Dorothea Tanning - Overview: Life of art

I am very impressed by this artist. Her work changed and grew over time and she seemed to never stop moving, changing, growing. She died this Tuesday at the age of 101. She began being known in the Surrealist circle of the 1930s and was married Max Ernst. This first set of images, above, are from this period-1940s. I've always had a soft spot for Surrealism. I love the dreamlike, psychological space they inhabit and the darker undertone that is often found. I also heavily identify with the idea of a broken up body image. I've gotten myself into trouble with this in the past. It conflicts with my feminist views since, more often than not, these broken bodies belong to women and the male artist's objectification of them. I am sure Tanning faced the questions of a not whole female body as a female artist at some point in her life.

I think my own attraction to dismembered bodies is the following:

It isn't about gore but it does contain violence. It has a sexuality to it that I find interesting - that might be the problematic conflict mentioned above. I do wonder if this conflict is that a female in a male culture begins to take on the male gaze themselves in order to adapt. I have thought this was the case for awhile. We women pick apart our sisters as much or more so than our male counterparts. We sexualize and objectify each other at the same time as we complain that men do it. Perhaps that is a reason.

I think that I also am attracted to the body depicted in compartments, turned around and upside down is that it forces the viewer to really look at what is in front of them as being a body. You notice what it is separate from your own body. It is the same feeling that I get in my body (recognizing it) as I get when standing in the presence of a sculpture that is body sized in a gallery. I become present with my own body in that moment.

And then there are cyborgs. There are human/not human juxtapositions that I am attracted to and surrealist work that depicts the broken apart human body does make me question our body and our human-ness in a similar way that the idea of cyborgs do.

Concerning the narrative quality of these works, here is a quote from Tate magazine (online):

'Tanning's paintings of the early 1940s reveal her taste for the unsettling moods and preternatural occurrences of Gothic novels. Girlish figures struggle with unearthly forces in scenes that combine the familiar and the imaginary. With growing technical mastery she manipulated colour and light to infuse the quotidian with metamorphic identity and extraordinary surface qualities.'

Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, Tanning's work took on a different form with abstraction and fragmentation. They still hold a dreamlike quality - but not hyper-realistic. It seems to become hazier and more about color and paint in some ways - I guess if you take out the hyper-realistic, this automatically comes to mind but color and paint can still be a central concern in hyper realism. It is just that a narrative shifts the focus for the viewer at first taste.

These (above) are my favorite. I love the hotel room above. (Chambre 202 Hotel du Pavot 1970). All that grey and brown with a splash of red carpet and fleshy pink bodies protruding from the walls. In the 70s, Dorothea began to make soft sculptures based off of the figures from her paintings. But, of course, what the artist bases their work off of is not necessarily the way in which their work is considered.

Critics spoke of Tanning's work in the feminist context which is not what she desired. She did not want to be categorized as a woman artist or within the feminist context.

From the Tate Article again:

Refusing to be co-opted into the re-evaluation of women artists associated with Surrealism, she has repeatedly said that the forces that impelled her to take up the career of artist, and that sustained her work, had everything to do with being human but nothing to do with being a woman....Not that she has been anything less than acutely aware of the various inequalities that have affected her life and the reception of her work. In her memoir she wrote movingly of the compromises that life with Max Ernst entailed. But these paled compared with the joy brought by her partner. 'Does the sharing of a direction deprive a female of her imagination? Or her hands? Is it a hardship, is it unfair to have to live in an enchanted space where striving after approval by other not always distinguished human beings is no more than a faraway rumour, frivolous as the place cards at a distant dinner party?'

I understand her not wanted to be pidgeon-holed as a feminist artist. Feminist art holds a special place in my heart - but I also understand that it is sectioned off to this one area and this one - although important- context. To be pidgeon-holed is to be limited. As for being a 'woman' artist - I also understand her dislike of this label, of course. It is a way of categorizing based on sex vs. on the merit of her work.





I am also fond of her work depicted above which seem to be mid 70s. I enjoy the flat color and shapes in this work - and she never leaves the body behind. All is contained in the body. It does seem like the work after the 1940s would be harder to place within the literary realm she referenced simply based on it's lack of narrative. Maybe that is part of the reason her work became viewed more about the female body - because it was soooo body. Really.




I do not have images here except this one - but before turning to poetry in the late 1990s, Tanning completed a collection of 12 large flower paintings. She just kept moving. I hope to follow and forage my own path in such a long winded manner.