Knockers; cans; bazookas; melons; hooters; bangers; maracas; jugs and baps. Women’s breasts take up an inordinate amount of linguistic space. They are also omnipresent in many of the paintings, sculptures and other artwork housed in galleries around the world. As most feminists will know, women’s bodies have long been appropriated by Western cultures, forming visual iconographic shorthand used to communicate ideals of beauty. However, it wasn’t until we began researching this profile that we realised the extent to which the female form permeates the art world. She is everywhere, her naked body synonymous with the reputation of male artists such as Titian, Picasso and Botticelli. In fact there are only 11 paintings by female artists at the National Gallery (and half of these are sadly in storage), while 78% of the galleries in London represent more men than women. With nearly all art institutions founded by men, exhibiting work created almost exclusively by men but depicting mostly women, it seems even the spaces that house our breasts are themselves curated by the patriarchy.
Art ‘herstorian’ and activist Luisa-Maria MacCormack experienced the same creeping realisation when she was herself a young, idealistic painter of figurative and representational art. While dragging her drawing boards and stacks of paper around The National Gallery, The British Museum, Tate Galleries and the V&A she started to see beyond the works she was studying to the men who had created them. And so began a difficult battle to contextualise both her views as a modern feminist and her work as a female artist, in a world that at the highest levels is still dominated by white males. In asking how she could locate true stories of powerful women when the spotlight rests so insidiously on the naked ones, Luisa realised there was a need for feminists and female artists to re-write our art herstory.
It would seem more than fated then – serendipitous in fact - that in starting ‘The Big Art Herstory Project’, she was embarking on a journey to reclaim the breast under a linguistically perfect acronym: ‘BAHP’. Luisa sees this as an opportunity for the project to be inclusive and non-threatening, using its tongue-in-cheek name to enlist everyone (not just artists) in her mission. Based in London, BAHP carries out most of its work through the classes Luisa launched in January 2017, the first of which was entitled ‘Female Sexuality and the Male Gaze’ and attracted over 12,000 responses via social media. It is the longest running class to date and since its inception over 200 people have joined the BAHP community. Other classes include ‘Powerful Women, Sacred Feminine: Art of the Goddess’, ‘A Feminist’s Guide to Botany at Kew Gardens’ and ‘The Hysterical Body: Sexuality, Medicine and the Female Form’. Through BAHP Luisa’s aim is to educate a wide range of audiences on the basic facts of ‘Art-Herstorical-Feminism’, by offering events and classes that consist of easy to understand bitesize chunks of information. Recently BHAP attended the annual Feminism in Schools conference based in Deptford, which encourages students and teachers to engage with feminist issues. Luisa is looking to roll out a range of specialised talks to secondary schools including ‘Women of Colour in Western Art’ and ‘Feminism: An Introduction’, as well as developing classes to suit younger students. She has delivered classes at a Gender Studies summer school group in the US and, having delivered a lecture/life drawing class at the University of Cambridge, she would love to take BAHP into the world of higher education.
But isn’t 'Art' a frivolous frontier for feminists to spend time exploring? BAHP is interesting but its mission certainly not ‘urgent’ or ‘serious’ enough for those of us seeking to bring an end to inequality. When 1 in 3 women worldwide will experience sexual violence, almost half of violent crimes in the UK are against women and women are 27 times more likely to face online harassment – what damage are a few paintings of our baps really causing?
During our interview Luisa told us about the first life-sized and highly realistic statues that were first created in (approximately) 4th Century BC Ancient Greece. The first realistic marble sculpture of a woman – the goddess Venus – was created by Praxilites and was said to be so beautiful that she inspired wondrous awe in any who laid eyes on her. However, one night a young man broke into the temple where she was housed and raped the statue, leaving a stain of semen on her thigh. Ancient Greece was not kind to women as a general rule, deeming them second-class citizens and often subjecting them to curfews and veiling. It is possible to see in Venus’s story the first instance of a society’s patriarchal values being assimilated into the way artists dealt with the visualisation of women.
Luisa and we believe that the way women continue to be represented visually is one of the driving factors behind a culture that has become increasingly damaging to all of us. Through the research she carries out in preparation for the BAHP classes, she has learnt that where we are now has been informed by an art history spanning thousands of years, in which women’s bodies and sexuality have been possessed and controlled by men. She can draw a straight line from the consumerist nudity of the Rokeby Venus, to the hairless hordes of nude women that (until very recently) occupied Page 3 of The Sun newspaper. Only this week M&S sparked outrage when one of its Christmas windows depicted women’s seasonal “must haves” as “frilly little knickers”, juxtaposed against male mannequins dressed in the suits deemed to be men’s “must have outfits to impress”. If we as feminists were to draw a map charting the journey of misogyny, Luisa’s straight line would continue to chart its course from this window to the rape trial in which a victim’s “lacy thong” was used as evidence of her consent.
As BAHP continues to grow and expand, Luisa intends to take her courses into schools, universities and businesses with a view to developing a full Art and Gender Studies course.
With activists like Luisa setting out to re-write our art herstory, we can be hopeful that the future of the art world doesn’t rest solely on the breasts of women.
SheCurates.
BAHP is a sister organisation to London Drawing Group and all classes are currently advertised here: http://www.londondrawinggroup.com/classes/.
To learn more about BAHP visit https://www.bigartherstoryproject.com/.
You can follow them on Twitter @ArtHerstoryUK and Instagram @bigartherstoryproject. You can also find BAHP at the upcoming London Illustration Fair @TheLIFLondon.
