Kobiety o kobietach – postrzeganie obecności artystek w świecie sztuki

Women about women – the perception of the presence of female artists in the art world The world shaped by “Western European culture” carries the inescapable burden of patriarchy, a social system in which the male functions as the dominant individual. The preponderance of human beings existing in the reality created through this system implies the male components as the primary and natural elements. In everyday life, implicitly, everything is a male substance. The physical reflection of this power and its consequences can be seen, among other things, in the world of art – where non-masculine characters were, and still often are, relegated to the margins of history. By referring to the literature on the subject, the author presents a critical approach and tackles the following issues: the obstruction of women in the art world, including their education in art academies, the attribution of their works to men, the frequent reduction of women’s work to so-called “women’s art”, the positioning of women as the “Other” together with the insertion of their work into a culture conditioned by the traditionally understood gender. She also draws attention to issues relating to the creation of female figures by women themselves. In this regard, she leans on the power of the self-portrait and the multidimensionality of its representations, for it is the self-portrait that constitutes one of the first spaces, both in art and in the public sphere, in which women had the opportunity to present and express themselves in the way they wanted. At the same time, she poses questions: ● Why have there been no great women artists in history (based on Linda Nochlin’s famous essay)?● How do we create exposure in a contemporary way, while at the same time not makingfemale artists into “Other” figures, but enabling them to receive their due recognition? ● How do we not unify women and their work?● Is the common understanding of feminist art not equivalent to “women’s art”?