Yvette Torres Valera

Prof.Hollis Glaser

GWS 100-1300

An artwork I would like to present is an artwork I saw outside a house in Mexico City. Mexico City is known for its beautiful art outside of buildings and houses they all have a meaning and its unique in their own way. But what caught my attention was the ones I saw around my house in Mexico City that show how many feminist women live around my area. In Mexico, there is a lot of gender violence and women are tired of people taking advantage of women people and not doing anything about it. Sexual violence increases every year in Mexico.INEGI estimated that more than 70% of 50.5 million women and girls aged over 15 have experienced some kind of violence, up four percentage points from the last time it ran the survey in 2016. Women are fed up in Mexico so they all join together and march for the rights of women for instance “The Glitter Revolution” is one of the many marches they’ve done for protecting women. There are many stories that I have heard when I went to Mexico that things are crazy for young girls and women around Mexico and how it’s never safe to be alone. I have experienced my share of sexual assault here in America and seeing that in my home country, they’re fighting for the rights of protecting women who are victims of all these negative acts shows that we are all strong empowered women who we will stand together when it comes to protecting our bodies and we are all in the same page no matter where you are from.

This installation artwork by artist Judy Chicago is one of the first recognized “epic feminist pieces” and it is titled “The Dinner Party”. I chose the dinner party because I saw this installation as a kid and I remember it really sticking with me even though at the time I did not understand its message. The Dinner Party celebrates lost and under appreciated female culture and heritage through the array of dinner plates displayed, 39 in total. These 39 women are important historical figures who Chicago wanted to honor. Chicago also arranged to have 999 women’s names inscribed in gold on the floor below the table and 1039 women honored in the exhibitions rotating the table. Being that this piece was extremely meticulous and well researched, it was worked on from ’74-’79, 5 years. To conclude, the most significant thing about this installation to me were the points of the table. Not one placemat it seated at a point which would be a “head” of the table making it so each women is deemed of equal worth.

Judith Bernstein, born in 1942, is an American feminist artist whose large charcoal drawings of phallic-looking screws in the 1970s represented women’s anger and oppression. Her “penis-screw” signature became a metaphor not only for women’s degradation but also a wide array of social injustices, and opposition to the Vietnam War as well. Later, Bernstein’s work continued in attention-getting fluorescents, with reproductive organs representing social justice. The humor in her work magnifies, without diminishing, the high cost of social injustice

Rosemary Mayer (1943–2014) was an American visual artist and writer  involved in the feminist art movement, and a co-founder of the A.I.R. Gallery, which also displayed her work in a solo exhibition in 1973. Mayer studied classics at St. Joseph’s College and the University of Iowa and fine art at the School of Visual Arts and the Brooklyn Museum Art School. She was fluent in Latin and Greek, and translated a diary of an Italian artist Pontormo. She has mostly been recognized for her large fabric sculptures and work on paper, drawings, outdoor installations and books. Her most well-known draper sculptures  are interpreted as an imitation of painting and medieval art. She named them after famous women, both historical and mythological women. She lived her entire life in New York, where she taught art for 20 years at LaGuardia Community College.

Here, I share the art work of my sister in law, Marialejandra Gomez aka Cachito. Right before the pandemic, she was living in NYC while working at a tea shop and living with her sister. Like many of us in this city, this coronavirus pandemic hit and left us all to quarantine without a second to think about it. All of our lives changed drastically into the unknown. To adapt to this new way of life caused a lot of depression and anxiety worldwide, including Cachito’s. It was so easy to find comfort in the darkness of our own homes and minds. She found a way to express her emotions and dark mind through art and she started what she called “Quarantine Series”. Day by day, surviving. she kept her head high and advocated for positivity through social medias to remain positive through these tough times. There was a lack of therapists for some time, and sometimes having that social media positive quotes and mantras potentially helped strangers all around. Including myself. Though she may not be an activist per se, I am proud of her and the positivity she created from the darkness of it all. That is the greatness of art. Whether it be music, painting, literature, film, dance, etc its about the change that can be created from it.

My favorite from the article read was Tania Bruguera that allowed others to speak freely as part of her own work, I find it very admirable that she created a safe space for others, especially immigrants to share their feelings, opinions and overall passionate thoughts. As a child care provider we are taught to create safe spaces for children to be themselves and find comfort in speaking their mind/thoughts. i often wonder why we dont do the same for adults. The fact that Bruguera advocates for these human rights is truly inspiring

Both of these artwork is by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, Northeastern’s new artist-in-residence. She created these art to address sexual harassment and to show how the power of art can provoke social change. Tatyana explain how the artwork was created “I started the project because I wanted to talk about my experiences with street harassment,” said Fazlalizadeh, in a video about the campaign. “It was my way of speaking back to my harassers—guys who say things to me on the street that are unwelcome, unwanted, aggressive, assertive, and really make you feel uncomfortable.”

I chose this artwork because it’s based on the current situation happening today to women. Women are always getting harassed by men and disrespected if they reject them. For the “women are people not just bodies” Art work I chose this because they created laws to ban abortion and are trying to control women bodies by telling us what to do from what do with our bodies.

The piece of art is called The Dinner Party. It was created by Judy Chicago. This is a very famous piece of feminist artwork that is housed at the Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. This art piece is a large banquet table with place settings for thirty-nine notable women from history and mythology. In the settings, porcelain plates and gold ceramic chalices decorated with vulva- and butterfly-inspired patterns signify Mother Nature, the vagina, and the life-giving qualities of being female. In contrast to a meal prepared by a woman whose identity would be concealed passively behind her food offering, Chicago offered unabashed femininity on the plate. The names of 999 more women are also painted on the tiles beneath the triangular table, in addition to the thirty-nine sets. The reason i choose this piece of art is because i feel that this is a great representation of the strength of feminism and it advocates for equal rights and opportunities by showing all these noble women from history and even in mythology.

The piece of art is called The Dinner Party. It was created by Judy Chicago. This is a very famous piece of feminist artwork that is housed at the Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. This art piece is a large banquet table with place settings for thirty-nine notable women from history and mythology. In the settings, porcelain plates and gold ceramic chalices decorated with vulva- and butterfly-inspired patterns signify Mother Nature, the vagina, and the life-giving qualities of being female. In contrast to a meal prepared by a woman whose identity would be concealed passively behind her food offering, Chicago offered unabashed femininity on the plate. The names of 999 more women are also painted on the tiles beneath the triangular table, in addition to the thirty-nine sets. The reason i choose this piece of art is because i feel that this is a great representation of the strength of feminism and it advocates for equal rights and opportunities by showing all these noble women from history and even in mythology.

Fairey said his “Hope” posters and the “We the People” posters are driven by the same impulse: to provide encouragement to those who feel powerless and deflated.

“I’m still very proud of the work I did on the ‘Hope’ campaign. Those values carry on,” he said, adding: “Whether you’re Muslim, Latino or black, we’re all Americans. I want this campaign to be about us seeing ourselves in each other and feeling a connection to one another.”

The posters, designed for protest, feature Native Americans, African Americans, Muslims, and Latinas. The street artist Shepard Fairey has designed a series of posters in designed to protest President-elect Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated as President of the United States later today.