Anita Steckel
Politics of Desire and Oppression in Art

“My Town” (c. 1969-1974), silver gelatin print, 37 x 49 inches (all images courtesy the Estate of Anita Steckel, Hannah Hoffman Gallery, Los Angeles, and Ortuzar Projects, New York)[/caption]

HYPOALLERGIC
Art Review
Oct 13, 2021

Anita Steckel
Hannah Hoffman Gallery
Los Angeles, California

By Natalie Haddad

Read the complete review HERE

LOS ANGELES — In 1973 Anita Steckel wrote, “If the erect penis is not ‘wholesome’ enough to go into museums — it should not be considered ‘wholesome’ enough to go into women. And if the erect penis is ‘wholesome’ enough to go into women, then it is more than ‘wholesome’ enough to go into the greatest art museums.”

The statement appeared in the press release for Fight Censorship, a group the artist formed that year to oppose institutional censorship of sexually themed art by women; members included Judith Bernstein, Louise Bourgeois, Joan Semmel, and Hannah Wilke.

Anita Steckel at Hannah Hoffman, organized with Steckel’s estate, features plenty of penises, and plenty of artworks that ought to be in museums. The exhibition, which spans the late 1960s to the early ’80s, includes selections from four series that integrate collage, drawing and painting, and silkscreened or photocopied images.

With her Giant Women on New York photomontage series (1969–74), Steckel inserts her own image in New York City’s skyline. In “My Town,” a sultry Steckel lies nude across the city, its towers passing through her transparent body. “Pierced” is more blunt in its depiction of the phallic skyscraper’s abuse of the female body: the artist hangs limp above the Chrysler Building, impaled at the waist by its sharp crown.

Read the complete review HERE