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Reissue: Great Women Artists
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While our dear Gianna is returning from her Greece trip, we have a reissue of our Great Women Artists episode from March of 2021 in celebration of Women's History Month. In this week's episode, we are highlighting and celebrating five iconic women that we haven’t talked about on the pod yet: Shirin Neshat, Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie, Juliana Huxtable, Empress Theodora, and Rokudenashiko.
Check out this episode of the Great Women Artists podcast where Katy Hessel interviews Shirin Neshat.
https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com
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Transcript
Introduction & Sponsor Talk
00:00:00
Speaker
Art Pop Talk is excited to announce that the presenting sponsor of this podcast is Zencaster. Podcasting remotely can be challenging, but it doesn't have to be. Zencaster's all-in-one, web-based solution makes the process quick and painless, the way it should be.
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Speaker
So you guys have heard me talk about that. When I edit our episodes, I always want it to be the best listening experience for you all. You know that I am obsessed with sound quality. I make it a top priority and Zencaster provides amazing sound quality and HD video.
00:00:35
Speaker
Not only does it make the editing process literally so easy for me, it is the most user friendly platform that we've used to record. Gianna and I have been using Zencaster even before they became a sponsor of this podcast because it is so accessible and that is what APT is all about.
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Speaker
And it is the easiest platform for all of our guests to join as well. There is nothing to download. They just click the link that I send them and we get recording with no issues. Zencaster is all about making your podcasting experience easy and with everything from local recording to automatic post-productions in the tool,
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Bianca's Introduction & Episode Context
00:01:54
Speaker
Hello, hello, and welcome to Art Pop Talk. I'm Bianca, and your other co-host, Gianna, is on a flight home from Greece at the moment. So today we have a reissued episode for you all from last March celebrating Women's History Month. The episode you're going to hear is our great women artists episode, so let's get to it.
00:02:25
Speaker
Hi, everyone. Bianca here. I hope you guys are doing well. We missed all of you last week while we were on our spring break. As you might have learned from our episode at the beginning of March, Gianna is in Greece. She is currently on our way home. So next week, we will be back with that Rick Steves recap of her Greece trip.
00:02:52
Speaker
But in the meantime, you all can listen to last March's episode on great women artists kind of in celebration of Women's History
Reflection on Dyspo's Journey
00:03:04
Speaker
Month. We thought this might be obviously a topical episode, something to feel a little bit of celebration with this month. I just listened back to the episode.
00:03:16
Speaker
today before recording this little intro for you all and it's still really fun to listen to so even if you have previously listened to it you might want to check it out again. It's still definitely obviously a worthy conversation and if you're new and you haven't listened to this one you're in for a real treat. I am going to keep the art news from last March in the episode. I thought it was
00:03:44
Speaker
interesting, wildly fascinating, if you will, that we were talking about the app Dyspo, which had kind of just launched or was in beta testing at the time. Gianna and I obviously recorded last March's episode. So the art news is about this app that is created as a means to make
00:04:06
Speaker
a type of film photography or Polaroid style photography digital. And, you know, the conversation itself was really interesting. And I was thinking about I was hanging out with a friend a few weeks ago.
00:04:18
Speaker
and she had kind of a Kodak film camera with her. And Gianna kind of mentions in the art news that that style in itself is coming back for maybe everyday use. Obviously, professional photographers still rely on film. Film is still a really interesting medium in itself. But in terms of everyday use, that is something that's definitely coming back. And we in art news talk about, you know, you can get that kind of Polaroid camera
00:04:46
Speaker
at your local Urban Outfitters for a hundred bucks or something like that. And I was in Urban Outfitters yesterday and sure enough, they have Kodak film cameras that you can buy at Urban Outfitters next to their Polaroid cameras. So that's kind of, it was kind of interesting listening back to this episode, you know, have the turntables as we like to say. So that was fun. And on top of that, in this episode,
00:05:16
Speaker
The app Dyspo was created by
00:05:19
Speaker
David Dobrik. So we we did the art news and then in the following episode the week after Great Women Artists came out we did a follow-up to that story because at that time news had surfaced about David Dobrik and the horrific scenario between Jeff and the Vlog Squad and and all of the horrific circumstances that came out of that group.
Film Photography Resurgence
00:05:46
Speaker
So coincidentally
00:05:48
Speaker
this past week David Dobrik was in the news again for I guess kind of the same reason but the controversy if you will with Jeff has escalated to a different level so they were both topics of interest in last week's
00:06:08
Speaker
pop culture outlets. So that was also a weirdly interesting point about listening back to this episode as well as a year later. Here we are again talking about this.
00:06:21
Speaker
same group of people. Also it's interesting to see how Dyspo has or has not evolved over the course of the past year as well, thinking about obviously the trend of film photography evolving and growing and making a comeback, but it seems to me from a little bit of research that Dyspo has not
00:06:47
Speaker
succeeded at kind of this scale we thought it might. I'm not sure if that's because of David Dobrik's involvement in the app, if people decided that's not an outlet that they want to be supportive of, or if it's just not something that's wanted or necessary given the fact that
00:07:07
Speaker
something more tangible like film and Polaroid are somewhat accessible to people. So yeah, just kind of an interesting interesting topic to revisit. So I hope that you all enjoy re-listening or being introduced for the first time to this episode. Like I said,
00:07:29
Speaker
Gianna and I will be back together next week. We have lots of things to catch up on. I cannot wait to update you guys on some things. Thank you all so much also for the incredible support that you all gave after the She's Not Well episode came out at the beginning of March.
00:07:48
Speaker
I cannot tell you how grateful I am for all of you. So with that, I will cut it off here and we will talk to you next Tuesday. We love you guys. Enjoy.
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Speaker
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Dispo App's Market Impact
00:09:35
Speaker
Alright, well today's art news is about a new app that's turning everyone into Polaroid photographers.
00:09:44
Speaker
without having to go to an Urban Outfitters to buy, you know, that hundred dollar camera that's like pink and comes in a really cute case. I came across this new app called Dispo in a Facebook group that I'm in. And the caption was something along the lines of like, if anyone was on Dispo and wanted to do like a follow train in this Facebook group, I'm in.
00:10:05
Speaker
And I was like, oh my gosh, man, like this is another app that APT is going to have to get on and post in and we're going to have to manage this thing. But when I downloaded the app, I had to join a wait list and I was just very confused about what Dyspo was. So essentially the app launched on February 19th.
00:10:26
Speaker
in beta testing and it became the fourth most downloaded app in the app store. And because of that, it generated a ton of investor interest.
00:10:39
Speaker
This app now exceeds $20 million in investment and is valued at $200 million. So like what the hell? Where are all these like investors coming from? We need one for APT stat. So this app is intended to act as a disposable camera and it allows you to take these kind of Polaroid-esque photos that aren't even immediately available but can be viewed the following day.
00:11:08
Speaker
There are no edits, no filters, and there are no captions. But people can like and they can comment on your roles, which are kind of, as I understand it, basically your feed of images. In a New York Times interview, David Dobrik
00:11:24
Speaker
who is the creator of Dyspo, explained that he purposefully limited the options. So the purpose is to bring the user closer to the experience of using a disposable camera, like the ones of yours, cameras of yours. So, Chiana, I'm wondering, what do we think about Dyspo? You're cracking up.
00:11:51
Speaker
reminds me of like the Gen Z kids who are now buying Razer phones because they're vintage.
00:11:58
Speaker
I can't with the razor phones, like please stop buying razor phones. I want a razor phone because I never had a pink razor when they were like cool and like they're still cool but isn't there a new razor phone? Motorola is making a razor phone with a touch screen that bends in half.
00:12:24
Speaker
it's really interesting but people are buying the actual old Razer phones because of the aesthetic of them and people are buying like burner phones and bedazzling them and like only texting their like BFF with them which is so cute like I love that journey for you but also just by disposable camera I don't know okay I think it's an interesting idea
00:12:49
Speaker
For me, it's just another thing to keep up with on the internet, which we all know how I feel about that. I don't know, but something the other day actually happened that was very interesting to me because I have heard for a while that Instagram has been thinking about limiting its feature to see and limit how many likes a photo gets.
00:13:17
Speaker
And the other day I was logging onto my Instagram and my likes went away on my feed and on my page as well. So I was like, Oh my gosh, it's happening. Cause I know that they have started doing that in other countries.
00:13:32
Speaker
But since I have like four other Instagram accounts for Art Pop Talk and for my personal and I do social media for our other sister as well, all of that was popping up on these other accounts. It was just mine. And so I had limited access to seeing how many likes I had for about like three days. And now all of a sudden it's back.
00:13:54
Speaker
Interesting. It is very interesting. So I don't really know what to make of that. I don't know. But I think just in talking about kind of the limited features on Dyspo. I mean, that has just been something Instagram has been talking for talking about for a while. So yeah, I think it was only a matter of time another app kind of came into play. That was just about the photo experience. Yeah. So I don't know. It's definitely
00:14:23
Speaker
Interesting, I do think a lot of people are using it and are going to continue to use it. But I think like any social media app, I am always late to the trend and it will take me a very long time to ease up into downloading a new social media feature. Yeah, I like that. I think it's I think first of all, I would be totally okay with Instagram taking away the
00:14:50
Speaker
a capability to see the number of likes
00:15:07
Speaker
I think Dyspo seems kind of cool. I think that I really like the premise of it that it's kind of art for art's sake and just kind of sharing like almost what you would on your Instagram story. Like it's not always super catered unless you're like an influencer or something like that.
00:15:26
Speaker
But I will say that I did start a Dyspo account for APT and I think it would be really cool to kind of just post snapshots on what we're doing, like kind of art unexpectedly that we encounter in our everyday lives. I think it's an interesting way to kind of curate either purposely or very spontaneously a series of photos.
00:15:49
Speaker
Yeah, but I'm on a wait list. So we'll keep you guys posted when we're on a wait list for it. Yeah, because they're in beta testing still. So it's not fully functioning. So only some people were able to join Dyspo right away. Interesting. But I did start us an account. Another thing to look forward to.
00:16:12
Speaker
You have one. You could use your real disposable camera from Urban Outfitters and I could use Dyspo. Yeah, but a disposable camera is different from a Polaroid. Oh, I see what I mean. You have a Polaroid camera. Yeah.
00:16:28
Speaker
Yeah, I see what you mean. Do you remember the days of, Bianca, do you remember when you got your camera and you got a waterproof camera and it was stutter jealous and it was this whole big thing that you got a camera? Yeah, definitely. No, I loved that camera. It was green. Yes, it was green. We have some really good cringy middle school photos of you being hot shit with your waterproof camera.
00:16:54
Speaker
oh yeah those were the days yeah no I think that I'm a person that still really enjoys printing out photos though mm-hmm so I use the app free prints and I just send photos from my phone to free prints
00:17:16
Speaker
using their app and I get them shipped to my house. And I still really like that. I still really like the feeling of going through physical photos. Well, I remember getting waterproof disposable cameras. Oh, yeah. I am here for the actual disposable camera. And a lot of people are getting back into using film. So I guess it's just a natural progression of social media. In talking about it, it all makes sense.
00:17:44
Speaker
Well, I think it's also the same thing that's happened with music, for example, you know, the return to vinyl and the return to kind of tapes and things like that. Yeah. So I'm not surprised that this occurrence is taking place with your cell phone. In a weird way, but different way. I mean, it's obviously different. I'm getting like vine vibes. Like I don't know how long it's going to last. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I guess we'll find out. Yeah.
00:18:17
Speaker
Alrighty friends, today's art pop talk is all about celebrating International Women's Day, which was March 8th. But you got the whole month of March to listen to this episode before it doesn't count anymore. So Gianna and I are each going to talk about a few of our favorite ladies of the arts.
00:18:45
Speaker
But before we do, Gianna, I want to know if you could go to a Judy Chicago inspired type of dinner party and you've had to invite five ladies dead or alive that we have not talked about on the show before, who would they be?
00:19:01
Speaker
Because as much as I love her, I just feel like we can't keep giving Gaga the unfair advantage here. Yeah, she already has a seat at the table. True. So yes, definitely have a couple. I would say Natalie Baxter. She is this textile artist and sculptor. And she has this bloated flag series that really got me through the dark days of 2016 to 2020. And then I would have to say Linda Benglis because she's a good one.
00:19:31
Speaker
bad bitch who placed a photo of herself with a dildo.
00:19:35
Speaker
in a paper, and it was very gender performative, and I don't know. I just am obsessed with her, but more importantly, I am obsessed with her sculptures. Yes, I love the drip works. Drip works are great. Everything about her sculptures are just so spontaneous and sexual at the same time. I don't know how to describe it. It's like, is it possible to be sexually attracted to an object? Yes. Yes. Yes, it is.
00:20:04
Speaker
And then I would have to say Rebecca Belmore. She is a mixed media and performance artist. The agency of the female body in her work is very politically and socially conscious, but the use of her body in her performative work is also so laborious and ritualistic. In a lot of ways it reminds me of Abramovich's work in putting the body through extreme scenarios.
00:20:33
Speaker
but she just speaks to abuse and discrepancies that predominantly indigenous women are afflicted by. And then I would also have to say Zoe Buckman, that might be a little bit of a cheat because I can't remember if I have talked about her or not, because I do have a tendency to talk about her quite a bit. I feel like we may have just briefly mentioned her, but I'll let it slide because she's fantastic. Yeah, she just
00:21:01
Speaker
is a huge inspiration to me in just talking about the consumer world from a female perspective. And then last but certainly not least, Edmonia Lewis, shattering race and gender expectations for artists and particularly sculptors. Lewis's work can be attributed to the neoclassical style where biblical literary and classical subjects were popular.
00:21:27
Speaker
But she showed these icons or characters in a different light that was much more truthful and less idealized. For example, there's a piece of hers that I really love, and it's a sculpture of Cleopatra shown the moment after she committed suicide instead of that moment of contemplating if she wants to take her own life, which was the more traditional way of telling that story.
Honoring Women Artists
00:21:55
Speaker
Yeah, and Monia Lewis. That's a really good one. Okay, what about you? Okay, so I think I have to go with Amelia Jones. She is a feminist art historian that I admire a lot. I've studied a lot of her writings and relied on so many of her books.
00:22:14
Speaker
when I was doing my own research and part of the reason that we have feminist art history and feminist art historical context and exhibitions and discussions is because of Amelia Jones, so I really admire her a lot. I think Simone de Beauvoir, I mean, I have to have my French girl in there.
00:22:40
Speaker
think number three would be Queen Nefertiti. Gianna I almost went with Cleopatra because I have I do have like a little obsession with Cleopatra but Queen Nefertiti I think the bust of Nefertiti is just one of my favorite art historical objects ever. That object is just an insanely beautiful artwork and I
00:23:03
Speaker
I just think we are so lucky to have it. I just want to stare at it all the time and I also want to know what real Nefertiti was like and I just want to talk to her and I bet she's so cool and like badass and I just want to be in her presence.
00:23:19
Speaker
Then number four, I think I would have to pick Nadia Hussein who is a chef and she won a season of Great British Bake Off. I think I definitely need a chef or a baker in the mix and she's just one of my favorite people. She's like so sweet and obsessed with her. She just brings me such joy. She brings so much joy and happiness and I love that. I need more of that and that would be really fun to have her at a dinner party. She would be just like this.
00:23:48
Speaker
freakin cutest. I know, I know. I know. I mean, like, Nadia, if you're listening to this, can we please? I'm getting like, cute aggression thinking about like, Nadia hanging out with like, Nemfer Dury. Oh my gosh, two queens, truly. Okay, and then I have to pick an artist. So I think I'm gonna go with Louise Bourgeois. And Louise just seems like a party animal. And I really think that she would liven up the bunch, you know? She'd freak everybody out.
00:24:18
Speaker
I think that sounds so fun. I just want her to walk in with like the giant penis, you know? Well, no, that's what I was thinking about with Linda. She's just gonna bring all the dildos up in there and like call it a day. Linda and Louise, can we combine our two groups? I think that would really be a smash. Yeah. Okay, Gianna, on that note, I am ready to talk about
00:24:43
Speaker
some ladies. So would you like to start us off with your first woman to celebrate on this lovely International Women's Day? I would love nothing more. So my first pick for today is an artist I got to really focus on for an entire semester in college, and that is Halea J. Sinatjeni. Sinatjeni is an indigenous activist and artist who uses photography as a conceptual tool
00:25:12
Speaker
and an act of protest against the perception that Westerners have had on Native people that has even more so been shaped with the invention of photography and the popularity and consuming Indigenous images. Since its occurrence in the early 1800s, historic photographs taken of non-Native people
00:25:32
Speaker
have played a key role in constructing and perpetuating cultural stereotypes of native people and indigenous photographers like Sinat Jenny have also used this technology to depict a more truthful documentation of their culture and communities.
00:25:47
Speaker
So Sonat Jenny was born in Arizona. Her father was an artist and he actually studied at the Santa Fe Indian School. But she ended up doing her undergrad in art in California and was heavily influenced by her father's career. And that's where she really began to explore photography. And from what I know, she has done a lot of activist work for native communities and people in the Bay Area. I think for Sonat Jenny, photography started as a tool to capture
00:26:16
Speaker
Native icon and activists, but to also find an accessible way of documenting and educating people about indigenous experiences and indigenous sovereignty. As she partnered with and worked with nonprofit organizations that weren't just tribal specific,
00:26:35
Speaker
really allowed other people into the conversation and promoted the ability of Native people to thrive in urban environments. But then when she entered her master's program in the early 2000s, photography also became this very personal way of exploring her family history as well as Indigenous iconography, altogether redefining what it means to be a Native American through these larger narratives that really transcended time.
00:27:04
Speaker
She was able to reclaim her Native identity within her work by taking her own pictures, manipulating them to look vintage, and adding in other mixed-media material through the method of collage. To stimulate conversation about the ethnographic gaze placed upon Native people, Sinatjenny also physically sought out other problematic photographs of Native Americans, which were originally taken by white photographers in order to appropriate
00:27:34
Speaker
the vintage imagery and give it new meaning. With this process in mind, I want to specifically look at her piece, Oklahoma, the unedited version. At first glance, the viewer can see how multiple methods and materials are being used in this mixed media piece. Through the use of photo collage, early native figurative imagery is being presented as two women in traditional native attire ride on their horses.
00:28:03
Speaker
This is where the narrative becomes increasingly more interesting as we the viewer have to decipher what the setting is as the landscape was intentionally cut out of the original photograph.
00:28:16
Speaker
When observing the background more intently, the lines, numbers, and roads reflect a map of central Oklahoma. But positioned in the middle ground is an old fashioned television from which the female writers appear to be emerging from the screen. By forming this distinct composition, Sinat Jenny not only creates a sense of visual depth in this invented landscape, but she also utilizes the space to suggest the passage of time.
00:28:45
Speaker
These visual clues lead us to conclude that the repurposed vintage image serves as a platform to create a larger discussion about the representation of Indigenous people. By linking the past and the present, Sanat Jenny suggests that there is still a need to have a conversation centered on this continuous problem as she revives the image into a contemporary setting.
00:29:10
Speaker
When specifically relating this process, you know, just back to this specific image, Sonat Jenny has chosen to use this image so she can transport the Oklahoma women from their original context. In doing so, she fragments time by surrounding the Native writers in the new setting of the roadmap, which then is able to bring the figures into a modern context.
00:29:34
Speaker
So not Jenny speaks to this method as creating segmented moments in time in which the memory of the women will be brought back to life now from an indigenous understanding instead of a Western perspective. So when using this new lens to display this old image,
00:29:52
Speaker
Native audiences will be able to connect to this theme of reclamation and non-native audiences will be able to connect with the landscape as it encourages them to recognize the visual sovereignty at hand, but also allow for the exploration of personal history.
00:30:12
Speaker
Sinat Jenny herself is not from Oklahoma, but she does have a deep connection to the Oklahoma landscape from, you know, purely an individual perspective and just spending time here and traveling here with her mother. By creating this artistic piece and this visual documentation, Sinat Jenny is creating this conversation and is creating this inclusive environment by breaking down cultural barriers in order to connect with that larger audience, which is something
00:30:39
Speaker
she has proven to not only do in her work, but through her activism as well. So I thought that was a fun piece to talk about because of the Oklahoma landscape. But she is really an incredible artist and activist and teacher as well.
00:30:56
Speaker
Yeah, her work is stunning. And I also love what you're talking about in the context of her work, where part of her goal is to bring conversations about Native American heritage into the urban landscape. And I love those conversations that she has about space. I think it's really beautiful.
00:31:16
Speaker
Yeah, and I think it'll be interesting as we progress, a lot of the artists that we're looking at today use photography, use language, and there's a little bit of that in all the artists that we talk about today in all of these works, and language and place identity is all so tightly rooted together, and that's all coming from this extremely personal place from all these artists.
00:31:43
Speaker
I think that leaves us. Oh, that was perfect, Gianna. Ha, ha, ha. Clever girl. I'm excited for the next one. Oh, I have been waiting to talk about this artist for a minute.
Shirin Neshat's Artistic Themes
00:31:55
Speaker
So my first pick of the day is Sharon Nashat.
00:32:00
Speaker
Nishat is an artist that I just have admired for such a long time, but I was thinking about this when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to talk about in the broader context of her work, because I actually haven't seen too much of her work in person. Again, like Gianna was saying, much of what she's known for is photography and film.
00:32:22
Speaker
And I'm actually going to link in our show notes and interview that Nishat did with Katie Hessel on the great women artists podcast, where she talks about this really interesting idea that when her filmic works are displayed in museums or galleries, many people actually don't have the opportunity to watch them in full because of the nature of those spaces. A lot of the times.
00:32:46
Speaker
It's not just possible to sit for 20 or 30 minutes kind of watching and taking in this film. People kind of glance, they'll maybe stay for a few minutes and sit, but a lot of the times you don't get to watch the whole thing whenever you're in a museum. So many of you listening might have had kind of the same experience that I've had with her work where you're watching it in an art class or at home instead of in that classic kind of art context.
00:33:14
Speaker
So definitely check out that great women artists episode with her. It's an awesome conversation.
00:33:20
Speaker
Sharina Shah is an Iranian-American artist who again primarily works in the photo and video realm. She was born in Iran in 1957, four years after the CIA assisted coup that replaced Iran's first democratically elected government. She came from a very progressive family but at the behest of her father moved to the United States in 1975.
00:33:47
Speaker
She talks about how she felt very isolated when she moved to the States with the Iranian Revolution underway back at home, and she wasn't able to return to Iran until 13 years later. During her time in America, she went to art school and then she moved to New York where she married, she had a child, and continued to promote and be a part of the contemporary art scene in Manhattan.
00:34:13
Speaker
But the 90s is really when Nashat became a big name in the art world. In 1990, she returned to Iran for the first time since the revolution and found that her home was greatly different from the westernized country from her upbringing. When she came back to the United States, she then produced her first acclaimed photographic series called The Women of Allah,
00:34:42
Speaker
which are all black and white images of Nashat dressed in a chador. And by Islamic law, only her feet, her hands, and face can be exposed in this garb. The series contains a set of four symbols that are associated with Western representations of the Muslim world. And those are the veil, the gun, the text, and the gaze.
00:35:08
Speaker
And what we see in probably one of her most famous images of this series called Rebellious Silence is Nishat in a chador with her face exposed, and the barrel of a gun is held right in the middle of her face, almost splitting the image in half.
00:35:26
Speaker
And this text is present throughout the series on the places where her body can be exposed. So again, that's her hands, her feet, and her face. These texts detail the feelings of female desires to fears of women's participation in militant efforts.
00:35:44
Speaker
Also, I just wanted to bring a side note in, if you like Sharon Nishat's work, you should also look at Lala Essayidi. She's an artist that I have come to know through my work. We had an exhibition on her. She's a Moroccan photographer that plays a lot with text in a similar manner to Nishat, so I just wanted to highlight her as well.
00:36:10
Speaker
What I think the most common thread throughout Nishat's work is this idea of dichotomy. So she's working with both ideas and images of her personal visual culture that reveal such stark contrasts.
00:36:26
Speaker
east and west, men and women, public private, masculine feminine, modernity versus antiquity. And a smart history article reads that many of these symbols used in her work have taken on a particular charge since 9-11, even though a lot of her works were obviously created before 9-11.
00:36:49
Speaker
And in the interview I mentioned, Nishat also brings up this point of feeling isolated in both Iran and the US as an immigrant. And while I'm talking about, you know, these themes found from her early bodies of work, she carries these parallels through our present day politics, and she's still making art, she's still very active, particularly in reference to xenophobia and immigration policy. And
00:37:15
Speaker
Her films are really just so amazing. So before I move on with Gianna's next choice, I do want all of you to watch her film Fervor from 2000. That's probably the one that many of you, if you've taken an art class, have probably seen, but Fervor is truly amazing. It's really a fantastic piece to sit and watch and it exhibits all of those details, all of those ideas of contrast so clearly. So I would definitely recommend that.
00:37:45
Speaker
just to kind of recap your little synopsis there at the end in these photographs from this particular series, that idea of just the isolation that she has captured within these photographs is so interestingly portrayed as it's also just confrontational with those other
00:38:07
Speaker
conflicting symbols that are going on and you are also confronting her in especially this particular photo with the gaze um yeah the gaze is a really great point yeah all right well let's move on to artist number three shall we the next artist i would like to talk about is juliana huckstable because you know we stand a juliana
00:38:32
Speaker
on APT. Oh my goodness. But Juliana Huxtable was born intersex and grew up in a very conservative Baptist home in Texas, born in 1987.
00:38:48
Speaker
She attended Bard College in New York, where she studied art, gender studies, and human rights. In her work, Hustable explores the intersections of race, gender, queerness, and identity. And she uses a diverse set of means to engage these issues, including self-portraiture, text, performance, and then talking about physical realities and digital realities.
00:39:13
Speaker
Huxtable, much like her concepts, her process is very fluid and experimental and also very vast. As she explores interdisciplinary practices from the visual and written and audible language and ways of communicating, where she critiques existing social norms while providing a truthful and a transparent and alternative and even hopeful possibilities at times.
00:39:42
Speaker
Not only is Huxable an artist, she is also a writer, a performer, she's a DJ, and she is a co-founder of the New York based nightlife project Shock Value.
00:39:54
Speaker
which is a weekly New York city-based nightlife collective run by female creatives. Huxable's multidisciplinary art practice explores a number of concepts ranging from the internet, the body, often through a process she calls conditioning, which I think is best explained as the exploration of self and imagination, whether through her literary works, her poems, or her visual images.
00:40:21
Speaker
that can be contextualized within a historic past, a contemporary setting, and in future realities. Huxbull, being a woman and being born intersex, commonly inserts her body into multiple and highly saturated photographs, and I would even say surrealist environments, where she commonly constructs human and animalistic hybrids that speak to the fluidity of gender and sexuality in creating these
00:40:49
Speaker
very digitally enhanced and stylized beings or as I even saw them being described as avatars. With the merging of the two art forms, art and text, some of her works that visually read as or act like a graphic poster are really rooted in a larger history of protest and protest art. The process of writing, like some of the artists we're looking at today,
00:41:15
Speaker
I think is essential in how Huxtable explores the capabilities of the body that moves beyond how we see bodies interacting and behaving and existing and
00:41:27
Speaker
what is and isn't normalized. And I think for Huxtable, there's something that language can do for her that not just a visual can. If you have listened to some of the conversations we have had on APT, we have talked about the aesthetics of different forms of protest and works of art attributed to different types of activism.
00:41:49
Speaker
and how those aesthetics have come to be through collective movements and mobilizations. And listening to an interview with Huxtable that she did with Artforum, she finds the history of the aesthetics of protests very interesting because in terms of her art and what she communicates about her experiences, she is continually challenging and exploring what, quote, radical protests look like, what a radical body looks like, perhaps.
00:42:18
Speaker
And this also lends itself very well to concepts of futurism and post-humanism. Other aspects of her work involve how we learn and how we absorb history, how that is manifested through cyberspace and the internet. And so there's this merging of cyber realities and history all kind of manifesting together in this fantasy-like setting where she casts herself in and she also creates for us.
00:42:46
Speaker
To kind of tie back into this idea of text, I wanted to end on a quote. Huxball states, I wrote a lot of the texts that I've used in my art, but I also found a lot of texts that I repurpose, comments on YouTube, videos about the destruction of black families, and a quote from conservative right-wing radio talking about the infiltration of trans people, for instance. That's one of the things that excites me about text,
00:43:14
Speaker
it's slippery, but you can try and condition the space in which that slippage occurs. I would like to think that my practice is about conditioning a productive space for thinking and processing. So you're getting spontaneous fragments, and they're setting in different ways. Oh, wow, that's a really, really powerful quote.
00:43:38
Speaker
I think that's really cool. I also want to go to this collective that she runs in New York. I need to go ASAP.
00:43:48
Speaker
It just, it looks really fun. Her work carries a lot of depth, but I'm also just really attracted to it aesthetically. I think there's something, you were talking about post-humanism a little bit, Gianna, and that idea of avatars is really interesting, but I think there's something almost related to the idea of the uncanny about this work as well.
00:44:14
Speaker
Well, I think in a lot of her work, there is that shock value to it. And I think that she explores the bodies in ways that people are afraid to. And she does that through perhaps confrontational topics. I mean, she definitely talks about subjects through her sexuality and she uses visuals that include things like bestiality into a conversation. But also we could talk about bestiality and how that plays into such a large history.
00:44:43
Speaker
of art. And, you know, so using your body and politicizing your body is such a powerful thing. Yeah, her work is just so saturated and beautiful and she does create these very
00:45:00
Speaker
fantasized like environments. And there's this one in particular that I'm looking at right now in front of me where she is standing on this leopard couch. And when she talks about how she stylized some of her images, this this stylization
00:45:17
Speaker
is very important because there's so many layers to her photographs. There's a lot of FX makeup going on but there's also a lot of digital drawing on top of that as well and it just makes me think of a lot of artists that I know right now that are exploring gender through this idea of skin and also trying to break down gender normative standards through external bodies and I think she's doing a lot of that.
00:45:44
Speaker
Moving on, my next woman is someone that we have briefly mentioned on the show
Empress Theodora's Influence
00:45:51
Speaker
before. She's not necessarily an artist, but is a historical figure that we absolutely know from art history specifically. I am talking about Empress Theodora.
00:46:03
Speaker
There are some really cool art historical images of her, but the one that we see over and over again is her mosaic at the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy that was made in 547 CE.
00:46:20
Speaker
Theodora was the wife of Emperor Justinian I, and in the Basilica we get these two mosaic panels, one featuring Justinian and the other featuring Theodora and her attendants. Theodora was most likely born in the year 500 in Crete or Syria and died in 548 in or around Constantinople.
00:46:47
Speaker
She was one of the most powerful women in Byzantine history. She was born into the lowest class of Byzantine society, but eventually advanced to rule over the entire Byzantine Empire equally with her husband.
00:47:04
Speaker
She grew up on the outskirts of the Byzantine Empire with a father who was an animal trainer. After his death, Theodora became an actress to support the family. And during this time, the profession of being an actress was considered quite scandalous. Being an actress was synonymous with being a prostitute. And I believe that some scholars have argued that she could have been a prostitute. And I think
00:47:32
Speaker
This is sort of that similar idea that we see with, for example, the French ballet dancers in impressionist works of the late 1800s, where they are working professionals, but are also known for kind of taking gentleman collars as well.
00:47:48
Speaker
So Theodora climbed these classist ranks of her society and when she was 16 she discovered and adopted Christian ideology and converted and renounced her former career and lifestyle. Theodora met Justinian I in 522 who was at that time Justinian was heir to the throne.
00:48:13
Speaker
He wanted to wed her, but as heir, he was forbidden to marry someone of her status, let alone a woman of a performative profession like being an actress, despite her recent reformation. Justinian had this law repealed the following year, however, and the two were married in 525.
00:48:35
Speaker
Theodora and Justinian were known for ruling as intellectual and political equals. And Theodora was responsible for much of the Reformation of Byzantium. She had a large role in erecting the basilica that I mentioned earlier, which again depicts both the emperor and the empress participating in an imperial procession. And this signifies her equal role and importance in ruling the empire. Also not to mention that there
00:49:04
Speaker
displayed on the same level in the same foreground because perspective is a super big thing, even though it's not realistic, but it's a visual hierarchy and they're at the same level. Yeah, for sure.
00:49:19
Speaker
In 532, religious unrest unfolded and caused to be famous Nika riots, which actually Gianna I know you have an episode in the works for Nika riots. Basically why we have sports is because of these riots, literally versus like
00:49:37
Speaker
the team blue versus team orange. It's literally shit like that. That's why we have sports. You're welcome. So expect an episode on nigga riots later on. As a result, much of Constantinople was destroyed. And many saw this as a chance to overthrow Justinian who actually wished to flee the empire. Instead, badass queen Theodora was like, no, we're not gonna flee.
00:50:03
Speaker
and she preferred to dye a ruler than to be removed from the revolt. Theodora and Justinian, because of Theodora, confronted the destruction of important monuments in Constantinople, including the original Hagia Sophia, and the couple rebuilt the basilica, which was rededicated in 537.
00:50:27
Speaker
During her time as Empress, Theodora also fought for the persecuted. She attended to the rights of prostitutes in particular by closing brothels. She created protective safehouses, and she passed laws to prohibit forced prostitution.
00:50:46
Speaker
In addition, she passed laws that expanded the rights of women in divorce cases and abolished a law that had allowed women to be killed for committing adultery. She also built houses of worship that served as places of refuge. Truly amazing.
00:51:07
Speaker
Theodora is also featured at a play setting in Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party. And a lot of the information I shared with you can be found through resources at the Sackler Center for Feminist Art on their website. Also in 2013 Dolce & Gabbana released a line that references the Golden Mosaics of Sicily's Cathedral of Montréal as a starting point for their fall
00:51:32
Speaker
collection that year but there's some specific visuals and comparisons to Theodora's mosaics that are stemming on these garments and it's very kind of heavenly bodies like Met Gala-esque but we'll we'll put some images on our instagram and our resources page but
00:51:50
Speaker
I just, I love this dress, this Dolce & Gabbana dress so much. It's stunning and the crown and the earrings. I just, it's so beautiful. Did nobody wear this outfit to the Met Gala? Like what a missed opportunity. Yeah, but I think also, wait, no. Cause if I was going to the Met Gala, I would have someone else design me like a whole new Theodora wardrobe. Also, I guess. I mean like heavenly bodies,
00:52:19
Speaker
I think is a little bit different than Theodora's garb. The Dolce & Gabbana gowns reference mosaics and the tesserae. Tesserae are little pieces that make up the mosaic, and so I think they are specifically referencing the craft of these mosaics.
00:52:40
Speaker
But I see your point. But it's still just so royal and ethereal and fucking gorgeous, and she's wearing a goddamn crown. No, the models, all of the models on the runway I think were wearing crowns, but also Gianna, I need to point out that this is Dolce & Gabbana's ready-to-wear line for fall 2013, and I don't think that the celebs at the Met Gala would be in ready-to-wear Dolce & Gabbana.
00:53:07
Speaker
Yeah, hard pass. Yeah, same. I would totally like pass out this gown. As a celebrity myself. I totally get that. And is it just me, or does PA Audrey Kaminsky have a Theodora dress that she wears sometimes? Because I feel like she has a dress with Empress Theodora on it.
00:53:30
Speaker
No, it's not a dress. It's like a flowy shirt thing. Or maybe it is a long dress. I know what you're talking about. Do you know what I'm talking about? I know what you're talking about. She totally does. We need to have her send us a picture so we can post it. Poor Audrey, she's gonna be like driving in the car listening to this like, what do you want from me?
00:53:51
Speaker
Okay, well I think we probably have time for one more lady today, Gianna. What do you think? Oh yeah, always time for one more lady. There's always room for me.
00:54:07
Speaker
All right, well, the last spectacular woman that I'm talking about today is, again, one of my favorites. This is Megumi Igashari, or better known under the pseudonym Roku Dineshiko.
Rokudenashiko's Artistic Mission
00:54:22
Speaker
And this pseudonym is roughly translated to, quote, good for nothing in Japanese.
00:54:29
Speaker
Rokudunashiko is a Japanese sculptor and manga artist born in 1972 that considers it her mission to quote demystify female genitalia in Japan, where she believes that they are overly hidden in comparison to phallic imagery. She is known in Japan as the vagina artist.
00:54:52
Speaker
Love to see it. Much of her work stems from her questioning the penises privileged place in Japanese culture. In Japan, the Shinto Kanemara Matsuri or Festival of the Steel Fallis is held each spring in Kawasaki, Japan and
00:55:15
Speaker
I really need to go. I know that it's problematic, but I really also want to go to this festival. The phallus is the central theme of the event and is created in displays and illustrations. You can get candy, there are carved vegetables, there are decorations, and there's a parade all about the phallus. The Kanemara Matsari is centered on a local penis venerating shrine.
00:55:43
Speaker
The legend is that a jealous, sharp-toothed demon hid inside of the vagina of a young woman. Vagina dentata-esque, if you will. If you want to listen to one of our Halloween episodes, it's like, hmm, sounds familiar. Sounds very familiar. The demon fell in love with this woman and bit off penises of two young men on their wedding night.
00:56:09
Speaker
After that, the women sought the help of a blacksmith who fashioned an iron phallus to break the demon's teeth, which led to the enshrinement of the item. However, the artist Roku de Nashiko experienced and responded to the taboo discussions and presentations of the vulva and female anatomy in response to the proud and celebrated depictions of the phallus.
00:56:37
Speaker
The goal of much of her work is to make the vagina more pop and free of stigma. This began with models made from molds of her own vagina or vulva.
00:56:49
Speaker
With these molds and digital recreations of them, Roku Dineshiko made a vagina lampshade, a remote controlled vagina car, different accessories, smartphone cases, chandeliers, dioramas, even a kayak that she dubbed Mango, the vagina boat, which acted as a quote,
00:57:11
Speaker
metaphorical image of life springing from it because she sits in the boat where her vagina is. Two bass drums and a cymbal falling off a cliff. After a successful crowdfunding campaign for the kayak project, the artist emailed her donor some data about her vulva as a funding gift in case they wanted to
00:57:40
Speaker
print their own vulva vehicles. Then in July of 2014, police came to her house and arrested her, citing her quote, obscene vagina boat. Though she was released from jail a week later, later that same year, she was arrested again, this time over vulva sculptures that she'd exhibited in an adult store.
00:58:06
Speaker
She was found innocent of the displaying obscenities charge, but guilty of distributing obscenity on the grounds that she'd sent data to her crowd funders and could supposedly sexually arouse them. She was also fined 400,000 yen.
00:58:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's wild. It's so wild. So she's also created a character called Mankochon, which is translated to Miss Pussy, who has been featured in manga and made into figurines, costumes, toys. Mankochon is the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life. You can definitely find it pretty easily and purchase these kind of different kitschy items of the figure.
00:58:56
Speaker
In a response to much of her legal battles, she continued to question Japan's definition of obscenity with the publication of her book in 2016 called What is obscenity? The story of a good-for-nothing artist and her pussy. And the book seeks to make the vagina cute and explores the discrimination and taboo surrounding female genitalia.
00:59:20
Speaker
You can find the adorable Megochon in the book as well, and it's also pretty accessible to find. You guys should be able to find and purchase it pretty easily.
00:59:32
Speaker
I think that's a really clever way of going about getting her art across and her point across in a way that is so in tune to Japanese culture. It's extremely hard to see a female artist go through some of the obstacles that she has had to go through, but respect her all the more for it and keeping with it. And yeah, I'm just obsessed with all the vagina content. Oh, I know. It's so cute. I'm looking at Manko-chan right now.
01:00:02
Speaker
She's just adorable. I just want to like hug her. She's so cute Yeah, I want to see this next to like a Judy goddess figure and I want them to hang out at their own dinner party for International Women's Day all of the art of vulvas just needs to come to maybe we could curate that exhibition I
01:00:26
Speaker
I literally have sitting above me on my shelf as we speak in aluminum casted vulva that has a very decorative floral pattern to it, just like Manko-chan does. And I think they need to hang out. Oh, I agree. It's like, we're playing with toys. Like, I'm imagining like, like a grown up version of Toy Story where there's all these like, full of toys that are like, adult toys. It's all these adult toys.
01:01:01
Speaker
Oh, my God. Well, I'll not note. I think it's time for us to get out of here. All right, everyone, we will talk to you in two Tuesdays. Art Pop Talk's executive producers are me, Bianca Martucci Pink, and me, Gianna Martucci Pink. Music and Sounds are by Josh Turner and Photography is by Adrian Turner. And our graphic designer is Sid Hammond.
01:01:45
Speaker
you