In/Outside Art History. Self-portraiture and the Canon: Re-reading for Self and Other

This thesis investigates various self-portraits by women artists that stand in relation to the structures of the art historical canon: Autoritratto (1969), a book posing as a self-portrait, composed by art critic and radical feminist Carla Lonzi (1931-1982); the painting Self-portrait as Tahitian (1937), made by Indian-Hungarian artist Amrita Sher-Gil (1913-1941) in Paris, and the photograph Lady in Moonlight (2004) by contemporary Indian artist Pushpamala N. (b. 1956) in collaboration with British photographer Clare Arni (b. 1962); and the interpretations and translations of self-portraits of Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) or “mythic Frida”. These case studies occupy different places on the axes of art historical canonicity: ranging from how a self-portrait attempts to deconstruct canonical structures (Autoritratto), to how citations can show the stage of production of the canonical (Self-portrait as Tahitian and Lady in Moonlight), to how canonical structures approach the most famous...Show moreThis thesis investigates various self-portraits by women artists that stand in relation to the structures of the art historical canon: Autoritratto (1969), a book posing as a self-portrait, composed by art critic and radical feminist Carla Lonzi (1931-1982); the painting Self-portrait as Tahitian (1937), made by Indian-Hungarian artist Amrita Sher-Gil (1913-1941) in Paris, and the photograph Lady in Moonlight (2004) by contemporary Indian artist Pushpamala N. (b. 1956) in collaboration with British photographer Clare Arni (b. 1962); and the interpretations and translations of self-portraits of Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) or “mythic Frida”. These case studies occupy different places on the axes of art historical canonicity: ranging from how a self-portrait attempts to deconstruct canonical structures (Autoritratto), to how citations can show the stage of production of the canonical (Self-portrait as Tahitian and Lady in Moonlight), to how canonical structures approach the most famous self-portraits by a woman artist (mythic Frida). I stage a conversation between these diverging practices of self-portraiture and the dynamics of canonisation they elucidate, and ask how positionings of Self and Other, inside and outside, guide this relationship. Ultimately I argue that the shifting positions of Self and Other are emphasised and mobilised to shape the relations between these self-portraits by women artists and the canon. These positions are assembled in order to reach varying effects: 1) to deconstruct hierarchical art discourse by shaping the Self through Others in order to generate horizontality, and by positioning the art critic inside to attempt a move outside of the canon (Autoritratto); 2) to bodily perform the canon’s gendered structures through a double bind position in which the artist is placed simultaneously in- and out-side the canon, and positing not only the Self as Other, inherent to any self-portraiture, but also the Other as Self (Self-portrait as Tahitian and Lady in Moonlight); 3) to prevent ‘Others’ to the canon from becoming canonical in a universal sense, as when self-portraits by a woman artist enter inside the canon the Self and the private sphere are overemphasised (mythic Frida).Show less

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In/Outside Art History. Self-portraiture and the Canon: Re-reading for Self and Other