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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