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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/sep/20/police-called-to-hay-on-wye-gallery-after-it-puts-painting-of-naked-woman-in-window

83 replies

RaspberryParade · 21/09/2024 07:04

Fgs! Drag acts can be as obscene as possible in front of children and tras get their knobs out on live tv, but godforbid a so obviously non sexualised barely representational painting of a naked woman be in a gallery.
And I thought Hay on Wye was full of Guardian arts luvvies and that Sheelah Nae Gigs would be right up their street.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/sep/20/police-called-to-hay-on-wye-gallery-after-it-puts-painting-of-naked-woman-in-window

Police called to Hay-on-Wye gallery over painting of naked woman in window

Curator Val Harris refuses to move work by Poppy Baynham after residents complain

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/sep/20/police-called-to-hay-on-wye-gallery-after-it-puts-painting-of-naked-woman-in-window

OP posts:
TheRavenSaid · 21/09/2024 10:22

DeanElderberry · 21/09/2024 09:10

They think it's a woman because the pubis is on display and they know the difference. Also the breasts are shown but she has no head or face (again unlike the sheela-na-gigs). Women's faces, heads, brains, thoughts, voices don't matter once their breasts and genitals are available.

It's a clever artwork and the painter is making interesting points, but a shop window on a street isn't the place for it imo.

It's not clever.

It's very poor quality and there for shocks. On another thread it's claimed the "artist" has got a comments book and that is what her study is really about.

I don't care, it's fucking awful

popeydokey · 21/09/2024 10:23

Many straight women for example; even ones who might live in Hay on Wye, work in situations where they see more vulvas in any given shift than that student has had hot dinners.

Exactly. The artist doesn't sound like the sharpest tool in the box.

Realduchymarmalade · 21/09/2024 10:26

I don't like it at all. Unnecessary, inappropriate, bad taste.. also bad art. For too long now too many talentless artists have been achiving success by creating controversy/sensations rather than having worked hard to hone a craft that actually results in beautiful works of art. Sick of it.

Pluvia · 21/09/2024 10:28

I live not far from Hay and while I can't say I know Val, who owns The Table and The Chair galleries, I've encountered her several times and bought paintings in the past, including a Tina Balmer in July. Most of the artists she exhibits are class: not necessarily my cup of tea but quality. I was there in early September for the Zen event: had fun making my own marks in a workshop. So seeing this is a disappointment. I mean, no one's going to mistake this for, say, Tracey Emin, whose talent and serious issues shine through her work. Sad.

Of course, the Daily Mail thought that Tracey's art is vulgar and crude and presages the end of civilisation, so whoever complained in Hay is probably a DM reader:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2796506/tracey-emin-s-vulgar-proves-art-luvvies-dragging-civilisation-backwards-quentin-letts-finds-artist-s-latest-exhibition-embarrassing-infuriating.html

If you scroll down the images there's a rather wonderful embroidery with TE standing in front of it that could be mistaken for a landscape at first glance.

QUENTIN LETTS finds Tracey Emin show both embarrassing and infuriating

Miss Emin is promoted as the face of modern art. By any true gauge of ability, she does not deserve it, writes QUENTIN LETTS as he reviews The Last Great Adventure is You at the White Cube in London.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2796506/tracey-emin-s-vulgar-proves-art-luvvies-dragging-civilisation-backwards-quentin-letts-finds-artist-s-latest-exhibition-embarrassing-infuriating.html

DeanElderberry · 21/09/2024 10:29

I was prepared to cut a third year student some slack wrt her artwork being thought provoking, but reading her nonsense about women never seeing vulvas and being scared of them has convinced she is very far from clever and not even thoughtful about her own work.

You're all right, I'm all wrong, it is childish and obvious, take it away. I'm amused that it was allegedly only chosen for display because it was the right size and proportions for the shape of the window.

InvisibleBuffy · 21/09/2024 10:32

LoobiJee · 21/09/2024 09:58

Well, what an empowering experience that lazy self-publicist has created for the primary school and secondary school girls being subjected to harassment from boys for whom scenes of extreme-sexual-violence-against-women-as-entertainment-for-boys-and-men is freely available via the phones in their pockets.

How marvellous for those girls that they can walk home from school and be reminded in a shop window that a naked woman with her legs open is just a common occurrence, no big deal, don’t be such a prude you “pearl clutcher” (to quote a current thread on her about the increase in rapes of 14 yo old girls).

Let’s all stroke our chins about how “interesting” and “thought provoking” this self-identifies-as-“art” publicity piece is.

Or not.

Perfectly put

Sepoctnov · 21/09/2024 10:33

It's a grotesque painting. Talentless crap.

WeneedSamVimesonthecase · 21/09/2024 10:33

I don’t have a problem with the art work, but I’m bemused by the artist’s statement that “most straight women haven’t seen a vulva.”

WTF does she think we keep in our pants, sweets??

SensibleSigma · 21/09/2024 10:36

The equivalent of a bloke would be bent over holding his butt cheeks open. Would that be ok I wonder?

I was amused by her London centric snobbery. Poor ignorant peasants in Hay, unable to appreciate ART when they are forced to see it.

It’s a farming area, hosting a massively successful book festival, not a backwater.

Sethera · 21/09/2024 10:40

Patronising. "Oh, those poor parochial straight women - can't they see I'm educating them? We should pity the complainants for not being intelligent enough to understand the meaning of my brilliant artwork"

AutumnCrow · 21/09/2024 10:49

That's a crime against art, is what that fucking is.

Slothtoes · 21/09/2024 10:49

Tracey Emin has so much intelligence and self awareness and quality of artistic skill and thought, and I particularly love her drawings. I think she’s the greatest living British artist by miles.

KittyGetSmall · 21/09/2024 10:50

It's horrible. No need for it to be in a window

I hate drag Queens too but this is in the same vein, why do we think it's OK to expose kids to this shit on the way to the shops??

RaspberryParade · 21/09/2024 17:24

Emptyingthenest · 21/09/2024 07:17

Her legs are spread wide open and it’s in a window that presumably kids and others walk past all day. Hay isn’t just Guardian reading adults. It’s hardly surprising some complained and I don’t see the link to the trans coverage on TV. Parbets can choose not to turn on the TV but can’t turn off a shop window. The police haven’t been able to act they are just monitoring the situation because people have complained. People complain when lewd stuff is on TV but it’s easier to get traction with complaints about a local art gallery window display.

Its a black triangle not lips n clits FGS!

OP posts:
DeanElderberry · 21/09/2024 17:32

Which is why the assertion that women would never have seen such a thing and would be afraid of it was so risible.

EasternStandard · 21/09/2024 17:34

AutumnCrow · 21/09/2024 10:49

That's a crime against art, is what that fucking is.

That might be the reason

RaspberryParade · 21/09/2024 17:37

The 1950s are well and kicking on Mumsnet. No problem seeing all sorts of incredibly sexualised pornified stuff on channel four, on strictly, on every reality tv show, or objectified nudes by creeps like Freud, but should a young woman do a jokey in your face modern day Sheelah Nae Gig with a Black triangle no less, then suddenly the comments are like a modern day temperance meeting.
Absolutely bizarre double standards.
Meanwhile male artists do confrontational crap on women all the time without comment.

Cant help feeling that at least some of the pursed lips is outrage that the artist is a young woman, and yes, a kind of internalised sexism and discomfort at a woman displaying our vulnerability in a blithe and carefree self owning manner.
It is SO CLEARLY not sexualising, its utterly bizarre that anyone think it is, its quite the opposite.
Its the one power move by women down through the centuries.
A long tradition that Elaine Miller made use of in Scottish Parliment and we all defended vehmently

To remind you a bloke exposed his actual dick on tv, and channel four are about to put on a show where virgins have sex on live tv.
There has been virtually no pushback.
The double standards are all over this and very much shines a light on residual programming.
And most of all its affectionate, quite the opposite of a male version.

Do you know I genuinely thought that you would all be pleased by a modern day Sheelah Nae Gig holding her own in that Bastion of Wokeness.

But we must keep women from being too feisty eh? Self moderation

OP posts:
DeanElderberry · 21/09/2024 17:42

it's nothing like a Sheela na gig

Sheelas always have heads and faces that look out at the observer

Sheelas do not wear fetishised boots, or any other clothing - they are naked

Sheelas do not have large round breasts - if breasts are shown they are flat and drooping, often with a defined ribcage

Sheelas do have open vulvas, sometimes also open anuses on display

so - whatever that headless splayed figure resembles, it is not a Sheela na gig.

Sethera · 21/09/2024 17:47

No problem seeing all sorts of incredibly sexualised pornified stuff on channel four, on strictly, on every reality tv show, or objectified nudes by creeps like Freud,

Well, you can choose what you watch on TV. This painting is in the window of a high street shop - agreed, you don't have to stand staring at it, but you can't unsee it either.

Not a fan of Freud either, but haven't seen any of his nudes on display in the high street. I imagine people would complain if that happened and the snobby oh, but it's Art responses would be even stronger because he's famous ...

InvisibleBuffy · 21/09/2024 17:55

Agreed that this is nothing like a Sheela and yes, I do object to the creeps on channel 4 and for exactly the same reason.
Utterly bemused by the idea that an image of a headless, faceless naked woman with her legs spread is somehow not sexualised.
And as someone pointed out upthread, it is the absolute last thing a teen girl needs to see as she walks home from school. Images of women she sees should make it clear that women are actual people and not just headless exposed vulvas.
This is exactly the same sexist shit as the other stuff you mentioned.

LoobiJee · 21/09/2024 18:01

“A long tradition that Elaine Miller made use of in Scottish Parliment and we all defended vehmently.”

Not a remotely relevant comparison.

Elaine Miller wasn’t naked apart from a pair of cowboy boots. She was fully clothed.

Nor was she in a shop window.

ReadWithScepticism · 21/09/2024 18:40

No problem seeing all sorts of incredibly sexualised pornified stuff on channel four, on strictly, on every reality tv show,

Who says we have no problem with this? Of course all those things are vile. That is why yet more of it is also pretty unappealing. It isn't as if the painting is remotely, even slightly good. It is just a daub replicating an incredibly boring pose much favoured by the male gaze, without adding anythingnew.

And btw, Freud may well have been a creep (I think he certainly was) but at least he could paint. You can see people in his reclining nudes, not just thrusting vulvas.

YesterdaysFuture · 21/09/2024 18:57

This is starting to get into a "sex work is work" attitude. Apparently the acceptance of a painting based around pornographic imagery will move women's rights forward, not that this goes to further the sexual objectification of women, and in a public place too!

This thread is about this painting, but apparently we're supposed to reference random TV shows otherwise we're 1950's pearl-clutchers.

And seriously Strictly? Are you honestly saying that on Strictly the female dancers take off all their clothes (barring their boots) and spread their legs for the audience to have a good look at?

RoyalCorgi · 21/09/2024 19:02

No problem seeing all sorts of incredibly sexualised pornified stuff on channel four, on strictly, on every reality tv show,

I think Raspberry hasn't grasped that Mumsnet isn't a single entity with one head, one brain and one opinion. That in fact, Mumsnet has nine million registered users, with a range of opinions on a wide variety of topics.

I do marvel at how someone could fail to grasp such a simple concept, but there you go. We really do have people turn up on here who couldn't find their arse with both hands.

BigBlueTeapot · 21/09/2024 20:03

I don't know about the painting but I do think the artist is a massive twat.

Patronising git.