Tate Modern defines the Abject as that which “transgresses and threatens our sense of cleanliness and propriety, particularly referencing the body and bodily functions”.

In Excreta and the Abject in Art History, a study of the Abject as a psycho-social space will be undertaken, and its connections to feminism analyzed. Our relationship to bodily material, and thereby ourselves and each other, will be discussed. Works that utilize such bodily by-products – urine, semen, menstrual blood, feces, et cetra harness the Abject and produce an encounter that centers our relationship to the parts of us that lie beyond care and social acceptability. The policing of the female body and its functions are reworked and addressed in the works the lecture will discuss. Studying across a wide range of disciplines, including Painting, Photography, Sculpture, and more, this class will help attendees better understand the Abject as a mode of meaning-making beyond (and against) cultural concepts of ‘the proper’ and its historical use in the Arts.

We will study works that utilize the Abject either through material or through aesthetic, and discuss how these choices shape meaning and affect. A historical survey of the Abject in Art will be used to reveal the gendered politic ingrained in the subject: while the industry revered the ‘brave’ genius of artists like Marc Quinn for his Shit Painting (1997) and Shit Head (1997), the abject looks different when in the hands of Women Artists, who initially, and perhaps still, are not afforded the same liberties as their male counterparts. Artists like Carolee Schneemann and Sarah Lucas, however, offer an exciting antidote to study.

ABOUT OUR LECTURER

Parumveer Walia is an emerging photographer and writer/curator born in Chandigarh, India and currently working off of the unceded and stolen territories in so-called British Columbia, Canada. Walia’s practice examines systemic frameworks that define us into gender and shapes the political experience of occupying a Body, approached in his practice through a Queer and intimate lens.

His rigorously maintained practice has seen him acclaimed internationally. Notably, his works have been exhibited in Poland with BINNAR (2021), published in ArtHole magazine(2020), and his photo-series received a Special Mention at the Ninth Sustainable Development Conference in India (2021). After completing a residency in Serbia with the Belgrade Art Studios (2021), his photography and writing was published in the photobook ‘Photology’ , which was since been acquired for the libraries at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, as well as the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales. He has recently concluded a research project with the Libby Leshgold Gallery in Canada and is curating his next exhibition, for 2024.

This is a recording of a live session hosted by The Feminist Lecture Program in February 2024. The reading list for the class can be found alongside this rental.

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