The Art of Losing Your Mind: How Female Suffering is Depicted in Contemporary Art and Media

The Art of Losing Your Mind: How Female

Suffering is Depicted in Contemporary Art and Media.

Fine Art (Hons)

Lucia Rice

Word count: 7656

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) degree in Fine Art.

Duncan of Jordonstone College of Art and Design

University of Dundee 2024

Abstract

This dissertation analyses and critiques depictions of female pain and suffering in contemporary art and media, comparing how male and female artists approach the same subject to identify where they differ both in their depictions and motivations.

The research was split into three main categories: chapter one explores how female suffering is romanticised in reference to literature, chapter two analyses how female suffering is depicted by male artists with reference to their personal lives and how their personal relationships manifest within their work, chapter three discusses how autobiographical depictions of female pain are often politically motivated in protesting the sexualisation of female suffering.

The research aim is to identify the disconnect between gendered depictions of female pain, by comparing and contrasting the works of different artists, traversing both prominent artists and more obscure works.

The analysis supports the argument that depictions of suffering differ significantly depending on the motivation of the male and female artists and their personal experiences of suffering. Male artists tend to favour a more sexual or romantic depiction, using their own experiences with the women in their lives and their own anger towards the world, their artwork often feels less empathetic, and at times victim blaming. Female artists however tend to favour a more autobiographical approach, modelling the suffering depicted on themselves or those around them. Their work is also often politically oriented and is less likely to be overtly sexual or romantic, typically critiquing the sexualisation of female pain.

List of Illustrations

Figures pages

Chapter 2

Fig 2.1. pp18

Pablo Picasso, WeepingWoman, (1937), Oil on canvas

Image courtesy the Tate

Fig 2.2. pp.20

Roy Lichtenstein, DrowningGirl, (1963),

Oil and acrylic on canvas

Image courtesy the Museum of Modern Art

Fig 2.3. pp.22

Bas Jan Ader, I’m Too Sad to Tell You, (1970)

Gelatin silver print

Image courtesy the Museum of Modern Art

Chapter 3

Fig 3.1. pp.25

Gina Pane, AzioneSentimentale, (1974)

Black and white photographs

Image courtesy Richard Saltoun

Fig 3.2. pp.28

Gina Pane, TheConditioning, (1973)

Performance piece

Image courtesy weirduniverse.net

Fig 3.3. pp.28

Marina Abramović, SevenEasyPieces, (2005)

Performance Piece

Image courtesy the Guggenheim Museum

Fig 3.4. pp.29

Anne Collier, WomanCrying#20, (2021)

Black and white photograph

Image courtesy the Anton Kern Gallery

Fig 3.5.

Anne Collier, WomanCrying#21, (2021)

Black and white photograph

Image courtesy The Modern Institute

Introduction

The idea of sadness, of pain and of suffering is a gendered concept. In his essay Mourning and Melancholia, Freud wrote that mourning is an inherently feminine action whereas melancholy is an inherently masculine action (Freud, 1917, pp. 243-58). In her book Artemisia Gentileschi: The Shaping and Reshaping of an Artistic Identity, Art historian and writer, Mary D. Garrard stated that:

“When the male melancholic appropriates the feminine, loss is tragic, despair is heroic, and emptiness is pregnant with creative possibility. Cast as a female, the melancholic risks appearing merely pathetic.” (Garrard, 2001, pp.72)

This dissertation aims to analyse how female suffering is depicted within contemporary art and media whilst discussing the difference between how male and female artists depict the same theme. This will be achieved by firstly critiquing the literature on female suffering and how it is romanticised. Secondly, by examining how female suffering is depicted by male artists, how they enjoy depicting women in pain, with reference to their personal lives and how their personal relationships manifest within their work. Thirdly, by evaluating pain as a protest, when art about female pain is created by female artists, and finally by considering how does the autobiographical nature of this work translate to politically motivated protest. This dissertation contributes to debates on the disconnect between male and female artists and their varying depictions of female pain, exploring how women depict pain as a protest against the sexualisation from men and their depictions of female pain. Exploring how these two groups not only differ but oppose each other.

When examining female pain within art, first, we must consider if the goal of the piece was to depict a woman suffering or merely to just depict suffering, with the figure just happening to be a woman. This is where the distinction between male and female artists becomes relevant, as when a female artist depicts female pain and suffering, it is easy to come to the conclusion that it is a reflection of either her own pain or the pain of the women around them, however, when a male artist depicts female pain it may be interpreted that the artist has made up a woman and given her pain purely because he likes to see women suffer; that when women depict female pain, it is feminist and when men depict female pain, it is misogynistic. While some depictions of female pain by men reveal empathy and understanding of the female perspective, such as Ophelia (1852) by John Everett Millais, there is also a body of artwork which lacks empathy and have been effected by the artists personal misogynistic views

Chapter 1 - Romanticising sadness in literature

In her essay Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain Leslie Jamieson refers to Susan Sontag and her theory that “sadness made one interesting”, that sadness and sickness were much the same, that “both were coveted, sadness was interesting and sickness was its handmaiden.” (Jamieson, 2014, pp.114.). Sickness provides a reason for sadness, giving both a cause and symptoms, it becomes a physical manifestation of sadness; emotional suffering has now become physical suffering. Sontag explains “The melancholy character was a superior one: sensitive, creative, a being apart… [sickness was] a becoming frailty… symbolised an appealing vulnerability, a superior sensitivity, [and] became more and more the ideal look for a woman.” (Jamieson, 2014, pp.114.).

Pain as something to strive for

In pain, often, there is beauty and in beauty often there is tragedy. Donna Tartt in TheSecret History writes that “Beauty is terror. whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it” (Tartt, 1992, pp.42). In a society where beauty is the greatest currency of all and something we should always be striving for, Jamison suggests (2014) suffering has become “the ideal look for a woman”. As such, it is only natural for women to want to suffer. When someone finds themself in pain, they want to push it as far as it can go, to press your thumb into your wound. In Elizabeth Wurtzel's memoir Prozac Nation we see this want to suffer, “I was starting to want to know the worst, I wanted to know how bad it could get.” (Wurtzel, 1994, pp.47). Throughout the book we see Wurtzel describe her journey through self-harm, suicidal thoughts, depression and pill addiction, all of which are damaging and painful experiences The memoir begins with the prologue titled “I hate myself and I want to die” (Wurtzel, 1994, pp.1). Leslie Jamison writes about the idea that pain that is performed is still real pain. She touches on the fact that people who self-harm are often dismissed, that their pain is perceived as a performance rather than authentic (Jamison, 2014). These people she describes as ‘wound-dwellers’, she herself identifies with this term; but why is it such a bad thing to dwell on our wounds? If wounds make women desirable, make women seem authentic and beautiful, then why is it that the moment we dwell and express this pain, it becomes no longer authentic. Pain gets stripped of its sincerity and divinity once it gets acknowledged by the one suffering through it (Jamison, 2014).

People strive for beauty at all costs, for aesthetic pleasure no matter the consequence to themselves or those around. In TheSecretHistory by Donna Tartt (1992) the idea of longing

for beauty is brought up throughout. The idea of craving aesthetic satisfaction so deeply that you are willing to do anything to achieve it. You become willing to compromise your morals and hurt those around, as long as you can exist surrounded by beauty. The book opens with the narrator, Richard Papen, pondering this. “Does such a thing as 'the fatal flaw,' that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside of literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.” (Tartt, 1992, pp.7).

The obsession with suffering

As much as we long for beauty we also long for pain. We wish to view it and consume it through media. Trauma as defined by the American Psychological Association is the emotional response to a terrible event, either personal or on mass, this includes rape, abuse, being attacked, witnessing war, or natural disasters. The emotional response to such events can leave a person incredibly vulnerable as trauma can manifest itself as emotional instability or flashbacks, but also with physical reactions like headaches and nausea (American Psychological Association). For many, the event which caused their trauma is the most distressing and harrowing thing that they will ever experience. Despite this, trauma has become a sort of entertainment, it has been repackaged as a commodity to be lapped up by audiences through the screen, through literature, or through art. People's pain is consumed and enjoyed through a lens of voyeurism, sympathy or a morbid curiosity (Kostova, 2013).

Jeffrey Eugenides shows us suffering from a voyeuristic perspective with his book TheVirgin Suicides(1993). Differing from other stories of female pain, this novel instead focuses on the

willingness to ignore a person's suffering if the suffering is what makes you interesting. This story is about infatuation and obsession, masked as concern and a want to help. The novel is narrated by a series of onlookers, a group of men who recount their days as young boys, trying to figure out the mystery of the Lisbon sisters. The Lisbon sisters were the five girls who lived in the same suburb and attended the same school as the boys, who by the end of the book have all committed suicide. As opposed to the typical perspective in a novel, TheVirgin Suicides instead had multiple point of views all merging into one, a collective ‘we’. Unlike other novels with multiple points of view, there is no distinct separation between changing narrators. The group acts as one (Shostack, 2013). It becomes clear early on in the novel that the boys know very little about the sisters, it gets mentioned throughout that the boys didn’t see them as distinct people but rather as a single figure,”... something we had never realised: the Lisbon girls were all different people” (Eugenides, 1993, pp.23.), despite the boys seeing the girls as a single figure it is interesting that the narrator's themselves act as one, despite being multiple people it becomes almost impossible to distinguish between them.

As the boys try to piece together the ‘mystery’ of the sisters, their stories contradict each other. This trope of unreliable narrators further affects the coherence and credibility of their story (Dines, 2012), adding to the mystery of the Lisbon sisters as both us the reader as well as the boys have no clear idea of who the Lisbon sisters are. The girls even tried to talk to the boys, asking for help but the boys were too infatuated to listen (Eugenides, 1993, pp.193.), the boys didn’t genuinely care for them, and failed to understand their suffering but just viewed them as something interesting to obsess over.

The film The Virgin Suicides, directed by Sofia Coppola however retells the story from the perspective of the girls. We get a much clearer image of the girls and what is ‘really’ happening beyond the speculation of the boys, demonstrating the director’s empathy and

understanding of their suffering. This perspective is also more neutral as it is not distorted in the same way by the imagination of young boys. Because of this shift in narrative the film feels much more like it's actually about the sisters, as the boys play a more minor role, as if the girls are more fully realised and developed people rather than a point of fascination and stalking. In the book the boys view the girls as entertainment and something to solve rather than young girls going through such pain that they end up committing suicide one after the other. In the end the boys’ obsession ends up consuming them to the point where their proximity to the girls makes them suffer alongside. The boys long for the girls, they love them and are in turn destroyed by them (Kostova, 2013).

Sylvia Plath is possibly the most iconic figure in female suffering, she has become a martyr to the cause of sadness. Her story is so tragic because not only is the melancholy aspect of her work romanticised to the point that the actual contents of her work no longer matters, but her work often gets overshadowed by the romanticisation of her suicide. Much like other female greats of the past whose suicide becomes their defining feature, women such as Virginia Woolf and Sarah Kane (Crawford, 2021). She is bowed down to and worshiped by selfproclaimed ‘sad girls’ who are drawn into her work by her suicide, the depressive nature of her work only working to keep them interested. She has become an idol to those ‘wounddwellers’, people indulging in their pain in an effort to be tragically beautiful. These wounddwellers define themselves by their suffering, and through those that they feel represented by. Suffering and enjoying Sylvia Plath has become an identity within itself. Plath’s death has been co-opted by those with no interest in her original work and she has been martyred, “The tragedy of her suicide is one of the reasons for Plath’s championing by some feminists.” (Gordon, 2008).

In her biography of Sylvia Plath Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath, Anne Stevenson describes a hostile relationship between the mental health of Plath and her work, calling Plath a tortured genius and questioning her sanity. She claims that the importance and integrity of her work was heightened by the lack of happiness and reason (Gordon, 2008). She notes that “it was evident that Sylvia Plath’s suicide had projected her into a public legend catastrophically at odds with the personal myth that almost certainly determined her fate” (Gordon, 2008). Stevenson goes on further to write that Plath’s death can best be described as tragedy that ‘at the end of her life Plath was both the dramatist and the tragic heroine of her “murderous art” that [she] is both heroine and author; when the curtain goes down, it is her own dead body there on the stage, sacrificed to her own plot’ (Gordon, 2008).

The film Sylvia (2003) follows the life and death of Sylvia Plath, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, we see her life, depression and suicide. The film ends with a crescendo of melancholia as Plath's body is taken from her house, dead. Film critic Peter Bradshaw felt this scene presented Plath’s suicide “As if depression and suicide were her crowning achievements” (Bradshaw, 2004). Plath's Daughter, Freida Hughes, lamented the film due to a lack of sympathy for her mother’s fate and respect for her work and achievements; in a poem titled MyMother (2009) she writes:

“ …Now they want to make a film

For anyone lacking the ability

To imagine the body, head in oven, Orphaning children. Then

It can be rewound

So they can watch her die

Right from the beginning again… ” (Hughes, 2009)

To many women, going through pain can feel unavoidable, like fate. Kate Elizabeth Russel describes this feeling in her book MyDarkVanessa (2020) which follows Vanessa Wye, a 32 year old coming to terms with the fact that she was groomed by her English teacher when she was 15 years old, Vanessa when recounting how she felt after being raped described this ever present fear that violence was coming, it’s just a waiting game until it’s your turn, “Somehow I sensed what was coming for me even then. Really, though, what girl doesn’t? It looms over you, that threat of violence. They drill the danger into your head until it starts to feel inevitable. You grow up wondering when it’s finally going to happen.” (Elizabeth Russel, 2020, pp.193.). This constant threat of violence, knowing that even if it hasn’t happened yet, it’s only a matter of time is what bonds so many women together. Pain almost feels like it’s women’s own special thing, like men couldn’t even begin to understand suffering like women do, especially when men are typically the ones inflicting the violence. This is what the distinction between male and female artists depicting female pain is, it is something men are unable to relate to; so how can they depict it accurately? This is the key to understanding the difference, one comes from a place of suffering through a shared pain, and the other comes from watching. The relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed, the victim and the perpetrator.

In conclusion depictions of female pain and suffering in the written literature and media reviewed reveal themes of a nobility and divinity to suffering, with female authors in particular depicting how a person becomes their suffering. In contrast men are spectators of female suffering and this distinction is important when considering artistic depictions of female suffering.

Chapter 2 - Getting off on pain

Although we may feel that pain is inevitable, there is a temptation to think that pain is innate.

In the BBC 3 series, Fleabag, written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, character Belinda played by actress Kristen Scott Thomas delivers the following line “Women are born with pain built in…It’s our physical destiny: period pains, sore boobs, childbirth, you know. We carry it within ourselves throughout our lives, men don’t.” (season 2 episode 3, 2019). Her speech goes on to describe the joys of menopause , how it frees women from their pain and finally they get to become a person. She says then men seek out pain, they invent religion to punish themselves, create wars just so they can touch each other, and in the absence of either of these they play rugby. Pain is glory, and is sought out by men, to women its absence is celebrated. This statement that freeing ourselves from pain lets us finally become a person is particularly interesting, as the idea that pain is not only an overwhelming physical or emotional strain but also that it takes over our identity, we are little more than the pain that we suffer through, and through suffering we lose our personhood.

Creating pain to use as a muse

There is no shortage of art created by men depicting female pain, but few artists are as culturally relevant as Pablo Picasso, his work inspiring millions and completely changing the art world, inventing and popularising cubism, his impact is vast (Park West Gallery, 2020). To properly understand Picasso’s work, it is imperative to examine his personal life, specifically his love life, in order to fully grasp the context behind his works, this is particularly important with his piece WeepingWoman (1937).

Pablo Picasso has had many muses throughout his career, typically these muses were his lovers, either his wives or mistresses. Most notable of his muses were Marie-Therese Walter and Dora Maar, Walter began as a mistress and mothered Picasso’s child, Maya Widmaier Picasso. When Maar had started seeing Picasso he was still married to Olga Koklova, his wife he cheated on with Walter. Picasso would still keep in contact with and regularly see these women when he was in a relationship with Maar. Françoise Gilot, his partner after Maar, noted that she also would regularly interact with these women during her relationship with Picasso. These women would fight between themselves about who had the most right to be with Picasso (Freeman, 1994, pp.130-77). Picasso by this point had become known as a womaniser, but also a misogynist. Picasso famously told Gilot that “women are machines for suffering” (Delistraty, 2017), agreeing with the speech in fleabag, that women were born to suffer, also perhaps explaining the prevalence of crying women in his art at the time. Despite the fact that these women were based on his lovers at the time, they were still sad, still weeping. Picasso went as far as to specifically mention Maar as his muse for the weeping woman, stating that “For me, [Dora Maar] is the weeping woman,” (Freeman, 1994, pp.195). He explained this by saying that “For years I gave her a tortured appearance, not out of sadism, and without any pleasure on my part, but in obedience to a vision that had imposed itself on me.” (Freeman, 1994, pp.195), the sadness that Maar felt was innate within her, almost biblical in the way that Picasso describes it as a vision, her fate was to eternally suffer.

Was Maar’s sadness something that she was born with or was it thrust upon her by Picasso himself? Both Walter and Jacqueline Rose (his second wife) died by committing suicide whereas both Koklova and Maar suffered nervous breakdowns (Delistraty, 2017). In her book Picasso,myGrandfather (2001) Marina Picasso writes that “He needed blood to sign each of his paintings: my father’s blood, my brother’s, my mother’s, my grandmother’s, and mine.

He needed the blood of those who loved him.” (Delistraty, 2017). From this it seems likely that the reason Picasso could depict in an authentic and truthful way so much sadness, was because he was causing it.

Picasso treated his lovers as muses rather than his muses as lovers, their purpose was to be a muse and to satisfy him sexually, and little else. Once a muse had been used up they were discarded. Marina Picasso was aware of this fact and wrote of his poor treatment of her mother as well as the other women that suffered, “He submitted them to his animal sexuality, tamed them, bewitched them, ingested them, and crushed them onto his canvas. After he had spent many nights extracting their essence, once they were bled dry, he would dispose of them.” (Delistraty, 2017). Picasso himself even admits that “For [him] there are only two kinds of women: goddesses and doormats.” (Delistraty, 2017), women either exist beyond this plane of living, as divine creatures, or as something to be walked over, treated with little care and trodden on .

Picasso’s life and art was driven by sex, he thought that dismissing or rejecting sex is to exile yourself from life, from humanity (Widmaier Picasso, 2005, pp.8). When one day artist Brassai was visiting Picasso, he showed Brassai his collection of around 60 erotic Japanese prints as he exclaimed that “Art can’t be chaste,” , he continued on to say that “It is never chaste, one ought to forbid it to ignorant innocents and never put in contact with it who is insufficiently prepared for it. Yes, art is dangerous. Or if it is chaste, it’s not art.” (Widmaier Picasso, 2005, pp.9). To Picasso art was sex, eroticism is what made art, art. Picasso on a separate occasion told his art historian friend Jean Leymarie that “Art can only be erotic.” (Widmaier Picasso, 2005, pp.7). This idea that Picasso had and clearly regarded as extremely important is integral when dissecting his work, it puts another layer that perhaps was not

immediately obvious from first glance. When examining WeepingWoman (1937), you would not initially think that there was a sexual nature to the piece, a painting of his crying lover would not typically evoke sexuality, however we know that he believed that all art is sexual, so it brings into question whether he found the image of women crying to be sexual in itself. Picasso would be unlikely to make his own art an exception to his rule of art never being chaste, therefore it must be assumed that WeepingWoman is erotic in some capacity.

This painting specifically depicts Dora Maar and was painted around 2 years into their relationship, this is not the only variation of Weeping Woman, however this one is by far the most famous and recognisable. In this painting we can obviously see that Maar is very sad, with glassy eyes and hands holding a handkerchief up to her face, her teeth biting down onto it, perhaps this is how Picasso would always regard her, hysterical and weepy, as Picasso said himself that his vision of her suffering was imposed onto him (Freeman, 1994, pp.195). In this piece we see lots of oranges and yellows in the background and on her face, with green

Fig 1. Pablo Picasso, (1937) WeepingWoman Oil on canvas, image courtesy the Tate

on the right side and hands implying shadows, telling us of a light source on the left. Maar’s face turned away from the light and looking into the dark side of the room, creating a dramatic shadow running down the centre of her face and figure. As Maar is looking away from the light and into the darkened half of the room this alludes to her being enveloped by her sadness, the light and happiness feels out of reach, she is looking to darkness as that is what feels most familiar. This could be an early indication of her nervous breakdown, the beginnings of being submerged in mental instability and pain. In the middle of the piece however is dark blue and white, this section covers her mouth and chin as well as some of her fingers perhaps meant to be the handkerchief. This area devoid of colour in the middle of her face draws your eye directly to it, with no colour it suggests an emptiness, possibly to show the overpowering nature of sadness, despite the rest of the image appearing saturated, we cannot help but be drawn into the dull void in the middle. We see the face itself is rather chopped up, disfigured and dismembered, as if sadness has left her truly broken, her face now shattered. This disfigured face appears quite jarring and almost grotesque, perhaps this is Picasso expressing his disgust at her emotions, she is no longer a goddess, so now she must be a doormat.

Roy Lichtenstein, American pop artist, took inspiration from Pablo Picasso; we see this with Lichtenstein’s piece Still Life with Picasso (1973) which acted as a homage to Picasso (MoMA, no date). Lichtenstein also took after Picasso in his treatment of women; in fact, when Francoise Gilot published her book Life with Picasso (1964) which was a memoir of her and Picasso’s decade long relationship, Lichtenstein turned to Letty Eisenhauer who was his partner at the time and said, “I worry about the day that you do a Gilot to my Picasso.” (Sooke, 2013). Eisenhauer said that Lichtenstein would get out his frustration and emotions towards women and the world through his art (Sooke, 2013), likely explaining the prevalence

of crying women as a motif in his work. Eisenhauer goes on to say that the inspiration of the crying girls was his first wife, Isobel Wilson, “Take his series of crying girls. I think Roy was always very angry with Isabel. The crying girls are what he wanted women to be. He wanted to make you cry, and he did he made me cry.” (Sooke, 2013). This mirrors the behaviour of Picasso, creating a sadness in the women they are in relationships with and then using that sadness as a muse.

One of Lichtenstein’s most notable ‘crying girls’ was Drowning Girl (1963), which depicted a woman drowning in choppy water with a text bubble exclaiming “I DON’T CARE! I’D RATHER SINK THAN CALL BRAD FOR HELP!”

The imagery used has been repurposed from issue #82 of Sacred Hearts, a romance comic book published in 1962 by DC COMICS (MoMa). The text in this piece was changed from

Fig 2. Roy Lichtenstein, (1963) DrowningGirl oil and acrylic on canvas, image courtesy the Museum of Modern Art

the original which said “I DON’T CARE IF I HAVE A CRAMP! - I’D RATHER SINK THAN CALL MAL FOR HELP!”, we also see in the original another figure [Mal] which has been cropped out by Lichtenstein. Despite the original text also seeming to frame the girl figure as quite stubborn and childlike, preferring to suffer and risk even drowning than ask for help from Mal, Lichtenstein chose to change the text completely, but still keeping the girl dogged and naive. The refusal to seek help, only likens her to a child throwing a tantrum, as if her emotional intelligence is similar to that of a toddler and in times of life or death such as drowning, this woman would refuse help so as to not alert Brad to her struggle. This is further illustrated by the fact that the piece is called ‘drowning girl’, despite nothing physically alluding to the fact that this is in fact a girl and not a woman (MyArtBroker, no date). Perhaps she is a woman who ‘acts like a girl’ and therefore becomes one in the eyes of Lichtenstein. By removing the context of the original scene, we no longer know why the ‘girl’ would rather die than call for Brad, we can’t know how serious the situation is or why she is drowning, all we know is that she is drowning and is refusing help, making her seem hysterical and ridiculous. Her calm facial expression, almost blank with lightly closed eyes and parted lips as tears gently fall down her cheeks, makes her seem almost apathetic, as if her main concern is not calling for Brad rather than not drowning. Lichtenstein is more focused in ensuring that she still looks beautiful whilst drowning, as her hair is styled perfectly and her eyeliner intact, with her words capturing her stubbornness and petulance, rather than any depiction or hint of what might be behind her distrust and inability to call Brad for help. As such only the surface emotion is depicted and not the deeper meaning.

Male pain as more ‘authentic’

Fig 3. Bas Jan Ader, (1970) I’m Too Sad to Tell You, gelatin silver print, image courtesy the Museum of Modern Art

Differing from both Picasso and Lichtenstein, conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader depicted his own sadness in his film ‘I’m too sad to tell you’, where he sat in front of a camera and cried for 3 minutes. Accompanying the film are a series of photographs and a postcard which had “I’m too sad to tell you” written on the back. The Film is silent, and we never learn the reason for the sadness (Dumbadze, 2013). Although this piece does not touch on female pain as it is a commentary on sadness itself. Writer and film maker Juliet Jacques, recalls in an article her friendship With Bas Jan Ader and some of the conversations they shared, notably where Jan Ader speaks about people protesting the Vietnam war, he claims that people were protesting because they needed to release their anger, they may acknowledge that war is morally wrong but it’s their anger which drives their protest. Jan Ader then claimed that anger is caused by people who don’t know how to process their sadness (Jaques, 2014). This

speaks volumes about how we are driven by sadness much more than we may realise, sadness drives other emotions within us and can dictate our politics, our activism, and our actions.

The difference between how this piece was received by male and female critics illustrates the different ways that pain can be perceived, the dissonance between men and women and how they decide if something shows ‘authentic emotions’. Artists James Roberts and Collier Schorr felt that despite us not knowing the reason for the sadness, there was a reason nonetheless and that the piece was a deeply personal and sincere piece of work (Schorr, 1994). Bruce Hainley who was an editor to Artforum, believes that the reason for sadness does not matter and it should be irrelevant but that the work teeters between sincerity and melodrama. The sadness may be real but the act of setting up a camera and filming it makes it staged (Hainley, 1999). Jörg Heiser, co-editor of Frieze, believes that the work is actually a commentary on the embarrassment of expressing emotion, leaving it open as to whether or not that embarrassment is taken on by the viewer as well (Heiser, 2002).

Female reviewers took a far more critical approach. In her book Hold it Against Me: Difficulty and Emotion in Contemporary Art, Jennifer Doyle feels that due to the stereotype and tradition of the ‘melancholy white male artist’ the work is taken more seriously and seen as more ‘real’, than it otherwise would be. She points out that women in contrast have typically been perceived as either hysterical or making it up, that their work is ‘less sincere’ (Doyle, 2013). Juliet Jacques, who said she was the one who helped Jan Ader film the piece claimed that the moment the camera stopped recording, the tears stopped flowing, all trace of the previous emotional turmoil ceased (Jacques, 2014). Australian artist Leah Mariani says that the film feels like an actor auditioning for a Hollywood melodrama, incredibly rehearsed and practiced to perfection. The perfect performance (Mariani, 2021).

Chapter 3 - Reclaiming suffering

This chapter focuses on pain becoming protest, something that will confront you and demand attention. Suffering is now dangerous, as the victim aims to free themselves from victimhood, the narrative shifts as pain is no longer something to be viewed, but something to be challenged. Through Performance art, pain and bodily mutilation is taken to an extreme that can no longer be seen as beautiful or delicate.

Making female pain a spectacle

Gina Pane is French born, performance artist whose name has become synonymous with pain. Her most notable works consist of her ‘pain performances’ which she performed throughout the early 1970’s. In much of Pane’s work, she mutilates herself and inflicts violence on her body. Some question her methodology, claiming that regardless of intention, using violence to shock audiences into empathy, may in fact lead to the very opposite (Scott, 2019). Hannah Arendt in ‘On Violence (1969, pp. 80) wrote that “The practice of violence, like all actions, changes the world, but the most probable change is a more violent world.”

In 1971 Pane documented her first of many ‘pain performances’, this was titled ‘Escalade non-anesthésiée’, translated to English, ‘Unanaesthetised Escalation’. In this piece she walked up and down a ladder, bare foot, for around 30 minutes. The ladder was spiked with sharp pieces of metal and by the time she had finished she was bleeding profusely from her hands and feet and could not continue. She performed this piece in her Paris apartment and was photographed by her friend Françoise Masson. Pane described this piece as a protest against the Vietnam war, which by the time this piece was created had been going on for 16

years. She says the piece was to awaken an anaesthetised society, declaring her “pain a protest and her body a sacrifice” (Scott, 2019).

Pane makes further commentary on the Vietnam war with her piece ‘Nourriture/Actualités

télévisées/ Feu’ (‘Food/ TV News/ Fire’) (1973), where she sat with a bright light shining into her eyes as she watched tv news footage of the Vietnam war. As she did this she ate 600g or raw minced meat with her hands and later threw it up, whilst also putting out small fires of burning alcohol with her hands and feet. This piece was performed at a private collector’s home in Paris, the invitation to the evening required “A minimum of 2% of your monthly salary must be deposited in a safe at the entrance to the site where [Gina Pane] will be positioned.” (Tronche, 2013). The eating of raw meat parallels the French philosopher Georges Bataille (1946) who said, “He who eats the flesh of another animal is its equal.” (Tronche, 2013).

Fig 4. Gina Pane, (1973) AzioneSentimentale, black and white photographs, image courtesy

Richard Saltoun

Pane further pushes her body with her performance ‘Azione Sentimentale’ or ‘Sentimental Action’ (1973), where she dethorns a bunch of roses, using those thorns to pierce the skin on

her arms. She then brings out a razor blade and begins to cut her palms and arms, as blood trickles down her body and onto the flowers, turning the white roses red. Only women were invited to attend this performance (Leszkowicz, 2004) The use of thorns drums up strong Christian imagery, Jesus with nails through his hands and feet, bleeding out on the cross, thorns thrust upon his head. Pane with her wounded hands, blood trickling down, thorns embedded into her arm, becomes a Christ- like figure, a female Christ. Pane speaks about her wounds in a biblical way, similar to that of Jesus, “If I open my ‘body’ so that you can see your blood therein, it is for the love of you: the Other.” (Pane, 1973). Her blood is our blood, just as our sins are Jesus’s sins. As Jesus’s existence was a sacrifice for us, so to is Pane’s existence, her body an offering.

“Pane's bleeding body, like the motionless image of religious faith, emphasised a shared humanity, promoted a sense of awe and provided an opening through which onlookers could focus on the fragility of human life. But unlike the bloodshed of Christ, Pane's blood could not provide affirmation and succour for spectators, instead it demanded action.” (Richards, 2008, pp.110.).

Richards critique reflects the argument that Pane’s performance of suffering is an authentic form of protest, however female suffering is still underwhelming in comparison to the impact of male suffering. For example, in her novel Cool for You (2000), Eileen Myles tries to envision a female Christ but is not successful, she asks, “Could that drive culture for 2,000 years? No way.” Female suffering is so ordinary, she argues, that it lacks spectacle. She asks “What would be the point in seeing her half nude and nailed up? Where’s the contradiction?” (Scott, 2019).

When discussing Pane and her pain performances, specifically ‘Sentimental Action’, and her claim that her work is a protest, her body a sacrifice, it become even more clear that she is protesting more than war, but the commonality of female pain, she is martyring herself and likening herself to Christ to push against the narrative that female pain lacks spectacle. She is making it a spectacle, something we must watch and cannot ignore.

Pane continued in this fashion of inflicting pain and torture onto herself with her 1973 piece titled ‘The Conditioning’, where she lay on top of a metal bed frame, with lit candles placed underneath, slowly heating up the metal. This piece was recreated in 2005 by performance artist Marina Abramović in her series titled ‘Seven Easy Pieces’, performed at the Guggenheim. ‘Seven Easy Pieces’ was a series recreating iconic performances from the 1960s and ‘70. These performances took place over the course of a week, one piece per day (Guggenheim, 2005). The exhibition was dedicated to Susan Sontag, who was a friend of Abramović (Guggenheim, 2005), who also wrote on suffering, specifically in her book Illness as Metaphor. On day 4, Abramović too lay on a metal bed frame with lit candles placed 10cm underneath her. When one candle would burn out she would get up to replace it.

Though it is difficult to know whether or not the metal was hot, Abramović would moan from time to time, alluding to the fact that she was bearing painfully hot temperatures. This performance lasted 7 hours (Takac, 2019).

Fig 5. Gina Pane (1973) TheConditioning, performance piece, image courtesy

weirduniverse.net

Fig 6. Marina Abramović (2005) SevenEasyPieces, performance piece, image courtesy the Guggenheim Museum

Looking pain in the eye

Marina Abramović took performance art to an extreme with her most infamous piece, ‘Rhythm 0’ (1974) In this piece 72 objects were laid out on a table. Some of the objects included are lipstick, a pocket knife, a gun, flowers, needles, and pens. Accompanying these objects were written instructions which stated “Instructions: There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired. Performance: I am the object, during this period I take full responsibility. Duration: 6 hours (8pm-2am.)” (Tate, 2010). The performance started off tame, with people drawing on her, however quickly it turned into a display of power from the audience. Her clothes were ripped off, her skin cut and sliced, a knife pushed between her legs. In Royal Academy London, you will see a recreation of the table of 72 objects as well as photographs of their performance. You can see mostly men playing with the objects, leering and laughing at Abramović, injuring her. Marina stands still, tears falling from her eyes.

This piece was exploring themes of power and control. Abramović grew up in post-war Yugoslavia, with both parents being high ranking officials in the socialist government. Her upbringing was strict, everything was controlled. “I grew up with incredible control, discipline and violence at home. Everything was extreme,” (Abramović, 2015). ‘Rhythm 0’ explores this idea of complete control over a person, being powerless to those in control, just having to stand there, still, in silence, helpless and crying. This can also apply to living as a woman in a society which has misogyny woven deep into its fabrics; a society which aims to control a woman's body, actions, clothing and thoughts, to limit her power in any way possible (Hessel, 2023). In contrast to Picasso and Lichtenstein’s shallow portrayal of suffering, Abramovic and Pane’s performance art is more intimate and visceral, confronting the viewer with the reality of their suffering.

courtesy the Anton Kern Gallery

courtesy The Modern Institute

Anne Collier is an American female artist who recently exhibited her new show titled ‘Eye’ at Lismore Castle in Ireland which comprised of a series of images of different women’s

Fig 3.4. Anne Collier, (2021) WomanCrying#20, black and white photograph, image

Fig 3.5. Anne Collier, (2021) WomanCrying#21, black and white photograph, image

eyes, all sourced from comics, films, advertisements, photography manuals, as well as images of her own eye. Collier has a specific interest in the act of ‘looking’ within the photographic process, particularly the idea of looking at and being looked at, whilst also dissecting the camera as a contradictory instrument in the subjects liberation and subjugation. The Exhibition overwhelmingly shows closeups of women’s eyes expressing varying degrees of emotion, many showing weeping and distraught women (Buck, 2023). The way that these pieces are shown is very cool and distanced from the women depicted, devoid of context, calling into question that idea of artist versus subject, and the relationship of the camera as a spectator. Author and lecturer in modern and contemporary art history, Sabine Kriebel (2023) claims that “The show thematises patriarchy’s aestheticisation of women’s pain”, imperative to narratives in film and photography is the female victim, tragedy, and female suffering. That we as viewers take an aesthetic pleasure in suffering, that “their masochism becomes our sadism”. Despite this, rarely do we see male melancholy, a man weeping, wrapped up ready for consumption as something aesthetically beautiful. Women’s suffering under patriarchy is trite and banal. That was Collier's point, claims Kriebel (2023).

Conclusion

This dissertation sets out to examine and critique depictions of female pain and suffering in contemporary art and media, comparing those depictions created by male and female artists to figure out where they differ and what motivates these different groups to create work based on the same topic. Suffering has become a gendered concept, a pious act when committed by a male and pathetic when committed by a female.

This Dissertation’s research was split into three main categories, the romanticisation of suffering, getting off on pain, and reclaiming suffering. This was achieved by using an

interpretive analysis of a wide variety of depictions of female suffering, through varied mediums and a diverse set of artists. Utilising this knowledge to analyse the patterns of how female suffering is depicted and what the main differences are in how male and female artists approach the subject.

Discussing first how female pain and suffering is viewed as beautiful and desirable, this dissertation examined literature and how pain became romanticised. When beauty is something to strive for and suffering is beautiful then a willingness to suffer at any cost becomes imperative to living as a woman. An awareness of one's own suffering and being perceived as performing your pain influences how your pain is viewed. Pain that is left unacknowledged is seen as a purer form of pain, it elevates the sufferer to a status of divinity, once your pain becomes acknowledged then it becomes pathetic and no longer authentic. Viewing suffering through voyeurism, as trauma has become commodified as entertainment, suffering becomes a mystery to solve. Comparing both the novel (1993) and film (2000) versions of The Virgin Suicides and discussing the obsession and mystery of watching someone else suffer. With the novel being written by a man and from the perspective of boys contrasting with the female directed film which follows the perspective of girls, The Virgin Suicides acts as a case study for how female suffering is entertainment for men versus the lived experience of women.

Further exploring literature this dissertation discusses the conflict between the works of Sylvia Plath and her suicide, how her work has been overshadowed by her own personal suffering which launched her into a position of martyrdom to those seeking an idol to express their own pain through

Discussing the feeling of pain being inevitable versus innate, opens up a divide between depicting suffering as something that binds women together, and depicting pain because it is ingrained into our being. This idea of pain being innate alleviates any form of guilt from those causing it, and an explanation as to why it is so commonplace.

This dissertation brings up the relationship between male artists and female pain and ask the question: do they just so happen to depict women suffering or do they create pain to give to women because they like watching women suffer? Pablo Picasso claimed that his piece WeepingWoman was crying because his muse was intrinsically sad, however this dissertation argues that his muses were only sad because he made them that way. Finding women, dating them, then bleeding them of any happiness they once had, just for Picasso to claim that all women are machines for suffering. Lichtenstein followed a similar path, expressing his anger at women by making them cry both in real life and in his art.

The research further discussed how male pain is taken far more seriously by critics than female pain is, male pain is typically seen as more authentic and purposeful, contrasting with female pain being considered hysterical, exaggerated and attention seeking.

Finally, discussing women depicting their own suffering as an act of protest, refusing to have female pain continue to be seen as so normal that it's not even worth taking notice. Gina Pane makes her own pain a spectacle as she uses her art for protest and her body as a sacrifice. Marina Abramović continues this mission as she recreates Pane’s work, and then in her piece

Rhythm 0 she forces the public to come to terms with how little they think of pain when you face no consequence. When your ‘victim’ is powerless to retaliate or even react, then quickly your actions intensify in violence.

Anne Collier brings up the important relationship between camera and muse, as well as man versus woman. As the camera both liberates and subjugates the muse, us as viewers play a very important role in this subjugation through our own voyeurism. As men view our pain as something aesthetically pleasing it traps us as being continuously depicted suffering. As we exist in a patriarchal world, men’s enjoyment of female pain condemns women to perpetually be in pain for their pleasure.

This dissertation supports the view that there is a difference between men’s and women’s depiction of female pain. As women seek to grasp a narrative which diminishes victimhood and looks towards empowerment, depictions of female pain will be less detached, more autobiographical and authentic.

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