Mirror Images: Women, Surrealism, and Self-Representation [Paperback]

Whitney Chadwick (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 10, 1998

During the 1930s and 1940s, women artists associated with the Surrealist movement produced a significant body of self-images that have no equivalent among the works of their male colleagues. While male artists exalted Woman's otherness in fetishized images, women artists explored their own subjective worlds. The self-images of Claude Cahun, Dorothea Tanning, Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo, Meret Oppenheim, Remedios Varo, Kay Sage, and others both internalize and challenge conventions for representing femininity, the female body, and female subjectivity. Many of the representational strategies employed by these pioneers continue to resonate in the work of contemporary women artists. The words "Surrealist" and "surrealism" appear frequently in discussions of such contemporary artists as Louise Bourgeois, Ana Mendieta, Cindy Sherman, Francesca Woodman, Kiki Smith, Dorothy Cross, Michiko Kon, and Paula Santiago.This book, which accompanies an exhibition organized by the MIT List Visual Arts Center, explores specific aspects of the relationship between historic and contemporary work in the context of Surrealism. The contributors reexamine art historical assumptions about gender, identity, and intergenerational legacies within modernist and postmodernist frameworks. Questions raised include: how did women in both groups draw from their experiences of gender and sexuality? What do contemporary artistic practices involving the use of body images owe to the earlier examples of both female and male Surrealists? What is the relationship between self-image and self- knowledge?Contributors : Dawn Ades, Whitney Chadwick, Salomon Grimberg, Katy Kline, Helaine Posner, Susan Rubin Suleiman, Dickran Tashjian.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Seven essays are published here, one contributed by Chadwick herself, a well-known specialist on women artists who were part of the surrealist movement. The resulting anthology, which serves as a catalog to an exhibition traveling from fall 1998 through early 1999, is a fairly comprehensive look at the self-portraiture of contemporary women using feminist critical theory. The essayists find strong links between modernist historical Surrealism and contemporary women artists while highlighting the strategies of "displacement, doubling, fragmentation, and fetishizing of the baby" that frequently appear in works by Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, Louise Bourgeois, Dorothy Cross, and Ana Mendieta, among others. Of widest interest are the essays on Marcel Duchamp/Rose Selavy, Claude Cahun, and Cindy Sherman and Frida Kahlo. Recommended.?Mary Hamel-Schwulst, Towson Univ., MD
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

" Mirror Images is a welcome successor to Whitney Chadwick"ssignificant work on the hitherto neglected history of women andsurrealism. An impressive list of contributors explores the byways,bringing this tragic, funny, and engrossing story up to recent times." Lucy Lippard , author of The Pink Glass Swan: Selected Essays on Feminist Art

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 207 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (April 10, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262531577
• ISBN-13: 978-0262531573
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,113,995 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #28 in Books > Arts & Photography > Schools, Periods & Styles > Surrealism

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent analysis of Women and Surrealism, May 30, 2001

By 

DS Loeb (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mirror Images: Women, Surrealism, and Self-Representation (Paperback)

Although the publication of "Women and Surrealism" by Whitney Chadwick in the 1980s brought about a larger appreciation of women involved in the movement, there is still a surprising shortage of material published about surrealist artists such as Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. "Mirror Images: Women, Surrealism, and Self Representation" offers a series of insightful essays on these and other artists' images and ideas of self. Most interestingly, many of the essays discuss the work of Surrealist "descendents," including Cindy Sherman and Louise Bourgeois. Overall, very well constructed and written, with essays by the leading scholars in this still under-appreciated area.