Throughout the art world, it seems that straight, white males have been the ruling class, but this is changing. Women are making their mark in the art world. Two of these women, Cindy Sherman and Barbara Kruger, have challenged traditional notions of representation, gender, and power. They achieved this by using photography to illustrate how women are perceived by the media and art world. Women now have a place in what is a male-dominated place and have a seat at the table.
Cindy Sherman's work has been considered feminist due to her portrayal of how women are viewed by men. Through her work, she has demonstrated that identity can be fluid, and the audience is left to face the way women are stereotyped. Cindy Sherman uses herself as the subject and gives audiences a look at how media and film often portray women from what would be a male point of view. She makes you question what femininity is. To me, it shows how women are looked at more as sexual objects, but Sherman does an excellent job of showing these truths. Sherman also takes power back from masculinity by being in control of the camera and allowing herself to be the object; it is something that previous female models didn't have the opportunity to do. Her work challenges what audiences think of as reality (Segrest, 2024).
Barbara Kruger used more of the advertisement approach; she took language and turned it into art. Kruger wants to engage her audience more by text and words than by visualization. She wants to move away from women just being a passive object of the "male gaze". She uses words like "You", "I", and "We". It becomes more of a direct address towards the individual. Therefore, the words themselves carry power. It's an advertisement for positivity and taking back control to help empower women. And just like Sherman, Kruger challenges the gender stereotype, as to how women are viewed — it's letting the girls into the boys' club. Kruger also did "Your Body is a Battleground" in 1989. There was a march on Washington for women's reproductive rights. This was a chance for women to take that power back and own their bodies (Soley, 2022).
As you can see, both women challenged what was considered the norm, they challenged what was considered beautiful, and they walked right into the men's clubhouse and brought it down. They weren't afraid to challenge what the normal standards were, they were willing to push that envelope and to bring to the audience how men were looked at by the media and by the art world itself.
References
Segrest, E. (2024, April 29). Cindy Sherman and Feminist Art. ArtRKL. https://artrkl.com/blogs/news/cindy-sherman-and-feminist-art — Soley, U. (2022, July 22). Barbara Kruger's Practice on Power, Capitalism, Identity, and Gender. Pera Museum. https://www.peramuseum.org/blog/barbara-kruger%E2%80%99s-practice-on-power-capitalism-identity-and-gender/1582