See also a sample from a Dutch book of art
illustrating words and expressions for menstruation from around the world.
If you create or own art concerning menstruation or menopause
and are interested in showing it on thesepages (it's free!), contact MUM
Marie Claire magazine (Italian edition) featured several
of the above artists in an article about this
museum and menstruation in 2003. The newspaper Corriere della Sera (Io Donna
magazine) (Milan, Italy) and the magazine Dishy (Turkey) showed some of
the artists in 2005 in articles about this museum.
 
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The Art of Menstruation at the Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health
Red Flag
Judy Chicago, 1971
Photolithograph (51/94), 20"x 24," printed from aluminum plates
by Sam Francis in his personal workshop, 1971. ©1971 Judy Chicago
Judy Chicago donated this print (number 51 of 94) to the Museum of Menstruation
in 1998.
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Red Flag may be the first work of art -
and it was, and is, controversial - to show this commonplace event in many
women's lives: removing a tampon. The artist has commented that many people
did not know what the red object was; some thought it was a bloody penis,
showing how unwilling many women (and men!) are to look at personal, but
everyday functions.
Ms. Chicago, the foremost feminist artist in the
world, donated the print to MUM. Some of her other artwork are The Dinner Party, Birth Project, Holocaust Project and Menstruation Bathroom. The Canadian television
film Under Wraps shows the 1995 re-installation
of the latter in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (it also
shows MUM); the work was first created in Womanhouse in the 1970s.
The artist has published volumes of autobiography as well as other material.
The Canadian television production company Starry
Night, which created Under Wraps, is making a film of Ms. Chicago's
work.
Her nonprofit organization, Through the Flower,
invites you to contact them at 101 N. 2nd Street, Belen, New Mexico, 87002,
U.S.A., telephone (505) 864-4088. And it now has a Web site:
Read more about how Ms. Chicago gave the
print to this museum.
By the way, considering Red Flag, the Washington Post wrote on 22 April
1998 about a new exhibit in the National Museum of American History showing
awful working conditions in some shops of the
garment industry in the U.S.A.
At the start of the displays, some text explains why the museum dared
create such a show (taken here from the Post):
[The mission of a history museum is to] interpret
difficult, unpleasant, or controversial episodes, not out of any desire to embarrass, be unpatriotic,
or cause pain, but out of a responsibility
to convey a fuller, more inclusive history.
In addition, I think that a museum has the responsibility to display
noncontroversial aspects of its chosen subject
- but no one contests that, except maybe for menstruation!
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NEXT artist: Selin
Cileli (or start from the first artist, alphabetically, Mayra
Alpízar)
See all the artists in the links in the left-hand
column.
If you create or own art concerning menstruation or menopause and
are interested in showing it on thesepages (it's free!), contact MUM
See
also Bea Nettles' art The Moonsisters
© 2002 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute
work on this Web site in any manner or medium without written permission
of the author. Please report suspected violations to hfinley@mum.org
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