Introduction
In the course of history, cognition of gender culture and nature have changed a lot which means sex binary became one of the gender categories rather than the only situation and other types such as transgender or third gender are gradually tolerated. The expression of ‘gender’ is generally referring to characteristics that can distinct males and females in ancient times. However, ‘gender’ also indicates the “practices of femininity and masculinity in social relations” (Hird, 2000). From the 1970s, some sex radicals and social feminists started to engage in building a perfectly postgendered society more than just pursue the equality and tolerance of diverse genders. Culture with only two genders is challenged and criticized in various fields including the arts. Artworks from that time tended to add more sexual factors in order to critique gender nature under the social culture.
This essay will use three artworks after the 1960s to discuss gender identities as well as gender roles in artworks and focus on two different creative strategies. The first strategy is recreating the classic artwork in which a representative work is Portrait (Futago) (1988) by Yasumasa Morimura. The other strategy is a sex switching role-playing to critique gender roles between the sexes. Then, Untitled (1992–96) by Robert Gober and Supermother (2002) created by Elzbieta Jablonska will be taken as examples to interpret the second strategy in this essay. Rather, this essay will also contrast and compare these two strategies while analysing three artworks.
Recreating the classic artwork
From a biologic point of view, features of sex binary are instinctive. But both bodies and minds are dynamic and complex instead of permanent and simplex. Physical traits of human beings can be changed by surgeries, sexual proclivities may convert, also one’s social behaviours that represent his gender can become ambiguous and out of normal. In the 1980s and 1990s, the dualistic thinking began to collapse because homosexuals and transgender people questioned the assumption that people must be a woman who wants to be a man or a man who wants to be a woman (Dvorsky & Hughes, 2008). Conventional gender binary was doubted due to the ‘nurture’ of people which means their desire and feelings. Consequently, artworks continuous emerged from the 1980s that minimizing the exclusive characteristics of traditional two genders and rethinking gender identities in history.
One of the examples is Japanese artist Yasumasa Morimura’s painting Portrait (Futago) in 1988. This work is the recreation of a master western canon piece Olympia (1863) by Edouard Manet's which the artist intended to intentionally criticize women’s status in the western paintings. In most famous historical paintings that including female images under western culture are the production of males’ sexual satisfaction. The original work Olympia is also no exception as the nude woman is gazed aggressively by the man which makes the woman be identified as a prostitute. In the work of Portrait (Futago), Morimura wears a wig and imitates the female gender role to reform his appearance in a disguised body image as a servant of sexual desire. On the one hand, Morimura doubts the women’s roles as well as gender identities in western culture. He dressed up as a woman to emphasize the prostitute image of women’s bodies. However, the nude female body in Portrait (Futago) is not perfect enough as it lacks attractive female physical characteristics such as busty breasts. What Morimura questions is whether women can be treated as tools for sexual desire without biological female characteristics? How to identify different genders (biological features, appearance, costumes or other elements)? On the other hand, Morimura creates a new image of an individual’s gender which leads audiences to rediscover males and females. In this artwork, Morimura makes up as a woman with a feminine posture but from the angle of physiology, Morimura is a man. The gender of the nude body in this work cannot be simply classified and the gender of the one who gazes at Morimura in the photograph also cannot be clearly recognized. According to Michiko & Fritsch (2012), one of sexual presumes is overturned comparing with Olympia that Morimura in Portrait (Futago) can be regarded as both homosexual and heterosexual. Morimura tries to break stereotypes of the gender binary that the sexual orientation can be diverse and there is no two sex anymore, an individual can choose the gender and sexuality.
Yasumasa Morimura, Portrait (Futago), 1988
Playing a ‘impossible’ role of reversed gender by role-playing
In the past two decades, gender binaries are challenged as the emerging of the transgender movement. Lines of gender roles are critiqued as people are living with various new gender species that leading to a more diverse world of gender roles (Dvorsky & Hughes, 2008). Artists like Yasumasa Morimura recreated a historical masterpiece to critique conventional values of gender, while some artists in the contemporary art world create new things such as sex switching role-playing to express their perspectives. For instance, Robert Gober once wore in a bride dress which is a wedding dress for females and Poland woman artist Elzbieta Jablonska has made a set of photos of superheroes as men characters. The following will analyse two artworks from these two artists relatively.
The first specific artwork is Untitled by Robert Gober in 1992-96 which is an advertisement for brides but the protagonist in the photo is Gober himself. This work was initially shown on the cover of Gober’s Newspaper (1992—93) and exhibited in Whitney Biennial in 1993. Gober is wearing a veil and a wedding dress in this advertisement which is put under a piece of news with the headline of “Vatican condoning discrimination against homosexuals”. This artwork connects the policy with minority gender relationships and intelligently indicates the unequal treatment of homosexuals in society. By acting as a bride, Gober dresses up like a woman planning to attend a wedding. But the expression on his face looks unhappy which implies that his marriage cannot be achieved because gays are not generally accepted in society and cannot get married legally. As Gober once talked about his wedding dress, “There’s no comparable costume for a man that symbolizes this moment…we’ve only created this outfit for women.” (as cited in Artspace). Gober in the photo positioned himself under typical female’s clothes to oppose discrimination of homosexuals and to further satirize the policy. According to Terranova (2010), in order to obsessive-compulsive reduce the discrimination not only need to show the ambiguity of gender identity but also needs to reveal the constitution of everyday gender practices to highlight everything between men and women, heterosexual and homosexual. The work of Untitled 1992-96 has indeed demonstrated different types of gender manners including both males and females to try to overstep the traditional gender boundary.
Robert Gober, Untitled, 1992-96
The other artwork using the strategy of role-playing is Supermother (2002) created by Elzbieta Jablonska. But this artwork is showing a woman artist role-playing a range of superheroes which are all showing strong masculinity. It focuses more on feminist issues and criticizes the role of gender. Series of self-portrait photographs are taken in different parts of Elzbieta Jablonska’s own house and she costumes as various superheroes sitting together with her son. She humorously plays the role of cartoon superheroes such as Spiderman, Superman and Batman under the mission of saving the world but the backgrounds of these series of works are all home parts. Jablonska wants to show all the housework she is doing everyday which makes her like a superhero, but the mission is ‘saving the home’. The role of a mother seems like her major role in her life which she doubts the role of a mother and critiques on traditional motherhood society.
Apart from criticizing the motherly domain of the housework, Jablonska also questions the roles of males and females and engages in disobeying stereotypes as well as clichés of femininity. As Judith (1990) butler argues in her critical text Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, true liberal feminism will attempt to deconstruct as well as free human-beings from constraints of biological gender, repressed connection between gender and heterosexual desires. She called this intentional overturn of gender duality as "gender trouble." In order to completely achieve true feminism, identities of two genders need to be minimized and the stereotypes based on biological gender distinction need to be broken up. Jablonska switches her gender image by role-playing and therefore ignores her biological gender and objects to conventional gender distinction of their roles.
Elzbieta Jablonska, Supermother, 2002
Artists’ exploration of gender roles
Through the ages, numerous artists are passionate about working on gender issues especially for investigating gender roles. However, different time has different emphasis as social values are constantly changing with the progress in human society. The strategy that Yasumasa Morimura used in Portrait (Futago) is recreating western master painting images in Olympia (1863) which has demonstrated an obvious transactional function of bodies of women in the 19th century. Yasumasa Morimura uses the famous painting from 1863 as his source of creation to deploy irony on sexual tools of females in traditional western societies and in the meantime critique similar concepts that still exist in the 1980s. The artist as a man but pretended to be a woman in the photograph also has played a role in blurring the gender boundaries between men and women. As Basow (1992) argues in his book Gender: Stereotypes and roles that there is rare evidence in the areas of both physiology or psychology to prove gender stereotypes as indicating distinctions between males and females. The existing differences are consequences of gender roles instead of the inborn physiological structure which means that gender distinction is based on social context rather than biological difference.
With the development of society, artists’ focus on gender gradually moves towards minority gender roles and roles representing feminism because historical gender issues have been mostly solved. Both Robert Gober and Elzbieta Jablonska has played a role of the opposite sex in their artworks to show difference of social identity and attitudes between different sexes as well as relations. They both have shown a tough situation of their own gender group by acting a different role and suggested their discontent with the common actuality in society. Although the above three artworks are using quiet different strategies – reinterpreting the old artwork or creating new figures, they all made an indistinct traditional role of different genders through artistic production. Artworks of these three artists all clearly presented their critique about ‘gender’ humorously and visually. A strategy like the work of Portrait (Futago) pays more attention to historical and conventional ideas that still exist which should be got rid of. While the strategy like Gober and Jablonska’s works focus more on bisexual issues of gender roles such as homosexuality and feminism that both fit the contemporary world. Artists all try to explore gender roles and vague the specific distinction between two genders so that to have influences on both policies and society.
Conclusion
In conclusion, three artworks of Portrait (Futago) (1988) by Yasumasa Morimura, Untitled (1992–96) by Robert Gober, and Supermother (2002) by Elzbieta Jablonska are all discussing gender roles. Although they are all self-portrait of different gender, Portrait (Futago) applied a slightly different creative strategy (recreating old work) from another two artworks (reversed gender role-playing). No matter what strategy an artwork is using, the ultimate goal of it is to have effects on the social values and to promote the development of the whole society. As Foucault (1990) famously argues in The history of sexuality that sex has constituted something desirable which we must know it, reveal its powers and laws, and demand its right to oppose the ruling. It indicates that the role of ‘sex’ is not only regarded as a biological distinction between males and females, it also plays a political role that refers to power existing in the society especially for the last few decades. Hird (2000) also notes that the difference between terms of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ is that the former is under biological assumption whereas the latter signifies relations of masculinity or femininity in terms of social practices. Artists in contemporary artworks concentrate more on ‘gender’ issues rather than ‘sex’ issues as before due to the improvement of female bodies’ cognition, they are not as the tool of sexual satisfaction but are set in a more civilized status. In light of the development of individuals’ gender identity, artworks in the future may focus more on minority gender roles and the gap between gender binary may become more narrow.
References
Artspace. Robert Gober Untitled, 1992-96. Retrieved from https://www.artspace.com/robert_gober/untitled.
Basow, S. A. (1992). Gender: Stereotypes and roles. Thomson Brooks/Cole Publishing Co.
Butler, J., & Trouble, G. (1990). Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Gender trouble, 3, 1-25.
Dvorsky, G., & Hughes, J. (2008). Postgenderism: Beyond the gender binary. Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, 20, 44-57.
Foucault, M. (1990). The history of sexuality: An introduction. Vintage.
Hird, M. J. (2000). Gender's nature: Intersexuality, transsexualism and the ‘sex’/’gender’binary. Feminist theory, 1(3), 347-364.
Michiko, K., & Fritsch, L. (2012). Morimura Yasumasa—Portrait (Futago). Art in Translation, 4(4), 499-512.
Terranova, C. N. (2010). Machismo, Castration, Homophobia: A Progressive Politics of Masculinity in the Work of Gober, Barney and McCarthy. Thresholds, 20-29.