The female body as a ‘site’ versus the female body as a ‘sight’

by

Marilise Snyman

213 216 856

Department of Fine and Applied Arts in the Tswane University of Technology

NDip Fine and Applied Arts

Phunzo Sidogi

Table of Contents Page

List of illustrations i

Introduction 1

Part OneThe female body as a ‘sight’ in Visual Culture 1

Part TwoSouth African Feminist art 4

Conclusion 6

Bibliography 8

List of illustrations Page

Figure 1: Front cover of Huisgenoot, 4 December 1953. (Viljoen 2005:96) 2

Figure 2: Wendy Ross, Arrow beach piece, 1985.

(Arnold 1996:[sa]), plate 37 4

Figure 3: Kim Siebert, To woman behind culture, 1983.

(Arnold 1996:[sa]), plate 80 5

Introduction

This research explores how the female body is used as a ‘site’ and a ‘sight’ in

various political and cultural protests. Part one provides a brief overview of how the

female body was and still is treated as a ‘sight’ in visual culture by making use of an

article, Constructing femininity in Huisgenoot,1 by Louise Viljoen and Stella Viljoen

(2005:90). In conjunction with this text, a general understanding of the debates within

Feminism is presented.

In part two the works of two South African artists, Wendy Ross and Kim Siebert, are

discussed. The interpretations of their artworks serve as proof to show how female

artisanship has become a tool to protest against the grip of general male chauvinism.

Thus the writer binds the thoughts of the female body as a mere ‘space visited’ or an

object to be viewed to the concepts of Wendy Ross and Kim Siebert’s work in order

to show how art itself has positioned women to be subjects in a culturally and

politically driven society, rather than as objects.

Part One

The female body as a ‘sight’ in Visual Culture.

In the article Constructing femininity in Huisgenoot (Viljoen, 2005:90), an analysis of

the front cover of Huisgenoot 1953 is used to show how modes of gender are

represented in a linguistic and visual form where gender seems to be constructed in

relation to Western notions of femininity (Viljoen, 2005:93). According to Nancy

Duncan, in Viljoen (2005:93), gender-based issues lay within the political philosophy,

law, popular discourse and frequent spatial structuring practises. To some

contemporary readers of Huisgenoot the feminine and masculine insinuated images

might seem to be outdated, but Viljoen (2005:95) argues that it is exactly these

gender difference forms that shape the identity of Huisgenoot and so influence the

thought processes of its readers. According to Phoenix (2004), in Viljoen (2005:90),

“[W]omen learn to do femininity through negotiating the contradictory symbolic

representations of ‘woman’ which circulate [in magazines]”.1 Huisgenoot – Home Companion

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During the 1930s the early covers of Huisgenoot were photographs of Afrikaner

icons such as Paul Kruger, General Piet Joubert and the Union Buildings (Viljoen

2005:95). Until the 1970s the cover was occupied by various images of South

African natural beauty, and occasionally depicted artworks of the countryside by

(white) South African artists such as Gregoire Boonzaier and Johan Hendrik Pierneef

(Viljoen, 2005:95), although covers from the early 1950s revealed a profound portrait

of the Afrikaner identity.

These covers were ‘snapshots’ of an imagined community and revealed an ideology

of the patriarchal Afrikaner male (Viljoen, 2005:96). By combining the landscape with

the gracefully staged female, at times accompanied by children, suggests the land

(indicating Nationalism) and family – personified by the female – are central

apprehensions of Afrikaner identity (Viljoen, 2005:96).

Figure 1: Front cover of Huisgenoot, 4 December 1953. (Viljoen 2005:96)

Figure 1, is said to be one of the dullest covers of 1953 (Viljoen, 2005:96). In this

photograph the model, Yvonne Needham, is not ‘decorated’ with feminine

accessories such as frilly dresses and blackened lashes, rather a boyish haircut and

a plain black tank top ascribe her to the diversity in feminine styles (Viljoen,

2005:96). Although Needham’s portrait against the natural seaside backdrop is not

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the typical depiction of a gazed female, an Afrikaner and gendered ideal is still

however evident in the way she has turned her face away from the camera (Viljoen,

2005:97).

Like the landscape behind Needham, her rigidness, to the gaze of the male viewer

serves as a shield towards the double-edged accusation of self-awareness.

According to Viljoen (2005:97): “… on the one hand, she appears not to have

consented to the image, because this act may label her as vain and sexually

assertive and on the other hand, she has not refused it, for in doing so she would

shatter the illusion of passivity and denounce her femininity”. This contrasted

concept of the female model gazing directly back at the viewer, is evident in Édourd

Manet’s Olympia, 1865 (Adams, 2007:765). This painting caused great scandal

since nudes from the Italian Renaissance had a psychological distance from the

viewer’s daily experience from their title as Classical deities (Adams, 2007:765). This

title is scrutinized by Manet’s Olympia, for she shows none of the traditional – as

Needman does on the cover of Huisgenoot – ideals of Classical representation of the

female nude (Adams, 2007:765).

Part Two

South African Feminist art

In 1985, Wendy Ross created a simplistic yet richly metaphorical statement on the

beach (Arnold 1996:76). Arrow beach piece (Figure 2) is an arrow-shaped cavity

created and positioned in the sand for tidal waves to wash into (Arnold 1996:76). The

edges of the shaped sand cavity is altered and softened through the force of the

water and the foam of the force when it spills itself in and out of the arrow. Arrow

beach piece is a land art piece which underpins nature’s references to the masculine

and the feminine (Arnold, 1996:76). The arrow itself is a symbol associated with the

male gender, although in this artwork the triangular arrow head is rather a symbolic

reference to the female genitalia (Arnold 1996:76).

The foam from the wave penetrates the triangular arrowhead through the penile

channel (Arnold, 1196:76). Arrow beach piece, 1985, insinuates notions of the

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womb, sperm and reproduction through the organic sensuousness of the warm,

passive sand engulfed by the determined white foam (Arnold, 1996:76).

Figure 2: Wendy Ross, Arrow beach piece, 1985 (Arnold 1996:[sa]), plate 37

The contributing reading of Arrow beach piece from the writer of this essay is the fact

that the cyclical motion of the tides is controlled by the moon. These phases of the

moon could also be linked to the menstrual cycle of the female, which in turn plays a

natural dominating role in procreation between male and female. What is interesting

then is the element that the spume of the wave plays in Arrow beach piece is in

actual fact controlled by the triangular shaped arrow, although the triangle eventually

vanishes after a repetitive return of the foam. As Arnold (1996:76) states, Ross’s

Arrow beach piece, 1985, is: “the serial evidence of motion presented, the piece

asserts itself as a statement about the evidence of time rendered visible in cyclical

nature”.

Two years before Ross’s land artwork, Kim Siebert created a mixed-media work in

1983.

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Figure 3: Kim Siebert, To woman behind culture, 1983. (Arnold 1996:[sp]), plate 80

To woman behind culture, (Figure 3), is an artwork that make use of assemblage of

materials that contains materials of different textural, tonal and shape interactions,

considering a peculiar attention to detail, precision and sensitivity in handling and

positioning of the materials (Arnold, 1996:146). This assemblage of material

contributes to the concept of To woman behind culture, as well as Siebert’s interest

in the process of art making, rather than the explicit subject matter itself (Arnold,

1996:146).

A patterning surface at the top of Siebert’s artwork collages references to non-

figurative traditions in Islamic art, a rearrangement of Analytic Cubism and a

geometrical visual manipulation of Op Art (Arnold, 1996:147). This collage of

materials and art styles indicate how the reality of social issues concerning female’s

position in a male dominated society is disguised within and behind other concerns

whilst women are still affected by these social issues (Arnold, 1996:147).

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The viewer could than read the stylized Cleopatra as a female representing a female

embodiment as a whole, since the Egyptian Queen has remained a dramatic ‘sight’

throughout history and has been imagined and re-imagined for her ambitions in

political ruling, her ‘otherness’ and foreign, sexually transgressive attributions

(Green, 2002:93). The, then anonymous, veiled female in Siebert’s artwork

emphasis lays in her eyes; she is viewed and in return becomes a spectator herself.

She not only creates an interaction between the part and the whole of different

understandings of social positions of the female in relation to male patriarchy in

societies, but also references the suppression of women across all societies (Arnold,

1996:146).

Conclusion

Thus in conclusion, it is evident from the discussion presented in this essay, that the

female body has been culturally manipulated in Visual Culture to fit into the ‘sight’ of

a male dominated society. Needham’s photograph on the cover of Huisgenoot

portrays the social understanding of the female, and is used to shape the thinking

and even the identity of the early Afrikaner people. The depiction of Needham

indicates the powerless female, a body as an object to spectate in a nationalised

scenery. Her avoidance of a responsive stare with confidence to the viewer

encourages the serene landscape behind her and contributes to her own announced

femininity. Needham’s portrait supports the socially corrupted gender-roles of

Chauvinism and favours the male gaze upon the female idealistic independency.

In protest against visual representations as the Huisgenoot cover of 1953, South

African female artist use the tool of visual art in order to support the rise of the

Feminist approach in what is now understood as Post-modern society. As early as

1983 and 1985 female artists in South Africa came about to visually manipulate the

psychology of a male dominated society. In Wendy Ross’s Arrow beach piece the

beach, what would have been Needham’s background, is used as a setting and

material to conceptualize the fierce natural motion between male and female. Her

land artwork piece becomes the foreground. In the context of this research, Ross

uses the supposedly tranquil setting as a premise to obtain her will to depart from the

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female body from an object – a space to view – to being the actual subject, a form of

‘insight’.

As with the direct stare of an anonymous female in Kim Siebert’s To woman behind

culture the viewer is now confronted with a self-assured figure. This representative of

all females portrays a confrontation to the political norm of male patriotism and afflict

the socially disguises of a culturally and private society. The importance of this

artwork rests in the intention of the making; Feminism is not a badge but rather a

route to self-discovery, a lived experience (Arnold, 1996:147). Finally, there is no

better way to summarise this research, but with Arnold’s words (1996:147): “What is

at stake for South African women artists is not whether they define themselves as

feminist artists or woman artists, but that they function as artists … prove that female

and feminine creativity makes a significant contribution to the diversity of South

African culture”.

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Bibliography

ADAMS, L.S. 2007. Art across time. New York: McGraw-Hill.

ARNOLD, M. 1996. Women and art in South Africa. Claremont: David Philip Publishers.

GREEN, R. (in SHIFRIN, S. (ed.)). 2002. Women as sites of culture. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited.

VILJOEN, L. & VILJOEN, S. (in DU PREEZ, A. & VAN EEDEN, J. (eds)). 2005. South African Visual Culture, Constructing femininity in Huisgenoot. Pretoria:Van Schaik Publishers.

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