Deconstructive strategies: the feminist critique of representation

Abstract

This projects objective is to analyze ten art pierces produced by feminist artists, which, through appropriation techniques, develop a representational critique. The selected artworks produce subversive transformations in the dominant imagery and challenge the realist modes of representation that naturalize gender hierarchies by criticizing femininity, female imagery, its rhetoric and the processes that act as meaning producers, through which a position as a gendered subject is acquired. Reflections regarding feminist representational strategies will be elaborated, especially focused on the works of Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons and Martha Rosler. Besides the specific plastic, technical and formal issues presented by the artworks, the research will consider significant aspects of this artistic practice, such as its deconstructive effect towards the present imagery meanings and the attempts of creating room for the production of women's discourses and issues.