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That tart Jo Spence

At the Tramsmitter/Receiver touring collage show at the Usher Gallery, Lincoln yesterday there were several 'Public Images' pieces by Jo Spence (panels laminated and pinned to the wall through eyelets at the corners),  I was very interested to read about her reaction to being dressed up in a tarty way at a Terry Dennett workshop:

'Being made up by someone else is sensual.  I was not allowed to look at myself until it was finished.  My 'tartiness' upset me initially.'

She returned to this again,  Mark II tart, as she describes it, and

'felt the release of incredible tension... this open flaunting of sexuality released pent up anger about various things I had suppressed in myself.'

I think (and recognise) her empowerment, that became clear after she had passed through the initial experience of both shame (derogatory associations) and indignation (at being 'reduced' to sex object), both on a personal and political level.

There is a psychological argument that what we decry the most in others is also what we secretly envy and she may have found it liberating to adopt an aspect of female identity that was seen as part of the normalised subjugation of women.  Her 70s and 80s radical socialist and feminist beliefs were as much a potential limitation to her self-exploration as any other value system.  To transgress even closely held socio-political views must have been felt as a kind of liberation (with the safeguard of intellectual awareness).

In Canada in 2011 when the term 'slut' was used by a male police officer, advising women how not to dress in order to avoid rape, the backlash (Slutwalks) seems to be an assertion of women's right to be who they want to be without justification to anyone.  Reminscent of the 'Reclaim the night' movement it nevertheless was seen by some as merely re-inforcing negative stereotypes.





Self-portrait (2012)