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According to the artist Hambling, "She's naked & she's every woman."
*Every white, 30-something, non-disabled, thin woman.
Funny how the brief to commemorate a famous woman generalizes her when Nelson gets to be Nelson, Lincoln gets to be Lincoln, etc. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-54886813
*Every white, 30-something, non-disabled, thin woman.
Funny how the brief to commemorate a famous woman generalizes her when Nelson gets to be Nelson, Lincoln gets to be Lincoln, etc. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-54886813
"The statue shows a silver female figure emerging from a swirling mingle of female forms."
Is this all that women were prior to Wollstonecraft? "Suddenly" an English women in the 18C writes a treatise, and individual women emerge?
Is this all that women were prior to Wollstonecraft? "Suddenly" an English women in the 18C writes a treatise, and individual women emerge?
What is AMAZING to me is that the sculpture itself just contradicts its own message: here is a woman emerging from a blob of women, and this woman is just another "everywoman" according to the artist's own words.
Here's the thing, commemorating individual women or women's causes in public monuments is rare in Europe & the US.
Recent efforts fail time and again, and we need to focus on this body of work that's emerging and ask why.
Recent efforts fail time and again, and we need to focus on this body of work that's emerging and ask why.
Here's my and @artcrimeprof 's discussion of another failed monument. https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/medusa-metoo-sculpture-art-history
And here's another relevant piece by @artcrimeprof https://www.thenation.com/article/society/nyc-suffrage-central-park/
In other words, there's a longer and broader story here that's not just about individual works of public sculpture relating to or commemorating women; it's about a collective failure to envision powerful, progressive, and imaginative works about women for public space.
