that violence is better than sharing. The asser-
tion of womanhood is a challenge to all these
values that allow war, dehumanization, rape,
and art that lacks relationship with reality to
continue.6

Faith Wilding elaborated on the relation be-
tween personal and political change:

It has always been a tenet of the feminist
movement that the personal is political. It is
political because when a person becomes
transformed, enters into public experience,
and infuses her own experience into the public,
the world becomes transformed for her, but in
addition she then has the possibility of trans-
forming the world. . . . We have witnessed too
many people who are in politics who have
never experienced any kind of personal change
or real vision. . . .

What specifically triggered the controversy?
The art in the exhibition included a wide range
of feminist work: parodies on public images of
women (Helen Alm Roth and Carole Caroom-
pas); private images of women and interior
spaces (Margaret Neilson); women'’s self-images
integrated with their historical and mythologi-
cal references (Judy Chicago and Faith Wilding);
references to women’s vulnerability, powerless-
ness, and powerfulness (Astrid Preston); relics
of admired female figures as magic talismans
(Hazel Slawson); communal efforts (Maria
Karras); and the quilt/grid pattern and color
pink seen as tributes to women’s collaborative
forms (Sheila de Bretteville).

In her tableau environment Remnants in
Homage to Lily Bart from Edith Wharton’s
House of Mirth, Nancy Youdelman “recon-
structed” a scene from the book with theatrical
grandeur and presence. The tableau represents
the climax of Wharton’s novel, when Lily Bart,
having lost her wealth and status, kills herself.
Hauntingly life-like, her full-size figure, bearing
the artist’s own features, reclines in bed. Her
skin tone is grayish and the sleeping drops that
caused her death are by the side of her bed. The
tloor is cluttered with remnants of her life:
letters, photographs, delicate laces, dresses,
corsets, and veils. Youdelman creates metaphors
(sleep, passivity, death) for what have been
essential aspects of female experience: eco-
nomic dependence on others, lack of ultimate
control over one’s own life, victimization by
circumstances. In the guise of a 19th-century
tragedy, Lily Bart's story is emblematic for
women who have remained powerless in
society.

In Youdelman’s photographic series Leaves: A
Self Portrait, the artist is lying on the ground,
gradually being covered with leaves (from pho-
tograph to photograph) until she is entirely
buried:

Faith Wilding. Chrysalis II. 1974. Graphite and watercolor.
427 X 38%,







It represented ways | felt; | felt numb all over,
or like a sleepwalker, something that could just
disappear, and | think that is that powerless-
ness in female experience, sleep. There is also
something esthetic about it; | love the color of
the leaves; it is about death and one could
suppose that it might also mean renewal. . . .

Youdelman treads on precarious ground in pre-
senting the passive female figure, lying uncon-
scious, as horizontal female figures have so
often been used in the history of (male) art to
entice the spectator by reminding him of his
vertical superiority. However, Youdelman'’s tab-
leau successfully evokes the solemn empathy of
the viewer, who is confronted with the victim’s
feelings about her powerlessness.

In Jan Lester’s tableau environment—Cats
Enamoured Kits: Helpless Tom and Merciless
Sex Kitten (1974)—two cats are anthropomor-
phized to enact a sexual-encounter scene. The
human environment, dress, and behavior pat-
terns throw into relief the stereotyped patterns
of men and women, only the roles are reversed.
The female cat plays the determined “attacker,”
the seducer, while the male cat withdraws with
some apprehension. At the same time, Lester
sees her work as a manifestation of how women
are perceived when they take an active role in a
situation:

The tableau had to do with sexual politics
and with the female taking power. It goes far-
ther than just one sexual encounter, it goes out
into the world in general. It is one situation like
a snapshot that makes it clear that this goes on
in all situations in society.

73