Am J Psychoanal. 1994 Jun;54(2):173-87.
The "new" democratic woman of modernity: Georgia O'Keeffe and Melanie Klein.
Gadt JC1.
Abstract
O'Keeffe
put into visual language the psychic splitting that had occurred
between the sexes in the United States, attempting to integrate what had
formerly been separated as feminine and masculine into the female
psyche. In her most important contribution, she explored presence rather
than absence and opened up possibilities for thinking about openings.
The concept of the female opening in particular had heretofore been
assigned a negative meaning, signifying more often than not a gaping
wound rather than a space and place of possibilities. Klein's complex
and evocative understanding of some of the earliest mental processes of
life enabled researchers to delve into the meanings made of the presence
of the mother and father and baby, in the context of the baby's
body-mind. Klein's female or male baby desires to know from the
beginning. She discovered splitting and projective identification, the
development of anxiety and guilt under the aegis of these mental
processes, the multiple meanings of aggression, and, significantly, she
permitted the female baby's body to have its own language. The answers
provided by O'Keeffe and Klein bequeathed new possibilities for women's
self-invention and remain pivot points for female identity throughout
the century, to be confronted again by the second wave of feminism
beginning in the late 1960s, by "postfeminist" debates, and by a
challenged psychoanalysis. A more careful probing of these issues may
help us to better understand our past so as to have greater resources
for a more comprehensive reading of our present.
