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Entity documents the history and portrayal of women in art.

During your next trip to a major art museum or gallery, take a closer look at the placards on the wall next to those art pieces. What gender are the artists? What kind of paintings are they producing? Who is running the gallery or collecting the art for the museum?

These people are frequently rich donors who are sitting on the board of these museums and galleries. These museums heavily feature male artists, who are usually painting female nudes.

What will it take for the art world to recognize females for more than just their objectified bodies?

From ancient to modern art, the hypersexualization of a woman’s body has always been present. Our Paleolithic ancestors created various sculptures and figurines of women emphasizing the sexual parts of the body such as the breasts, stomachs and buttocks. The oversizing of these parts represents the male’s desire and hope.

In 1486, Sandra Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” portrayed an idealization of body image by painting long, luscious hair, supple skin and large breasts. This was a radical thing to do, since the Renaissance era focused on Christian themed art and nude women were rarely shown. This was the beginning of Western art’s continuation of female nudes.

Moving on to the early 20th century, Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted nude women doing domestic work, his pieces emphasizing a woman’s role in society as submissive and serving to men. Paul Gauguin exploited the bodies of Native Tahitian women by not only stereotyping them in his paintings, but also manipulating them to become his concubines and mistresses.

The list of male artists painting female nudes can continue for pages, but this was not the only issue for women. Aside from being exposed, criticized, and hypersexualized, female artists rarely received recognition for their own artwork.

During the time of abstract expressionists, Lee Krasner was producing powerful works. However, when she married Jackson Pollock, her work was undervalued. In an art review by The New York Times, author Ken Johnson said, “Fairly or not, Krasner has been known mainly for being Pollock’s wife. Her own painting was never memorable enough to secure her own niche in the Abstract Expressionist pantheon until forces of feminism began working to upgrade her reputation.” Krasner, along with many other women, became an artist who lacked credibility simply because of her gender.

Women eventually did stand up to this oppression and lack of representation. As time progressed, more and more women become bothered by this issue. They used the most compelling form of expression: art.

Yoko Ono was one such woman who used art to express herself. During one performance piece, she sat on a stage and invited the audience to approach her and cut away her clothing. Ono presented a situation in which the viewer was implicated with the potentially aggressive act of unveiling the female body, which we know has served historically as a ‘neutral’ and anonymous subject for art. She criticized the fact that the female body was objectified, but the way she presented her own body as an artist made a statement.

In 1985, a group of female artists were struck by an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art that included 165 artists but only 17 women. Calling themselves the Guerilla Girls, this group of female artists started producing posters, billboards, postcards, stickers, books and magazine projects that examined the discrimination in art, culture and politics.

Still at the forefront of the arts movement 30 years later, the Guerilla Girls sported gorilla masks to remain anonymous. One of their posters reads, “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met Museum? – Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female.” They are a group of females who want to bring awareness to the fact that it is the 21st century and women are still underrepresented in the art world.

Today the art world is still male-dominated. Even though you will see women making brilliant work, art still remains a predominantly masculine field. As women, we should no longer be objectified and act as the receiver of an active male gaze, rather history should be written to include our stories.

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