In keeping
with the groundbreaking feminist education program at the Woman’s Building in
Los Angeles, in 1974 Sheila de Bretteville designed Pink, a meditation on color
and feminine identity. The poster responded
to a call for submissions issued by the American Institute of Graphic Arts
(AIGA), which was looking to grow a scholarship fund by asking one hundred of
its members, an impressive array of artists, designers, and photographers, to
interpret the word “color.” While many chose to exploit the prismatic
variety of hue, saturation, and value, de Bretteville chose a single color. Using thirty-six squares of pink paper, she
solicited various women to shape, model and, to some minds, distort their
reactions to this furtively fussy and feminine color.
Times
have changed, and pink’s new engagement with major league football is
fascinating (if utterly different from the way the color was envisaged in de
Bretteville’s poster or even James Jaxxa's 2004 Pink Football).
The
patches of color on cleats, jerseys, wristbands and fields are striking. So
much for the color being feminine. Or is it? Pink has a history that transcends
as a fighting color (as a variant of red).
But others say it’s about NFL promotion, and the creation of new,
consciously feminized clothing that can now be sold with professional teams’ other paraphernalia profits the owners and not cancer research.
It's hard not to see the spectacle today and not think back to Judy Chicago's Fresno Art Program's Cunt Cheerleaders c. 1971.
