MARY KELLY

POST-PARTUM DOCUMENT

Today we will study an important interdisciplinary art work:

The Post-Partum Document (1973-79) by artist Mary Kelly

Interdisciplinary content: social activism, art, and psychoanalysis.

BACKGROUND

BACKGROUND (1): ARTIST

• Mary Kelly was born in the United States.• Studied painting in Florence (Italy). • Moved to London (England) in 1968 and studied

at the St. Martin’s School of Art. • Strongly influenced by the women’s liberation

movement. • Major exhibition: Post-Partum Document,

Institute of Contemporary Art, London (1976). • Has taught at the Whitney Museum and now

teaches at UCLA.

BACKGROUND (2): FEMINISM• Feminism is a rich,

complex, and evolving tradition of theory and practice. – We will not cover all

aspects of it today.

• Mary Kelly was influenced by the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) in the United Kingdom.

• Feminism struggles against patriarchy (a social system in which men have an overall dominant position).

• In the UK, the WLM of the 1960s and 70s was closely connected to the Labor (working class) Movement.

• WLM in the United Kingdom demanded: – Equal educational opportunities– Equal job opportunities– Free 24 hour nurseries– Equal pay– Free abortion and free contraception

Important slogan of the WLM

The personal is political• What do you think this means?

• Think about everyday tasks, like washing and changing a baby.

• Are they personal or political?

The question of representation and the exclusion of women

• Mainstream movies are largely made by men.

• Men control the image of women in cinema.

• Women have less power to represent themselves.

Feminist scholars like Laura Mulvey emphasized that the image of women in mainstream cinema depends on a male-centered point of view. These images have a strong impact on how people think and feel about women.

WOMAN VS. WOMEN• Scholar Teresa de

Lauretis highlighted and criticized the gap between:

A. the mainstream image (Woman) represented in cinema by men, and

B. the more diverse and changing experiences of actual women, who are not represented.

• The words that we use, the images that we see, and the stories that we tell have a strong impact on our thought and imagination.

• Anyone who wants to change how people think needs to change language in a wider sense (words, images, stories).

• Many women artists and scholars focused on language as a topic and medium.

• Not only language in a narrow sense (e.g., English, Chinese, Spanish). – But also the language of images.

• They believed that it is important to: – Call attention to the ways mainstream

language carries a male point of view. – To change language by letting women have

the room to represent themselves from a critical point of view.

• Some women artists, for instance Adrian Piper, were drawn to conceptual artbecause it highlighted how language determines how we think.

Some women at this time, for instance Laura Mulvey, used an experimental approach to represent themselves.

Laura Mulvey making ting her film Riddles of the Sphynx.

Sally Potter made an important film about story-telling, male domination, and the death or exclusion of women: Thriller (1979).

• Many artists focused on everyday issues, such as the interaction of mother and child.

• Remember the idea that “the personal is political”.

• For this reason, they focused on areas that might be considered “personal” but which they considered relevant to social questions.

• Feminism inspired several important works of art, including experimental films.– Example: Riddles of the Sphynx (1977,

Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen).

• The film uses language (e.g., voice-over and direct address) to refer to questions of everyday life and social and cultural power.

• Laura Mulvey herself discussed those topics in the film.

• She reads books and discusses images in front of the camera.

• The question of language is very important in this film.

• Many of these films were interdisciplinary: – influenced by social theory, psychoanalysis, linguistics,

and philosophy.

• Filmmakers Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen, for instance, were not only experimental cinematic artists but also theoreticians.

• The filmmakers do not give definite answers. • They only raise questions and pose problems

without model answers.

Clips from the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WhZGlRV7Hs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlBaUd5Y58M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPkpgwL9L3Y

Interdisciplinary backgroundThe following disciplines were very important:

1. Linguistics (the study of language in a narrow sense).

2. Semiotics (the study of signs and meaning, language in a broader sense)

3. Cultural studies (the study of the relationship between meaning, action, and social power).

4. Psychoanalysis (the study of desire and fantasy).

Social theory was important for these artists because they wanted to change patriarchal (male-dominated) society:

– To change society, we must first understand it.

– To understand society, we must understand the psychology of people.

– To change society, we must also change ourselves (our way of thinking, fantasizing and behaving).

– Social theory and activism must therefore be combined with psychology (specially psychoanalysis).

Many feminist filmmakers and scholars of this period studied, applied, and critiqued the theories of two psychoanalysts:

1.Sigmund Freud 2.Jacques Lacan

KEY IDEAS

• “The personal is political”• The question of language and

representation• The gap between the image of women

(WOMAN) and the experiences of actual women.

• The need for asking questions and posing problems without model answers.

• The need for an interdisciplinary approach.

Mary Kelly’s Post-Partum Document can be understood in relation to this background.

1.It is interdisciplinary: Combines art with psychoanalysis and social activism.

2.It is informed by the aims and values of the feminist movement.

POST-PARTUM DOCUMENT

Media Installation Print (text and image)

INSTALLATION VIEWS

Print version

Overall approach

Aim of the work

To provide a critical analysis, documentation, and visualization of the “mother-child relationship.”

This might seem to be a purely personal or private issue.

But remember the slogan that “the personal is political”.

Personal relations are also political relations.

• The contents of the exhibition consist of documents of the interaction between the mother (the artist herself) and her child.

• For instance: objects from the child, transcriptions of the first words of the child, or written diaries of the mother’s experience.

• In many works of conceptual art, the borderline between art and documentation is not clear-cut.

• The documentation is the artwork.

Also included abstract diagrams and text.

• Kelly again used diagrams inspired by the theories of Lacan.

• The mother and child are seldom shown. • There are no direct cinema-style photographs

or videos of “daily life”. • The approach is more analytical

In the book version, the mother and child are shown only in one photograph.

Hint for your project:

• When you make a documentary video or installation, you do not have to show the people that your work is about.

• It is also possible to adopt a more indirect and analytical method.

• You are not required to do this, but you might consider it as a possibility.

• The work is divided into six clear-cut sections.

• This sharp segmentation into parts gives the project a strong sense of organization.

• The film Riddles of the Sphinx, made in the same period, is also divided into parts (like sections or chapters).

• For this reason, the work somewhat resembles an essay or a book.

Hint for your project:

• To strengthen your sense of structure, you might consider dividing your work (video, installation, etc.) into specific sections, perhaps giving each section a title.

• The point of view in the text is not constant.

• Some sections are written in the first-person (“I”).

• Some sections are written in the third-person.

Posing questions, not giving model answers

• The work does not present a clear-cut theory or conclusion.

• Many ideas are discussed, mainly to raise questions and suggest problems, not to present definite solutions.

• The work “is not a traditional narrative; a problem is continually posed but no resolution is reached.”

Summary of the overview

• The Post-Partum Document focuses on the mother-child relation.

• It is sharply divided into sections. • It is highly analytical and refers to the

psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan. • It does not have a constant point of view. • It raises problems without giving model

answers.

• Let us now look at some of the sections of the work.

DOCUMENTATION ONE:

• Fecal stains and feeding charts

DOCUMENTATION ONE:

Kelly recorded the feeding process during three months and then selected the month during which most changes occurred.

She listed the amount of solids and liquids and the weight gained.

Kelly also specified the state of the baby’s stools: 01 Constipated02 Normal 03 Not homogeneous04 Loose 05 diarrhea

She combined all of this information into each panel.

• Let us now try to understand some of the theory that underpins the section you have just seen.

The relation between being and having

• For the woman, being herself as a mother means having the child. – The child was once part of her body.

• After birth, the child is still closely connected to the mother’s body (e.g., breast-feeding) and dependent on the mother (cannot walk by himself).

The relation between being and having

• The child was once a part of the mother, and yet she must recognize that the child is gradually separated from her. – The child becomes more physically independent

(can walk on his own and has a stronger sense of himself)

– The child no longer breast-feeds.

• The mother has an experience of separation or loss.

• On the one hand, she knows the child is no longer hers.

• On the other hand, she develops the fantasy (illusion) that she somehow still has the child.

• How?

– One method to keep the illusion of having the child is to save and collect items from the child.

– Such as the child’s stools. – They are like “gifts” from

the child in the mother’s fantasy.

Being the mother and having the child

• The mother also imagines that she has the child by believing that she is responsible for him/her.

• She evaluates herself through the child.

• She examines her child’s eating habits to ensure that she is being “a good mother”.

• The mother for this reason accepts her role as the person responsible for the child.

• Mary Kelly’s work describes and analyzes the psychological reasons why the woman accepts her social role as a mother and becomes dependent on her child.

Let us now introduce a very useful keyword: Intersubjectivity.

Let us understand this idea step by step.

Recall again the Aim of Mary Kelly’s work

To provide a critical analysis, documentation, and visualization of the “mother-child relationship.”

Note the emphasis on the relationship of the mother and child.

“I am trying to show the reciprocity of the process of socialization in the first few years of life. It is not only the infant whose future personality is formed… but also the mother…”

What does the above quote from Mary Kelly mean (focus on the second sentence)?

Intersubjectivity

The personality of one person is formed in relation to the personality of another person, and vice versa.

One person becomes a mirror of the other.

• INTERSUBJECTIVITY of mother and infant– The personality of the child is formed in

relation to that of the mother, and vice versa.

– In this case, the woman develops her sense of who she is in relation to the child (whom she wants to have).

Intersubjectivity was an important topic for LacanMary Kelly refers to it in her work.

The mother understands who she is in relation to the child.

Can you think of everyday examples of intersubjectivity other than the mother-child relation?

This interaction is an instance of an important phenomenon, often observed in childhood, which Jacques Lacan calls transitivism.

The child does not clearly distinguish itself from the image of the other child.

TransitivismExamples:

• One child cries when another child falls down.

• One child beats another and then claims that hewas beaten.

Two Infants, Unknown artist, 1617

TransitivismTransitivism

sometimes also involves acts of mutual aggression:

“"the aggressiveness that is manifested in the retaliations of slaps and blows..."

Transitivism in later life

According to Lacan, transitivism never disappears from human life:

"transitivism... is never completely eliminated from man's world..."

Many artists have dealt with the way one person can be a mirror image of another.

Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966)

Full movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySa4fK9SqII

transitivismJacques Lacan interprets transitivism as an

identification with the image of another.

For instance, Lacan describes situations where:

the slave identifies with the master;the actor with the viewer; the victim with the victimizer;

So that it is not clear who is who.

Jacques Lacan studied a period in early life where the child is fascinated by her/his own image.

Lacan calls this period the mirror stage.

The “mirror” is not necessarily a real mirror.

It can be (e.g.) another person (such as a child of similar age) who becomes a “mirror”.

This period involves a strong transitivism.Each child is a mirror for the other.

Hint for your project:

• Think of any area that you want to research as involving intersubjectivity:

• Different people (in a family, office, laboratory, classroom, etc.) understand who they are in relation to other people.

• Think of each person as a mirror of the other.

DOCUMENTATION TWO

• Speech events

DOCUMENTATION TWO• Kelly records the statements of the child when the

child started uttering patterned speech. • She also writes down the context in which the child

speaks (for example, getting ready for bed).• She provides a “gloss” or interpretation of the

meaning of the words and their purpose or “function”.

• She also writes down the age of the child and other information (e.g., most frequent sound).

• Again, let us try to understand the theory that underpins the section you have just seen.

• Remember that the focus of this project is on the intersubjectivity of the mother-child relation.

• This section is mainly about the child being able to speakand so to communicate.

• How does the act of speaking affect the mother-child relation?

This section documents the mother’s desire to understand the meaning of the child’s sounds.

Desire and Demand

• The child can use language to give names to objects.

• The child can express her/his desire in this way (by screaming the name of the object s/he desires, for instance food or toys).

• The child expresses a demand, not only for the object but also for the love of the mother.

• Why is language important? – The mother wants to keep alive the fantasy

that she has the child. – She wants to feel that she can satisfy the

child’s demand for love.

• She worries that she cannot understand what the child says and so cannot give the child what s/he wants.

• The mother knows that she and the child are separate (the mother does not really have the child any more).

• She feels a deep gap between herself and the child.

• Lacan emphasized that intersubjectivity is always full of tension or conflict.

• The relation of mother and child is no exception.

• There is a conflict between the desire to have the child and her awareness that she is separate from the child.

DOCUMENTATION THREEThis section have several main elements: a. diaries of conversations between mother and child b. Inner speech of the mother c. Retrospective notes from the “perspective” of one

week later. d. The child’s own pencil marks.

The documents in this section is based on recorded conversations between mother and child.

Every document has three parts: 1. A short written transcript of the conversation. 2. A transcript of the mother’s own “inner speech”

in response to that conversation, written in the same day.

3. Further notes on this inner speech, from a later perspective (i.e., written one week later).

Every document also includes the child’s own markings.

• This section continues the topics raised in the previous one: – The mother recognizes that the child is

separate.– The mother wants to keep the illusion that she

has the child by understanding the child and satisfying her/his desires.

– The mother desires to be loved by and understand the child.

– She is also very anxious about what to do in order to fulfill her social role as a “good mother”.

• Overview of documentations one-three.

DOCUMENTATION FOUR• This section records objects from the child that

are meaningful to the mother (the child’s blanket and hand imprints made of clay).

• There were also diaries that recorded the mother’s mixed feelings about her separation from the child.

DOCUMENTATION FIVE

• The child started investigating the world around him.

• Collected objects (plants and insects) and gave them to mother as gifts. – This section is a collection of these objects.

• The mother believes that the gifts represent proofs of love from the child.

• Kelly also added scientific facts about the various plants and insects and used a coordinate system (x-y axis) to represent them.

DOCUMENTATION SIX

• Early writings of the child.

DOCUMENTATION SIX• This section documents the time when the child learnt to

read and write in school. • Two themes are very important here:

1. Separation • The child spends more time in school away from his

mother.

2. Language • At first, the child only writes symbols like 0 or +.• He eventually learns to use ordinary language.

• Each image has three sections:

– TOP: The child’s symbols.

– MIDDLE: The mother’s hand-written comments, as she tries to understand what the child wants to say.

– BOTTOM: The mother’s type-written diary.

One inspiration for this section was the Rosetta Stone.

• Napoleon found the stone in Egypt. • Scientists used the stone to decipher

Egyptian hieroglyphs 象形文字.

• The original stone suggests a secret code.

• Why do you think Kelly was inspired by the Rosetta stone?

• The mother is also placed in a special position by the school. – She is considered “responsible” to supervise and care

for the child. – The school often surveys and blames the mother. – Authorities often uphold a very high, ideal standard of

motherhood. • The mother cannot possibly fulfill this standard.

Thus the mother’s fear and insecurity about performing well become stronger.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

• The point of this work is not to show what all mothers are always like, but:

• To call attention to and reflect on certain aspects of being a mother in our society, so that

• We can reflect on and perhaps change it. – Why should women become so dependent on

their roles as mothers who desire to have their children?

• The work promotes understanding and critical thinking about the position of the mother and her relation to the child in our society.

Note

• There are some advanced concepts proposed by Jacques Lacan that we have not covered: – The Mirror Stage– The Real, the Imaginary, the Symbolic

• Mary Kelly was influenced by those ideas. • You are welcome to research them on your own

or organize a session with me to discuss them.