Uplift Magazine

Art Should Be All The Rage

By: Alex Brew, 10.05.2008 | Comments (1)

It’s coming up to the anniversary of the May ‘68 riots. This was the moment where feminists joined with millions of workers, students and artists to rage against the machine. Forty years on political rage – especially from women – has been pulverised and spat out. Even in the art world where putting niceties to one side is encouraged, women are on their best behaviour.

Rage has been replaced with subtle irony, canned laughter, sexual ‘liberation’, slick advertising and political moderation – yes, even in the art world. The revolutionary rage of May ‘68 has officially been chased out of town and only the women who have re-adopted the mild manners of the 1950’s (this time served with a little added sexual spice) are allowed into the mainstream. Gone are the days when Mlle Bourgeoise Noire shouted out at exhibition openings she had crashed: “That’s enough! No more boot-licking…No more ass-kissing…No more buttering-up…”

Today you’re more likely to get Tracey Emin’s ambivalence about being classed feminist, Collier Schorr’s creation of “a comprehensive study of amateur wrestling, which is Folk Style”, and Sam Taylor–Wood’s admission that she “loved [the bouncers in her art work], they were the frontline behind which [she] cowered”. A cowering female artist: what liberation!

Female artists today are walking on eggshells when it comes to pushing up against men. They fear alienating them. Women, artists or not, are given the distinct feeling that anger about their real lack of equality would be butch, feminist, un-feminine and, oh worst enemy, negative. But how can anyone in their right mind feel positive and placid about a situation where rage against women is all the rage – two women a week are killed in the UK – and female rage against this violence is brushed aside?

For the last six months I have been confronting men with my camera. Outside strip clubs I have looked without being placatory, without massaging egos. I approach men in public places – outside offices, pubs, cafes and gentlemen’s venues often in London’s square mile. I sometimes ask them to fully or partially undress in a more private space – in an alleyway, a car park, or back at their place or mine.

I have fought my inclination to stay safe by boot-licking… ass-kissing… buttering-up but by doing that I’m literally ‘Asking for it’: the title of my project. I refuse to fight fire with smiles and rage with gentle chiding because since when was burying your feelings liberated? I follow my fear into these situations of potential male violence and disapproval: situations where passivity, acquiescence and submission feel safer or more appealing than taking control.

The images show both domestic and public scenes. The nudity brings to mind a close relationship and sex and yet these are strangers or acquaintances. No sex is on offer. No money exchanged. The series confuses our understanding of what a stranger is and brings to mind domestic violence and rape. On doing the project I realised my fear of stranger rape was far greater than my fear of men known to me.

The images illuminate the risks women take everyday in a culture that believes that the stranger is more dangerous than the man by your side in spite of the statistics that show the opposite. Women (unlike men) are most likely to be attacked, raped or killed by a man known to her. I hope the images show my anger at my own, and other women’s, reality.

If men put up with the level of violence and sexism against them that women do and greeted it with polite smiles and flirtation they would be sectioned. So when will we stop boot-licking the machos, stop self-abusing, stop pandering to the men in our images? When will we stop walking on eggshells and instead say I’m enraged by all this sexism, all this violence?

Bring back the rage of May ‘68 where women and men joined forces to protest against a system that rested on its laurels of prejudice and inequality. The laurels are gone but the sexism still needs overthrowing and can be if we’re ready to fight.