Defining a Female Subjectivity
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12424316 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lara C W Blanchard (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 177-205 |
| Publication date | 2020-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | positions asia critique (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1067-9847 • E-ISSN: 1527-8271 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/10679847-7913106 |
| OpenAlex | W3010200548 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 22 |
Cui Xiuwen (b. 1970) and Yu Hong (b. 1966) are contemporary Chinese artists whose images of women reflect a complicated gendered perspective. This article focuses on Cui’s Ladies’ Room (2000) and Yu’s Female Writer (2004, from the series She). Both can be construed as feminist reinterpretations of Chinese works of the imperial era that represented idealized female figures from a male perspective. Ladies’ Room, a video that shows behind-the-scenes images of sex workers in a nightclub washroom, brings to mind earlier paintings that depict women in feminine space. Ladies’ Room, however, incorporates multiple female gazes: not only that of the artist but also those of the subjects, who look at each other and at their own mirror reflections. Female Writer, a diptych consisting of a photograph and painting of the writer Zhao Bo, recalls paintings from the “beautiful women” genre. Though both photograph and painting reflect Yu Hong’s point of view, Zhao Bo was permitted to select her photograph, and thus the work engages with both author’s and subject’s gaze. Ladies’ Room and Female Writer both reclaim female subjectivity as they present images of contemporary Chinese women while also grappling with problems of authenticity, the public/private dichotomy, identity, and self-expression
Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Expression (computer science · Femininity · Identity (music · Linguistics · Painting · Perspective (graphical · Sociology · Subject (documents · Subjectivity · Visual arts · Cinema and Media Studies · Computer Science · Gender Studies · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · Media, Gender, and Advertising · Philosophy
Song Dynasty Figures of Longing and Desire
Gendered Bodies
Experimental Beijing
Beyond Stereotypes
Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting
Women Through the Lens
Sex and Sexuality in China
The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism
China, Sex and Prostitution
The Wang Chao-chun Legend
Suzhou Pian" and Other Dubious Paintings in the Received "Oeuvre" of Qiu Ying
Voicing the Feminine
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
Film and the Masquerade
Invisible Women
The Poetics of Decadence
In a Queer Time and Place
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |