This document summarizes and discusses a research paper about how the female body has been portrayed as both a "site" and a "sight" in various cultural and political contexts. It first examines how the female body was treated as a "sight" in early 1950s magazine covers in South Africa. It then discusses two artworks by South African feminist artists - Wendy Ross' 1985 land art piece "Arrow Beach Piece" and Kim Siebert's 1983 mixed media work "To Woman Behind Culture" - that position the female body as the subject rather than the object. The document concludes that while early visual culture presented the female body as a passive object for the male gaze, these feminist artworks used the female form to confront and protest against

1. The female body as a ‘site’ versus the female body as a ‘sight’
by
Marilise Snyman
213 216 856
Department of Fine and Applied Arts in the Tswane University of
Technology
NDip Fine and Applied Arts
Phunzo Sidogi

2. Table of Contents Page
List of illustrations i
Introduction 1
Part One
The female body as a ‘sight’ in Visual Culture 1
Part Two
South African Feminist art 4
Conclusion 6
Bibliography 8

3. List of illustrations Page
Figure 1: Front cover of Huisgenoot, 4 December 1953. (Viljoen 2005:96) 2
Figure 2: Wendy Ross, Arrow beach piece, 1985.
(Arnold 1996:[sa]), plate 37 4
Figure 3: Kim Siebert, To woman behind culture, 1983.
(Arnold 1996:[sa]), plate 80 5

4. 1
Introduction
This research explores how the female body is used as a ‘site’ and a ‘sight’ in
various political and cultural protests. Part one provides a brief overview of how the
female body was and still is treated as a ‘sight’ in visual culture by making use of an
article, Constructing femininity in Huisgenoot,1
by Louise Viljoen and Stella Viljoen
(2005:90). In conjunction with this text, a general understanding of the debates within
Feminism is presented.
In part two the works of two South African artists, Wendy Ross and Kim Siebert, are
discussed. The interpretations of their artworks serve as proof to show how female
artisanship has become a tool to protest against the grip of general male chauvinism.
Thus the writer binds the thoughts of the female body as a mere ‘space visited’ or an
object to be viewed to the concepts of Wendy Ross and Kim Siebert’s work in order
to show how art itself has positioned women to be subjects in a culturally and
politically driven society, rather than as objects.
Part One
The female body as a ‘sight’ in Visual Culture.
In the article Constructing femininity in Huisgenoot (Viljoen, 2005:90), an analysis of
the front cover of Huisgenoot 1953 is used to show how modes of gender are
represented in a linguistic and visual form where gender seems to be constructed in
relation to Western notions of femininity (Viljoen, 2005:93). According to Nancy
Duncan, in Viljoen (2005:93), gender-based issues lay within the political philosophy,
law, popular discourse and frequent spatial structuring practises. To some
contemporary readers of Huisgenoot the feminine and masculine insinuated images
might seem to be outdated, but Viljoen (2005:95) argues that it is exactly these
gender difference forms that shape the identity of Huisgenoot and so influence the
thought processes of its readers. According to Phoenix (2004), in Viljoen (2005:90),
“[W]omen learn to do femininity through negotiating the contradictory symbolic
representations of ‘woman’ which circulate [in magazines]”.
1 Huisgenoot – Home Companion

5. 2
During the 1930s the early covers of Huisgenoot were photographs of Afrikaner
icons such as Paul Kruger, General Piet Joubert and the Union Buildings (Viljoen
2005:95). Until the 1970s the cover was occupied by various images of South
African natural beauty, and occasionally depicted artworks of the countryside by
(white) South African artists such as Gregoire Boonzaier and Johan Hendrik Pierneef
(Viljoen, 2005:95), although covers from the early 1950s revealed a profound portrait
of the Afrikaner identity.
These covers were ‘snapshots’ of an imagined community and revealed an ideology
of the patriarchal Afrikaner male (Viljoen, 2005:96). By combining the landscape with
the gracefully staged female, at times accompanied by children, suggests the land
(indicating Nationalism) and family – personified by the female – are central
apprehensions of Afrikaner identity (Viljoen, 2005:96).
Figure 1: Front cover of Huisgenoot, 4 December 1953. (Viljoen 2005:96)
Figure 1, is said to be one of the dullest covers of 1953 (Viljoen, 2005:96). In this
photograph the model, Yvonne Needham, is not ‘decorated’ with feminine
accessories such as frilly dresses and blackened lashes, rather a boyish haircut and
a plain black tank top ascribe her to the diversity in feminine styles (Viljoen,
2005:96). Although Needham’s portrait against the natural seaside backdrop is not

6. 3
the typical depiction of a gazed female, an Afrikaner and gendered ideal is still
however evident in the way she has turned her face away from the camera (Viljoen,
2005:97).
Like the landscape behind Needham, her rigidness, to the gaze of the male viewer
serves as a shield towards the double-edged accusation of self-awareness.
According to Viljoen (2005:97): “… on the one hand, she appears not to have
consented to the image, because this act may label her as vain and sexually
assertive and on the other hand, she has not refused it, for in doing so she would
shatter the illusion of passivity and denounce her femininity”. This contrasted
concept of the female model gazing directly back at the viewer, is evident in Édourd
Manet’s Olympia, 1865 (Adams, 2007:765). This painting caused great scandal
since nudes from the Italian Renaissance had a psychological distance from the
viewer’s daily experience from their title as Classical deities (Adams, 2007:765). This
title is scrutinized by Manet’s Olympia, for she shows none of the traditional – as
Needman does on the cover of Huisgenoot – ideals of Classical representation of the
female nude (Adams, 2007:765).
Part Two
South African Feminist art
In 1985, Wendy Ross created a simplistic yet richly metaphorical statement on the
beach (Arnold 1996:76). Arrow beach piece (Figure 2) is an arrow-shaped cavity
created and positioned in the sand for tidal waves to wash into (Arnold 1996:76). The
edges of the shaped sand cavity is altered and softened through the force of the
water and the foam of the force when it spills itself in and out of the arrow. Arrow
beach piece is a land art piece which underpins nature’s references to the masculine
and the feminine (Arnold, 1996:76). The arrow itself is a symbol associated with the
male gender, although in this artwork the triangular arrow head is rather a symbolic
reference to the female genitalia (Arnold 1996:76).
The foam from the wave penetrates the triangular arrowhead through the penile
channel (Arnold, 1196:76). Arrow beach piece, 1985, insinuates notions of the

7. 4
womb, sperm and reproduction through the organic sensuousness of the warm,
passive sand engulfed by the determined white foam (Arnold, 1996:76).
Figure 2: Wendy Ross, Arrow beach piece, 1985 (Arnold 1996:[sa]), plate 37
The contributing reading of Arrow beach piece from the writer of this essay is the fact
that the cyclical motion of the tides is controlled by the moon. These phases of the
moon could also be linked to the menstrual cycle of the female, which in turn plays a
natural dominating role in procreation between male and female. What is interesting
then is the element that the spume of the wave plays in Arrow beach piece is in
actual fact controlled by the triangular shaped arrow, although the triangle eventually
vanishes after a repetitive return of the foam. As Arnold (1996:76) states, Ross’s
Arrow beach piece, 1985, is: “the serial evidence of motion presented, the piece
asserts itself as a statement about the evidence of time rendered visible in cyclical
nature”.
Two years before Ross’s land artwork, Kim Siebert created a mixed-media work in
1983.

8. 5
Figure 3: Kim Siebert, To woman behind culture, 1983. (Arnold 1996:[sp]), plate 80
To woman behind culture, (Figure 3), is an artwork that make use of assemblage of
materials that contains materials of different textural, tonal and shape interactions,
considering a peculiar attention to detail, precision and sensitivity in handling and
positioning of the materials (Arnold, 1996:146). This assemblage of material
contributes to the concept of To woman behind culture, as well as Siebert’s interest
in the process of art making, rather than the explicit subject matter itself (Arnold,
1996:146).
A patterning surface at the top of Siebert’s artwork collages references to non-
figurative traditions in Islamic art, a rearrangement of Analytic Cubism and a
geometrical visual manipulation of Op Art (Arnold, 1996:147). This collage of
materials and art styles indicate how the reality of social issues concerning female’s
position in a male dominated society is disguised within and behind other concerns
whilst women are still affected by these social issues (Arnold, 1996:147).
The viewer could than read the stylized Cleopatra as a female representing a female
embodiment as a whole, since the Egyptian Queen has remained a dramatic ‘sight’

9. 6
throughout history and has been imagined and re-imagined for her ambitions in
political ruling, her ‘otherness’ and foreign, sexually transgressive attributions
(Green, 2002:93). The, then anonymous, veiled female in Siebert’s artwork
emphasis lays in her eyes; she is viewed and in return becomes a spectator herself.
She not only creates an interaction between the part and the whole of different
understandings of social positions of the female in relation to male patriarchy in
societies, but also references the suppression of women across all societies (Arnold,
1996:146).
Conclusion
Thus in conclusion, it is evident from the discussion presented in this essay, that the
female body has been culturally manipulated in Visual Culture to fit into the ‘sight’ of
a male dominated society. Needham’s photograph on the cover of Huisgenoot
portrays the social understanding of the female, and is used to shape the thinking
and even the identity of the early Afrikaner people. The depiction of Needham
indicates the powerless female, a body as an object to spectate in a nationalised
scenery. Her avoidance of a responsive stare with confidence to the viewer
encourages the serene landscape behind her and contributes to her own announced
femininity. Needham’s portrait supports the socially corrupted gender-roles of
Chauvinism and favours the male gaze upon the female idealistic independency.
In protest against visual representations as the Huisgenoot cover of 1953, South
African female artist use the tool of visual art in order to support the rise of the
Feminist approach in what is now understood as Post-modern society. As early as
1983 and 1985 female artists in South Africa came about to visually manipulate the
psychology of a male dominated society. In Wendy Ross’s Arrow beach piece the
beach, what would have been Needham’s background, is used as a setting and
material to conceptualize the fierce natural motion between male and female. Her
land artwork piece becomes the foreground. In the context of this research, Ross
uses the supposedly tranquil setting as a premise to obtain her will to depart from the
female body from an object – a space to view – to being the actual subject, a form of
‘insight’.

10. 7
As with the direct stare of an anonymous female in Kim Siebert’s To woman behind
culture the viewer is now confronted with a self-assured figure. This representative of
all females portrays a confrontation to the political norm of male patriotism and afflict
the socially disguises of a culturally and private society. The importance of this
artwork rests in the intention of the making; Feminism is not a badge but rather a
route to self-discovery, a lived experience (Arnold, 1996:147). Finally, there is no
better way to summarise this research, but with Arnold’s words (1996:147): “What is
at stake for South African women artists is not whether they define themselves as
feminist artists or woman artists, but that they function as artists … prove that female
and feminine creativity makes a significant contribution to the diversity of South
African culture”.

11. 8
Bibliography
ADAMS, L.S. 2007. Art across time. New York: McGraw-Hill.
ARNOLD, M. 1996. Women and art in South Africa. Claremont: David Philip
Publishers.
GREEN, R. (in SHIFRIN, S. (ed.)). 2002. Women as sites of culture. Aldershot:
Ashgate Publishing Limited.
VILJOEN, L. & VILJOEN, S. (in DU PREEZ, A. & VAN EEDEN, J. (eds)). 2005. South
African Visual Culture, Constructing femininity in Huisgenoot. Pretoria:Van Schaik
Publishers.