Zoe Buckman, a badass feminist artist.
Lingerie, boxing gloves, gynecological materials and more.
“As artists we need to stop making work only for gallery or museum walls, or the coffee tables of collectors. Rather, in tandem with these shows and pieces, we also need to make work for the people. For free. On billboards, train stations, public parks, etc. In order for that to happen, public art organizations need to be braver and stop highlighting work that is safe and decorative…” — Zoë Buckman
Biography
Zoë Buckman was born in 1985 in Hackney, London. Zoë Buckman has studied at the International Center of Photography (ICP) and she actually lives and works in New York. The artist works with sculpture, installation, neon and photography. She traditionally employs a broader range of materials coming from our contemporary mainstream life in order to reflect upon modern themes such as Feminism, identity, mortality, equality and society’s cultural norm.
Emblematic Projects
Let’s Her Rave
Let Her Rave is both inspired by and a response to a line in Keats’ Ode on Melancholy. She has always been a Keats’ admirer, but she was against his women point of view in the ancient and contemporary society. The boxing gloves, showed in this artwork, are made of a wedding dress fabric: they clearly reflect on the refined figure of the woman pushed to face strong aggressions in our contemporary society. The idea is to put together contrasting materials which basically reflect, at the same time, their double meaning. In this way, she clearly expresses the figure of a woman inside our society: she is both strong and feminine.
Mostly It’s Just Uncomfortable
In Mostly It’s Just Uncomfortable it is possible to see again one of the most common objects used by the artist: a pair of boxes gloves. Her ability to marry the masculine to the feminine themes and to women’s act of forces into our contemporary society appears again. They come together with other gynecological instruments: it is a response to women’s deprivation of free sexual health care and about their inability to make a choice concerning their own body. This artwork clearly stated her position against the Planned Parenthood which appeared in the United States. She creates an ironic critique using harsh gynecological materials as an object to create her sculptural artwork. Fortunately, she is able to transform them into playful objects thanks to the usage of Powder Coating.
Every Curve
Buckman’s Every Curve is an installation of vintage lingerie which shows artist’s own fascination toward femininity. Once again, this piece of art reflects a specific contemporary theme: the female objectification in our modern society. The garments come from varying decades: corsets were shown how the body was restricted and repressed while fluid, free slips and robes underline a period when the female body was celebrated and other lingerie used to appeal better to the eyes of men.
The antique undergarments present lyrics coming from iconic rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G.’ musical texts. Obviously, words reflect on women’s condition into the society, underlining violent images as well as unsympathetic ones. Thus, in her artworks past and contemporary images of Feminism and Hip-Hop culture are compared. Actually, she was referring to her past experience: she has grown up in a feminist and activist household in East London and she was influenced by Hip-Hop culture and from rappers such as Biggie and Tupac, during her years as a teenager. A true influence that remains over years.
In Beckman’s installation, space shows a strong sense of absence: the absence of unidentified women in the process of their liberation and empowerment, the absence of the two famous rappers and their respecting legacies. The reason why she employs vintage lingerie is linked with the absence of both women who worn them and the iconic men.
With this installation, Beckman is trying to provoke the audience and to ironically show a real contemporary struggle.
Some Exhibitions
(2017) IMPRISON HER SOFT HAND, Project for Empty Space, 2 Gateway Center, Newark, NJ
(2017) TRANSPARENCY SHADE, Projects+Gallery, St. Louis, MO
(2016) EVERY CURVE, PAPILLION ART, Los Angeles, CA
(2016) PROJECTS — CHAMP, PULSE Miami Beach, Miami, FL
(2016) ONE ROUND — SoundScape Park Evening Film Program, Art Basel Miami Beach, Miami, FL
(2016–2017) HARLEM POSTCARDS — Fall/Winter 2016–2017, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
(2016) OFF THE WALL — FOR FREEDOMS, Monique Meloche, Division St and Oakley Blvd, Chicago, IL
(2016) FRAMING BEAUTY, Grunwald Gallery of Art, Indiana University
(2016) MAKING & UNMAKING, Camden Arts Centre, London, UK
(2016) MARCH MADNESS, Fort Ganesvoort, New York, NY
