Photoshop using my own understanding of these elements.
1. What Women Are Thought To Be vs. What Women Can Be
Original Painting
This is a painting made by Kelly Reemtsen. In this painting, she made a young lady wearing a typical ’80s dress in a very feminine style, and with a huge, masculine hoe. This represents a kind of modern feminism, that is, women can also do the physical work which is usually thought that only men are good at. To express this theme, she created a series of paintings.
And what I did to recreate the painting was I added a lot of words on both sides of the painting and around the female body. On the left hand side, I’ve written some of the descriptions that women are generally considered to have, such as weak, dependent, etc. And on the right side (the side where the woman is holding the hoe), I added a lot of words that would normally be used to describe a man, such as strong, logical, etc., to indicate that a woman can also be described this way.
Related Resources
Other paintings Reemtsen made：
Related Websites：
https://www.artsy.net/artist/kelly-reemtsen
http://www.kellyreemtsen.com/about
Kelly Reemtsen’s Painterly Juxtapositions of Chic Dresses and Power Tools Showcase Modern Femininity
Sledgehammers and High Heels Find a Modern Pairing in Kelly Reemtsen’s New Paintings
2. Just Normal Lovers
Original Image
This is a scene I happened to see on my way to school. I took a picture of it with my mobile phone. It was a couple, but they were both men, which is why I photographed them. When I was dealing with this photo, I was conflicted. I wrote “Just Normal Lovers” for them, and that’s my hope: no one will ever think that being gay is special and treats the LGBTQ community differently in the future. But the reason I photographed them was because I thought they were “special,” which contradicted my belief. Since I grew up in an environment that excluded people other than heterosexuals, my ideas and my original thoughts would sometimes conflict, so I would often reflect on these issues.
3. Sex and Death by Murder and Suicide
Original Images
This is one of the works that I shot at MoMA PS1 for Bruce Nauman. Since I could not capture the moment when all the neon lights were on in this work, I had to find another picture on the Internet and overlap the two pictures with Photoshop to achieve the best effect.
I think Nauman has a lot to say in this work. There are many naked men and women in this work, some with knives and guns pointed at each other or themselves, expressing discussions about the relationship between men and women, violence, death and suicide, while others who engage in sexual behavior express explorations between sex and entertainment. I think this work is also about human nature. People always love and delight in things with sex and violence. I think this is the primitive wildness of people. So I added some words about these themes in the re-creation, and in order to integrate them into the whole picture to achieve the desired effect, I made neon light effect for them.
Related Resources
Other neon works Nauman made about human nature, sex and death：
A hand-drawn draft of the work by Bruce Nauman：
Related Websites:
https://www.moma.org/artists/4243
https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/3852
https://art21.org/artist/bruce-nauman/
https://gagosian.com/artists/bruce-nauman/
4. GENDER & POWER
Original Image
This is the President Collage: 1 from Sherrie Levine. In this image, she made “a cut-out image of a fashion model forms the profile of Washington seen on the quarter, drawing attention to the relationships between power, gender, and consumption.”
To express the idea of gender and power, I photoshopped the word Gender and Power as the background of this image.
Related Resources
Other works Levine made for President Collage:
Related Websites:
https://www.moma.org/collection/works/96493
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/266247
https://www.theartstory.org/artist-levine-sherrie-artworks.htm
https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/sherrie-levine
5.Women DON’T Need to Marry to Men
Original Image
This is the window of a wedding dress shop called Kleinfeld that I passed on my way to school. I thought it was very interesting, so I took this picture. In the window, a woman in a wedding dress stands with her dog as if she had married her own dog. There is no man in the scene.
This window set me thinking, because in China, there is a popular activity called “Matchmaking”, in which a single woman in her 30s is introduced to many men by her parents or other relatives and friends to see if they are suitable for marriage. Matchmaking has become a mature industry in China, where many dating companies and websites set up matchmaking services for men and women.
I think the main reason for this phenomenon is that many older generations insist that it is necessary to get married and have children, so they force the younger generation to do it. In daily life and some film and television works to promote the values is often a single woman of older age is a disgrace. So many young people, especially women, find it humiliating to be single in their 30s.So I really like the idea of “Women DON’T Need to Marry Men” in this window set. Women can have a variety of choices. So I added this sentence to my re-creation.
6. I AM…
Original Images
I was mainly inspired by this picture of ” I AM… A PERSON.”, and it also reminds me of what my roommate said: “I don’t want to be considered as LGBTQ people, I just want to be considered as ordinary people”. I don’t think people will care about sexual orientation in the future because it will be normal to like anyone and there won’t be LGBTQ groups anymore, and I think that’s the ultimate goal of the LGBTQ community. I was still confused about this question, so I found a picture of a confused person’s face. I also found another chart that distinguishes all LGBTQ groups from their flags.
7. Sex & Sexual Perversion
Original Image
It was created by artist Garth Knight. He was an artist obsessed with binding. Binding as a sexual perversion, as it is commonly known, is associated with SM. I also like ropes and bundling very much. The portfolio for application of Parsons also has a project of bundling and Japanese horror erotic. I want to explore things related to sexual perversion for my works, because I think it is an essential and series subject, but many people ignore it.
When I searched the Internet for different kinds of sexual perversions, I found that there were hundreds of different kinds of sexual perversions, which I had never thought of. While most people don’t explore or think about their sexual perversion, there are obviously plenty of people exploring the topic. I think it’s important to explore your sexual perversion as part of exploring yourself. It’s also interesting to study what people think about sexual perversion. If a person has a particular sexual fetish that does not affect or harm others, can one judge one’s personality solely on the basis of his sexual fetish?
Related Resources
Others works Knight made：
contact garth@garthknight.com
Some of the sexual perversions I found:
It’s interesting that I found out many Japanese are pretty willing to talk about this online.
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/hashtag/ヘタキャラ異常性癖企画?lang=en
https://twitter.com/hashtag/rtされた数だけ異常性癖なジョジョキャラ描く?lang=en
Related Websites:
https://www.konbini.com/en/inspiration/meet-photographer-using-rope-bondage-create-incredible-art
http://angelinecollingsart.com/garth-knight-slide
http://www.beautifuldecay.com/2014/02/13/garth-knight-creates-stunning-erotic-art-created-rope-rocks-human-bodies/
Reflection:
I chose the topic Gender as my main topic of Bridge 1. The purpose of the assignment is to make me think about and explore the ideas and meanings about Gender and create the works that can express my thoughts and opinions in it. I wanted to express my opinions about different genders, LGBTQXs, love, sex and etc. I learned to make the words I wanted to write in the image fit the image properly, and let the art work and the words work together to give people a strike in visual part. I think I can improve the photos I photoshopped of I used more time.
