Audrey Flack's hyperreal paintings: a juxtaposing simulation of feminism and femininity in the 1970s

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Issue Date
2017-04-28
Authors
Clough, Marcela Gimenez
Advisor
Ballard-Reisch, Deborah
Dooley, Patricia L.
Citation

Clough, Marcela Gimenez. 2017. Audrey Flack's hyperreal paintings: a juxtaposing simulation of feminism and femininity in the 1970s--In Proceedings: 13th Annual Symposium on Graduate Research and Scholarly Projects. Wichita, KS: Wichita State University, p.40

Abstract

The 1970s was a prominent decade for feminism. The second-wave feminist activism had seeped into everyday life, making Americans re-evaluate their definition of femininity, what it meant to be a woman, and the rights women deserved. During this period, Jean Baudrillard also published his essay "The Hyper-Realism of Simulation", which asserted that the post-modern world had become inseparable from the media and its signs and symbols, therefore simulating a hyperreality. Photorealism also emerged as an art movement. Audrey Flack was a pioneer photorealist artist known for her vanitas paintings of cosmetics, jewelry and personal objects. Through Baudrillard's theory of hyperreal simulacra and simulation, Flack's paintings are analyzed as rhetorical artifacts that simulate a juxtaposing reality of femininity and the feminism of the time: on one hand, the objects symbolize Flack's gender identity, while on the other,they signify the intense era of feminism in which the paintings were created.

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Description
Presented to the 13th Annual Symposium on Graduate Research and Scholarly Projects (GRASP) held at the Rhatigan Student Center, Wichita State University, April 28, 2017.
Research completed in Elliott School of Communication, Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
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