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A significant piece that has informed my practice is Let‘s Take Back Our Space: ‘Female‘ and ‘Male‘ Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures by the German feminist photographer Marianne Wex (2019) which I selected from the Maskulinitäten exhibition (Birkenstock et al, 2019). This artwork consists a series of black and white photographs of people who embody characteristics traditionally associated with those who identify as men, as well as that of those who identify as women, sitting down. In the photographs grouped in Part 1: Inventory (Figure 1), Wex portrays men taking up space sitting with their legs wide apart or “manspreading”, which is contrasted by the women who are sitting with their legs together. The use of body language portraying men as ‘stolid’ and taking up excessive space and women as ‘self-restrained’ (Demircan, 2012) by limiting the amount of space they take up could reflect Wex’s views of the patriarchal systems in which people and their genders are ‘pressured to be or become masculine or feminine through processes of socialization’ (p156, Macey, 2000) and how they behave and conform. This is juxtaposed by the body language of the women in the photographs in Part 2: Experimentation (Figure 2)  i.e. the women sit with their legs apart - traditionally a masculine position as opposed to having their legs tightly crossed - traditionally a feminine position. As a result, Wex appears to be critiquing and challenging the patriarchy by making gender stereotypes more ambiguous and reversing the patriarchal power balance.

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Wex’s photographs additionally connect to Feminist Theory, which is ‘the thesis that the relationship between the sexes is one of inequality or oppression’ (p122, Macey, 2000). This is because the artwork in Part 1: Inventory shows men being allowed by society to sit in a certain way that society will not allow women to sit, thus underlining the ‘oppression’ and ‘inequality’ between the sexes as stated by Macey. It is important to understand how relevant Feminist Theory is to Wex’s piece and my practice, specifically in my artwork Ce Rappel because the way in which Wex’s art is perceived and understood is an effective tool for provoking a discussion on how a patriarchal society criticises both queerness, as well as men and women who do not conform to society’s expectations and values. This discussion is furthered by the time scale of the project. Some of the photographs used in the 2019 exhibition were in fact taken by Wex in the 1970s, thereby provoking the question of whether there has actually been a change in gender equality, gender roles and gender stereotypes over the past fifty years. This therefore compliments and develops on my practice and perception on masculinity as multi-faceted, because Wex seems to imply that masculinity is so diverse that it should not be the defining factor in how someone behaves in their “vie quotidienne”.

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References

1. Birkenstock, E., Cotton, M. and Dietrich, N. 2019. Maskulinitäten [Exhibition]. 01 September -24 November. Kölnischer, Bonner and Düsseldorf: Kunstverein.

2. Demircan, S. 2012. Marianne Wex. Frieze. [Online]. 01 October, 150. Available from: https://www.frieze.com/article/marianne-wex [Accessed 29 Nov 2020].

3. Macey, D. 2000. Dictionary Critical Theory. London: The Penguin Group.

4. Wex, M. 2019. Let‘s Take Back Our Space: ‘Female‘ and ‘Male‘ Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures by Marianne Wex. [Collage of photographs, 118.0 x 156.0cm]. At: Kölnischer, Bonner and Düsseldorf: Kunstverein.

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