Breaking As Making: Women Artists Employing Breaking, Violence And Destruction

‘People find it quite weird that women make violent work, or work that uses violence. But we have as much right to it as anyone else.’ - Cornelia Parker

From Doris Salcedo to Louise Bourgeois, Marina Abramović to Camille Claudel, there is a wealth of women artists working across sculpture, performance, film and participative artworks that have employed breaking, destruction or violence in their work. How is it that violence became so prolific in female creative practice, and what does this say about the wider cultural context that these women artists were making in?

During this lecture, specific artworks will be used to consider nuances as the artist takes on the position of ‘breaker’ or are the subject of breaking. We will question how and what is broken, what is doing the breaking, the approach to breaking and how the reactions to the breaking can alter power dynamics in the artwork. Of particular focus is violence, or breaking, as means to escape gendered constraints:
Louise Bourgeois filmed herself pushing her stone sculpture off its plinth, destroying it in the process. In contrast, in ‘Rhythm 0’ (1974) Marina Abramović literally risks self-annihilation as she opens to the uncertainty of others’ actions. In ‘Be the first to see what you see as you see it’ (2004), Runa Islam calmly and deliberately breaks a china tea service, visually relishing breaking. In ‘Here comes Santa’ (2003) Sylvie Fleury films a woman in high heels enjoying a process of stamping on silver baubles, very different to Islam’s calm approach.
As Gustav Metzger proposes, ‘Auto-destructive art seeks to be an instrument for transforming peoples’ thoughts and feelings, not only about art, but wants to use art to change people’s relations to themselves and society’.

This lecture will explore the power dynamics throughout these artworks with the aim of both revealing how breaking, violence and destruction operate in society and how women artists can best utilise these in their artwork for empowerment.

We are committed to making our sessions as accessible as possible. If you are unable to pay the full amount for this class, please reach out to us via email at [email protected] and we will provide you with a discount code.