What Is My Legacy Analysis

Contemporary art plays a significant role in how society views art and how viewers begin to understand the more complex themes being presented. Several contemporary art movements continue unfolding today, for this reason, many movements remain undefined and ambiguous making it difficult to navigate the pertinent political themes relevant in current society. Looking at scholarly art journals helps inform the viewer how a majority of contemporary artists weave together extraordinary pieces addressing complex cultural questions and how it relates to society. Having these texts is important also because the same piece can be interpreted in a variety of ways. This analysis will examine how the approaches of the authors in “What is my legacy?” by
Myers’ article “What is my Legacy?” concentrates on Reneé Cox’s photographic series Yo Mamma. The article begins by talking about ethnography and the late nineteenth century science of cataloging and categorizing people of different cultures. Myers’ used this in reference with Cox’s art to help make clear Cox’s intent of highlighting how society views race and gender in her Yo Mamma series. The article continues on to discusses other important factors of Cox’s work such as the unrelenting gaze of the figure and how it connects with the viewer and is meant to challenge them. Beyond the gaze of the female and the historic references, Myers’ deliberates Cox’s notions of the female body and her ideas of having a predetermined identity placed upon one by societies fixed stereotypes of what the female body is and what it means to be
Chave’s article “Is this good for Vulva?” correspondingly focuses on the body and what is means to be female. The article begins by imparting historical reference to the matriarchal imagery dating back to prehistoric culture and its predominance over any other imagery. She then outlines the evident absence of the female genitalia in later historic art pieces which then flows into the base argument of her paper. Chave references many artist and works of art from the 1950’s to the 1990’s in order to show the evolution of artists explicitly depicting the female genitalia. There is a certain shock value to the pieces listed in this article that are meant to seize the viewers’ attention and perhaps draw recognition to the highly political themes about gender and the body that these artists are blatantly addressing. In order to understand Chave’s article it is important to note that Chave writes for a New York gallery in order to relate the artworks on display. The overarching theme of her writing as well as the artist intent in making these pieces is to give a sense of visibility and voice to something that has ultimately been obscured from the public’s