"Faith Ringgold is best known for a genre of art she created, the story quilt. Sewn and painted on cloth, text panels recount stories and visual images move in a linear and at times not so linear path." One of her most famous works is the story quilt "Who's Afraid of Aunt Jemima," a quilt that rewrites the stereotypical character's life.
Below, however, is a work by Ringgold that uses oil and canvas. This work was completed in 1971.
The objective for this assignment is to analyze Ringgold's painting in order to respond to some of Lucy Lippard's suggested methods for shattering stereotypes: "[ranging] from opening wounds, to seeking revenge through representation, to reversing destructive developments so the healing process can begin."
First, though, let's identify the subject(s); second, whether stereotypes are, indeed, addressed, and if so, what are they, and which of Lippard's methods is Ringgold using to address them? And finally, does your group think that this piece does an effective job addressing these issues? Is it inspiring? How has it struck you? However, if your group feels that it falls short somewhere, why?
Note: Your group's response will be evaluated based on its completion. In other words, does it address the prompt effectively and completely?
" For the Woman's House"
13 comments:
Jessi Mos, Lauren Poblete and Kyle Steslicki
The subject of this painting is a representation of the stereotypical non-stereotypical roles of women
Yes, there are stereotypes in this painting. First of all there is an African American lady playing the drums. Also our group feels as though this is trying to break a certain stereotype, but it is still very stereotypical in the sense that this example has been used and is very common to see.
Personally, our group does not find this painting inspiring. The only thing we like about this painting is the colors. We don't think that this painting does a good job of representing women, and women being strong.
Mike Corbin, Zoe Galbraith-Knapp, Josh Puentespina, Bianca Zepeda
We believe this piece depicts women in different careers that do not fit into the typical stereotypes of a woman, or different ethnicities. For example, it shows a black woman as a police officer, an Asian woman playing basketball, and a white mother with a half-black child. This piece addresses the archetypal image of a woman as a housekeeper by showing different women of different ethnicities doing jobs that are usually associated with men. We believe that the art piece shows the opposite of certain stereotypes, but doesn't do anything beyond that to actually attempt to shatter said stereotypes. At the time it may have been rather affective, but as of now it isn't anything outside the norm of our society. So, the general opinion amongst our group is that it's not inspiring, and didn't really strike as anything besides a painting. If this picture was shown to us outside the context of this prompt, we might not have noticed the motive the artist had when making this.
First, though, let's identify the subject(s); second, whether stereotypes are, indeed, addressed, and if so, what are they, and which of Lippard's methods is Ringgold using to address them? And finally, does your group think that this piece does an effective job addressing these issues? Is it inspiring? How has it struck you? However, if your group feels that it falls short somewhere, why?
Yes, stereotypes are clearly addressed, but it is not entirely clear which stereotypes they are. It has to do with women, possibly the stereotype that women do not belong in certain professions. It didn't strike us incredibly hard because we did not initially understand what was going on in the picture. It does not really effect us because if they showed more pictures referring to stereotypes, then it would've effected us more. There is already some stereotypes in the picture talking about women, but we need more.
Andrea
6-1-08
1.School, wedding, babysitter, bus driver, a cop, and a basket ball player.
2.I don’t really see the stereotype that they are trying to portray but there are some, they dont really catch my attention.
3.A double vision that allows different cultures to understand each other as they speak in different ways: because there are different settings, places and themes.
4.the painting didn’t really strike me, it doesn’t catch your attention.
We see that this image breaks the "women stereotypes." it portrays a positive image towards woman and it shows that a woman can do any job that a man can do. Whether or not male or female, anyone is capable of performing any of these activities shown.
It really doesn't tell you much about how it breaks the stereotypes of women but it's up to you to see it in the picture. What our group sees in the picture is that women can play sports, drive properly, get educated, and play music.
However, one thing that our group did notice was that there are only black and white women in the picture, and that there aren't any women of Hispanic or Asian decent. They may have meant to incorporate those races, but we just aren't seeing it.
Chance Nick Daniel
Okay team (Samson, Tyler, Hannah, Nikia), let's analyze the picture. Looking at this picture, we spot several things that might seem awkward in today's media and film. First of all, the picture was displayed in 1971. We have to realize that the picture was made in a different time period. Some things include a couple of Asian females playing basketball, a black woman with a police uniform on with a whistle in her mouth, a white mother with possibly a half-black child, and a black female proffessor teaching another black female student.
Ringgold reverses the destructive developments by countering the stereotypes that were (and are) commonly perpetuated in media. Like stated before, there are several things in the picture that may seem "awkward," but only if you look for them. This piece doesn't really do an effective job at doing so, because it would be hard to find the "awkwardness" without knowing what the purpose of the picture was.
The painting is a poor representation of what woman can do just as well as men. Some of the stereotypes portrayed are really vague to us. We can tell what a couple of them are, for instance the woman playing basketball, but others are ambiguous, like the one in the bottom right corner with a woman and a child. The way she's showing them is reversing destructive developments by portraying woman in roles that men normally fill. The two that are most clear are the ones touching the right side. They are: 1. Woman playing basketball. Which is showing that woman can play sports; and 2. Woman in jobs men usually have, like a cop and a construction worker. The other ones however, are poor representations of stereotypes to us, and she may have only healed her anger. Which according to Lippard is success. I think maybe if it were clearer that it would be more powerful to our group, but we just see a painting of woman doing things we don't know, let alone thought only men could do. Also, the depth perception is that of a painting from the dark ages.
Daniel, Kezi, Fanelie, and Desmond
The subjects that this painting is trying to address include; gay marriage, racial and gender specific stereotypes.
Specifically, there are Asian women playing basketball, generally basketball is thought to be played by only African Americans, and at some times Caucasians.
There is a black police officer. Usually African Americans are thought to be on the "wrong side of the law." But in this case, the African-American woman is enforcing the law.
There is also a white bus driver. Bus drivers are normally thought to be African American, but in this picture, that was definitely not the case.
Our group thinks that this painting does have an impact. It is showing that certain stereotypes definitely differ and how they do not apply to everyone. One question we came up with was; "Why do we think they are all women?"
Some of the responses we came up with include; Because I think that this is attacking stereotypes specifically targeted towards woman. Also we thought that it was interesting that all the "things" shown in this painting, are typically jobs performed by men.
In Ringgold’s painting, we see the representation of Asian, black, Latina and white women in a variety of professions and participating in varying activities. Stereotypes pinning women to specific professions are represented in this piece, showing females as police officers, mathematicians, public speakers, musicians and athletes. Using Lippard’s methods of the healing process in reversing stereotypes, Ringgold reverses destructive developments through representation.
As a group, we agree the message of Ringgold’s piece is clearly represented, but the work is not necessarily inspiring. We feel the piece is too busy, distracting viewers from the main message. If a series of paintings was completed the effect might have been more impactful. Additionally, we feel the piece would have held more punch had it been released 20 years prior to its making.
Rachel Liuzzi, Kevin Gudiño, Alma Sanchez
In this painting, we can first spot a African-American teacher teaching a female student, a Caucasian mother with possibly a biracial child, a Caucasian woman driving a bus, two Asians playing basketball, a wedding, African-American woman playing the drums, and an African-American women who is a police officer. After first looking at this painting, we are a little confused at how this portrays stereotypes. We can obviously see what the stereotypes are, but we are unsure as to what Ringgold is trying to say. One thing that we think that the painting portrays is that not only one race and gender (women for this painting specifically) should be bound to being able to do one career or job. If this painting was done awhile ago, it might portain to what careers women weren't regularly seen in. Kevin thinks that it is breaking the women's housewife stereotype and that they can do the same things that men can do, considering if it was painted a long time ago. They could be a police officer, teacher, doctor, etc. There are many ways to interpret this image obviouisly, but again, our group found it a little unclear to get a solid message out of it. We can relate this to Lippard's essay by seeing that she says "To turn a stereotype around, it is necessary to be extreme," which we don't think she does.
The subject in this painting is about female stereotypes. The stereotype is being attacked by showing women doing many different jobs that we usually see men doing. For example, we can see a woman being an officer and playing in the WNBA. We think this piece does an excellent job at attacking the issue. As a group we don’t feel inspired by this painting. It takes time to process what this piece is actually saying.
Bart, Jaryl, Joshua, Nomi
The subjects in the painting are woman, and the underlying theme is the ability of woman to holds roles one particularly sees men in: constructions workers, police officers, bus drivers, basketball player and the like. It also shows woman in roles that are less physically-related, but still more dominated by men: a school teacher, a scientist and a politician. This helps to counter the stereotype of woman being unfit for the workforce, however it’s far less relevant in the modern days, though I imagine that during movements for suffrage and equal rights for woman, it was doubtlessly far more pertinent.
Our group has differing views on how inspiring this image is. Three quarters of our group believes that the pictures is only somewhat inspiring, if at all, however the remaininga member finds It quite inspirational, stating that it can give woman pride in aspiring to these roles, and men in allowing woman to hold these jobs.
Our group believes that this image falls short in and of the fact that it fails to truly bring forth a solid opinion. Should one glass over the image, the true point is quite easy to miss. We believe that the only real means of reforming stereotypes used by this image is personal, it doesn’t really take an aggressive stance, in fact, if it weren’t for the context of this project, the purpose could be missed entirely.
Found in this picture were women in a variety of situations. One part depicts a black woman sitting at a table reading a book studying to be a doctor.The next part represents a white bus driver. Then we see women at a press conference. Two white women in the NBA,they show how women can be as equal as men when it comes to sports. Then we see a black woman police officer, which is breaking the stereotype of black people being in jail. The last three parts, we were unsure what was being stereotyped, but there were women involved.
We believe that they are all addressing different stereotypes about women in society. The first reverses the stereotype of having only black bus drivers, by showing a white woman as the driver. The second shows that women can be important members of the community and are as strong in politics as men. The one with a black woman studying shows that black people are not all stupid.
The artist paints scenes that are not uncommon in real life but that are contrary to stereotypes that we are used to seeing and hearing. In this way she effectively breaks stereotypes by changing them and showing us that things are not always what we stereotype them to be. But in doing so, the artist creates a new stereotype because she only depicts women in her image and makes it seem as if men are inferior to women.
Lucy Lippard said, "to turn a stereotype around, it is necessary to be extreme," but we don't think that it the case, because stereotypes are often not extreme at all. Nothing that the artist depicts in her painting is extreme, they are actually all very realistic scenes. Lucy Lippard also said that, "The effective turnaround is a doubling back rather than a collusion or a dispersion," we believe the artist doubled back as Lippard said, by changing the roles of women in the painting to things we are not used to seeing, but that are still realistic. But in a way, the artist doubled back twice when she made her painting only include women.
We think that she did an effective job but in a way she passed breaking the stereotype when she made another. The piece would have been much stronger if she had also included men. It's not really inspiring because none of the people look happy.
We feel that it fell short because some of the meaning is lost to us in the lower half of the painting. If we fully understood the meaning of the entire painting it would have much more meaning to us.
Paulina, Shane, Cindy, Brittney
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