In 1989 the Guerilla Girls plastered billboards in New York with the slogan "Get Naked: How Women Get Maximum Exposure in Art Museums," criticizing the fact that the majority of women hanging in the museums are the subjects of paintings men make. Through centuries of male dominated art, women have been the muses and the models, not the artists themselves. Think of the Rodin/Claudel paradigm, or at least the mythos: Rodin the artist flourished while his talented lover went mad in an asylum and threw her work into the river. All she wanted, at least according to the Cannes version, was for Rodin to sign her carved sculpture of a foot as his own.

Things have changed. Now we have women as both artist and subject. Lisa Yuskavage, for instance, throws a major wrench into the Guerilla Girls' thesis. Her soft-focus Penthouse-inspired paintings of unnaturally proportioned women lure the viewer into the trap of objectification. They have no choice but to leer. She paints her subjects with ardor not distaste. Their deformities mirror the gaze cast upon them by the consumers of porn-- their breasts protrude in exaggerated massiveness, the head tilts, eyes gazing vacantly at some unknown distant target and the blonde hair falls seductively over the face.

But unlike the pornography from which she derives inspiration, Yuskavage's nymphettes embody both the virgin and the whore. The hand, encircled with flowers, drapes modestly over the pelvis, which juxtaposed against the model's nakedness confuses the scene.

To some, Yuskavage is a traitor exploiting the same sexuality that fuels not only the sex industry but the male dominated history of art. The pose is almost classic Matisse--- all girl, flowers and hair. The lurid gossamer luminosity evokes trash-art mass-market romance novel covers leading critics to ask the question is she perpetuating or subverting the objectification of women. But the answer to those questions is not simple. Feminism itself, with its gains and setbacks, is no longer simple.

In the past men have dominated the conversation about women and sex. It becomes disquieting when a woman butts in. What is she saying? The critics couch this question in the language of the middle-class male intelligentsia who have defined the roles of artist and object all along. The fact that Yuskavage is a woman with the same breasts, ass, vagina and legs that her subjects have is significant. It muddles the relationship between artist and muse when these characteristics are shared. The porn-consumer doesn't want to hear the object talk.

This awkwardness manifests itself in Tracy Emin's installation art. "My Bed," [right] a disheveled mattress and boxspring set, a nightstand scattered with condoms and surrounded by clutter has removed the model, the artist herself. The sexuality the rumpled sheets and condoms suggest becomes unnerving when you notice the noose hanging above the bed. Like Yuskavage, Emin stabs at the power-struggle inherent in sex. The same sort of prudishness which mummified the sexuality of Victorian women remains as a vocal part of the social superego. Women are still not supposed to talk about sex. They aren't supposed to enjoy sex. They certainly aren't supposed to initiate it, not if they're good. So with Yuskavage the hand covers the vagina, with Emin, it's a noose.

Emin's installation of the tent with the names of all the men she's ever slept with embroidered on it, as well as the bed and the noose, talk about consenting as opposed to wanting. It is the missionary's wife and the mistress which are both present in her sexual constituency. Similarly in Yuskavage's paintings of the nymphettes and the high-necked gothic towers dressed in "dirty little habits" the urge to preserve and the need to let go co-exist. In "My Bed" they don't do so peacefully. The sheer abandon suggested by the room's disarray and the used condoms leads directly to the noose.


Karen Kilimnik, a Philadelphia-born artist, who has shown internationally, attacks not only preconceived notions of sex but the formalistic/ intellectual fascism of contemporary art. Like Yuskavage, Kilimnik tackles the taboo-- she paints and draws the figure, the female figure. Her work is loaded with the angst and imagination of a pre-teen social misfit which she channels with intelligence and ambition.

In "Is Pretty Baby Finally Growing Up," [left] a simplistic line drawing of a woman without a mouth, Kilimnik restates the message "you can be in my fantasy but don't open your mouth." Kilimnik's not shutting up. In her six solo shows at the 303 Gallery in New York she's had a lot to say. Her drawings are intentionally sparse, skewed and childlike. They are populated with images from fairy-tales-- horses and damsels-in-distress. They are glitter-encrusted and riddled with scrawled text. She forces the viewer to face her subject without getting caught up in beautifully rendered formalism. While Yuskavage both suffers and benefits from her well-executed painterly technique, Kilimnik's scant drawings allow no distractions.

Even though Kilimnik's paintings and drawings exude sugar and spice and everything nice, the Chemical X, the unknown variable is the question mark at the end of the sentence, "Is Pretty Baby Finally Growing Up?" Unwilling even to let the adultness of the artworld with its pretensions and Big Questions stop her from pasting glitter on paper, Kilimnik's work thrives on the confused sexuality of a teenager. It is the fantasy of the horse rescuing the maiden which comes to an end after puberty; then it is no longer okay to demand more from a reality that pales in comparison.

Now that they are allowed to talk at all, women artists would be hard pressed to keep it quiet. Some scream angrily like Riot Grrrls about sexual abuse and artistic inequality, and some: Yuskavage, Emin and Kilimnik coax the viewer with subtlety and craft. These women are not male-bashing or frigid, nor are they misogynists or anti-feminists. They are demanding the right to be both object and artist. They want their share of the bed, the fantasy and the gallery space.

- Nicole Roszko © 2001