See art by Mayra Alpízar | Carlota Berard | Jennifer Boe | Roz Bonnet | Luiza Brown | Nikoline Calcaterra | Judy Chicago | Selin Cileli | Maldoror Capvt Corvi | Maribel Cruz | Thomasin Durgin | Natalie Aniela Dybisz | Elvira | Anne Encephalon | Hélène Epaud | Quiara Z. Escobar | Fanni Fazekas | Pat Fish | Julie Gaw | Gina | Kat Grandy | Martina Hoffmann (1 & 2) | Jelena | Judy Jones | Margaret Kalms | Brina Katz | Lorraine Lamothe | Ria Lee | Sharon Lee | Lana Leitch | Carol Nathan Levin | Katy Luxion | Sarah McCutcheon | Isa Menzies | Megan Morris | M. Parfitt | Petra Paul | Ana Elena Pena | Melina Piroso | Elentye Paulauskas-Poelker | Leigh Radtke | Jacquelyn Rixon | Isa Sanz | Vladislav Shabalin | Nelson Soucasaux | Paula Speakman | Alexandra Steiner | Melina Szapiro | Von Taylor | Jean Tracy | Joseph Tonna | Jessica Wagner | Jennifer Weigel | Terry Wunderlich | Tamara Wyndham | New Guinea menstrual hut carving
Art of Menopause by Coni Minneci
Ancient Peruvian menstrual art
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.
HOMEPAGE
CONTRIBUTE to Humor, Words and expressions about menstruation and Would you stop menstruating if you could?
Some MUM site links:
HOMEPAGE |
MUM address & What does MUM mean? |
Email the museum |
Privacy on this site |
Who runs this museum?? |
Amazing women! |
Art of menstruation (and awesome ancient art of menstruation) |
Artists (non-menstrual) |
Asbestos |
Belts |
Bidets |
Birth control and religion |
Birth control drugs, old |
Birth control douche & sponges |
Founder bio |
Bly, Nellie |
MUM board |
Books: menstruation & menopause (& reviews) |
Cats |
Company booklets for girls (mostly) directory |
Contraception and religion |
Contraceptive drugs, old |
Contraceptive douche & sponges |
Costumes |
Menstrual cups |
Cup usage |
Dispensers |
Douches, pain, sprays |
Essay directory |
Examination, gynecological (pelvic) (short history) |
Extraction |
Facts-of-life booklets for girls |
Famous women in menstrual hygiene ads |
FAQ |
Feminine napkin, towel, pad directory |
Founder/director biography |
Gynecological topics by Dr. Soucasaux |
Humor |
Huts |
Links |
Masturbation |
Media coverage of MUM |
Menarche booklets for girls and parents |
Miscellaneous |
Museum future |
Norwegian menstruation exhibit |
Odor |
Olor |
Pad, towel, napkin directory |
Patent medicine |
Poetry directory |
Products, some current |
Puberty booklets for girls and parents|
Religion |
Religión y menstruación |
Your remedies for menstrual discomfort |
Menstrual products safety |
Sanitary napkin, towel, pad directory |
Seguridad de productos para la menstruación |
Science |
Shame |
Slapping, menstrual |
Sponges |
Synchrony |
Tampon directory |
Early tampons |
Teen ads directory |
Tour of the former museum (video) |
Towel, pad, sanitary napkin directory |
Underpants & panties directory |
Videos, films directory |
Words and expressions about menstruation |
Would you stop menstruating if you could? |
What did women do about menstruation in the past? |
Washable pads |
Read 10 years (1996-2006) of articles and Letters to Your MUM on this site.
Leer la versión en español de los siguientes temas: Anticoncepción y religión, Breve reseña - Olor - Religión y menstruación - Seguridad de productos para la menstruación.


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.

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:

http://www.JudyChicago.com

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!

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 these pages (it's free!), contact MUM


© 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