The Female Body and Identity: Four Artists from Body & Soul: New International Ceramics Museum of Arts and Design

Abstract

In her influential book The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir presented a radical notion that “one is not born a woman but becomes one” (Beauvoir, 2011, p. 283). In this essay, I explore how four artists—Klara Kristalova, Jessica Harrison, Chris Antemann, and Tip Toland—visually present in their ceramic work different nuances of Beauvoir’s thesis on the social construction of women’s identity. From an analysis of the four artists’ work in the 2013-2014 exhibition, Body & Soul: New International Ceramics, held at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, I tease out contemporary views on body and identity in selected ceramic work by four artists.