Approach to Fear XI - Effeminacy Productive Action (2)

Approach to Fear XI - Effeminacy Productive Action (2)

Alexis Hunter
Medium
Photography
Material
Photograph with green paint
Dimensions
32 x 38 cm
Date created
1977
Acquisition
Donated by the artist, 1991
See Artist's profile

Between 1967–77 Hunter created a large body of work called ‘Approaches to Fear’, in which she pictured hands performing actions that challenge gendered expectations. In advertising, hands are quite often depicted touching the object to give it a tactile reality. The six works from this series in The Women’s Art Collection feature hairy male hands fixing a bike, but bedecked with ornate feminine jewellery. Compositionally, the hands could be your own, directly implicating the viewer in the work. The green paint on top of the photograph is a stamp of the artist’s own presence. About this series, feminist critic Lucy Lippard noted: ‘Fetishism and a hint of S&M lurk just beneath the surfaces of Hunter’s photographs… Her rage at capitalism is focused upon the mass media which have, as Judith Williamson puts it, been “selling us ourselves for profitâ€.’