Reflection

This evocative 1993 performance by Janine Antoni saw the Bahamian–born American artist soak her head in black hair dye, before using it as a mop to paint the floor of the Anthony d’Offay Gallery in London. The more ground she covered, the less room there was for her audience, who were eventually edged out of the space altogether. “The artist’s actions conjured up the marks of Abstract Expressionist painting, linking them to the chore of mopping,” Antoni explains on her website, about this headstrong challenge to notions of female domesticity.

Antoni had influences from social injustice in the 1960s, the rise of feminism in the 1970s, and discrimination along with other multicultural oppressions in the 1990s . Where these ideas are noted, Antoni’s main focus combines the everyday task of mopping the floor with ideas of the power dynamic. She recalls a story where her mom would send her outside to play because the floor had just been mopped. During that time frame of a wet floor, the kitchen was her Mom’s space. Antoni decided to recreate this idea in a gallery setting.

She also created this piece from the influence of Klein’s Anthropometrics as a response to him using models to paint. As she used her own body, Antoni refers to herself as being the model and master. I think this work offered her a way to take control over her body.

FMP Research

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