The MoMA's Hot Mamas

Author(s): Carol Duncan

Source: Art Journal, Vol. 48, No. 2, Images of Rule: Issues of Interpretation (Summer,
1989), pp. 171-178
Published by: College Art Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/776968
Accessed: 16-02-2017 04:48 UTC

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 The MoMA 's Hot Mamas

By Carol Duncan

he theme of this issue of Art Jour- measure its ambitions and scale. volume, the overthrow of traditional
nal is Images of Rule. The objectsProbably more than any other institu-compositional schemes, the discovery of
that my essay discusses, well-known tion, the MoMA has promoted this painting as an autonomous surface, the
"mainstream modernism," greatly aug- emancipation of color, line, or texture,
works of art, are not images of rule in
any literal sense-they do not depict menting
a its authority and prestige the occasional transgressions and reaf-
ruling power. They are, nevertheless, through acquisitions, exhibitions, and firmations of the boundaries of art (as in
effective and impressive artifacts publications.
of To be sure, the MoMA's the adaptation of junk or non-high art
rule. Rather than directly picturing managers did not independently invent materials), and so on through the libera-
the museum's strictly linear and highly tion of painting from frame and
power or its symbols, they invite viewers
to an experience that dramatizes and formalist art-historical narrative; but stretcher and thence from the wall
they have embraced it tenaciously, and itself-all of these advances translate
confirms the social superiority of male
over female identity. This function, it is no accident that one can retrace that into moments of moral as well as artistic
however, is obscured and even denied history
by in its galleries better and more choice. As a consequence of his spiritual
the environments that surround the fully than in any other collection. For struggle, the artist finds a new realm of
the the museum's retrospective char- energy and truth beyond the material,
works, the physical environment of some,
museum and the verbal environment of acter is a regrettable turnaround from visible world that once preoccupied
art history. In what follows, I try toits original role as champion of the new. art-as in Cubism's reconstruction of
uncover this hidden function. But the MoMA remains enormously the "fourth dimension," as Apollinaire
When The Museum of Modern Art important for the role it plays in main- called the power of thought itself; Mon-
opened its newly installed and much- taining in the present a particular ver- drian's or Kandinsky's visual analogues
enlarged permanent collection in 1984,sion of the art-historical past. Indeed, of abstract, universal forces; Robert
for much of the academic world as for
critics were struck with how little things Delaunay's discovery of cosmic energy
as larger art public, the kind of art or Miro's recreations of a limitless and
had changed. In the new installation, the
in the old,' modern art is once again a
history it narrates still constitutes the potent psychic field. Ideally and to the
progression of formally distinct styles.
definitive history of modern art. extent to which they have assimilated
As before, certain moments in this pro- Yet, in the MoMA's permanent col- this history, museum visitors reenact
gression are given greater importance lection, more meets the eye than this these artistic-and hence spiritual-
history admits to. According to thestruggles. In this way they ritually per-
than others: Cezanne, the first painter
one sees, announces modern art's begin-established narrative, the history of art form a drama of enlightenment in which
nings. Picasso's dramatically installedis made up of a progression of styles and freedom is won by repeatedly overcom-
Demoiselles d'Avignon signifies the unfolds along certain irreversible lines: ing and moving beyond the visible,
coming of Cubism-the first giant step from style to style, it gradually emanci- material world.
twentieth-century art took and the one pates itself from the imperative to And yet, despite the meaning and
from which much of the history of mod- represent convincingly or coherently a value given to such transcendent realms,
ern art proceeds. From Cubism unfolds natural, presumably objective world. In- the history of modern art, as it is written
the other notable avant-garde move- tegral to this narrative is a model of and as it is seen in the MoMA and
ments: German Expressionism, Fu- moral action, exemplified by individual elsewhere, is positively crowded with
turism, and so on, through Dada-Sur- artists. As they become liberated from images-and most of them are of wom-
realism. Finally come the American traditional representation, they achieve en. Despite their numbers, their variety
Abstract Expressionists. After purifying greater subjectivity and hence greater is remarkably small. Most often they are
their work of a residue of Surrealist artistic freedom and autonomy of spirit. simply female bodies, or parts of bodies,
representation, they made the final As the literature of modern art portrays with no identity beyond their female
breakthrough into the realm of absolute it, their progressive renunciation of rep- anatomy-those ever-present "Women"
spirit, manifested as absolute formal
resentation, repeatedly and minutely or "Seated Women" or "Reclining
and nonrepresentational purity. It is documented
in in monographs, catalogues, Nudes." Or, they are tarts, prostitutes,
reference to their achievement that, and critical journals, is often achieved artist's models, or low-life entertain-
according to the MoMA (in its large, through painful or self-sacrificing ers-highly identifiable socially, but at
searching or courageous risk-taking. the bottom of the social scale. In the
new, final gallery), all later significant
art in one way or another continues The
to disruption of space, the denial of MoMA's authoritative collection, Picas-

Summer 1989 171

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so's Demoiselles d'Avignon, Leger's potentially overpowering, devouring, or Bather or Giacometti's Woman with
Grand Dejeuner, Kirchner's scenes of castrating. Indeed, the MoMA's collec- Her Throat Cut, their presence both in
street walkers, Duchamp's Bride, Se- tion of monstrous, threatening females the museum ritual and in the written
verini's Bal Tabarin dancer, de Koon- is exceptional: Picasso's Demoiselles (and illustrated) mythology is neces-
ing's Woman I, and many other works and Seated Bather (the latter a giant sary. In both contexts, they provide the
are often monumental in scale and con- praying mantis), the frozen, metallic reason for the spiritual and mental
spicuously placed. Most critical and art- odalisques in Leger's Grand Dejeuner, flight. Confrontation and escape from
historical writing give them comparableseveral early female figures by Giaco- them constitutes the ordeal's dark cen-
importance. metti, sculpture by Gonzales and Lip- ter, a darkness that gives meaning and
To be sure, modern artists have oftenschitz, and Baziotes's Dwarf, a mean- motive to the quest for enlightenment.
chosen to make "big" philosophical or looking creature with saw teeth, a single Since the heroes of this ordeal are
artistic statements via the nude. If the large eye, and a prominent, visible uter- generically men, the presence of women
MoMA exaggerates this tradition or us-to name only some. (One could artists in this mythology can be only an
overstates some aspects of it, it is nev- easily expand the category to include anomaly. Women artists, especially if
ertheless an exaggeration or overstate- works by Kirchner, Severini, Rouault, they exceed the standard token number,
ment of something pervasive in modernand others who depicted decadent, cor- tend to degender the ritual ordeal.
art history-as it is represented andrupt-and therefore morally mon- Accordingly, in the MoMA and other
illustrated in the literature. Why then strous-women.) In different ways, museums, their numbers are kept well
has art history not accounted for thiseach of these works testifies to a perva- below the point where they might effec-
intense preoccupation with socially and sive fear of and ambivalence about tively dilute its masculinity. The female
sexually available female bodies? What,woman. Openly expressed on thepresence
plane is necessary only in the form of
if anything, do nudes and whores have toof culture, it seems to me that this fear Of course, men, too, are occa-
imagery.
do with modern art's heroic renuncia- and ambivalence makes the central sionally represented. But unlike women,
tion of representation? And why is this who are seen primarily as sexually
moral of modern art more intelligible-
imagery accorded such prestige and whether or not it tells us anythingaccessible
about bodies, men are portrayed as
authority within art history-why isthe it individual psyches of those whophysically
pro- and mentally active beings
associated with the highest artisticduced these works. who creatively shape their world and
ambition? Even work that eschews such imageryponder its meanings. They make music
and gives itself entirely to the drive forand art, they stride, work, build cities,
n theory, museums are public spacesabstract, transcendent truth may alsoconquer the air through flight, think,
dedicated to the spiritual enhance- speak of these fears in the very act of and engage in sports (Cezanne, Rodin,
ment of all who visit there. In practice, fleeing the realm of matter (mater) andPicasso, Matisse, Leger, La Fresnaye,
however, museums are prestigious andbiological need that is woman's tradi-Boccioni). When male sexuality is
powerful engines of ideology. They are tional domain. How often modern mas- broached, it is often presented as the ex-
modern ritual settings in which visitorsters have sought to make their workperience of highly self-conscious, psy-
enact complex and often deep psychicspeak of higher realms-of air, light, thechologically complex beings whose sex-
dramas about identity-dramas that themind, the cosmos-realms that exist ual feelings are leavened with poetic
museum's stated, consciously intendedabove a female, biological earth. Cub- pain, poignant frustration, heroic fear,
programs do not and cannot acknowl-ism, Kandinsky, Mondrian, the Futur- protective irony, or the drive to make art
edge overtly. Like all great museums, ists, Mir6, the Abstract Expression- (Picasso, De Chirico, Duchamp, Bal-
the MoMA's ritual transmits a complexists-all drew artistic life from some thus, Delvaux, Bacon, Lindner).
ideological signal. My concern here isnonmaterial energy of the self or the
with only a portion of that signal-theuniverse. (Leger's ideal of a rational,e Kooning's Woman I and Picas-
portion that addresses sexual identity. I mechanical order can also be understood so's Demoiselles d'Avignon are
shall argue that the collection's recur-as opposed to-and a defense against-two of art history's most important
rent images of sexualized female bodies the unruly world of nature that it seeksfemale images. They are also key objects
actively masculinize the museum as ato control.) The peculiar iconoclasm ofin the MoMA's collection and highly
social environment. Silently and surrep- much modern art, its renunciation ofeffective in maintaining the museum's
titiously, they specify the museum'srepresentation and the material worldmasculinized environment,
ritual of spiritual quest as a male quest, behind it, seems at least in part based in The museum has always hung these
just as they mark the larger project ofan impulse, common among modern works with precise attention to their
modern art as primarily a male endea-males, to escape not the mother in anystrategic roles in the story of modern art.
vor. literal sense, but a psychic image of Both before and after the 1984 expan-
If we understand the modern-art woman and her earthly domain that sion, de Kooning's Woman I hung at the
museum as a ritual of male transcen- seems rooted in infant or childish threshold to the spaces containing the
dence, if we see it as organized aroundnotions of the mother. Philip Slater big Abstract Expressionist "break-
male fears, fantasies, and desires, then
noted an "unusual emphasis on mobilitythroughs"-the New York School's
final
and flight as attributes of the hero
the quest for spiritual transcendence on whocollective leap into absolutely pure,
the one hand and the obsession with a struggles against the menacing moth-
abstract, nonreferential transcendence:
sexualized female body on the other, Pollock's artistic and psychic free
er." In the museum's ritual, the recur-
rather than appearing unrelated or con-rent image of a menacing womanflights,
adds Rothko's sojourns in the lumi-
tradictory, can be seen as parts of aurgency to such flights to "higher"nous
real-depths of a universal self, New-
larger, psychologically integrated man's heroic
ms. Hence also the frequent appearance confrontations with the
whole. sublime,
in written art history of monstrous or Still's lonely journeys into the
How very often images of women in threatening women or, what is back theirbeyond of culture and conscious-
modern art speak of male fears. Many of obverse, powerless or vanquished ness,wom-Reinhardt's solemn and sardonic
the works I just mentioned feature dis- en. Whether man-killer or murder vic- negations of all that is not Art, and so
torted or dangerous-looking creatures, tim, whether Picasso's deadly Seated on. And always seated at the doorway to

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Pig. I Willem de Kooning, Woman 1, 1932, oil on canvas, Pig. 2 Willem de Kooning, Woman II, 1952, oil on canvas,
76 x 58", as presently installed in The Museum of Modern 59 x 48", as temporarily installed in The Museum of
Art. Modern Art in 1978.

good reason. De Kooning's Women are

exceptionally successful ritual artifacts
and masculinize the museum's space
with great efficiency.
The woman figure had been emerging
gradually in de Kooning's work in the
course of the 1940s. By 1951-52, it fully
revealed itself in Woman I (Fig. 3) as a
big, bad mama-vulgar, sexual, and
dangerous. De Kooning imagines her
facing us with iconic frontality, large,
bulging eyes, open, toothy mouth, mas-
sive breasts. The suggestive pose is just a
knee movement away from open-
thighed display of the vagina, the self-
exposing gesture of mainstream por-
nography.
These features are not unique in the
history of art. They appear in ancient
and tribal cultures as well as in modern
pornography and graffiti. Together,
they constitute a well-known figure
type.3 The Gorgon of ancient Greek art
(Fig. 4), an instance of that type, bears a
striking resemblance to de Kooning's
Woman I, and, like her, simultaneously
suggests and avoids the explicit act of
sexual self-display that elsewhere char-
acterizes the type. An Etruscan example
(Fig. 5) states more of its essential com-
ponents as they appeared in a wide
range of archaic and tribal cultures-
not only the display of genitals, but also
the flanking animals that point to her
origins as a fertility or mother goddess.4
Obviously, the configuration, with or
without animals, carries complex sym-
bolic possibilities and can convey many-
sided, contradictory, and layered mean-
ings. In her guise as the Gorgon witch,
however, the terrible aspect of the
mother goddess, her lust for blood and
her deadly gaze, is emphasized. Espe-
these moments of ultimate freedom cially
and today,important is he
when the myths and rituals
purity and literally helping to frame
that may have when she
suggested other has
meanings
them has been Woman I (Fig. 1). So appears
have been lost-and when to take
modern psy- h

Summer 1989 173

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choanalytic ideas are likely to color any looked for Medusa in the mirroring
interpretation-the figure appears espe- shield, he must study her flat, reflected
cially intended to conjure up infantile image every inch of the way."7
feelings of powerlessness before theBut then again, the image type is so
mother and the dread of castration: in
ubiquitous, we needn't try to assign de
the open jaw can be read the vagina
Kooning's Woman I to any particular
dentata-the idea of a dangerous, source in ancient or primitive art.
devouring vagina, too horrible to depict, Woman I can call up the Medusa as
and hence transposed to the toothyeasily as the other way around. What-
mouth. ever he knew or sensed about the Gor- Fig. 5 Etruscan Gorgon, drawing after
Feelings of inadequacy and vulnera- gon's meanings, and however much ora bronze carriage-front. Munich,
bility before mature women are commonlittle he took from it, the image type isMuseum antiker Kleinkunst.
(if not always salient) phenomena in decidedly present in his work. Suffice it
male psychic development. Such mythsto say that de Kooning was aware, her as simultaneously frightening and
as the story of Perseus and such visual indeed, explicitly claimed, that hisludicrous.9 The ambiguity of the figure,
images as the Gorgon can play a role inWomen could be assimilated to the long its power to resemble an awesome
mediating that development by extend- history of goddess imagery.8 By choos- mother goddess as well as a modern
ing and re-creating on the cultural plane ing to place such figures at the center of
burlesque queen, provides a fine cultur-
its core psychic experience and accom- his most ambitious artistic efforts, he
al, psychological, and artistic field in
panying defenses.5 Thus objectified and secured for his work an aura of ancient which to enact the modern myth of the
communally shared in imagery, myth,mystery and authority. artist-hero-the hero whose spiritual
and ritual, such individual fears and The Woman is not only monumentalordeal becomes the stuff of ritual in the

Fig. 4 Gorgon, clay relief. Syracuse,

National Museum.

desires may achieve the status of higher,

universal truth. In this sense, the pres-
ence of Gorgons on Greek temples-
important houses of cult worship (they
also appeared on Christian church
walls)6-is paralleled by Woman rs
presence in a high-cultural house of the
modern world.
The head of de Kooning's Woman I is
so like the archaic Gorgon that the ref-
erence could well be intentional, espe-
cially since the artist and his friends
placed great store in ancient myths and
primitive images and likened themselves Fig. 6 Robert Heinecken, Invitation to Metamorphosis,
to archaic and tribal shamans. Writing and pastel chalk, 42 x 42".
about de Kooning's Women, Thomas
Hess echoed this claim in a passage and iconic. In high-heeled shoes and public space of the museum. As a power-
comparing de Kooning's artistic ordeal brassiere, she is also lewd, her pose ful and threatening woman, it is she who
to that of Perseus, slayer of the Gorgon. indecently teasing. De Kooning ac- must be confronted and transcended-
Hess is arguing that de Kooning's knowledged her oscillating character, gotten past-on the way to enlighten-
Women grasp an elusive, dangerousclaiming for her a likeness not only to ment. At the same time, her vulgarity,
truth "by the throat": "And truth can beserious art-ancient icons and high-art her "girlie" side-de Kooning called it
touched only by complications, ambigu- nudes-but also to pinups and girlie her "silliness"10-renders her harmless
ities and paradox, so, like the hero who pictures of the vulgar present. He saw (or is it contemptible?) and denies the

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 universal category of being existing
across time and place. Picasso used
ancient and tribal art to reveal her uni-
versal mystery: Egyptian and Iberian
sculpture on the left and African art on
the right. The figure on the lower right
(Fig. 8) looks as if it were directly
inspired by some primitive or archaic
deity. Picasso would have known such
figures from his visits to the ethnograph-
ic art collections in the Trocadero. A
study for the work in the Musee Picasso
in Paris (Fig. 9) closely follows the
type's symmetrical, self-displaying pose.
Significantly, Picasso wanted her to be
prominent-she is the nearest and larg-
est of all the figures. At this stage,
Picasso also planned to include a male
student on the left and, in the axial
center of the composition, a sailor-a
figure of horniness incarnate. The self-
displaying woman was to have faced
him, her display of genitals turned away
from the viewer.
In the finished work, the male pres-
ence has been removed from the image
and relocated in the viewing space
before it. What began as a depicted
male-female confrontation thus became
a confrontation between viewer and
image. The relocation has pulled the
lower right-hand figure completely
around so that her stare and her sexually
inciting act, although not detailed and
Fig. 7 Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907, oil on canvas, 963/8 x less symmetrical than before, are now
directed outward. Picasso thus isolated
921/2". The Museum of Modern Art.
and monumentalized the ultimate men-
only situation. As restructured, the work
terror and dread of her Medusa fea- neously naked and draped, enticing and forcefully asserts to both men and
tures. The ambiguity of the image thus repulsive, and the second head, to the women the privileged status of male
gives the artist (and the viewer) both left
the of the Gorgon head-the one with viewers-they alone are intended to
experience of danger and a feeling ofseductive smile-also wears a mask.
the experience the full impact of this most
overcoming it. Meanwhile, the sugges- Like the de Kooning, Heinecken's Invi-
tion of pornographic self-display-more tation sets up a psychologically unstable
explicit in his later work but certainly atmosphere fraught with deception,
present here-specifically addressesallure, it- danger, and wit. The image's
self to the male viewer. With it, de various components continually disap-
Kooning knowingly and assertively ex- pear into and reappear out of one anoth-
ercises his patriarchal privilege of objec- er. Behaving something like de Koon-
tifying male sexual fantasy as high cul- ing's layered paint surfaces, they invite
ture. ever-shifting, multiple readings. In both
An interesting drawing-photomon-
works, what is covered becomes ex-
tage by the California artist Robert Hei-
posed, what is opaque becomes trans-
necken, Invitation to Metamorphosisparent, and what is revealed conceals
(Fig. 6), similarly explores the ambigu-
something else. Both works fuse the
ities of a Gorgon-girlie image. Here theterrible killer-witch with the willing and
effect of ambiguity is achieved by the
exhibitionist whore. Both fear and seek
use of masks and by combining and
danger in desire, and both kid the dan-
superimposing separate negatives. Hei- ger.
necken's version of the self-displaying
woman is a composite consisting of a f course before de Kooning or Hei-
conventional pornographic nude and a necken created ambiguous self-dis-
Hollywood movie-type monster. A well-playing women, there was Picasso's
qualified Gorgon, her attributes includeDemoiselles d'Avignon of 1907 (Fig. 7).
an open, toothy mouth, carnivorous ani-
The work was conceived as an extraordi-
mal jaws, huge bulging eyes, large narily ambitious statement-it aspires
breasts, exposed genitals, and one very to revelation-about the meaning of Fig. 8 Picasso, Les Demoiselles
nasty-looking claw. Her body is simulta- Woman. In it, all women belong to a d'Avignon, detail.

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 work. Mounted on a free-standing wall
in the center of the first Cubist gallery,
it seizes your attention the moment you
turn into the room-the placement of
the doorway makes it appear suddenly
and dramatically. Physically dominat-
ing this intimately scaled gallery, its
installation dramatizes its role as pro-
genitor of the surrounding Cubism and
its subsequent art-historical issue. So
central is the work to the structure of
MoMA's program that recently, when it
was on loan, the museum felt compelled
to post a notice on its wall explaining its
absence-but also invoking its presence.
In a gesture unusual for the MoMA, the
notice was illustrated by a tiny color
reproduction of the missing monument
(Fig. 10).
The works I have discussed by de
Kooning and Heinecken, along with
similar works by many other modern
artists, benefit from and reinforce the
status won by the Demoiselles. They
also develop its theme, drawing out dif-
ferent emphases. One of the elements
they develop more explicitly than
Picasso is the element of pornography.
Fig. 9 Pablo Picasso, Studyjor "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon," 1907, charcoal and By way of exploring how that porno-
pastel, 181/2 x 245/8". Paris, Musee Picasso.

revelatory moment." It also assigns

women to a visitors' gallery where they
may watch but not enter the central
arena of high culture.
Finally, the mystery that Picasso
unveils about women is also an art-
historical lesson. In the finished work,
the women have become stylistically dif-
ferentiated so that one looks not only at
present-tense whores but also back down
into the ancient and primitive past, with
the art of "darkest Africa" and works
representing the beginnings of Western
Culture (Egyptian and Iberian idols)
placed on a single spectrum. Thus does
Picasso use art history to argue his the-
sis: that the awesome goddess, the terri-
ble witch, and the lewd whore are but

rig. 11 Bus shelter on > /tn street, New YorK lity, witn auvertisement tor
Penthouse magazine, 1988.

facets of a single many-sided creature, graphic element works in the museum

in turn threatening and seductive, context, I want to look first at how it
imposing and self-abasing, dominating works outside the museum.
and powerless-and always the psychic
property of a male imagination. Picasso Last year, an advertisement for
also implies that truly great, powerful, Penthouse magazine appeared on
and revelatory art has always been and New York City bus shelters (Fig. 11).
must be built upon such exclusively New York City bus shelters are often
Fig. 10 Wall label, The Museum of male property. decorated with near-naked women and
Modern Art, with photograph of the The museum's installation amplifies sometimes men advertising everything
missing Demoiselles, 1988. the already powerful meanings of the from underwear to real estate. But this

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rig. 1 Acvertlsement Ior rentnouse,
using a photograph by Bob Guccione,
April 1988.

was an ad for pornographic images as

such; that is, images designed not to sell
perfume or bathing suits but to stimu-
late erotic desire, primarily in men.
Given its provocative intent, the image
generates very different and-I think
for almost everyone-more charged
meanings than the ads for underwear.
At least one passerby had already
recorded in red spray-paint a terse, but
coherent response: "For Pigs."
Having a camera with me, I decided
to take a shot of it. But as I set about
Fig. 13 Willem de Kooning, The Visit, 1966-67, oil on canvas, 60 x 48". London,
focusing, I began to feel uncomfortable
and self-conscious. As I realized only The Tate Gallery.
later, I was experiencing some prohibi-
tion in my own conditioning, activated Penthouse is knowing something meant situations a female gaze can pollute
not simply by the nature of the ad, but for men to know; therefore, knowing pornography. These boys, already im-
by the act of photographing such an ad Penthouse is a way of knowing oneself toprinted with the rudimentary gender
in public. Even though the anonymous be a man, or at least a man-to-be, atcodes of the culture, knew an infringe-
precisely an age when one needs all the
inscription had made it socially safer to ment when they saw one. (Perhaps they
photograph-it placed it in a conscious help one can get. I think these boys weresuspected me of defacing the ad.) Their
and critical discourse about gender-to trying to protect the capacity of the adharassment of me constituted an
photograph it was still to appropriate to empower them as men by preventingattempt at gender policing, someth
openly a kind of image that middle-classme from appropriating an image of it. adult men routinely do to women on c
morality says I'm not supposed to look at
For them, as for many men, the chief (ifstreets.
or have. But before I could sort that out,
not the only) value and use of pornogra- Not so long ago, such magazines were
a group of boys jumped into the frame. phy is this power to confirm gendersold only in sleazy porn stores. Today
identity and, with that, gender superior-ads for them can decorate midtown
Plainly, they intended to intervene. Did
I know what I was doing?, one asked me ity. Pornography affirms their manli-thoroughfares. Of course, the ad, as well
ness to themselves and to others and
with an air I can only call stern, while as the magazine cover, cannot itself be
another admonished me that I was pho- proclaims the greater social power pornography
of and still be legal (in prac-
tographing a Penthouse ad-as if I men. Like some ancient and primitivetice, that tends to mean it can't show
would not knowingly do such a thing. objects forbidden to the female gaze, genitals),
the but to work as an ad it must
Apparently, the same culture that ability of pornography to give its userssuggest
a it. For different reasons, works
of art like de Kooning's Woman I or
had conditioned me to feel uneasy about feeling of superior male status depends
Heinecken's Invitation also refer to
what I was doing also made them uneasy on its being owned or controlled by men
about it. Boys this age know very welland forbidden to, shunned by, or hidden
without actually being pornography
what's in Penthouse. Knowing what's in from women. In other words, in certain
they depend on the viewer "getting" th

Summer 1989 177

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reference but must stop there. Given ferred upon men only. Through their 5 See: Slater (cited n. 2), pp. 308-36, on the
these requirements, it shouldn't surprise imagery, they lay claim to public space Perseus myth, and pp. 449 ff., on the similari-
us that the artists' visual strategies have as a realm under masculine control. ties between ancient Greek and middle-class

parallels in the ad (Fig. 12). Woman I Transformed into art and displayedAmerican
in males.

shares a number of features with the ad. the public space of the museum, the
6 See: Fraser (cited n. 3).
Both present frontal, iconic, massive self-displaying poses affirm to male
figures seen close up-they fill, even viewers their membership in the more7 Thomas B. Hess, Willem de Kooning, New
York, 1959, p. 7. See also: Hess, Willem de
overflow, the picture surface. The pho- powerful gender group. They also
Kooning: Drawings, New York and Greenwich,
remind women that their status as mem-
tograph's low camera angle and the
Conn., 1972, p. 27, on a de Kooning drawing of
painting's scale and composition monu- bers of the community, their right to its
Elaine de Kooning (c. 1942), in which the
mentalize and elevate the figures, public space, their share in the common,
writer finds the features of Medusa-a "men-
literally or imaginatively dwarfing the culturally defined identity, is not quite
acing" stare, intricate, animated "Medusa
viewer. Painting and photograph alike the same-is somehow less equal-than hair."
concentrate attention on head, breasts,men's. But these signals must be covert,
8 As he once said, "The Women had to do with
and torso. Arms serve to frame the body, hidden under the myth of the tran-
the female painted through all the ages....
while legs are either cropped or, in the scendent artist-hero. Even de Kooning's
Painting the Woman is a thing in art that has
de Kooning, undersized and feeble. Thelater Women figures, which more openly
been done over and over-the idol, Venus, the
figures thus appear powerful and power- invite comparison to pornographic pho-
nude." Quoted in Willem de Kooning. The
less at the same time, with massive tography and graffiti (Fig. 13), qualify
North Atlantic Light, 1960-1983, exh. cat.,
bodies made to rest on unstable, weakly the reference; the closer to pornography,
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Louisiana
rendered, tentatively placed legs. And the more overlaid they must be with
Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, and the
with both, the viewer is positioned to see unambiguously "artistic" gestures and
Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 1983. Sally
it all should the thighs open. And of philosophically significant impastos. Yard, "Willem de Kooning's Women," Arts,
course, on Penthouse pages, thighs do Nevertheless, what is true in the 53 (November 1975), pp. 96-101, argues sev-
little else but open. But de Kooning's hot street may not be so untrue in the eral sources for the Women paintings, includ-
mama has a very different purpose and museum, even though different rules of ing Cycladic idols, Sumerian votive figures,
cultural status from a Penthouse "pet." decorum may make it seem so. Inside or Byzantine icons, and Picasso's Demoiselles.
outside, such images wield great author-
9 North Atlantic Light (cited n. 8), p. 77. See
e Kooning's Woman I conveys ity, structuring and reinforcing the psy-
also: Hess, de Kooning 1959 (cited n. 7), pp. 21
much more complex and emotion-chic codes that determine and differen- and 29.
ally ambivalent meanings. The work tiate the real possibilities of women and
acknowledges more openly the fearmen.
of 10 North Atlantic Light (cited n. 8), p. 77.
and flight from as well as a quest for the 11 See, for example: Leo Steinberg, "The Philo-
woman. Moreover de Kooning's Woman sophical Brothel," Art News, September 1972,
Notes
I is always upstaged by the artist's self- pp. 25-26. In Steinberg's ground-breaking
display as an artist. The manifest pur-
1 For an analysis of the older MoMA, see: Carol reading, the act of looking at these female
pose of a Penthouse photo is, presum-Duncan and Alan Wallach, "The Museum of figures visually re-creates the act of sexually
ably, to arouse desire. If the de Kooning Modern Art as Late Capitalist Ritual," Marx- penetrating a woman. The implication is that
awakens desire in relation to the female ist Perspectives, 4 (Winter 1978), pp. 28-51. women are anatomically unequipped to experi-
body it does so in order to deflate or2 Philip Slater, The Glory of Hera, Boston, 1968, ence the work's full meaning.
conquer its power of attraction and p. 321. 12 Very little has been written about de Kooning
escape its danger. The viewer is invited that does not do this. For one of the most
3 See: Douglas Fraser, "The Heraldic Woman: A
to relive a struggle in which the realm of bombastic treatments, see: Harold Rosenberg,
Study in Diffusion," in The Many Faces of
art provides escape from the female's De Kooning, New York, 1974.
Primitive Art, ed. D. Fraser, Englewood Cliffs,
degraded allure. As mediated by art New Jersey, 1966, pp. 36-99; Arthur Froth-
criticism, de Kooning's work speaks ulti- ingham, "Medusa, Apollo, and the Great
mately not of male fear but of the Mother," American Journal of Archaeology,
triumph of art and a self-creating spirit. 15 (1911), pp. 349-77; Roman Ghirshman,
In the critical literature, the Women Iran: From the Earliest Times to the Islamic
figures themselves become catalysts or Conquest, Harmondsworth, 1954, pp. 340-43;
structural supports for the work's more Bernard Goldman, "The Asiatic Ancestry of
significant meanings: the artist's heroic the Greek Gorgon," Berytus, 14 (1961), pp.
self-searching, his existentialist courage, 1-22; Clark Hopkins, "Assyrian Elements in
his pursuit of a new pictorial structure the Perseus-Gorgon Story," American Journal
or some other artistic or transcendent Carol Duncan teaches art history in
of Archaeology, 38 (1934), pp. 341-58, and
end.12 the School of Contemporary Arts at
"The Sunny Side of the Greek Gorgon," Bery-
The work's pornographic moment, Ramapo College of New Jersey.
tus, 14 (1961), pp. 25-32; and Philip Slater
now subsumed to its high-cultural (cited n. 3), pp. 16-21, and 318 ff.
import, may (unlike the Penthouse ad) 4 More ancient than the devouring Gorgon of
do its ideological work with unchal- Greece and pointing to a root meaning of the
lenged prestige and authority. In build- image type, a famous Louristan bronze pin in
ing their works on a pornographic base the David Weill Collection honors an older,
and triggering in both men and women life-giving Mother Goddess. Flanked by ani-
deep-seated feelings about gender iden- mals sacred to her, she is shown giving birth to
tity and difference, de Kooning, Hei- a child and holding out her breasts. Objects of
necken, and other artists (most noto- this kind appear to have been the votive offer-
riously, David Salle) exercise a privilege ings of women; see: Ghirshman (cited n. 3), pp.
102-4.
that our society has traditionally con-

178 Art Journal

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