Monument Mondays - Sanné Mestrom

UNCENSORED - Public art by, for, and in remembrance of women by Penny Peace, Inquisitive Viewer of Art

Weeping Women by Sanné Mestrom. Monash University, Caulfield East, Australia. Photo by Andrew Curtis.

#Monument Mondays - March 8, 2021

Australian experimental and conceptual artist Sanné Mestrom makes art about art. By looking backward and forward, she creates sculpture that reflects the history of modernism, and that is “a concerted effort to subvert the forms, materials, and techniques that are typically associated with canonical male artists’ works.”

One such example is Mestrom’s Weeping Women, which “usurps the portrayal of the tortured muse put forward by Pablo Picasso in his world-famous artwork Weeping Woman” of 1937. In Mestrom’s piece, the women are not weeping from their eyes, as in Picasso’s work, but are weeping (lactating) from their breasts. They are self-possessed, confident life-giving forces that champion female empowerment.

By referencing–and deviating from– iconic “male gaze” modern artwork, Mestrom asks us to question not only the gender portrayal found in much of our public art but also to question the influence that art history has on our present-day perceptions.

By the way, Picasso called women “suffering machines.”

We welcome your comments, questions, or recommendations.

For more information https://mestrom.org/

#sculpture, #monuments, #womensculptors, #sannemestrom, #suffrageforward,
#malegaze, #weepingwomen, #suffrageforward, #monumentmondays