Exhibitions in London

Today I visited some galleries in London as additional research in order to gain a wider perspective on the topic of feminism. I went to the Tate Britain, Tate Modern and the Spirit of Womanhood exhibition at the gallery@OXO.

In the Tate Britain I saw the 'Women and Work' Artist's Room, which showed the results of Margaret Harrsion's, Kay Hunt's and Mary Kelly's study of the working conditions of women in a metal box factory in Bermondsey.

There was no camera motion in the film, which emphasised the actions carried out by the women/men. I found the table next to the two screens a lot more interesting though, since I could make sense of the titles of the jobs a lot easier than of the actions shown on the film, since I'd never seen them before. 

The next piece was a series of framed photographs of hands performing a job, and below written the name of the job and how many women and men had this job. Below are some photographs I found striking, because of the nature of the job, or the inequality in the numbers of men and women who had this job. 

I noticed the rhetoric used in this piece - the number of women working is recorded in neutral numbers, but the numbers of men is recorded in either numbers, or simply "NO MEN", when they could have also used "0 MEN". The phrase "NO MEN" has a slightly aggressive undertone, and shows that this is no neutral piece of work, as well as clearly showing it's intention. The use of the word "NO" also emphasises the fact that no men had a particular job, a lot more than the phrase "0 MEN" would have emphasised the same fact.

The next piece was a text-based one, giving the reader information on the day to day routine of working women. This piece struck me, as it made me realise how much time these women had to spend doing housework on top of their paid jobs, and how tightly structured their days were. I also noticed how most of them needed about an hour to get to work - where factories out of town? Did the women have to walk to the factory? Seeing these made me realise why women might not have been so keen to get a job, since it would have made their lives a lot more stressful. This piece also clearly showed that house work and looking after a family is a job on its own, and if equality is to be achieved, a couple that decides to have children also needs to equally split the time to take care of children and do the house work. 

The adjacent room displayed Sylvia Pankhurst's work. She did designs for the WSPU and portraits of female workers and women. Below is a pin by the WSPU that she designed, as well as the "angel of freedom" which was more commonly used. All of these designs show the WSPU's colours; purple, white and green, which symbolise dignity, purity and hope. I prefer the triangular design, mainly because it is genderless. It makes the feminist movement appeal to a wider group of people - people of either gender that are in favour of equality. It also shows all three virtues leading to a peak, the utopia, when equality is achieved. I don't quite see the same symbolism carried forward in the later design of a female angel blowing a trumpet. 

Apologies for the bad quality of the photos, these documents were displayed in a horizontal glass case which made it rather difficult to get decent photographs.

The next piece I wanted to see was Joshua Reynolds painting "The Age Of Innocence", but sadly I just missed it by a couple of days. Instead, I spent some time sketching, and looking at the rest of the BP Spotlight collection. 

(Roger Hilton, Oi Yoi Yoi, 1963, oil and charcoal on canvas)

This painting is visually very striking because of it's crude depiction of the female body. The breasts are amplified, and both arms and legs are extended and go off the canvas. The female body works as a negative space which separates the blocks of colour. When looking at the title, this piece gains more meaning, as the title "Oi Yoi Yoi" is a sound you would expect someone of the older generation makes when surprised, or excited. 

I also really liked Martin Creed's installation called "Work No. 227, The Lights Going On And Off". Every time the lights turned on or off, there was a loud thump, like a really slow heartbeat. The room had a very calming atmosphere, and the rhythmic sound was very relaxing. I don't think the sound was intentional, it was just the normal clicking of the lights being turned on and off. I took a short video my experience of the installation.

(The Three Dancers, Pablo Picasso, 1925, oil on canvas)

(Rachel Lowe, Letter to an Unknown Person no. 2, 1998)

(Rachel Lowe, Letter to an Unknown Person no. 2, 1998)

Rachel Lowe, Letter to an Unknown Person no. 2, 1998, Film, Super 8 mm, 1 min 5 secs

This piece of video art does not relate to the theme of my FMP, but I really liked the piece. The lines drawn onto the piece of glass trick the audience into thinking they are letters, and challenge the audience to try and read some of the words, when really the "writing" is unreadable. The background in the video had a sweeping motion, which suggests that the glass is a train window. If it were a train window, the graffiti would be an act of vandalism. Does the artist say that all graffiti are letters to someone else? Does she try to give graffiti more meaning?


Charlie Crxsh