[-empyre-] the invisible subject

[Christina McPhee <christina112@earthlink.net>]

When I was a little girl, I could not get my dad (an academic) to  
admit that there was  such a thing as  women's history (he was a  
professional historian).    He argued that to label history as  
women's was to stereotype history.

At the same time it was agonizingly obvious that there were 'no women  
artists'' . The grammar  that  insisted the term 'woman' was just a  
subset (subject?) of the term 'man' made for a violent erasure.

in the fundamentalist community in which I grew up, the talent and  
intellect required of an artist,  could never be actualized if born  
female.  I began to devise,   visual art, as a tool  to bash a way   
through the barriers.   I had to leave that community or die.   
Because I learned this as a child  I experience life from a certain  
remove.

When in the seventies  American culture put 'differential' into  
descriptive language about human beings,  so that you always were  
obliged to say, '\he or she' , instead of 'he' , this was a step  
towards actual speech in real words, in actions, in art,  things  
like, how 'exposure' and 'gaze ' are different for women than for men.

Being 'erased' in that culture caused a resort to trying any means  
available, any resource, to create a communication.  Drawing.   
Writing. Making grades so I could get the fuck out of there.   Living  
in the 'bare' of being invisible.  how to make visible work when you  
are invisible.

Art practice is an inflammatory speech against,  the making invisible  
of the individual subject.



-cm


www.christinamcphee.net
www.strikeslip.tv