Facing the mirror: Jo Spence and Hannah Wile

Authors

  • Jesús Martínez Oliva University of Murcia (Spain).
  • Domingo Pujante González University of Valencia (Spain).

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.77.2477

Keywords:

cancer, critical deconstruction, expression of the female gender, growing visibility, self portrait, phototherapy, Hannah Wilke, Jo Spence, Marie Mandy

Abstract

Cancer has long been a taboo, an illness surrounded by secrecy, socially silenced and consequently excluded from visual and artistic representation. This article aims to highlight the pioneering role played by two women artists: Hannah Wilke and Jo Spence. In the eighties Wilke and Spence broke away from the fear and shame of cancer to record the disease visually, making it part of their work experience, lived through in the first person. These autopathographic portraits, encompassing different strategies that range from phototherapy to the task of deconstructing stereotypes and taboos or pursuing critical militancy, helped these authors to face this disease personally, and try to unravel the metaphors and stigmas surrounding it socially and culturally. 

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Author Biographies

Jesús Martínez Oliva, University of Murcia (Spain).

Professor at the Department of Fine Arts, Sculpture area. University of Murcia (Spain).

Domingo Pujante González, University of Valencia (Spain).

Professor at the Department of French and Italian Studies. University of Valencia (Spain).

References

Dennett, T. et al., 2005. Jo Spence. Más allá de la imagen perfecta. Fotografía, subjetividad, antagonismo. Macba. Barcelona. Hannah Wilke Collection & Archive.

Le Breton, D., 1999. Antropología del dolor. Seix Barral. Barcelona.

Sander, G., 1988. Disease and Representation; Images of Illness from Madness to AIDS. Cornell University Press. Ithaca.

Sontag, S., 1996. La enfermedad y sus metáforas. El sida y sus metáforas. Taurus. Madrid.

Sontag, S., 2007. Bajo el signo de Saturno. Debolsillo Ediciones. Madrid.

Spence, J., 1995. Cultural Sniping: The Art of Transgression. Routledge. London.

Wilke, H., 1995. Intra-Venus. Ronald Feldman Fine Arts. New York.

Wilke, H., (1940-1993), 2006. Hannah Wilke: Exchange Values. Artium. Vitoria.

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Published

2014-06-01

How to Cite

Martínez Oliva, J., & Pujante González, D. (2014). Facing the mirror: Jo Spence and Hannah Wile. Metode Science Studies Journal, (4), 57–61. https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.77.2477
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Issue

The spirit of science (2014)

Section

The thin line. Cancer in the 21st century

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