Rethinking Vaginal Iconology with Hannah Wilke's Sculpture

Abstract

In her article “Vaginal Iconology,” published in New York Magazine in February 1974, the critic Barbara Rose asserted, “Although there are many categories of women's erotic art, the most novel are those that glorify vaginas.” While in this passage Rose referred to “women's erotic art,” throughout the text she made clear that vaginal imagery was not about sexual desire or pleasure, writing that “much of the feminist art that has been labeled ‘erotic’ because it depicts or alludes to genital images is nothing of the sort. It is designed to arouse women, but not sexually. … At issue in vaginal iconology is an overt assault on the Freudian doctrine of penis envy.” Drawing on Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro's concept of “central core” imagery as a feminist assertion of sexual difference, an account of which they published in the summer of 1973, Rose concluded that such vaginal imagery was, “in effect, propaganda for sexual equality.” First on Rose's list of current examples was Hannah Wilke's sculpture.