Feminism in the Work of Michele Pred:
Femininity, Appropriation, Parody, and Collaboration
Sally Deskins
Figure 1: Michele Pred, Pred-A-Porter, Pro Choice Wall, 2015, vintage purses with Electroluminescent wire. Berkeley Art Museum Collection.
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Figure 2: Michele Pred: Access, expired Birth Control Pills, EL Wire, Vintage Lucite purse, enamel, 9”x9”x5”.
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Figure 3: Michele Pred: Reflections, 2015, Resin, mirror glass and enamel, 11”x7”x1/2”; one in a series of five.
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ArtNews described Michele Pred as a conceptual artist who chose to take on a feminist theme in her work using expired birth control pills in her CHOICE series. LA Times grouped Pred with “female artists…popping pills all over Miami this year.” BUST Magazine called her an “incredible artist/activist” whose work is “powerful beyond their awesome aesthetic.” Pred herself deemed her vintage purses donning electroluminescent lit words like “choice,” “equality,” and “my body my business” as “small scale billboards”—and notably so, as one was even picked-up by Nylon Magazine as an accessory in a fashion spread.
As the Observer noted, The Pred-à-Porter Pro-Choice series, including these 48 purses, the name a play on her own name and the original French phrase—“are a direct response to Supreme Court decisions that have limited access to abortion and contraception. Each piece has text on both sides, and is meant to be carried—not shelved.”
The CHOICE solo exhibition of Pred’s at Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York, in February 2015 (some of which was included in (Em)Power Dynamics: Exploring the Modes of Female Empowerment and Representation in America, a group exhibition by Gateway Projects in New Jersey), also included altered high heels, and an installation of pink mirrors, Reflections, inviting viewers to take selfies with terms such as “Equality,” “Powerful,” “Beautiful,” “Empathetic,” and “Feminist.”
Indeed, Pred’s work not only is feminist via her subject matter and activist intentions (a portion of the proceeds of this series benefits NARAL Pro-Choice New York, a non-profit organization that provides information and advocates for reproductive choices), but also via her exploration of femininity and subversive undertones calling to conceptual and feminist art techniques. As many feminist art historians have lamented, feminist art is ongoing, and discourse needs to continue to pay attention.
Of course, the most evident feminist angle is perhaps her choice of subject and objects. Her Pred-A-Porter, Pro-Choice Wall (Figure 1, 2015) of vintage purses uses an object (purse) that in our contemporary American society, has come to have a connotation for femininity as opposed to the masculine wallet or even “man-purse.” She used the purse also as a representation of women’s economic power, akin to the growing anxiety of men in America during Industrialization and the start of department stores, for women’s power of purchase.[1] Women’s purchasing power is ever-present and Pred alludes to that in her work.
Another common method of feminist art practice is visual parody and appropriation, think Anita Steckle’s series of nude women on the New York skyline (1970); Faith Ringgold’s Picnic at Giverny after Matisse (1991); or Lynda Benglis’ infamous ad in Artforum of her nude self grasping a strap-on dildo (1974) to name a few.
When viewing Pred’s work, particularly the purses, it reminded me of the ready-made works of the Dada artists, the most known being the male artists. Dadaists, an art movement in America and Europe primarily in the 1910s[2], known for using already industrially-produced objects and placing them in art shows (such as Marcel Duchamp’s The Fountain, 1917), are mostly known to be male[3] and with ready-mades, often displaying masculine-centric objects. Of course there were Dada artists who were women, notably Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven; even her ready-made, God (1917) with Morton Schamberg utilized masculine imagery.
Duchamp’s Fountain was a displaced urinal, an item used in male bathrooms. Duchamp also used a briefcase in one work, as did the later conceptual artist John Latham in Art and Culture (1966-69), challenging the formalist critic Clement Greenberg’s traditional definitions of art.
A traditionally masculine prop, the briefcase is echoed in Pred’s Access (Figure 2). Of course, Pred’s is actually a purse, a prominent feminine prop, which, while the briefcase has somewhat disappeared and interestingly somewhat replaced with “man purse,” or totes, the feminine purse remains a part of feminine culture. Pred uses the purse throughout the exhibit, with a spirited vibrant appearance. Access displays the title word in bright blue neon EL lights, and holds approximately 25,000 expired birth control pills “to express the challenges many women have accessing affordable birth control.”[4] Usurping these perhaps famously masculine-centric methods, the works make profound social and political points. Pred’s purse, reminiscent in form and now function of a briefcase, in 2015, speaks to the challenge of women’s access to birth control the U.S., almost making Latham’s seem pithy.
This is poignantly ironic, as well, as the very item women commonly carry money which is juxtaposed with overflowing expired birth control pills, that may be of no use to in a woman who has access, but in utter need of someone carrying the very same purse. The use of the traditionally feminine, American culturally-recognized handheld mirror references artists’ use of the object throughout art history, such as the Impressionists, and feminists who continued to embrace such feminine items to empower, such as Audrey Flack.
Frederick Carl Frieseke (1874-1939), an American Impressionist,[5] like many of his Impressionist peers, painted women and mirrors in much of his work. This use of the object with other compositional choices worked to visually reinforce women’s femininity and social inferiority due to their apparent obsession with self-image and entrapment in the domestic interior. One of Frieseke’s notable works, The Hand Mirror, shows a young woman clad in a pink and floral house negligée surrounded by two floral arrangements (another sign of femininity) with a bright pink wall, flower in hair, looking intently at her reflection in a handheld mirror, and moreover, doubling the vanity with a wall mirror to see the back of her head as well.
Pred also uses pink in her mirror installation, entitled Reflections, though she markedly does not shy away from the feminine as Flack does in her several still-lifes, such as Marilyn (Vanitas) (1977) reflecting a photograph of Marilyn Monroe, celebrating perhaps her beauty and short life, but vast impact beyond.
Similarly, instead of using this item to keep women in a certain spectrum or definition of domesticity as Impressionists, in feminist fashion Pred places empowering words on them, allowing visitors to see themselves and maybe not their flaws immediately, but their apparent potential. The engagement evokes emotional connection and response from viewers, making her intentions outside the art clear when viewers are not only unembarrassed to take their picture due to the artist’s instructions, but feel a part of something larger, by sending to the artist herself, for a future project.
This piece rings true to another feminist approach to art, polyvocality, or collaboration and the power of many voices.[6] Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party (1974-79) is probably the utmost in this field; as her conceived idea brought on some 400 volunteers to create this piece symbolizing the history of women in Western Civilization. Like Pred, as well, Chicago had a plan of education and inspiration beyond the work itself; and back into the viewer’s world.
Pred’s aforementioned Reflections (Figure 3, 2015) is a row of five pink mirrors in the shape of the sign for female, which each donning a different word: Equality, Powerful, Beautiful, Feminist, and Empathetic.[7] Viewers to the exhibition at Nancy Hoffman Gallery were invited to take a self-portrait in one of the mirrors and email it to the artist for a future project (see mine in figures 4-5).
This piece not only reminds viewers that they have power, seeing themselves in the mirror as agents of change, but potentially as working toward a polyvocal project in the future. Moreover, it parodies the “gaze” as viewers are used to seeing not only the art as “the other” but much of the woman as “other” in art throughout history (and in American culture in general; see Miss Representation).
Josephine Withers writes: “Each such [feminist] project mirrors back to us who we are becoming” (in “Review: All Representation is Political: Feminist Art Past and Present,” Feminist Studies, 2008). As gallery visitors see themselves in the mirrors, and were offered free “My Body My Business” pins, another feminist activist nod, viewers perhaps began to self-reflect, and challenged themselves to participate as potential agents of social change. In these ways, Pred clearly represents a feminist approach to art through her work via parodies and appropriation of masculine tendencies throughout history, embracing the feminine for empowerment, and providing an interactive and encouraging take-away for viewers.
I know I’m inspired!
Notes
[1] Whitney Chadwick. “Separate but Unequal: Women’s Sphere and the New Art,” Woman, Art and Society, London: Thames and Hudson (2012): 120-251.
[2] Paula Baxter, Paula A. Baxter reviews "The Dada Movement, 1915-1923," by Marc Dachy, Library Journal, (Sept. 1990): 76.
[3] Baxter, 76.
[4] Michele Pred. http://michelepred.com/artwork/3712095_ACCESS.html, accessed March 26, 2015.
[5] Allen S. Weller, “Frederick Carl Frieseke: The Opinions of an American Impressionist,” Art Journal, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Winter 1968-1969): 160-165.
[6] Josephine Withers, “Review: All Representation Is Political: Feminist Art Past and Present,” Feminist Studies, Vol. 34, No. 3, (2008): 456-475.
[7] Pred, http://michelepred.com/artwork/3722270_Reflections.html, accessed March 11, 2015.
As the Observer noted, The Pred-à-Porter Pro-Choice series, including these 48 purses, the name a play on her own name and the original French phrase—“are a direct response to Supreme Court decisions that have limited access to abortion and contraception. Each piece has text on both sides, and is meant to be carried—not shelved.”
The CHOICE solo exhibition of Pred’s at Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York, in February 2015 (some of which was included in (Em)Power Dynamics: Exploring the Modes of Female Empowerment and Representation in America, a group exhibition by Gateway Projects in New Jersey), also included altered high heels, and an installation of pink mirrors, Reflections, inviting viewers to take selfies with terms such as “Equality,” “Powerful,” “Beautiful,” “Empathetic,” and “Feminist.”
Indeed, Pred’s work not only is feminist via her subject matter and activist intentions (a portion of the proceeds of this series benefits NARAL Pro-Choice New York, a non-profit organization that provides information and advocates for reproductive choices), but also via her exploration of femininity and subversive undertones calling to conceptual and feminist art techniques. As many feminist art historians have lamented, feminist art is ongoing, and discourse needs to continue to pay attention.
Of course, the most evident feminist angle is perhaps her choice of subject and objects. Her Pred-A-Porter, Pro-Choice Wall (Figure 1, 2015) of vintage purses uses an object (purse) that in our contemporary American society, has come to have a connotation for femininity as opposed to the masculine wallet or even “man-purse.” She used the purse also as a representation of women’s economic power, akin to the growing anxiety of men in America during Industrialization and the start of department stores, for women’s power of purchase.[1] Women’s purchasing power is ever-present and Pred alludes to that in her work.
Another common method of feminist art practice is visual parody and appropriation, think Anita Steckle’s series of nude women on the New York skyline (1970); Faith Ringgold’s Picnic at Giverny after Matisse (1991); or Lynda Benglis’ infamous ad in Artforum of her nude self grasping a strap-on dildo (1974) to name a few.
When viewing Pred’s work, particularly the purses, it reminded me of the ready-made works of the Dada artists, the most known being the male artists. Dadaists, an art movement in America and Europe primarily in the 1910s[2], known for using already industrially-produced objects and placing them in art shows (such as Marcel Duchamp’s The Fountain, 1917), are mostly known to be male[3] and with ready-mades, often displaying masculine-centric objects. Of course there were Dada artists who were women, notably Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven; even her ready-made, God (1917) with Morton Schamberg utilized masculine imagery.
Duchamp’s Fountain was a displaced urinal, an item used in male bathrooms. Duchamp also used a briefcase in one work, as did the later conceptual artist John Latham in Art and Culture (1966-69), challenging the formalist critic Clement Greenberg’s traditional definitions of art.
A traditionally masculine prop, the briefcase is echoed in Pred’s Access (Figure 2). Of course, Pred’s is actually a purse, a prominent feminine prop, which, while the briefcase has somewhat disappeared and interestingly somewhat replaced with “man purse,” or totes, the feminine purse remains a part of feminine culture. Pred uses the purse throughout the exhibit, with a spirited vibrant appearance. Access displays the title word in bright blue neon EL lights, and holds approximately 25,000 expired birth control pills “to express the challenges many women have accessing affordable birth control.”[4] Usurping these perhaps famously masculine-centric methods, the works make profound social and political points. Pred’s purse, reminiscent in form and now function of a briefcase, in 2015, speaks to the challenge of women’s access to birth control the U.S., almost making Latham’s seem pithy.
This is poignantly ironic, as well, as the very item women commonly carry money which is juxtaposed with overflowing expired birth control pills, that may be of no use to in a woman who has access, but in utter need of someone carrying the very same purse. The use of the traditionally feminine, American culturally-recognized handheld mirror references artists’ use of the object throughout art history, such as the Impressionists, and feminists who continued to embrace such feminine items to empower, such as Audrey Flack.
Frederick Carl Frieseke (1874-1939), an American Impressionist,[5] like many of his Impressionist peers, painted women and mirrors in much of his work. This use of the object with other compositional choices worked to visually reinforce women’s femininity and social inferiority due to their apparent obsession with self-image and entrapment in the domestic interior. One of Frieseke’s notable works, The Hand Mirror, shows a young woman clad in a pink and floral house negligée surrounded by two floral arrangements (another sign of femininity) with a bright pink wall, flower in hair, looking intently at her reflection in a handheld mirror, and moreover, doubling the vanity with a wall mirror to see the back of her head as well.
Pred also uses pink in her mirror installation, entitled Reflections, though she markedly does not shy away from the feminine as Flack does in her several still-lifes, such as Marilyn (Vanitas) (1977) reflecting a photograph of Marilyn Monroe, celebrating perhaps her beauty and short life, but vast impact beyond.
Similarly, instead of using this item to keep women in a certain spectrum or definition of domesticity as Impressionists, in feminist fashion Pred places empowering words on them, allowing visitors to see themselves and maybe not their flaws immediately, but their apparent potential. The engagement evokes emotional connection and response from viewers, making her intentions outside the art clear when viewers are not only unembarrassed to take their picture due to the artist’s instructions, but feel a part of something larger, by sending to the artist herself, for a future project.
This piece rings true to another feminist approach to art, polyvocality, or collaboration and the power of many voices.[6] Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party (1974-79) is probably the utmost in this field; as her conceived idea brought on some 400 volunteers to create this piece symbolizing the history of women in Western Civilization. Like Pred, as well, Chicago had a plan of education and inspiration beyond the work itself; and back into the viewer’s world.
Pred’s aforementioned Reflections (Figure 3, 2015) is a row of five pink mirrors in the shape of the sign for female, which each donning a different word: Equality, Powerful, Beautiful, Feminist, and Empathetic.[7] Viewers to the exhibition at Nancy Hoffman Gallery were invited to take a self-portrait in one of the mirrors and email it to the artist for a future project (see mine in figures 4-5).
This piece not only reminds viewers that they have power, seeing themselves in the mirror as agents of change, but potentially as working toward a polyvocal project in the future. Moreover, it parodies the “gaze” as viewers are used to seeing not only the art as “the other” but much of the woman as “other” in art throughout history (and in American culture in general; see Miss Representation).
Josephine Withers writes: “Each such [feminist] project mirrors back to us who we are becoming” (in “Review: All Representation is Political: Feminist Art Past and Present,” Feminist Studies, 2008). As gallery visitors see themselves in the mirrors, and were offered free “My Body My Business” pins, another feminist activist nod, viewers perhaps began to self-reflect, and challenged themselves to participate as potential agents of social change. In these ways, Pred clearly represents a feminist approach to art through her work via parodies and appropriation of masculine tendencies throughout history, embracing the feminine for empowerment, and providing an interactive and encouraging take-away for viewers.
I know I’m inspired!
Notes
[1] Whitney Chadwick. “Separate but Unequal: Women’s Sphere and the New Art,” Woman, Art and Society, London: Thames and Hudson (2012): 120-251.
[2] Paula Baxter, Paula A. Baxter reviews "The Dada Movement, 1915-1923," by Marc Dachy, Library Journal, (Sept. 1990): 76.
[3] Baxter, 76.
[4] Michele Pred. http://michelepred.com/artwork/3712095_ACCESS.html, accessed March 26, 2015.
[5] Allen S. Weller, “Frederick Carl Frieseke: The Opinions of an American Impressionist,” Art Journal, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Winter 1968-1969): 160-165.
[6] Josephine Withers, “Review: All Representation Is Political: Feminist Art Past and Present,” Feminist Studies, Vol. 34, No. 3, (2008): 456-475.
[7] Pred, http://michelepred.com/artwork/3722270_Reflections.html, accessed March 11, 2015.
Figure 4: Photo by the author at CHOICE, Michele Pred, at Nancy Hoffman Gallery, Feb. 2015
Working notes
It was frigid day touring the Chelsea galleries in February during my visit for the College Art Conference. I had seen and heard much about the various contemporary art shows and happenings, but I wasn’t quite excited and rejuvenated until I saw Michele Pred’s purses hanging on the walls of Hoffman Gallery. I remember that the initial exhibition upon walking in was a delightful exhibition around the color pink, which has its own gender examination to it, but being in the gallery with Pred’s neon-lit work glowing at me, and then myself in the mirrors, just being amongst it all really gave me hope for the cause, as a feminist of course but also for art to play such a role in the social cause of women’s rights to their bodies. The exhibition was stunning, completely contextualized with information about the artist and the issues she was relating to, and it was a warm welcome from the gallerists (was not typical that day, but it was cold!).
Reading up on Michele Pred's past work and seeing her work evolve and how many different audiences she reaches out to is reminiscent of the 1970s (as I have read/understood in graduate school), when feminism was a more mainstream topic of discussion in mass media. At any rate, it is a more complex issue now, with Internet and the like, and feminism no doubt IS on mass media radar, for sure, but combining art and feminism and reaching broad audiences--this is what Michele Pred is doing, reaching people from all walks of life to spread the news about feminism—and art.
I wrote this essay with a more academic angle in mind, as I think recalling and pointing to feminist technique is imperative to keep the discussion in art and feminism going, and not lose sight of the past and present. At any rate, I can’t wait to see what Michele Pred does next.
[Images of Michele Pred's work are used here with permission of the artist.]
Reading up on Michele Pred's past work and seeing her work evolve and how many different audiences she reaches out to is reminiscent of the 1970s (as I have read/understood in graduate school), when feminism was a more mainstream topic of discussion in mass media. At any rate, it is a more complex issue now, with Internet and the like, and feminism no doubt IS on mass media radar, for sure, but combining art and feminism and reaching broad audiences--this is what Michele Pred is doing, reaching people from all walks of life to spread the news about feminism—and art.
I wrote this essay with a more academic angle in mind, as I think recalling and pointing to feminist technique is imperative to keep the discussion in art and feminism going, and not lose sight of the past and present. At any rate, I can’t wait to see what Michele Pred does next.
[Images of Michele Pred's work are used here with permission of the artist.]
About the author
Figure 5: Photo by the author at CHOICE, Michele Pred, at Nancy Hoffman Gallery, Feb. 2015
Sally Deskins is an artist and writer, focusing on the perspectives of women in art, including herself. Currently a graduate student in art history, her writing has been published in Bookslut, Bitch, and Weave Magazine among others. She illustrated Intimates and Fools (Les Femmes Folles Books, 2014) and Leaves of Absence (Red Dashboard, forthcoming 2015), both with poetry by Laura Madeline Wiseman. She is founding curator of Les Femmes Folles, an organization promoting women in art.
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