For as long as we can remember, women have been fighting for equality with men, and although women seem to have achieved a lot within the past decades, it is definitely not enough to stop. Perhaps we won’t start a new movement or create protests in the streets, but we will create art and share it.
Sanja Ivekovic has believed in the idea of promoting female equality through art for a long time and her works, now being displayed at the Museum of Modern Art, are a retrospective covering over 35 years. Her work is being referred to as full of “unexpected twists and thought-provoking turns” because it is saturated with shocking images that create an unforgettable message of the importance of women’s rights.
For example, Ivekovic’s most recent works focus on violence against women. “Women’s House (Sunglasses),” which is a continuing work, combines images of beautiful fashion models wearing sunglasses with short, first-person accounts from abused women who often wear sunglasses to cover their bruises. The images are unforgettable. Similarly, for the “Paper Women” series (1976-77) Ivekovic took images of models from magazines and scratched, tore and defaced them in shockingly effective ways, in order to imply acts of violence.
The biggest, most overpowering piece of them all is “Lady Rosa of Luxembourg,” a sculpture in the MoMA’s atrium that consists of a life size statue of a pregnant Greek goddess displayed atop an obelisk. At the base is a “jarring combination of epithets and historic catchphrases (Whore, Kitsch, La Résistance).” It was initially exhibited in Luxembourg in 2001 fairly close to a similar statue that was “unpregnant,” therefore it created a lot of anger, arguably taking away from its purpose of increasing awareness of abuse of women and children. Its efforts, nonetheless, are extremely vital in our society. Female equality cannot be forgotten– so go see the exhibit…
… and check out this article to learn more: Venus Rising From Her Pretty Prison.