Femininity in Asian Women Artists' Work from China, Korea and USA

Patricia E. Karetzky

• Publisher: KT press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780953654123
• Topic: Arte
• Subtopic: Teoría y crítica del arte

Patricia Karetzky discusses the metaphor of the shoe and how it is present in different women artists' work in China, Korea and USA. he artists discussed are: Peng Wei, Nina Kuo, Yin Xuizhen, Cai Jin, Xin Song, Il Sun Hong, Betty YaQuin Chou and Mimi Kim.

Patricia Eichenbaum Karetzky is O. Munsterberg Chair of Asian Art at Bard College.

Notes

1. See Dorothy Ko Every Step a Lotus Shoes for Bound Feet (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001) p. 26, for the Chinese version of the story which accords in most details with the one told in the west. The fairytale dates to at least the late Tang era when it was recorded by the historian Duan Chengshi who died in 863.

2. Ko (2001) p.45 mentions Xu Zhi (1028-1103), a scholar who disparages the practice in a diatribe against foot-binding, as it renders women useless.

3. The tomb of Lady Huang Sheng (1227-43), whose feet were bound and dressed in embroidered up turned slippers, contained five additional pairs of shoes whose length ranged from 13.3 cm -14 cm in length; see Ko (2001) p. 21 and p. 23 for other excavated examples of shoes for bound feet. 

4. Ko (2001) p. 31.

5. Beverly Jackson Splendid Slippers A Thousand Years of an Erotic Traditions (Berkeley: Ten Speed Press 2000) pp.103-122.

6. Jackson (2000) p.110.

7. Jackson (2000) pp. 111 and 118.

8. Jackson (2000) p.12.

9. Dorothy Ko Cinderella’s Sisters A Revisionist History of Footbinding (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005) p.114.

10. Ko (2005) p.113. 

11. Ko (2005) p. 227.

12. Ko (2005) p. 223.

13. Ko (2005) p.224.

14. Ko (2005) 190ff  

15. Feng Jicai The Three-Inch Golden Lotus David Wakefield, trans. (Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, 1986)

16. The prominent number of female suicides in Taiwan was the subject of an article in 1975  by Margery Wolfe 'Women and Suicide China' in Margery Wolfe and Roxane Witke, (eds.) Women in Chinese Society (Stanford University Press, 1975) pp. 111-141. A more current appraisal of the situation on the mainland is offered by Namrata Hasija in  the Institute of Peace & Conflict Studies no.3466, 26 September 2011:  'a study released on 9 September 2011, a day before the World Suicide Prevention Day, by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention highlights the growing suicide rates in China. It states that around 300,000 people out of 1.3 billion population commit suicide every year, out of which 75 per cent are committed in rural areas and the number of women is 25 per cent higher than males in rural areas.' http://www.ipcs.org/article/china/rising-suicide-rates-among-rural-women-in-china-3466.html

17. In Asia, there is growing interest in the young and beautiful: see Perry Johansson  'Selling the “Modern Woman”: Consumer Culture and Chinese Gender Politics' in Shoma Munshi (ed) Images of the Modern Woman in Asia: Global Media Local Meanings (Great Britain: Curzon Press, 2001) pp. 94-122, the article points out that the new consumer culture as expressed in magazine advertisement reveals western appearance, but on closer examination, conforms to the “oriental male gaze” of a less assertive female ideal while promoting a more hedonistic life style.

18. Xu Hong 'Walking Out of the Abyss: My Feminist Critique' trans. Lee Ambrozy, in Wu Hung (ed) Contemporary Chinese Art: Primary Documents (New York: Modern Museum of Art, 2010) p.193.

19. See Charles Perrault and other versions of Cinderella are available as ebooks at Gutenberg.Org and University of Pittsburg's reproduction of several versions of Cinderella by named and anonymous authors.

20. See the Utube video of Fats Waller 'Your Feet's Too Big'

21. Peng Wei's work is documented here by Art Scene China. Between 2000 and 2006 Peng Wei was editor for Yishu magazine in Beijing.

22. Traditional Chinese robes are like bathrobes held together by a belt, but the Manchu robes of the last Manchu dynasty, a variant of their native dress, have more tailoring and fasteners at neck, chest and waist. It is the Han or traditional robes that Peng illustrates.

23. Compare for examples the illustrations and exhibits in the Victoria and Albert Museum, see Verity Wilson Chinese Dress (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1986): p. 60 and on p. 47 Wilson states that a woman’s dress could reflect her husband’s status at court.

24. See Suzanne Cahill Transcendence & Divine Passion: The Queen Mother of the West in Medieval China (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1993) p.167

25. For a discussion of dowries in China Patricia Beckley Ebrey The Inner Quarters (Berkeley, University of California press, 1993) 99ff. See also Kathryn Bernhardt Women and Property in China (960-1949) (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1999) especially chapter one and two. For a discussion of the way silks were used in interior design see Verity Wilson, Chinese Textiles  (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2005) 39ff

26. See Amanda Mayer Stinchecum, (ed) Kosode: 16th-19th Century Textiles from the Nomura Collection (New York, Kodansha Press, 1983) p.86, and see Penelope Mason History of Japanese Art (New Jersey: Pearson-Prentice Hall, 2004) 253ff, fig. 292

27. Peter C. Sturman 'Cranes Above Kaifeng: The Auspicious Image at the Court of Huizong' Ars Orientalis vol. 20 (1990) pp.33-68.

28. In her most recent work Paper skin  Peng has painted designs on parts of the body, notably the leg. See Shanghai scrap online

29. Susan Mann 'Introduction' in Susan Mann (ed) Women and Gender Relations (Michigan Association for Asian Studies, 2004):1ff summarizes the multidisciplinary efforts involved in reconstructing this history.

30. See Nina Kuo's profile on Enfoco's website of contemporary photographers

31. See for example, L. Carrington Goodrich and Nigel Cameron The Face of China As Seen by Travelers (1860-1912) (New York, Aperture,1978) 

32. See Yin Xui Zhen's profile at Pace Beijing

33. See images of Yin Xui Zhen's Portable Cities, a silent Utube video 'Suitcase Architecture of Yin Xiuzhen' 

34. See Art in America's feature by Pan Qing on Yin Xuizhen (9/1/2010)

35. See Karin Bergquist's profile of the artist on Culturebase.net

36. John Clark (ed) Chinese Art at the End of the Millennium (Beijing: New Art World, 2000)p. 143, fig 96.

37. see See Cai Jin's profile, which is part of the Deckchair Dreams project where artists designed deckchairs for public parks in London, sponsored by Bloomberg, in 2010.

38. See Xin Song's website www.xinsong.com

39. Michael Sullivan Arts of China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008) pp. 266-268.

40. Shaorong Yang Traditional Chinese Clothing (San Francisco, Long River Press, 2004):68

41. See 103 Daodejing Hans Georg Moeller trans. (Chicago, Open Court Publications, 2007) p. 130

42. See New York Times article by Bill Zimmer 'Femininity defined, in Bare Feet or Shoes' 14 April 2002. This is a review of the exhibition If the Shoe Fits.. Curated by Patricia E. Karetzky at Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, NY.See the Betty YaQin Chou's website www.bettychou.com

43. See Mimi Kim's website for her latest work www.mimikim.com