Claude Buck
Self-Portrait
1917
With all this ‘white feminist playing and making art with their period blood’ on my dashboard, I did some research and came across this South African artist who uses hers own menstrual blood to address the queerphobia and violence she has experienced with being a South African lesbian, Zanele Muholi.
Through her use of menstrual blood in her show Isilumo siyaluma (Period Pains, 2006-2011) in Cape Town, Muholi sought to tell the story of black lesbians in South Africa and represent “curative rape.” She wrote of the project in a press release for the exhibit:
Isilumo siyaluma is a Zulu expression that can be loosely translated as “period pains/ periods pain”. Additionally, there is an added meaning in the translation that there is something secretive in and about this blood/“period in time.”
At one level, my project deals with my own menstrual blood, with that secretive, feminine time of the month that has been reduced within Western patriarchal culture as dirty.
On a deeper level then, my menstrual blood is used as a vehicle and medium to begin to express and bridge the pain and loss I feel as I hear and become witness to the pain of ‘curative rapes’ that many of the girls and women in my black lesbian community bleed from their vaginas and their minds.
Between March – May 2011, three (3) young black lesbians under the age of 25 were brutally murdered in various townships [….] As we continue to live and survive in troubled times as black lesbians in South Africa and within the continent, where rampant hate crimes and brutal killings of same gender loving women is rife, this ongoing project is an activist/artist’s radical response to that violence.
I was invited to be a part of the inaugural show at the Disney WonderGround Gallery in the Downtown Disney district of the Disneyland resort. I was asked to do a Mickey themed piece and a Pixar theme piece, and I got to choose which Pixar film to do. Opening June 9, the gallery is showcasing unique takes on Disney-Pixar films and Mickey Mouse by more than 25 artists.
I was very lucky to get to work on a piece inspired by Monsters, Inc— one of my favorite parts of the movie is Monstropolis itself, so I decided to illustrate the long walk to work with Boo in disguise.
I’m so thrilled to be a part of this! If you’re in the area, there will be special events and artist signings at the opening so do go and see it in person!
Disney Wonderground Gallery opens Saturday June 9! I’ll be there from 11-1pm signing and saying hello with other awesome artists, so if you’re in SoCal, stop by and say hi! Disney Wonderground is in Downtown Disney (outside the park, so completely free to hang out and visit!
I’ll have 3 pieces in the show and here are two of them! The third piece is a secret but I can say it’s a custom vinylmation - a new sculpt being unveiled for the first time at Disney Wonderground.
