Subtle erosions: critical reflections to domesticity in "Insertion H-Kupfer IntraUterine" of Silvia Gai

Abstract

This article proposes an approach to the work "Insertion H-Kupfer Intra-Uterine" (1995) of the Argentine artist Silvia Gai. In the 90s, Gai began working with embroidery and knitting, activities traditionally associated with the so-called "women‟s work". In this way, recovering the legacy of American feminisms of the 70s, which sought to revive these practices to put into question the sexual distribution of materials, techniques, knowledge and spaces, within the public and private orders. From a needle work based materiality and a corrosive visual operation that pairs the kitchen apron as symbol of the domestic sphere and the female organs with contraceptive devices, Gai proposes a subtle and critical reflection on gender, sexuality, procreation and abortion. Silvia was also recovering the legacy of the Argentine feminist artists who brought the seis sues so thorny to our artistic field in the 80s.