A conflict that concerns many contemporary women artists
becomes visible in Trockel's work. Basically, works by women almost always
provoke a dual read: as soon as they address the relationship between
women and the art establishment, they become the work's subject and
statement at one and the same time. Nobody would scrutinize a
self-portrait of
Max Beckmann's to see what it says about masculinity in general. On the
other hand, works by women artists are all too often examined in light of
what they say about the role of women in society. In other words: men are
easily accorded the right to individuality, while women artists are always
perceived as representatives of their sex.
Katharina Sieverding, Reproduction 1976
Deutsche Bank Collection
A number of contemporary
artists work counter to this questionable attitude. Those using
self-portrait today understand the degree of staging they're dealing with,
and that it's their own image alone that affords them flexibility in form
without having to take society's expectations into account. The most
famous example of this method is
Katharina Sieverding. Ever since the late sixties, her works have been
based on the photographs she takes of herself - often mere photo-booth
pictures of her face that are later followed by canvas-sized prints.
Sieverding, who was born in 1944 in Prague, has coined a look in which
image and statement converge: just as Warhol made the hundredfold
likenesses of Marilyn Monroe
or
Jackie Kennedy the motifs of his silkscreens, Sieverding varies her
outer appearance in minimal ways, thus forming the endless series of her
works. Throughout the process, the photographs achieve a high degree of
abstraction, while the artist's face often appears as nothing more than a
sketch of harsh contours emphasized by garish makeup. Carried to the point
of becoming a mask, the portrait loses it personal and private expression:
Sieverding becomes her own role model. Sometimes it's the
diva that dominates in the photographs, and sometimes it's the enigmatic
face of a sphinx that
peers out from beneath the surface, and sometimes, despite her femininity,
the face looks as distorted and artificial as a
drag queen's. Sieverding incorporates this continuous process of
metamorphosis: in 1974, for the series Transformer, she
superimposed photographs of herself with those of her partner
Klaus Mettig in such a way that androgynous portraits emerged from the
montage. The artist deconstructs her own image, and in doing so turns it
into art. Thus, Sieverding carefully guards over her own image, always
exercising precise control in objectifying the subjective component.
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Katharina Sieverding, ID/IV-V, 1992
Deutsche Bank Collection
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Although Cindy Sherman works with self-portrait as well,
her art progresses in a diametrically opposed direction. Whether it's in
the film stills of the seventies, the
splatter scenes, the
clown series, or in the portraits of women fashioned after former
centuries: Sherman is always the person hiding beneath the masquerade. Yet
in the beginning it was an entirely practical consideration that led her
to pose for her own work, as Sherman once explained in an interview: "As a
model, I'm willing to do anything I demand of myself." Once again, the
woman artist finds herself in a dual role as producer and object at the
same time. Indeed, the New York-based artist photographer uses her face
and body to transform into an alien figure. Yet here too, the depiction of
the other is an attempt to visually escape the generalized view of the
phenomenon of woman. In her various female roles, Sherman shows just how
much she can turn herself into fiction - and into a phantom. In this
sense, the art critic Isabell Graw remarks that Sherman herself has become
the medium of her own appropriation: "On the one hand, she takes the risk
lurking in every performance: that of physically exposing herself and
becoming vulnerable. On the other hand, Sherman chooses the medium of
theatrical dress and the format of photographic reproduction to establish
distance to her own person."
Cindy Sherman: Untitled, from the series "For Joseph Beuys", 1986
Deutsche Bank Collection
At its core, it
would seem that Graw's observation applies to all women artists working
with self-portrait. The medium offers a means to expose, via staging, the
construct of the underlying gender role. One could call it the "Madonna
Factor," in that the pop star has been adopting rapidly changing images
from the very beginning and replacing them on a steady basis. As a woman,
Madonna is open to a multitude of projections, while the viewer has
trouble finding out what her position really is regarding this spectacle
of narcissism and feminine myths. Evidently, Madonna also took a liking to
Cindy Sherman's game of hide and seek - the Queen of Pop sponsored
Sherman's 1997 exhibition
The Complete Untitled Film Stills at the
MoMA.
Miwa Yanagi: White Casket, o. J.
Deutsche Bank Collection
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