What's Wrong with Images of Women? -- Griselda Pollock

Important point taken in the historical use of images linked to sexuality. These then are acting as there own signifiers. Thus using the reversal techniques will only point to the discrepancy of gender and the selling of body/products but not speak equally of the significance and connotation of the posture, clothing etc... Although I now see this is also what others were interested in referring to in their statements. I saw it as an overview no? And not an absolute... Discuss further in class.. Perhaps unrelated but another form of reversal and context of that technique is found in a Diesel ad campaign I saw in Italy, circa 2001. They produced an entire “magazine” which positioned the idea of Europe as if it were Africa and Africa was Europe. Describing the poor orphans of Scandinavia, photo of blonde blue-eyed children, who need just a dollar a day for support. As well as photo spreads of nightlife activity in Africa emphasizing the wealth and extravagance of the partygoers. Again, the context of this technique using the reversal was being used as an ad campaign

I was also troubled by Pollock's pronouncement of the "impossibility of effective reversal." The statement would seem more nearly true if it was first established that a "reversal" was defined strictly as some gesture towards the complete polarization of all of the many aspects of an image, rather than the way it should be defined: as a gesture toward the polarization of any (maybe even just one) of the many aspects of an image.

In the case of the Victorian print of the nude woman holding the tray of apples, it seems to me that the "failure" of the reversal print is not rooted in the fact that it "reversed" things, but in the fact that it reversed too many things. The original Victorian print may be a signifier, but it is a signifier made up of a number of other signifiers (the woman, apples, the pose, her "sickly smile," etc.). I agree with Susy's assertion that things might be different if the tone of the reversal image were "more embodiment" than "mockery"--instead of attempting to polarize so many of the elements of the original print (resulting in: the man, bananas, his wacky pose, his silly smile, etc.), the second image could have simply attempted to faithfully replicate everything except for the gender of the figure. Wouldn't this tactic create a telling image that didn't reek so much of the counteridentification that can just serve to "consolidate the potency of the signification rather than actually to rupture it"?

I am sure you are familiar with this list. However, with all of its indisputable authority and distniction from the realm of "fairy tale and self-fulfilling prophecy," it begs to be seen yet again with Nochlin's article. Click Here. Ms. Sherman has been slipping down the list since 2001; but post-modern photography has never posed much of a threat to cubism and pop-art. But do notice how drawing, painting, installation and the various manifestations of conceptual art duke it out for third place in our new millenium! I find it a bit of brainless fun to play with the statistics on here. For example, change SORT BY to Ranking Difference from Previous Year and GUESS WHO POPS UP? Marina Abramovic. You Go Girl! Who should I talk to about getting this set up for ALL UCSD grads, alumni and faculty? The various criteria we could apply to this is as diverse as the WACK show. Let's get on it!

Though I'd rather read here instead of write (given the historical precedence and presence of the white male's dominance), I feel forced to enter into the fray here because you all are so completely, so utterly, so hopelessly wro... Oops, I did it again. Wrong diatribe. Sorry... Perhaps like others, I too reacted to Pollock's claim of the "impossibility of effective reversal" and to the impossibility of separating signifier from signified when it comes to images of women (=woman as image). Is it that Pollock overlooks examples that might challenge her open and shut case? Certainly things have changed since, or have they? Or is it that I automatically recoil at the word impossibility, simply unable to accept no? Or is it that Pollock suggests elsewhere in her article that there are "difficulties" involved in reversing (p. 134), effectively hinting of an opening, a possibility, and not an impossibility? She also states (p. 133) that it's impossible to challenge "existing imagery without an adequate theory of ideology and representation." So is this all that's missing, adequate theory? Doubtful... I'm a bit taken aback by Pollock's absolutist pronouncement that Nochlin's juxtaposition of Achtez des Pommes with an image of a naked man carrying a tray full of bananas is a "failure." And that Paula Modersohn Becker's Self-Portrait is also a "failure." Granted, that these may not be such a rebuke to Nochlin's and Becker's attempts as they are a statement of the structural obstacles to 'success.' Regardless, it seemed on the harsh side and hardly representative of an alternative feminist language... I can't help to be left with a lingering depression about how little has changed. Take a look at all the plastic surgery ads in the SD Reader (an easy target, I know) and the like -- wide scale evidence that women are trying harder than ever to be objects, to be defined as and by their bodies, to take in stride the notion of "woman-as-image", but now convinced (through the most effective sleight of hand) that this time they're in control, freely able to freely choose their own signified... Among many other topics, I think Pollock addresses something very important, something that should give us all pause -- namely the notion that effective subversion is rare, hard and fleeting at best. Most acts of rebellious subversion, of counter-culture, are adeptly converted into over-the-counter culture by all those sophisticated marketers just waiting for (or increasingly even jump starting) the next "subversive" trend to use and re-appropriate. Though I would love to be proved wrong. Perhaps the importance of Pollock's term "effective" gets ignored with the emphasis on the 'impossible'?.... I'm straying a bit here, but all of this makes me further question the effectiveness of lone artists. If change is what is desired then might greater good be achieved through other approaches and working methods -- eg., as artists in partnership with non-profits already located in the trenches for the long haul, or in long-term collaboration with communities? Or in a different career field altogether -- as community activists? Steven

When: May 20, Sunday at 2pm.... Where: Pacific Design Center, Silverscreen Theatre.... What: Looking at the legacies and potentials of feminism in relation to WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution. Advance tickets are required, no refunds. You can buy them online. They are $20 for non-members...however, if you come about 15-20 minutes late, the box office closes and you can just sneak in...I did it for the Linda Nochlin talk (yes, you missed Linda Nochlin, she was AWESOME).