Contemporary directions
Nov 7th, 2007 by maoch
What themes arose in the 60-second narratives you told and heard about “artists and patrons, identities and strategies?”
Some of the themes I heard focused on the art history canon (where do women artists belong?), “woman’s sexuality” as seen by individual female and male artists, celebrity/ies, contemporary politics, echoes/revisions of NMWA, and women artists from beyond the US and British traditions of feminist art.
Please respond to this comment with ideas for organizing tomorrow’s panel on “Contemporary Directions.” Think ahead for next Tuesday’s roundtable discussion, “What is feminist art and feminist art history? What were these in the 1970s? What are these today?”
Postscript, Nov. 13, 2007: A link to the Washington Post article from April 2007…thanks Laura!
while i was talking to people, i noticed a few people who seemed to have topics that linked up to mine. i plan on talking about refocusing on the emotional, beautiful quality of art in regards to women and not forcing some sort of agenda on their work. i’m also interested in discussing whether not people feel that focusing on an emotional quality makes women’s work less “good”, do we have to be hypermasculine when discussing their work to place it on the same level as men? i think that the artists Dana, Ashley, and Kerry plan to present on all seem to fit this idea as well. when describing Rachel Whitebreed, Dana focused on the fact that she is not a controversial artist and while her upbringing as an artist was unusual when compared to the other women artists we have talked about, that is not reflected in her neutral work. Ashley described Sally Mann as a photographer that focuses on intimate portraits of family and has no political or feminist agenda. i thought Mann is especially interesting because she also would allow us to talk about the traditionally feminine quality of her work (i.e. focus on family) and whether or not that makes her work less desirable. Ghoda Amer was described by Kerry as a Muslim woman who works with embrodiery, another traditionally feminine medium, but strays away from feminist and political agenda to focus on defining herself. i hope i understood everything correctly in that quick 60 seconds. if i did, i think our four topics could go together nicely.
The first clear distinction between the artists and ideas presented that I noted was whether or not there was a political agenda. Another would be what type of media the artist works with to convey their interest (how affective different media are for their goals). A recurring theme in many artists was also sexuality.
So in a simpler statement the artists and ideas could be organized in goals then further in how effective their media and images are to convey those goals.
I feel like we all had somewhat different themes in our approaches but we could umbrella them under four headings: Political, Sexual, Both, or Neither. Within those four headings of course there could be a few sub-groups, for example, under Sexual we could say child pornography (Ashley), objectification (Alexis), and gender blending (Charlene). I think that for our discussion tomorrow, we should start with a very general heading like the four I mentioned and gradually get mor specific.
I was surprised that we all had such different ideas. Some of course, linked together as Nicole pointed out, but even those have their own approach. It was interesting for me to hear such varied ideas relating to contemporary art because I know so little about it.
When listening to other people I defiantly noticed some similarities to the topic I chose- whether it was portraying images through photography and just the general subject matter that the artist is trying to convey. For instance photographs of the artists life. While the subject of Miyako Ishiuchi’s photographs aren’t of herself, they do portray her mother as a women who was a forerunner for her time. I don’t necessarily think that she had any political agenda when taking these photographs, nor is there any strong sexual agenda- probably a mixture of both since the main goal of the series i’m concentrating on is to give a realistic picture of the great changes that have occurred in the consciousness of contemporary women.
It will be interesting tomorrow to see how we decide as a class to organize the panel tomorrow because I can defiantly see some connections from one topic to another.
Check out Andrea Ellen Reed’s website: http://andreaellenreed.com/
On the left side, click on portfolios and on the drop down menu select “Sweet Struggle.”
Reed’s photography of African Americans in black face is at the Target Gallery in Alexandria. If you’re interested, she is giving a talk tonight, 7 pm, at the gallery.
Her work is a continuation of our class on race and gender last week and artists like Kara Walker and Betye Saar’s “Liberation of Aunt Jemima.” And a continuation of racism that hasn’t disappeared and still needs attention, as witnessed by the University with the actions of students in Jefferson Hall.
I agree fully with everything present thus far. It was very interesting to hear everyone’s approach to contemporary art and the many themes that linked to each other. With these themes, it is interesting to think about how the cannon could change if much thought was put into it. I really enjoyed hearing about placing women artist in the canon, not because of their gender, but because of the general reason of that they were good artists. It would be interesting to learn how one would approach a change to the canon and who would go into it.
A common theme I noticed from Tuesday’s discussions was how most people talked about whether or not their artist or topic had an agenda attached to it. Many artists represented were said to have political agendas or sexual agendas, as Dana previously mentioned, but we should add those with personal agendas as well, like Miyako Isiushi.
One of the interesting commonalities I noticed in Tuesday’s class and in studying contemporary art, especially as it relates to women is an emotional emphasis on art, which is often described as “feminine.” Tracy Emin certainly falls into this category, as many of her works invoke the politics of contemporary heterosexual female sexuality and the resulting emotional stress it places on her (I wonder though how fair the term “feminine” is for this, considering “hypermasculine” artists such as Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Jackson Pollock were trying to drench their works in emotion, albeit without such specific objective references.) I noticed that none of us chose female artists whose work is relatively independant from their gender identity (perhaps Elizabeth Murray or Jennifer Bartlett would be an example of that although “gender identity” is incredibly subjective).
During class, we were talking about the canon and the separation of female artists whether it is by museum, literature, etc. I think it would be worth it to discuss how well a museum like the NMWA or books like Slatkin’s have been as a catalyst for the study of female artists. I don’t really know the answer because in the 21st century, there is so much information available to us about female artists, even the more obscure ones. I know that part of Holladay’s impetus to create the NMWA was the lack of information about female artists. Can the bounty of information available now be attributed to her? Was it the work of Linda Nochlin, or a combination of all of these factors? Also, was this work done all at once or has it taken a lot of time…? Has the scholarship been careful and comprehensive if it has in fact been done quickly by art historians? Artists such as Michaelangelo or Leonard have been studied and considered by art historians for about 400+ years…do female artists deserve the same attention? I hope we can discuss this more next class!
Check out this article, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/20/AR2007042000389.html, it relates to our recent class discussions.
Hey sorry all, the link I just posted isnt working…go to my blog to read the article!
I’ve added a link here in my original post (see above). Laura…thanks!
Have you guys gone to Andrea Ellen Reed’s site recommended by Rebecca? It’s amazing!
Today in the Washington Post there is an article about Andrea Ellen Reed’s show “Sweet Struggle.” It’s the second part of the article “Switching From Brush to Lens”, about two female artists with local shows: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/14/AR2007111402165_2.html
The brief article gives some insight into Reed’s controversial work and what the response has been from gallery viewers.
Going along with the discussion of contemporary female artists, the write up for “Sweet Struggle” is contained in the same article space as “The Last Pony”, a very different show by artist Lucy Hogg. Although, these women share the same gender and profession their work couldn’t be more different.
I just visited rebeccas site on Andrea Ellen Reed and it was amazing! Racism is still alive and I think that her work will really open up peoples eyes in that subtle/totally in your face type way. I think people are really blind to issues that they don’t really want to deal with or don’t know about, and you can tell this by what the person commented in the exhibits book about ‘missing the point, if there even was one’. The images from “Sweet Struggle” I found far more striking than the ones in “The Last Pony”.