Canonical Women

Exhibition Highlights

Tarsila do Amaral

Tarsila do Amaral, Abaporu, 1928. Oil on Canvas. 85cm x 73cm. Collection MALBA, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires.

Written By: Olivia Dries

Female artists within the context of Latin American art demonstrate the power in which lies a clear notion for the aesthetical realm, social and political conversation, and the empowerment of symbolism throughout their artistic works. Tarsila do Amaral is one such revolutionary female artist. Pioneering the modernization of Brazilian art through her study of Anthropophagy, Amaral painted Abaporu as a catalyst for the anthropophagite movement. The literal translation of the word (abaporu) is a “person who eats,” and as Amaral describes her portrayal of the word in her painting: “a monstrous figure, with enormous feet planted on the Brazilian earth next to a cactus”. (Greet 1) Amaral engulfed many influences as she used hidden surrealist ideologies, her African and Brazilian cultural heritage, and her time in Europe to feed into her production of a distinctly native Brazilian art form. Thus, the artist both embodies and depicts anthropophagy. 

To further analyze the stylistic qualities, the composition of Abaporu consists of simplified geometric shapes and a limited color palette. Amaral’s exaggeration of curvilinears adheres to the feminine nature of the line and form work. Additionally, the color palette is in tune with the naturalistic elements of a Brazilian landscape. The green cactus and lemon-colored sun are furthermore direct attributions to Brazilian symbolage. Overall, Amaral aims to root her works in Brazilian culture. She achieves this in Abaporu by painting an ambiguously gendered figure sitting atop the hill who is reminiscent of the classical mythical creature of the sciapod (Damian 5). The use of the sciapod figure in her piece denotes the recognition of the great classical period in art and the techniques and forms established through it. By incorporating the feeling of weightiness with the figure’s unproportional size, as well as the natural earth elements of the cactus, hill, and sun, Amaral symbolically roots her figures into the painting as they melt into the canvas. Ultimately, the theme of “rooting” through color, figural forms, and symbolism allows Tarsila do Amaral to revive her roots from Brazil and appreciation for classical art. 

Abaporu led the charge for the anthropogenic movement in Brazil: “Abaporu was the image of the Brazilian people eager to eat and digest European culture to form their own… [thus] cannibalism became a means to create Brazilian identity through cultural absorption” (Damien 6). The title, Abaporu, reflected the ideas associated with the Manifesto Antropófago by Oswald de Andrade. It is essential to note that though Abaporu is the artistic crusader for the anthropologist movement, Amaral painted her work before the Manifesto was circulated, and the Andrade created the painting title to reflect the movement (Greet 13-14). However, there is no immediate notion of this “consumer” behavior of anthropophagy associated with Amaral’s Abaporu.  

Tarsila do Amaral’s rejection of Surrealism and therefore the shift towards an independent modern artistic style aligns her ideals with that of Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, and Remedios Varo. Each of these female artists explores the artistic, cultural, political, and social situations of their time and uses art as their platform to present their bold statements to both their home nations in Latin America and internationally. 

Additional Readings:

• D’Alessandro, Stephanie. “A Negra, Abaporu, and Tarsila’s Anthropophagy,” in Tarsila do Amaral: Inventing Modern Art in Brazil. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art), pp. 38-56.

• Damian, Carol. “Tarsila Do Amaral: Art and Environmental Concerns of a Brazilian Modernist.” Woman's Art Journal, vol. 20, no. 1, 1999, pp. 3–7. JSTOR. 

• Greet, Michele. “Devouring Surrealism: Tarsila Do Amaral’s Abaporu.” Papers of Surrealism, no. 11, 2015, pp. 1-39.

Leonora Carrington

Down Below, 1940, Oil on canvas, 40 cm x 60 cm, Courtesy Gallery Wendi Norris

Written by: Carolyn Lightsey   

This work holds the same name of a memoir that Carrington wrote about a rather painful turning point in her life. At the outbreak of WWII her love affair with much older, prominent German artist Max Ernst came to a sudden end as he was arrested as an enemy of the state in France. Due to emotional distress while her and two friends were fleeing to Spain, Carrington experienced a complete mental breakdown. She was forcibly placed in an asylum in Santander where she was exposed to the harmful chemical treatments that preceded electroshock. In was while in this asylum Carrington created the painting Down Below.

​

She has included human-animal hybrids that are typical of her works. In her memoir of the same name she explained she felt simultaneously like an animal and the universe during her time of madness. It is possible this feeling was the inspiration for the hybrids figures as well as the green, nature laden figure to the right of the painting. She appears goddess-like a possible visual iteration of the concept of “universe”. The figures are haunting, and the dark sky and wooded background create an air of mystery. Many of her future works, especially once she moves to Mexico, explore themes of magic. The central figure which appears the most human, dressed in a black bodice and bright red stockings with prominent teeth and two twisting horns, appears quite sexualized. While initially this may seem similar to the way many male surrealists portrayed their female figures, Carrington uses demonic transfigurations and a dark setting to fight against the image of the damaged, sexually charged woman so often found in the male dominated surrealism. There is a green faded horse next to the red-booted figure as well as Pegasus shaped creature mounted on the gate in the background. In her work the horse is often a symbol for the imaginative potential of a woman or girl. Based on her writings it is possible that before they separated Carrington was concerned about her work being over shadowed by not only Ernst, but other male European surrealists. While her work was included in surrealist exhibitions and she explored surrealist themes, such as the subconscious and magic, she rejected the misogyny imbedded in the art movement.

​

After being released from the asylum in Spain and fleeing her family’s wishes for her to be moved to a South African mental facility, Carrington moved briefly through New York then to Mexico City. There she lived and work with a group of European immigrant artists. Though they maintained a semi-removed bubble from the Mexican people, Carrington’s work evolved to have much Mexican influence. While inspired by the flora and fauna of the country as well as the history of the Mayan people, she also channeled her childhood influences of Celtic myths, her European artistic training into her works which explored her experiences with religion and domesticity. She brought her multitude of outside influences to the modernist movement in Latin America. She manages to hold her place in a male dominated movement and with her voice helped to co-found the Mexican women’s liberation movement in 1972.

For more information on Leonora Carrington and her work Down Below see:

• Clare Kunny. "Leonora Carrington's Mexican Vision." Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 22, no. 2 (1996): 167-200. doi:10.2307/4104320.

• Crawford, Anwen. “Leonora Carrington Rewrote the Surrealist Narrative for Women.” The New Yorker. The New Yorker, June 20, 2017. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/leonora-carrington-rewrote-the-surrealist-narrative-for-women.

• Design, WW Web. “Leonora Carrington - Gallery Wendi Norris: San Francisco.” Gallery Wendi Norris | San Francisco. Gallery Wendi Norris | San Francisco, August 16, 2018. https://www.gallerywendinorris.com/artists-collection/leonora-carrington.

Remedios Varo

Visit to the Plastic Surgeon, 1960, Oil on masonite, 71 cm x 35.5 cm Mexico, Private Collection

Written by: Gianna Drayer 

Remedios Varo is a Spanish-Mexican surrealist known for her role in the surrealist movement in Mexico. She was born on born December 16, 1908 in Anglès, Girona, Spain. Varo escaped to Mexico in 1941 to escape Nazi-occupied France. Her fist solo-exhibit was in 1956 in Mexico City; most of her works have mystical elements and references to the psyche. Her work, Visit to the Plastic Surgeon, emphasizes her mature style developed in the 1960s. The composition features a woman with a thin veil over her enlarged nose rings a doorbell outside a building called “Clinica Plastoturgencia”, or Plastic Surgery Clinic. There is a mystical mannequin with six breasts on display to the figure’s left. This figure is advertising the physical features attainable by this plastic surgeon. The text below the display explains there are no limits to the surgery inside and confronts the viewer by saying, “let’s overcome nature.” Varo is addressing the practice of plastic surgery and clinical practice. This can also be seen in Woman leaving the Psychoanalyst; however, this concerns the clinical practice of the mind rather than the body.

Varo’s work is important for the development of Surrealism in Mexico, but also in the portrayal of the role and changing societal values women living in Latin America experienced. Her work as said by Sabina Stent, embraced the female body in a non-sexual way, something that departed from the surrealist movement led by men (Stent 155). Varo’s work has feminist traits shown by her figures and subject matter. In the case of Visit to the Plastic Surgeon, Varo confronts the beauty standards expected of women but also how it is a women’s choice to pursue plastic surgery. These themes are important for bot the progress of women living in Latin America in the 20th century as well as female surrealism.

Both Varo and Leonora Carrington, whom were friends, fled to Mexico to escape war and violence (Nochlin 36). Nochlin claims that this exile allowed them to independently develop their own work and metaphors. In the case of Varo and her work Visit to the Plastic Surgeon, being in exile allowed her to take control of her own work by adding her own features into her compositions. Many think the woman entering the plastic surgeon’s clinic to be Varo herself. Varo and Carrington’s relationship is especially important for the meaning of this exhibit, as their relationship pushed each other to push the progress of female surrealism and include the aesthetics of migration.

This exhibit emphasizes “Canonical Women”, women who truly pushed passed the setbacks in their lives and career to create work that is uniquely them. Varo was not afraid to address the changing societal values of beauty, the psyche or familial relations. Her work is also important to the exhibit to understand the role of exile in a woman artist’s work and personal life.

Overall, the work of Remedios Varo continues to challenge the viewer through mystical and surrealist themes. As seen in Visit to the Plastic Surgeon, the themes displayed by Varo are still relevant in today’s society and challenge the viewer to question their own role and values. 

​

Additional Readings:

​

• Lozano Luis-Martín. The Magic of Remedios Varo. Translated by Elizabeth Goldson Goldson and Liliana Valenzuela, National Museum of Women in the Arts, 2000.

• Nochlin, Linda. “Art and the Conditions of Exile: Men/Women, Emigration/Expatriation.” Poetics Today, vol. 17, no. 3, 1996, p. 317., doi:10.2307/1773412.

• Stent, Sabina Daniela. “Women Surrealists: Sexuality, Fetish, Femininity and Female Surrealism.” The University of Birmingham, 2011.

Frida Kahlo

What the Water Gave Me, 1938, Oil on canvas, 91.4 cm x 73.2 cm, Collection of Daniel Filipacchi, Paris, France

Written by: Maria Kuran

​

Frida Kahlo’s artistic practice stands out from that of her contemporaries as a result of her deeply personal and vulnerable autobiographical compositions. She utilizes painting as a means through which she could relay her thoughts and emotions onto the canvas, a process that she perhaps found therapeutic amidst the many trials and tribulations she faced throughout her life. Kahlo never subscribed to any specific artistic movement, yet her work continues to be recognized via the Surrealist movement to this day. In fact, Kahlo vehemently denied any association to Surrealism or to its founder André Breton, who had described the former as a “ribbon around a bomb” during an exhibition he had put together of her work at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1938 (Helland, 8). Her painting What the Water Gave Me, 1938, is one example of Kahlo’s incredibly intimate artistic production and contemplation, and further analysis of the image would prove that continuing to classify Kahlo as a Surrealist, rather than a canonical woman of her own accord, would be a grave mistake.

​

Here, we see Kahlo’s feet from the waist down as she lays in the bathtub. The way Kahlo has chosen to portray herself in the bathtub is quite interesting, because it almost makes the viewer feel as though they were the ones in that bathtub, staring down at their own feet. One foot looks to be injured or bleeding, perhaps an homage to the many health issues Kahlo suffered and would subsequently pass away from in her short lifetime. As for the water she lays in, it is covered with what could perhaps be Kahlo’s stream of consciousness at a time when she were taking a bath. The scene is littered with depictions of figures in the nude, a volcano with the Empire State Building seemingly erupting from—or penetrating—it, and a piece of rope which weaves itself through the various depictions across the composition (Beck, 62).

​

Kahlo, in an interview with Julian Levy, claimed that the painting engaged with “unpleasant memories of her childhood,” a statement that is heavily supported by the many symbols floating in the water (Beck, 61). Amidst all of the sexually charged imagery, Kahlo strategically places a portrait of her parents directly above a couple of homosexual women in bed, which could be a reference to her own homoerotic experiences in high school and her parents’ subsequent disappointment in her. The sexual undertones of this piece are quite violent, with the rope in the composition stretching from one nude man’s phallus to then tie around the neck of another nude woman in the water. Aside from her homoerotic experience in high school, perhaps the violent undertones of this painting suggest some form of sexual abuse that Kahlo had suffered from as a young girl, a negative memory that is then manifested either deliberately or unconsciously in this work (Beck, 64).

​

The reason why this work of art is integral to the themes of this exhibition is because of the fact that it is often described as Kahlo’s most “surreal” painting, even though she never wanted anything to do with the movement (Beck, 62). In fact, it is important to note that upon Breton’s arrival to Mexico in 1938 and his subsequent fascination with Kahlo’s work, the latter did not feel comfortable with the former’s intentions and declared: “I didn’t know that I was a Surrealist till André Breton came to Mexico and told me I was” (Udall, 12). As a Mexican woman, Frida Kahlo embraced the indigeneity of her culture both through her dress and her artwork, in addition to the personal narrative infused into both. Therefore, albeit certain characteristics of her work fall under the characteristics of Surrealism, it is not enough for us to categorize her as such, especially when she had vocally and consistently denied any affiliation to the movement or its founder. Instead, Kahlo should be celebrated for her unique artistic expression and her unabashed depiction of the most traumatic aspects of her life throughout the entirety of her body of work.

​

For more on Kahlo, What the Water Gave Me, and other works, see below:

​

• Beck, Evelyn T. "Kahlo's World Split Open." Feminist Studies 32, no. 1 (2006): 54-81. JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20459065.

• ​Helland, Janice. "Aztec Imagery in Frida Kahlo's Paintings: Indigenity and Political Commitment." Woman's Art Journal 11, no. 2 (1990-91): 8-13. JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3690692.

• Udall, Sharyn R. "Frida Kahlo's Mexican Body: History, Identity, and Artistic Aspiration." Woman's Art Journal 24, no. 2 (2003-4): 10-14. JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1358781.