| dc.description.abstract | American artist Miriam Schapiro (1923-) began her work within the style of abstract Expressionism which led to a long-lasting career that finds its roots deep in Modernist art. As decoration was a highlighted topic of debate at both the rise and decline of Modernism, this thesis mainly focuses on Schapiro’s practice of decorative art in the 1970’s, a form of art she coins as ‘Femmage’. Femmage, as a term putting together of ‘female’ and ‘image’ that finds its origin in the feminist artistic movement, denotes art works made out of decorative objects in the daily lives of women. As a strategy for feminine identification and a means to empower women with speech, Femmage is in resistance to traditional art institutions in their negligence of the other. In the later Pattern and Decoration Movement, which employs decoration directly as its subject of art-making, the visually resplendent Femmage is used to counter and expand the somber frames trimmed down by Minimalism. In this act of publicly displaying the practicality of decoration and elevating its values, the orthodox conventions of the art world perpetuating hierarchy are also interrogated. Femmage, in its attempt to subvert modernist values, is thus of high political implication.Although it may appear as if Femmage marks a turning point of Schapiro’s career, it is the intent of this thesis to argue for a continuity between Femmage and the artist’s overall career. That is, with an emphasis placed on the artist’s embodiment of Modernism as well as her condition of co-existence with contemporary art institutions, a relationship can be traced from the stages of her career to her engagement with Femmage that would render consistency in what may initially be taken as rupture. Furthermore, beyond the subversiveness inherent in both movements, the art historical context embedded in Femmage will be identified from the perspective of decoration.First, the intertwining relationship between decoration and modernism will be delineated. Even though modernism deems decoration as trivial and lacking meaning, a thorough observation of abstractionism will reveal that it is rich with decorative elements. This thesis will prove that decoration and abstractionism indeed share common grounds at their early stages of development and discuss how this close relationship later diverged into two distinct styles. In addition, with the engagement of decoration with social life and the employment of the technique of collage, Femmage will be traced to avant-garde art since dadaism and surrealism. Finally, through the lens of the art criticism’s popular concept of appropriation by since the 1980’s and the visually pleasure and the political significance of decoration, a revisit of Femmage will conclude this thesis in locating possible exits of contemporary art practice opened up by Femmage.
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