Linen Closet

When I first saw this piece of art called The Linen Closet, I did not think that this should be considered art. It was simply a decapitated naked mannequin of a woman stuck inside a closet. Then I looked at it closely, read chapter 10 and realized that this was some serious feminist artwork with a symbolic meaning. It represented women in 1960's and 1970's after the second wave of feminism, that is, obtaining the right to vote. The linen closet is an extremely symbolic piece in the artwork because it usually contains cloths, sheets and tablecloths that need to be ironed and a woman usually does this house chore. Therefore, it represents the stay at home mom whose only role is to take care of her household and take care of the children. The woman itself is represented by a mannequin that probably represents the idea of a trophy wife that cannot speak. I believe she is nude because it also represents women as sexual objects. So when the mannequin is place inside the linen closet, this is a metaphor that shows how women in those days were trapped. However, Sandra Orgel opened the closet doors and placed the woman's left foot out of the closet. I believe that this means that she is slowly starting to come out of her closet and I'm not talking about being a homosexual. Thanks to the ability for women to vote, she is on her way of becoming a full, independent woman who is free to choose for herself. We must keep in mind though that she is only halfway out. After studying Sandra's artwork properly, I now conclude that it is art and that we need to understand social context in order to understand it fully.