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"What Was Really At Stake Was Power"
New Exhibit Seeks To Shake O'Keeffe's Labia-Centric Label
Rollergirls Are A Hit In New Jersey • Georgia O'Keeffe To Get The 'Lifetime' Treatment

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RosePetalPlace
09/18/09

In reply to "What Was Really At Stake Was Power"
I MUST go see this show -- I know everyone thinks her flower paintings are pretty, but her earlier, abstract works are my favorites. It's cool that some of her lesser-known works are getting the attention they deserve.
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Ratinski
09/18/09

@RosePetalPlace: "Blue and Green Music" was the first piece of artwork that I completely fell head over heels in love with when I was fifteen. I'll be heading to this show this very weekend, and if my sister wants to go when she visits in October, I'll be going again.
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PaintedTrollop
09/18/09

In reply to "What Was Really At Stake Was Power"
Of course art critics are men - which explains a great deal. Men - who have designed every phallic monument, planes, jets - so many things that are a testament to the male member - clearly felt threatened by this woman who had so much talent. Her cityscapes, landscapes, flowers, and abstracts are all incredible. She was far from a one note artist - which must have had those poor men's (including Stieglitz) scrotums just shriveling in fear.
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OneTwoPunch
09/18/09

@PaintedTrollop: Ha! Excellent point, though I do wish your comment was accompanied by some illustrations to "drive" your point home!

Agree. O'Keefe's art is proving to not only remain commercially successful, but withstand the test of time. That's the truest test for any artist—longevity, and if their voices can speak across the spans of time and still remain loud and clear.
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morninggloria
09/18/09

In reply to "What Was Really At Stake Was Power"

So basically, Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings were essentially Megan Fox's quote about men fearing "a powerful vagina", but prettier?
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OneTwoPunch
09/18/09

@morninggloria: Kind of. It's common knowledge in art-school that the bulk of her flower work were metaphors for female genitalia. I can see it clear as day, but I can't tell if I'm just so used to reading paintings, it's second nature to me.

There's other themes in her work, too, though, like how organic forms, when blown up and zeroed in on, resemble each other, linking the human form back to nature in a way that's not just sexual. Kinda how Chuck Close used circles that, when pulled back, are a portrait, it can also be a play on depth of field as well.

As with all art, there's is no "wrong" answer. What you see and get out of it is as valid as any explanation any artist can supply. O'Keefe just gave words as a base structure with which to view her work. Take from it what can, or want, or don't, and that's about it. She simply saying, "this is how I may see it at times".

Stieglitz was forcing her to put it into a "box" (pun intended) probably thinking it would make her art sell better, like the old adage says "Sex sells", but her work is deeper than just genitalia. It's masterful in terms of her colors, shapes, and compositions.
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QuicheLorraine
09/18/09

In reply to "What Was Really At Stake Was Power"
1) So if Georgia O'Keefe was wildly successful, and all these people had and have lovely, richly colored flower-vaginas hanging on their walls and in the pages of art books, why are women's sexual organs still so obscene?

2) I feel that at least 65% of my Jezebel comments contain the word "vagina."
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bluebears
09/18/09

@QuicheLorraine: pathetic. get that percentage up to around 80%!
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QuicheLorraine
09/18/09

@bluebears: VAGINA!
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JLady
09/17/09

In reply to New Exhibit Seeks To Shake O'Keeffe's Labia-Centric Label
This piece looks a lot like the cover art of the last Weakerthans album. I'm not suggesting anything, but they are eerily similar.
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Vivien Smith-Smythe-Smith
09/17/09

In reply to New Exhibit Seeks To Shake O'Keeffe's Labia-Centric Label
Fuck, if she was good enough for Claudia Kishi...

(actually, in all seriousness, that is how I first found out about O'Keeffe as a kid. So thanks, Ann M. Martin!)
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GeorgeFayne
09/17/09

@Vivien Smith-Smythe-Smith: You just reminded me of a book (maybe a series), in which the main character befriended Andrew Wyeth's daughter (I think). Sadly, I thought AW was made up, until I later discovered he was a real, live, (and amazing) artist.
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muddgirl
09/17/09

In reply to New Exhibit Seeks To Shake O'Keeffe's Labia-Centric Label
I saw a great O'Keefe exhibit last time I was in Santa Fe, and there's nothing "soft" or "easy listening" about any of her work, even the flower and desert scenes. It's both ignorant and sexist to say so.
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Intern Katy
09/17/09

@muddgirl: Just to clarify, I am not saying her work is soft. I definitely don't think so, but a lot of critics (and art historians) seem to think it is too "feminine" and too commercial and thus unworthy of study.
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muddgirl
09/17/09

@Intern Katy: Oh yeah, I was totally responding to the critics! Not to this article specifically. It's a charge I've encountered before and I just don't understand it. Sometimes it smacks a little of elitism, where if use uncultured plebes "get it", then it must not be art.
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Ultraprison!
09/17/09

In reply to New Exhibit Seeks To Shake O'Keeffe's Labia-Centric Label
I love her, and I love this painting - it (or a version of it) is at the Art Institute of Chicago, one of my favorite places in the world.
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LaComtesse
09/17/09

In reply to New Exhibit Seeks To Shake O'Keeffe's Labia-Centric Label
I've never been a fan of O'Keeffe's work, but here popular oeuvre is so limited. So I'll be interested to see this and decide DEFINITIVELY whether or not I like her.
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lurkerbynature
09/17/09

In reply to New Exhibit Seeks To Shake O'Keeffe's Labia-Centric Label
Soft? Emotional? What mythical O'Keeffe paintings are these? They haven't seen the same paintings I have.

Did they just look for all the epithets that equal "female" and "not trendy because it's figurative" and stick them on her? And by what standard is her abstract work going to rehabilitate her? The art world is still scared of the vagina.
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Ms. Take
09/17/09

In reply to New Exhibit Seeks To Shake O'Keeffe's Labia-Centric Label
i love her. fuck the haters. i think she's fantastic. i've been to a couple of different exhibits of her work and i am never disappointed.

also, the photos that her husband, alfred stieglitz took of her are breathtakingly beautiful, in my opinion.
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bluebears
09/17/09

@Ms. Take: yes! totally agreed.
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cailizma
09/17/09

@Ms. Take: yeah, you know what, the more i think about this, the angrier i get. fuck the haters!

her still lives of flowers and deserts are not soft and kitschy. look, her paintings don't try to make some cheesy appeal to pathos with a stupid light in the window like some other painters that have been called kitschy do. (i'll go ahead and say it, fuck kinkade too!)
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morninggloria
09/17/09

In reply to New Exhibit Seeks To Shake O'Keeffe's Labia-Centric Label
Isn't the correct terminology "meat curtains"? As in, Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings were too meat curtain-centric.

At least that's what I learned at the Brody Jenner School of Social Decorum.
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GeorgeFayne
09/17/09

@morninggloria: You're mistaken. The preferred term is "catbag."
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EkaterinaBallerina
09/17/09

In reply to New Exhibit Seeks To Shake O'Keeffe's Labia-Centric Label
I'll never forget seeing a Georgia O'Keefe, one of my favorite painters, show at a museum and having to hear two older (translation: old enough to know better) woman shout "Oh it's the vagina lady" as they walked in. It was offensive and it disturbed the people trying to look at the paintings.

The O'Keefe biopic on Lifetime doesn't actually look that bad. Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons? Got me interested.
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Everything MidnightBikeRide does is a balloon.
09/17/09

@EkaterinaBallerina: It's amazing how obnoxious people can be at museums, especially when there's modern art to be seen. Nothing's worse than coming face to face for the first time with a painting that means a lot to you, just to be interrupted by some smug loudmouth snorting about how I DON'T GET IT, WHAT IS THIS BUSINESS LOL! That's happened to me several times.
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Ruby_de_la_Booby
09/17/09

@Everything MidnightBikeRide does is a balloon.: "I could paint that." That's my personal fave thing to hear in museum.
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whynotshesaid
09/17/09

@Ruby_de_la_Booby: God, that makes me crazy. If you could paint that, then why don't you? IS THAT BECAUSE MAYBE IT'S NOT AS EASY AS IT LOOKS?
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Everything MidnightBikeRide does is a balloon.
09/17/09

@whynotshesaid: I know! Anybody who's stared down a blank canvas and tried to put something abstract on it can tell you that it's often 10x harder than realism. Because hey, it might be that the IDEA behind the image is the important part! When you look at more traditional art, is your only thought, "wow, I bet that was tough to do!" I hope not.
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LaComtesse
09/17/09

@whynotshesaid: @Ruby_de_la_Booby: @Everything MidnightBikeRide does is a balloon.: Yes, but speaking as a museum person and as an art lover, contemporary and otherwise, sometimes, derisive laughter is the only reaction some installations deserve, especially considering the ridiculous politics involved in getting into ANY museum.
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sassyredhead
09/17/09

@EkaterinaBallerina: I already have the movie set to record on my TiVo. I love Joan Allen.
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hydrogen_jukebox
09/17/09

In reply to New Exhibit Seeks To Shake O'Keeffe's Labia-Centric Label
They say labia-centric like it's a bad thing.
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whynotshesaid
09/17/09

@hydrogen_jukebox: "My art has been commended as being very vaginal, which bothers some men."
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Pizza!Pizza!Pizza!
09/17/09

@hydrogen_jukebox: Seriously! I guess it's only remarkable when it's rare. Because I can't remember the last time someone even felt the need to point out phallic imagery – it's just so humdrum and standard.
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awinoforever
09/17/09

In reply to New Exhibit Seeks To Shake O'Keeffe's Labia-Centric Label
i love o'keeffe's abstract work and i think it's so sad that it is overshadowed by her more postcard friendly fare. also - the nudie pics stieglitz took of her were so fierce and full of raw sexuality. haters just gonna hate sometimes.
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Mary McCarthyite
09/17/09

@awinoforever: Exactly. She is a perfect example of an artist who has been pigeonholed. I am familiar with her more abstract stuff and the Stieglitz nudes. It is all very powerful. The flower stuff pales in comparison.
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"What Was Really At Stake Was Power"

New Exhibit Seeks To Shake O'Keeffe's Labia-Centric Label

Rollergirls Are A Hit In New Jersey • Georgia O'Keeffe To Get The 'Lifetime' Treatment

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