The video, Insistence (2013), by Andrea Geyer, is currently showing at MoMa. The film is a look at history and the women who shaped art:
“[It] reveals a massive network of women who laid out the cultural landscape of modernism. This network is exposed by weaving together stories about the period’s unsung heroes: women. These stories highlight the everyday lived experiences of the women featured on the postcards, and their commitment to the arts at large. The continuous stacking of their portraits alludes to the fact that their influence is far-reaching, underrepresented, and an ongoing process that deserves further consideration.”
Geyer’s work is augmented by Revolt, They Said which extends beyond the women to those they touched. As an exhibition about women, it impacts the viewer with the undeniable realization that women are not only part of this world but influencers of it. Obviously in this century and day, the realization that women are sentient beings should be a no-brainer, but the push back against feminism says otherwise.
I’m still at a loss for how anyone can argue against a movement that was developed and has stood to create an equal playing field for all human beings. Those who cry that it is attempting to emasculate or steal away men’s rights, usually are coming from an ideology that still believes in the necessary oppression of women to gain whatever men want and continue society moving forward in that manner. It ignores the multi-gender truth of humanity, or that gender and anatomy are not things that define ability or intelligence. To believe so is to believe in the precepts of eugenics—the things that are used against people of color to justify their subjugation and erasure; the things used against various religions to dominate and erase them. In other, simpler and vulgar terms, humans do not do mathematical equations with their genitals. Genitals have quite a different purpose—although basement dwelling, mammoth hunters seem to confuse the purpose of that part of their anatomy with brains.
Art installations like this one, are the movers of cultural temperature and aim. Quite frankly, the more that MoMa and other houses refresh our memories about the human past, the more we’re going to do what is necessary to make things better by just simply giving us ah-ha moments to which we can not only point but reflect on our bias.
Find out more about Andrea Geyer’s film:
