An Exploration of Essentialist Feminism in Canadian Art
Submitted March 7, 2024 to Professor Cathy Mattes at the University of Winnipeg.
Beginning in the 1960s essentialist feminism emphasized the biological differences between male and female artists in Canada. Essentialist feminism empowered women to fight for women’s rights to equality and acceptance in Canadian galleries at a time when the social scales were shifting. Essentialist feminism has been critiqued for emphasizing gender as strictly biological and existing within a gender binary. Nevertheless, essentialist feminism aided the creation of new communities and collectives of female artists who worked together to empower one another and expand the horizon of what was accepted as fine art in Canada.
In 1951 the Canadian Government aimed to empower Canadian artists with the Massey Report. This did not include craft work as eligible for government funding which sidelined the contributions of female artists who predominantly worked with crafts. This neglect of female work acted as a major catalyst for the revolution of female artists which began the following decade with essentialist feminism.[1] The essentialist feminist movement validated the aesthetic traditions of women as artists and emphasized the distinct creativity of women. The basis of essentialist feminism emphasized the difference between men and women, assuming women differ socially and artistically as a result being biologically different than men.[2]
The depiction of women in art was no longer decided by men as the movement of essentialist feminism allowed women to represent themselves in art. When women were depicted by male Canadian artists it was often as subservient to men or as uni-dimensional beings. Essentialist feminism allowed women to define themselves using their own work. The male perspective had defined the feminine, something essentialist feminist artists in the 60s fought to take back.
Early feminist Lucy P. Lippard said “if art comes from the inside, as it must, then the art of men and women must be different.[3]” This captures the basic values of essentialist feminism. Essentialist feminism was critiqued for enforcing a gender binary as well as narrowly reducing the perception of female creativity to an inherent biological sameness among women. Reducing the creative abilities of women to their biology diminished the value of their work on an individual. This perspective was abandoned by anti-essentialist feminists in the next decade.
The language used to describe art in the 60s and 70s privileged male creators and favoured methods used by men. The essentialist feminist movement recognized the value of craft work primarily created by women which had been devalued by prestigious galleries and curators. Without essentialist feminism half of Canadian artists will have had no voice and no opportunity to develop as artists.
Essentialist feminism suggested a collective experience of life among Canadian women. This idea later faced criticism from anti-essentialist feminists who argued it minimized the subjective experiences of Canadian women who do not share the same perspective simply because of biological similarity. Instead of these grand shared perspectives many women used their work to express their subjective experiences. Women of the era had the opportunity to define themselves using their work. Crafts were commonly used in essentialist feminist work as were other medias associated with the type of work women did. The movement also led to the creation of social collectives among female artists who together challenged the norms of the day while supporting each others work.[4]
The essentialist feminist movement led to the creation of feminist art galleries and craft centres which allowed female artists to take ownership of their perspective. The direct support of Joyce Wieland empowered female creators by giving them a platform to display their work. This was crucial as many female artists in the 60s and 70s worked using craft methods which was looked down on by high-end artists but appreciated by Wieland. Through their work women expressed desires for sexual liberation, confronted birth control rights and domestic violence issues. Conversations which had once been silenced were being had among feminists and were expressed by their work in art halls. Women artists took the proverbial bull by the horns, creating work which directly challenged the divide between high art and craft, the defining factor which kept female artists from receiving adequate funding to work according to the Massey Report.
Women who worked in art were supported by communities in feminist art centres, increasing connectivity among feminist artists and drawing greater attention to the work women were creating. This gave female artists the opportunity to enter the professional artistic world which was almost exclusively men. From this desire to enable and empower female artists came a grand shift in the narrative of what constituted fine art in Canada. The parameters of what was appreciated as quality art had shifted in favour of these long suppressed feminine styles. Despite a lack of female representation in galleries, the National Gallery of Canada director Jean Sutherland Boggs said Canada was “a haven for women in the arts.[5]” Despite this claim, the reality was men secured 87 percent of commercial gallery shows in Canada and 96 percent of the Senior Arts Grants distributed by the Canada Council in 1978.[6]
Judy Chicago, a pivotal feminist artist in the 1970s, saw how women were pushed out of the professional level of creation and chose to assemble The Dinner Party to address female empowerment. Though very few of the artists Chicago worked with were paid she created an opportunity for female artists to work using mediums they were accustomed to and having their work set in a public display[7]. Similarly, Joyce Wieland used her first exhibition to showcase the talent of women. In 1971 Wieland became the first Canadian woman to receive a solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada with True Patriot Love. While the exhibition was an expression of her patriotism, Wieland used this opportunity to employ several female Canadian artists.
At the True Patriot Love exhibition were knitted Canadian flags as well as quilts proudly showcasing the tools traditionally used by female artists. Bringing craft tools into the National Art Gallery was an opportunity Wieland seized to redefine fine art to include the methods used by women[8]. In 1970 Wieland created a piece called O Canada, three years after the centennial year when O Canada was approved as the Canadian national anthem. She created impressions of her mouth as she sung the national anthem by pressing her lips against a lithographic stone on each syllable. She used her femininity, the red stains of her lip stick, to express her personal patriotism. The use of her lipstick to depict the national anthem was a gender specific method of expressing her patriotism. O Canada shows the power Wieland felt in expressing her femininity at a time when feminism was shunned, often something female artists were accused of rather than celebrated for. O Canada reimagined nationalism with a pair of female lips shaping the syllables of the national anthem of the nation in which she was not given the same respect men had.
Wieland’s work often confronted issues of gender and nationalism with the unique perspective of being a Canadian woman. She made use of everyday objects in her work, much of which was used in “women’s work.[9]” Wieland challenged the traditional methods of the high arts and expressed the value of craft materials predominantly used by women artists. While she did paint, she often used embroidery, quilting or knitting in her work. In the piece True Patriot Love she even used a cake.[10] Wieland emphasised collaboration among female creatives to put their work in her shows, creating a much larger audience for the work of Canadian women[11]. Joyce Wieland challenged the status quo when she presented her work and the work of many other women. She made Canadian women contributing to the art sphere visible in an industry which was owned and operated by men. From the start of the essentialist feminism, the greatest strength was unity among creators who helped inspire and promote one another. Joyce Wieland legitimized crafts and female artists by displaying their work at the National Art Gallery[12].
Bibliography
Art Canada Institute - Institut de l’art canadien. “Joyce Wieland,” n.d. https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/joyce-wieland/significance-and-critical-issues/.
Art Canada Institute - Institut de l’art canadien. “Mary Pratt.” Accessed February 29, 2024. https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/mary-pratt/significance-and-critical-issues/.
Dale, Stephen. “Canadian Frame of Mind: Revisiting Joyce Wieland.” National Gallery of Canada, June 28, 2019. https://www.gallery.ca/magazine/your-collection/at-the-ngc/canadian-frame-of-mind-revisiting-joyce-wieland.
Davis, Heather. Desire Change: Contemporary Feminist Art in Canada. Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art, 2017.
Judy Chicago. “Selected Work «Judy Chicago,” n.d. https://judychicago.com/gallery/early-feminist/ef-artwork/.
Mattes, Cathy. “Women’s Art and Feminist Art of the Late 1960s, Early 1970s.” Lecture. Presented at the Rethinking Canadian Art, January 11, 2024.
Rabinovitz, Lauren. “Issues of Feminist Aesthetics: Judy Chicago and Joyce Wieland.” Woman’s Art Journal, Autumn 1, no. 2 (1981): 38–41. www.jstor.org/stable/1358083.
The Canadian Encyclopedia. “Joyce Wieland.” Accessed February 27, 2024. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/joyce-wieland.
[1] Cathy Mattes, “Women’s Art and Feminist Art of the Late 1960s, Early 1970s,” Lecture (Rethinking Canadian Art, January 11, 2024).
[2] Heather Davis, Desire Change: Contemporary Feminist Art in Canada (Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art, 2017), 19–53.
[3] Cathy Mattes, “Women’s Art and Feminist Art of the Late 1960s, Early 1970s,” Lecture (Rethinking Canadian Art, January 11, 2024).
[4] Cathy Mattes, “Women’s Art and Feminist Art of the Late 1960s, Early 1970s,” Lecture (Rethinking Canadian Art, January 11, 2024).
[5] Heather Davis, Desire Change: Contemporary Feminist Art in Canada (Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art, 2017), 19–53.
[6] Cathy Mattes, “Women’s Art and Feminist Art of the Late 1960s, Early 1970s,” Lecture (Rethinking Canadian Art, January 11, 2024).
[7] “Selected Work «Judy Chicago,” Judy Chicago, n.d., https://judychicago.com/gallery/early-feminist/ef-artwork/
[8] Stephen Dale, “Canadian Frame of Mind: Revisiting Joyce Wieland,” National Gallery of Canada, June 28, 2019, https://www.gallery.ca/magazine/your-collection/at-the-ngc/canadian-frame-of-mind-revisiting-joyce-wieland.
[9] “Joyce Wieland,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, accessed February 27, 2024, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/joyce-wieland.
[10] Cathy Mattes, “Women’s Art and Feminist Art of the Late 1960s, Early 1970s,” Lecture (Rethinking Canadian Art, January 11, 2024).
[11] “Joyce Wieland,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, accessed February 27, 2024, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/joyce-wieland.
[12] Lauren Rabinovitz, “Issues of Feminist Aesthetics: Judy Chicago and Joyce Wieland,” Woman’s Art Journal, Autumn 1, no. 2 (1981): 38–41, www.jstor.org/stable/1358083.