This quarter, thus far.

This quarter will be one of massive production and reading. My proposal is written, accepted and turned in and now the focus has turned to the work. I'm taking two classes to support my research, Feminist Theory and American Women from 1865-Today. Both are extremely engaging. I'll be posting writings and ideas I gather from both classes, as well as updating my blog with work in progress videos.

Exhibit one: The first topic we tackled in Feminist Theory was perhaps that most controversial. What does the word Feminist currently mean and what are it's social implications.

Here is what I wrote as a response to the readings.


The three readings all call into question this illusive and diverse word “feminism;” what it is, who participates within it, whose voices launch and clarify ideas, what the people look like, physically I mean and who it doesn’t look like, and last but never least, what the political agenda is. In essence, who are feminists and what are fighting for?

¬It seems like with every hot topic, we begin by grappling with the definition of the word, for shouldn’t this lead us to some sort of clarity on the direction and intention of the movement? But as the article “Lift and Separate” by Ariel Levy states, politics and feminism have somehow become distanced from each other, leaving a wicked shell that people shy away from. People say “we aren’t feminists” because the word seems, now more then ever, to attach itself to a look and an attitude rather then to politics and activism.

In the seventies, women were vocal. They were active. They rallied. They let their hair grow long on all areas of their body. They went “au natural.” In the eighties working outside the home out of desire instead of necessity became the badge of free women, right along with shoulder pads and by the nineties, women could “have it all” including a healthy sex life. Now, women are running for president; one claiming to be “traditional” and the other claiming a hard façade that would get the job done. Who was more of a feminist? Well, obviously that depends on your definition and your politics.

So has feminism become something like a religion? A doctrine that people are free to pick and choose from, simultaneously denounce and subscribe to? Something to dress up for? Something to talk about in hushed tones, not appropriate for formal dinners parties because no one believes the same thing anyway? Is feminism something that we all believe exists on some level but we aren’t so sure how we fit into it? Is it necessary to say it loud and proud if the zealots are out there doing all the shouting for us? How do we negotiate something that we don’t fully understand? And how do we participate in it while not believing everything the movement has to offer?

Hopscotch Sketches

Hopscotch Sketch from Whitney Warne on Vimeo.

Hopscotch Sketch from Whitney Warne on Vimeo.

Hopscotch: A game of awkward mobility. A game of singular ambition and choices to be made. A maze the only goes forward, unless you get stuck on the sides. An uncomfortable jump between spaces. A negotiation of the next move to be made.

These are video sketches for an evolving idea. My appearance in the video is for stand-in purposes only. I am not costumed or groomed, in fact, I'm straight out of bed on a Sunday morning.

Things that are working for me: The awkwardness of the movement. The grid-like space in a suburban setting. Still working with it, complicating the narrative a bit.

Chalk and Wanting

I'm reaching a ways back now, to the beginning of the school year. This is one of the first things I did when I arrived in Rochester this fall. My work is still focused on expectations of the modern female and the struggling between full-fulling those expectations, or turning away from them. Their is still a sense of complacency in this image. I've written the statement in chalk, which washes away at the first sign of weather. The idea of the thank you note, or being grateful, of doing what your mother trained you to do, is very present in this image. For better or for worse, we are trained to be something/someone. Behaviors become ingrained. And while we may consciously turn away from that person or puppet, instincts and agency are often at war.

Jen Denike

Thanks to Graham Walzer for this artist reference and finally inspiring me to get back to blogging. This photograph is a document of an infinite pirouette, performed by a LA ballerina and directed by the artist.The idea of turning in an infinite circle, perfect and flawless but untouchable, was something I played with last year in my tutu stop-motion video (never fully realized).

Press Release about this piece.
The gallery the represent both her and Kate Gilmore.

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

The creators of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men might have had good intentions (John Krasinski aka Jim from The Office could never have bad intentions, unless it's toward dear Dwight) but the final and resounding taste of this film was overwhelmingly sour, like that experimental spice mix on your chicken that gave you horrible indigestion for days afterwards. Not. Pleasant.

While the running dialogue of the two young men (the British accent was a high point for me) does something to highlight the questions facing modern women and men's relationship with women, the rest of the unintelligible plot does nothing to actually examine real life consequences of these questions. Unless you count proposing that rape has positive consequences, such realizing you are a "real thing." This seems like an egregious statement for even the most "glass half full" rapist or bro-man trying to pick an "easy" girl up in bar.

I am not in a position to put down anyone's brand or belief of feminism, but it is my opinion that this film has nothing to do with that topic. In fact, the only remotely feminist character in the book barely said a word. Instead she sat piously back, judging the opinions of the men around her, wimpering like a kicked puppy. Her "research" to find out how gender equality has affected men is valid and reminds me of questions I've been dealing with as of late, but her follow through is not genuine. Feminism has affected men in other arenas outside the bedroom, all of which were ignored by her line of questioning. In fact, in the interviewer's intimate relationship, she appears happy only when she's in bed with her former lover, who cheated on her, or maybe didn't. This small detail is lost in Krasinski's sappy, true to TV character dialogue. So I think it's easy and logical to deduce that this movie once again devalues and sexualizes women from a man's perspective. Making it no more progressive that the "cutting edge" ads developed by the fictional but all to real creative directors of Mad Men.

This movie has obviously gotten under my skin. My next step is to read the book written by David Foster Wallace, before I dismiss him as completely as I've dismissed this movie.

What did you think? I need perspective?

Stills from the Jump Rope Video

Working Artist Statement

This work is about the performance of “The Good Girl.” It talks about how she is fabricated, how she operates, how she presents herself, who she’s trying to impress, and the exhaustion of the falsified experience.

“The Good Girl” is not a specific person or set of actions, for it shows up differently in whoever is pulling the strings. For some, it could be a conservative way of dressing that supposedly keeps people from looking at the sexualized body beneath. For other’s it’s a fake smile, put on to keep people from asking the hard questions. It can take the form of perfectionism, with every duck neatly in row to escape an avalanche of critical reactions. Rather then rebelling, “The Good Girl” puts on a performance. Rather then giving up, she puts on more layers.

Nancy Friday discusses the formation of The Good Girl at length in her book The Power of Beauty.

“I believe we all, men and women, give up far more the necessary to fit the ridged standards of adolescence. The biggest mistake I’ve made in life, the roads not taken and opportunities not seized, I am sure, today, might have been avoided if only I’d been able to take into adolescence the girl I’d been prior to it. Reining her in, forcing her to obey the restricting rules by which girls had to live made me acutely self-conscious, overly cautious, unsure of myself, second-guessing everything for the rest of my life. And angry, don’t leave out anger at abandoning myself, teeth-grinding anger that I dutifully swallowed and ‘forgot.’”


In my work, the protagonist takes on the forms of the ballerina and the princess, both of whom are a repository for cultural stigmas on womanhood, filled with expectations of perfectionism, beauty, meekness and grace. Inherent in their job description is a necessity to keep their audience at bay while simultaneously creating a longing for their status and beauty.

I embody both of these characters in order to express my need to be one of them, identifying with the artifice that creates a wide gate around them. In reality, my stage becomes the hallway and the kitchen, the shopping mall and the restaurant. My act is a reveal that shows nothing more than what other people need me to be. The finale shows the princess in a pink dress, breathing heavily, exhausted and humanized, but ready to jump again tomorrow.

Untitled: The Tutu Piece

This is one of my video projections for walk through.

Untitled from Whitney Warne on Vimeo.

Claude Cahun: Don't Kiss Me

This photo, by 1920's Surrealist photographer Claude Cahun was running through the back of my mind as I made The People Pleaser. While Cahun worked most directly with gender ambiguity, show also presented feminine expectations in a new and confusing way. In the photograph above, Cahun tells us that we aren't allowed to kiss her because she's in training. In training for what? And who wanted to kiss her are the first questions that come to mind. I identify with the idea of keeping your audience at bay, while simultaneously teasing them with what could happen if they were only allowed. I also think that idea of training is essential to my work. I'm constantly exploring the ways female is conditioned and brought up through structured expectations of what it means to be "good" and feminine.

The People Pleaser

The People Pleaser from Whitney Warne on Vimeo.

Kate Gilmore

Kate Gilmore is somewhat of a Lone Ranger. At the present time she is working exclusively in video, creating single take films of her performances in front of the camera. In her videos we often see Gilmore climbing, breaking through, lifting or struggling against formidable barriers. As Gilmore struggles for resolution we realize that everything is happening authentically and nothing is predictable. Gilmore’s scenes are never rehearsed and her uncertainty and determination shows as she works to achieve her goal. The unrehearsed methodology mimics real life, talking about the obstacles that women face in the corporate and private world, where the outcome is never predictable.

We are made acutely aware of Gilmore’s femininity throughout her performances. She is always in a demure skirt or dress; wearing heels that often aid in kicking through the plaster walls she puts up. Her outfit is completed with bright colored lipstick and dainty black gloves. Although her femininity is not heightened to extreme measures, we are certain that we are watching the struggles of a female in society.

Her motifs, such as breaking through plaster walls and climbing up wooden planks on roller skates speak to insurmountable obstacles facing women in the workplace and society. The beauty of the work is Gilmore’s ability to approach the challenge without resentment, going head on to achieve the goal. And sometimes, but not all the time, she comes out a winner.

With Open Arms


In this video, made in 2005, Gilmore stands in front of the camera with her arms wide open. She grins at us with a forced, exaggerated smile and a flower in her hair while unseen enemies hurl tomatoes at her overdressed figured and star studded background.

The tomatoes look like they sting Gilmore’s skin as she stands ready and waiting for the attack and she often has to lower her arms and cover her face to wipe the remnants of the red flesh from her face.

The act is one of endurance. How much pain can she withstand, smiling and open armed before she starts yelling and screaming at the enemies behind the camera? Patience in the face of pain is the most prominent feature of this particular video. And it is so clearly a feminine patience. She stands in front of us with her dress stained red and smiles, waiting for it out so she can win.

Kelly Mark: I Really Should.

I love the statement "I really should." There's a moment in Sex and the City where Carrie says "why are we shoulding all over ourselves?" The should implies an entanglement with something we are not in control of. But here, Mark is taking control, talking about all of the proper things she should do but doesn't. She is not a lady. She is an individual, selfish at times. Brave and independent in others. I wish I could hear the whole piece.

In my sounds pieces (which I have yet to upload to the web) I am working with the statements "I wish I wanted to" and "I didn't."

But I don't play the power position in either of the pieces. In both of my works, what I wish for and against and what I didn't do are in control. What I didn't do says far more about me then what I did do and what I wish I wanted inevitably will be what I get, whether I wanted it our not. I am bent towards the system and away from myself.

http://www.kellymark.com/IRS_CD.html

The Disney Princess meets the modern woman.

But where is the middle?

This images are my first step towards talking about the princess and the real live fleshy, female body. At first I was taking out all the features of the Princess, replacing them with my own. but as my process evolved, I realized the growing duality in the expectation and obligations of the Princess. In my newer images, I am focusing on her interactions with her "subjects." She keeps her smile, but obtains my eyes. Her smile is her way of getting what she wants. My eyes are the reality of the situation.. being, the same things that liberate her also cage her in.

The Ballerina and Her TuTu

The search for herself. from Whitney Warne on Vimeo.

Ballerina Stop Motion: Bad Quality

Untitled from Whitney Warne on Vimeo.

i made this video at the beginning of the quarter. The quality is really low and the ideas are quite rudimentary, but it's the basis for what I've continued to work on this quarter.

Ballerina Production Stills

Is it possible that the things that give us power also keep us restrained? Does the use of feminine beauty to get ahead also create a world where beauty is commodified and turned against those who don't have high amounts of the desired good?

I'm employing the societal models of the ballerina and the princess to talk about the slightly outmoded, but still very present "feminine ideal."

As a society, we can say that we are post-postmodern, that beauty is no longer currency and that playing by the rules only gets you so far, but that is only half the story and a naive one at that. What if playing by the rules gets you exactly the attention you were looking for. What if playing by the rules of femininity is rewarding?

Characters like the ballerina and the princess play by the rules to get their stories to turn out perfectly. But while they are getting what they want, are they not also captives of their "good girl" disguise? This duality of captivity and reward based on beauty and good girl actions is what I'm am working to visually represent.

Playing at Perfection

Yves Klein: What a Man

Anthropometries of the Blue Period and Fire Paintings

A slew of feminist banter comes to mind while watching this piece. It is an amazing example of the male gaze and the males artistic control and cultural control over women. I often wonder what sort of woman would allow herself to be smeared with paint and then directed as to where to put her body. But it is hard to deduce seeing the time period and socially accepted representations of women in art.

I'm thinking about this type of action painting in relation to the childhood action of finger painting, where the act is taken into the hands of someone naive and unknowing... sort of like the women in Klein's works. What would a grow woman with finger paints do now? how would she pint herself? How much would she recall of her childhood freedom to draw outside of the lines?

Anna Gaskell and the Theatrics of Girlhood

Anna Gaskell and the Theatrics of Girlhood: Where Fantasy and Fright Meet.

Anna Gaskell’s work is beautiful by any aesthetic standard. Moving light, lovely little ladies and fairy tale forest scenes comprise the majority of her carefully constructed scenes. Fashion informs her shooting style and her subjects are definitely models torn from the pages of Teen Vogue. The women wear fetishized garments to carefully construct a world we all recognize from our now distant childhood –– her images are the making of a fairytale.

But the work turns us around. The faces aren’t happy. The poses aren’t serene. Everything is set up for perfection, but the moment doesn’t strike and the mood is left in limbo, creating an alternative fairy tale where the girls show their teeth, their slightly deranged eyes and their softly violent intimacy.

While Gaskell’s images might not be the perfect version of what a little girl should be, these slightly off kilter representations might be just what every little girl needs to look up to. Nancy Friday in her book The Power of Beauty writes,

"Still close to purity of emotion, children recognize in their bones exactly what the wretched stepsisters feel toward the more beautiful Cinderella, having felt the same murderous cruelty that very day toward their own bother or sister, whose golden curls, once again, won the last cookie on the plate..... Fairy tales divert children from these overly harsh accusations by giving them events and characters who represent and play out everything the child is feeling; the child no longer has to internalize the bad feelings, turn them against himself." pg 95

So perhaps Gaskell is trying to relieve us of the pressure of a perfect childhood or consequently, a perfect adulthood. Perhaps by showing us the uglier side of these beautiful little girls she is say, ‘All is not right. Everyone is not happy. But perhaps we don’t need to be.’O

On a more personal note: I enjoy Gaskell's work in relation to my own themes. I too am exploring the ways that childhood identity forms our adulthood mindset. I enjoy Gaskell's use of the unsettling, awkward and at times, violent moments that come through in the child's play and images. But throughout this their remains an undercurrent of perfection. The models are perfect looking and the images are highly aesthetisized in the way of fashion, again alluding to this higher beauty and power that stands out in images of glamour and fairy tale.

Eleanor Antin and her alter ego.

A few things I'm looking at in relation to my ballerina piece....which is turning into a video at some point.

Art 21.

Here is the link to the Art:21 on Antin. I love her comments about walking on tiny stilts (point shoes) and how grabbing a woman's crotch and lifting her up can be called art.

Antin speaks up.

I found this to be an interesting interaction between the museum archive and Antin. I also enjoy the back story to her ballerina series.

I am currently reading "Being Antinovia," Antin's journal during the three weeks in the Seventies she spent in New York, performing full time as the black ballerina Eleanora Antinovia. The memoir is funny an engaging, filled with self absorbed details from a women who thought of little else but how other's perceived her. In her writings she discusses her paranioa over people being racist or discovering she was "playing black" through her makeup. She also takes about her need to be scene, and that as a black women, she was often not served in restaurant or waited on by doormen.

although Antin plays with the idea of being a black women, the entire personae would be about race if not for the part where she was also performing as a ballerina during this time, putting on nightly shows and wandering around the city in fabulously glamorous garb. In Antin's mind, the ballerina gave her free entrance into people's hearts. Performing as a culturally treasured female icon, she hoped to receive the same attention in everyday life. The vast difference between what she expected and what she got is something that I am exploring in my work as well. For while I put on the costume of the ballerina and the princess, I know full well that I can never be the characters I assume.

But I can be a character. The key to being a princess or a ballerina is to taking their invisible, innate qualities and applying them to yourself. Then, people don't know what they're looking at, but they know they like it. By manipulating the cultural standards of femininity, and using them to your benefit you turn the tables, even if somewhat naively. This is something I am interested in exploring in my work.

The Power of Beauty by Nancy Friday

The following are quotes I'm considering in relation to my work.

"I cannot imagine a better battleground on which to examine our independance than the subject of this book –– looks, beauty, dress, the way we present our selves to others' eyes and see ourselves in all relfecting surfaces. Fashion appropriately spins like a top today, throwing away one look after another, bringing to mind the obsessed heroine of The Red Shoes, destined to dance her life away whenever she dons the slippers, which to me symbolize denial.

Women, men, none of us will ever understand or change our attitude about the way we look without going back to the source, she whose eye was our most critical mirror. She, along with father and siblings, created the primal stage on which we were cast in a role we continue to play or deny." pg 85


"Still close to purity of emotion, children recognize in their bones exactly what the wretched stepsisters feel toward the more beautiful Cinderella, having felt the same murderous cruelty that very day toward their own bother or sister, whose golden curls, once again, won the last cookie on the plate..... Fairy tales divert children from these overly harsh accusations by giving them events and characters who represent and play out everything the child is feeling; the child no longer has to internalize the bad feelings, turn them against himself." pg 95

" When children associate goodness with beauty, they simultaneously rank themselves, with their imperfect looks, as mean, bad, the worst, which becomes their secret selves, the blackness they will grow up to try to hide. Those of us who were the plainer ones often try to conceal this "bad character" with pretty finery, an exaggerated effort to please, behind which lurks the suspicion that when the who doesn't ring or the invitation doesn't arrive, the world has seen through our lovely exterior to the blackness within." pg 97

Performing Perfection

Hello all,

With this new piece I'm trying to examine the intersection between perfection and real life. The ballerina has long been seen as a symbol of feminine beauty, strength and grace. Often depicted at a whispy speck of a human, her body has been embraced by the modeling industry and standards for beauty at large. By embodying the ballerina, albeit the imperfect one, I am both producer and performer of my actions and girlish fantasies. I am taking up this costume/facade of perfection –– this goal that is attainable to so few and performing my way through it, in an effort to show the performance of everyday life, in the everyday person.

My work is becoming increainsgly about performing this perfection –– about taking signifiers of embraced since girlhood and reconciling them as a young adult. Also, showing what happens when I "real" person takes up these roles. What struggles do they have? How do they fit into the costume? How do they perform the actions they've witnessed so many time? How can I put humanity back into these ridged constraints of beauty and perfection?

The end product will be a stop animation film installed as some sort of projection...still to be worked out. That's all for now.

Marina Abamovic at the MOMA

I was transfixed by Marina Abramovic. Yugoslavian performance artists who emerged in the 70's as a powerful force for women's art, has been sitting at the MOMA n the same position for over a week now, staring at whomever sits across the table from her. She is scheduled to sit in the museum for the entirety of her show. I approached the performance from behind, seeing Marina from the back as a beautiful fleshy sculpture, and then came around to see her calm but attuned to her subject. The women sitting across from her at the present time was in her early forties, also a beautiful woman with lovely long grey hair. I circled the two performers several times moving to find the "best" angle on the action.

Marina's eyes opened and closed frequently, but they never wavered from her subject. She sat with her attention undivided, in spite of the camera flashes and a chaos around her. I couldn't help but admire the amazing mental strength it must have taken to remain so controlled... but then again, she has been practicing for this performance her whole career.

As I sat and watch the two women (the grey hair lady sat so long that the line behind her started to whisper and wonder if she'd ever leave) thinking about what was going on in each of their respective minds. As I built the narrative and dialogue up in my head I realized the genius of the silent exercise. These were my thoughts... not either of the subjects presented before me. There is no way for me to presume what they may or may not be thinking. I am left to consider my judgments as only my own. And who knows, Marina may only be thinking about how badly she has to pee.

In relationship to my work: I absorb Abramovic's use of struggle and violence towards oneself to discover oneself. I think there is an immense mental strength within her and a reflective capacity that I hope to someday achieve. I love the openness of her pieces, how she let's you fall in and out of them, taking what you will. But at the same time, she is very confrontational, forcing you to look at the horrors of self-inflicted tortures presented. I admire her gull, consistency and her commitment to performance as the most personal way of making art real for and with the audience.