this brings the same kind of questions i posted about earlier: which is which?
Sylvia Plath
Sunday, November 6, 2011
ORLAN
in response to the below post, i thought i'd mention Sant-Orlan. certainly one of the most incredible performance artists ever. basically her art is getting plastic surgery so she looks like the 'ideal woman'. some people say that she is anti-feminist, some people say she's the perfect feminist for exposing the construction of beauty.
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ReplyDelete“Which is which?” becomes a question flooded by subjectivity for me. Similar to Peyton’s post, theoretically, Saint-Orlan seems like a radical solution to what the ideal woman is; however, I am not sure whether one can judge whether this series of plastic surgeries is truly feminist or not. I say this because when I first read Winn’s post and read through the links I was irresolute on which side I was on. This indecisiveness comes from the message I got from Saint-Orlan on Wikipedia, which states:
ReplyDelete“The Reincarnation of Saint-Orlan, a new project that started in 1990, involves a series of plastic surgeries through which the artist transformed herself into elements from famous paintings and sculptures of women. As a part of her 'Carnal Art' manifesto, these works were filmed and broadcast in institutions throughout the world, such as the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Sandra Gehring Gallery in New York. Orlan's goal in these surgeries is to acquire the ideal of female beauty as depicted by male artists. When the surgeries are complete, she will have the chin of Botticelli’s Venus, the nose of Jean-Léon Gérôme's Psyche, the lips of François Boucher’s Europa, the eyes of Diana (as depicted in a sixteenth-century French School of Fontainebleu painting), and the forehead of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Orlan picked these characters “not for the canons of beauty they represent… but rather on account of the stories associated with them."Orlan chose Diana, because she is inferior to the gods and men, but is leader of the goddesses and women;Mona Lisa, because of the standard of beauty, or anti-beautythat she represents; Psyche, because of the fragility and vulnerability within her soul; Venus, for carnal beauty; and Europa, for her adventurous outlook on the future.”
Okay, so Saint-Orlan certainly questions the “self” through her plastic surgeries. In any society, there is an ideal beauty. Our current culture’s ideal may be different from the artists that Saint-Orlan decided to incorporate on her body. These differences are not important to me—what is truly intriguing is the “construct” of beauty itself. Whether or not we receive surgeries, most women AND men in society try to follow and attain the current and most available construct of beauty through material items and social fads. Saint-Orlan takes this attainment a step further by actually physically attaining the constructed qualities. Saint-Orlan claims to be feminist because she embraces plastic surgery and masculinities. I find this to be completely “un-empowering” because my idea of feminism involves a certain rejection to these cultural ideals—to be able to work outside of them or within them to destroy them like Notley, Hejinian, and Robertson. At first glance, Saint-Orlan seems to work within the ideal, but I question her true intentions. What is this plastic surgery doing to empower women? Plastic surgery seems to send the message that everyone should try to achieve the centralized physical construct of beauty versus embracing a natural self. Therefore, it seems like she empowers masculinity in a negative sense—women must change themselves for culture, which is constructed by men. So, how is this embrace supposed to make anything better for women? Does she destroy any system from “within?”
Sara, what you said is exactly how I felt looking through all the links Winn posted for us. Though I'm new to her work and obviously know very little about the extent to which it runs, I can't help but think that she's missing a step in her work that would make it feminist by my own definition. She first brings attention to the fact that traditionally women are only idolized because of their bodies....and then what? Now that the attention is, again, on the body of the woman, I would expect some other step in which this notion of power for women becomes disconnected from the body. In a way I suppose that she is proving the futility of giving power to women simply because of the body because the body is something that can be 'artificially produced' via plastic surgery...but still I don't find that very empowering. I hope i'm not enormously missing the point here....
ReplyDeleteWow, well at the very least, Orlan has an undeniable dedication to her craft. Whether I think this is a great move for feminism? I’m not sure either. I would definitely agree with you guys that there seems to be something missing in that respect. Upon reading the first few descriptions I felt that undergoing plastic surgery on herself and the fact that she permanently changed her own physical body for a piece of art to portray “beauty”, at first sounded like she could just be suffering from a serious self-esteem issue. But then, when I read that none of these procedures were actually cosmetic (no facelifts or liposuction), she actually had cheek implants inserted into her temples, I completely changed my perspective and there is no doubt that she is making a profound statement about society.
ReplyDeleteThis quote of hers was very interesting (and references of Lacan emerges again) "I can observe my own body cut open, without suffering!... I see myself all the way down to my entrails; a new mirror stage. "I can see to the heart of my lover; his splendid design has nothing to do with sickly sentimentalities…” (Orlan from Carnal Art Manifesto)
She is definitely looking at how subjective beauty even as the standards are constantly changing overtime –by walking around with to lumps on her temples that are meant for “high cheek bones”, what’s the difference really? It’s still an artificial implant, but society has decided that these can enhance our beauty.
However, even her own explanations don’t sound necessarily entirely feminist to me, but I think that aspect comes when we look at who is doing the constructions? Which seems to always be men and, in her argument, that beauty is dictated by men for men.
Even as the article states “Carnal Art is feminist, that is necessary.” I think it’s only feminist in that it looks to deconstruct the dominant societal ideals assuming they have been constructed by patriarchy.
Yet, it goes on to say, “it is interested not only in cosmetic surgery, but also advanced techniques in medicine and biology that question the status of the body and the ethical questions posed by them.”
Thus, I think the only tie to feminism depends on who we regard as the “medical community” and the media. But she also seems to be speaking out on our society as a whole that I am having trouble placing in a feminist framework.
I think technology is really what plays a large part in her work. Now with medical science we have the options to strive for this sort of "perfection" that defies and hinders the very processes intended by nature. Ultimately, we can strive to become a wrinkleless, blemishless, fatless, sagless, ageless society made of plastic and silicone - and this is all encouraged by medical science.
I guess it could be argued from a feminist perspective that these great advances and encouragement has been dominated by men, but in my opinion it goes further looking into the superficiality (and artificiality) of capitalistic society (oh yeah, I guess men started that too?) that looks to promote these images in favor of economic success–if we think about where we get our perceptions of beauty now a days it arguably all comes from the media and the technology that has flooded us with these images of physical perfection and in that respect, I think Orlan portrays this very well.
the manifesto (from orlan's website):
ReplyDeleteOrlan,
"Carnal Art" Manifesto
(L'Art Charnel)
Definition:
Carnal Art is self-portraiture in the classical sense, but realised through the possibility of technology. It swings between defiguration and refiguration. Its inscription in the flesh is a function of our age. The body has become a "modified ready-made", no longer seen as the ideal it once represented ;the body is not anymore this ideal ready-made it was satisfaying to sign.
Distinction:
As distinct from "Body Art", Carnal Art does not conceive of pain as
redemptive or as a source of purification. Carnal Art is not interested in the plastic-surgery result, but in the process of surgery, the spectacle and discourse of the modified body which has become the place of a public debate.
Atheism:
Carnal Art does not inherit the Christian Tradition, it resists it! Carnal Art illuminates the Christian denial of body-pleasure and exposes its weakness in the face of scientific discovery. Carnal Art repudiates the tradition of suffering and martyrdom, replacing rather than removing, enhancing rather than diminishing - Carnal Art is not self-mutilation.
Carnal Art transforms the body into language, reversing the biblical idea of the word made flesh; the flesh is made word. Only the voice of Orlan remains unchanged. The artist works on representation.
Carnal Art finds the acceptance of the agony of childbirth to be anachronistic and ridiculous. Like Artaud, it rejects the mercy of God -Henceforth we shall have epidurals, local anaesthetics and multiple analgesics ! (Hurray for the morphine !) Vive la morphine ! (down with the pain !) A bas la douleur !
Perception:
I can observe my own body cut open without suffering !....I can see myself all the way down to my viscera, a new stage of gaze. "I can see to the heart of my lover and it's splendid design has nothing to do with symbolics mannered usually drawn.
- Darling, I love your spleen, I love your liver, I adore your pancreas and the line of your femur excites me.
Freedom:
Carnal Art asserts the individual independence of the artist. In that sense it resists givens and dictats. This is why it has engaged the social, the media, (where it disrupts received ideas and cause scandal), and will even reached as far as the judiciary (to change the Orlan's name).
Clarification:
Carnal Art is not against aesthetic surgery, but against the standards that pervade it, particularly, in relation to the female body, but also to the male body. Carnal Art must be feminist, it is necessary. Carnal Art is not only engages in aesthetic surgery, but also in developments in medicine and biology questioning the status of the body and posing ethical problems.
Style:
Carnal Art loves parody and the baroque, the grotesque and the extreme.
Carnal Art opposes the conventions that exercise constraint on the human body and the work of art.
Carnal Art is anti-formalist and anti-conformist.