ARTiculAction Art Review - Special Issuue Aug. 2016 | Page 60

ICUL CTION
C o n t e m p o r a r y

A r t

Petra Paul & Ophira Avisar

R e v i e w

Special Issue

unbelievable. Michel Foucault wrote a lot
about power and sex. A lot of artworks are
products from men, for men and they
transform patriarchal ideas. After Diane
Wolfthal (”Images of Rape. The 'Heroic'
Tradition and its Alternatives”) it is a
heroic, patriotic act. It is an
aestheticization of rape. ”The Rape of
Sabine Women” show the power of men
and the power of the Medicis. And there
are a lot of rape pictures in art: Rape of
Europa, Danae, Lucretia,… The main
question is also, what is shown and what is
not shown in artwork (Daniela HammerTugendhat).
We could not help to mention Marc
Quinn and his well-known work entitled
Self. There's a precise dichotomy in your
use of blood: while Quinn uses his blood
to convey in is his own biography
providing it with a tactile feature, you
rather use your menstrual blood as a tool
to convey messages, to trigger the
spectatorship's limbic parameters. While
expanding on your choice of blood as a
media, we would inquiry into the
relationship between your own body and
the message you convey.
Ophira Avisar: I let Petra answer that one.
Petra Paul: Yes, Marc Quinn. There was a

great exhibition of his work in Venice
2013, where ”Self” was also shown.
Hermann Nitsch uses blood of animals for
his work. Mexican artist Teresa Margolles
uses in her artwork blood of violent crime,
this was exhibited for example at Biennale
di Venezia 2009. As feminist I am asking,
why is the women the other (Simone de
Beauvoir). As feminist I'm concerned
primarily with women as a theme, or the
showing of the ways women are
discriminated against in this patriarchal
society. Menstruation is a stigmatic

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Raum für Frauwhen, 4,38 min., Tel Aviv 2016

condition (Ingrid Johnston-Robledo | Joan
Crisler). I am concerned with showing this
mechanism and at the same time
undermining it. By using menstrual blood
in my informal and monochrome work, I
draw attention to the negative taboo and
publicy show something that is usually
kept secret. The leaking women were seen
as unclean. This understanding comes