The maternal abject and the works of Cindy Sherman
Earlier, I mentioned how images of mothers in art are rarely seen apart from
the Madonna and Child icon. For this context, I examined the work of Cindy Sherman
who subverted the iconic representation of Madonna and Child from Renaissance
paintings. In her series "art history" Sherman focuses on the mother
figure and her child and explores the theme of the one directional child/artist
abject construction of the maternal. Here she uses photography and is, as in
her other works, the model. Make-up and prostheses simulate conventional high
art and aid in reconstructing signified art objects of artists such as Giovanni
Bellini's Madonnas.
In these works, she refers to abject maternal functions such as breast-feeding
and the pregnant body. The repetition in Sherman's work of the mother's gaze
into the distance beyond the child, the maternal body, including the breast,
are represented in a manner which revolve around the fears of the child and
negates those of the mother herself.
Angela Smith describes Sherman's work this way:
"As well, these portraits, with the vacuous gazes of the women, ...., emphasise
in their mocking repetitions the historical focus of art upon the idealised/feared
maternal figure in relation to the threatened child/artist."
Kristeva alludes to these misogynistic interpretations by referring to a rage
against mothers not only because they take care of the child but also because
they carry it in their bodies. She refers to this as a “certain negative
desire” which then translates as rejection.
I, like Sherman, work with these iconic imageries. Immediate recognition of
the Madonna and Child in those signified works aim to anchor the works and to
act as points of departures. Where Sherman uses props to synthesise the maternal
abject in the Madonna and Child, I use reproduced iconic imageries such as Perino
del Vaga’s The Holy Family (c.1545).
Until enough mother/child imageries are created, I cannot leave the Madonna
and Child iconic image behind. This iconic image is so pervasive over the centuries
that any other representation of the mother/child relationship necessarily refers
to it in order to depart from it.
This is one area where I both simulate and differ from Cindy Sherman’s
project. As such, I chose to use scanned reproductions as opposed to constructing
a studio scene as did Sherman.
These images I merge with the images of the naked female body to the point where
they seem as one. I then embed them in a dark, dream-scape reminiscent of night
time. The naked body of a woman is contorted to signify various states of emotional
upheavals. From despair and dread, to resignation and surrender, the body takes
a shape in a dark void. The very darkened atmosphere is intended to signify
the night where much of mothers’ work takes place to the oblivion of sanity
and the unionised workforce.
Night time is the site of much conflict in mothers, be it physical and/or mental.
Exhaustion, anxiety over the well-being of the infant/child and sleep deprivation,
ironically act as catalysts for a heightened level of awareness of what it means
to me to be a mother. Kate Figes in her book Life after Birth1.
dedicates a whole chapter to exhaustion. She says that the exhaustion that mothers
experience can be so profound that it makes those women more susceptible to
other problems common after childbirth such as “ill-health, depression,
lowered self-esteem, angry outbursts, and poorer social or sexual relationships”
The darkened atmosphere also adds another dimension to the works. It is as if
the viewer is invited to go down a well where mystery and intensity merge in
order to create a sense of loss and ambiguity.
The child in my images, on the other hand is often acting on the mother’s
body and mind. I attempt to portray a sense of relentless attachment. Either
on the breast, on the stomach or on the feet, the child is omnipresent. In one
image, the child even takes over the whole head of the mother and they become
one. The symbiotic relationship is symbolised with the merging of the two bodies.
At times, the child is in the same image at a different age. This is to accentuate
the perpetual demands a child makes on the mother and to highlight the different
roles the mother is meant to perform.
Other artists who deal with the abject in the form of blood, vomit, filth, and
corpse and who inspire my work are Gregory Crewdson and Joel-Peter Witkin. These
two artists could also be read in the light of the maternal abject as discussed.
©2001 Mireille Astore
1. Figes, Kate. Life after birth. Penguin Books. London. 2000.