Critics Page
Guest Critic
A FEMINIST RESPONSE
Gender Games and the Art Machine
By Kara L. Rooney
In April of this year, I had the opportunity to interview artist Kara Walker on the subject of her project at the Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Our discussion, printed in the May edition of the Brooklyn Rail, covered issues of race and class, the subjugation of the labor force, and the economic and political complexities that engender and sustain such division, none of which can be considered without a discussion of feminism.
THE GALLERY TALLY POSTER PROJECT
A Call for Gender Equity in the Art World
By Micol Hebron
In fall of 2013 I began the Gallery Tally project—a collaborative, crowd-sourced endeavor to tally and visualize statistical data pertaining to the numbers of male and female artists who were represented by top contemporary art galleries.
Sue Scott
Do we really need another article, book, or panel addressing gender disparity in the art world? Some might think that we have addressed the issue ad nauseam but the reality is that until measurable change happens, the answer is, yes, we must continue the conversation.
Amnesiac Return
Amnesiac Return
By Mira Schor
Fifteen years later, we still seem to be in a condition of “post-feminism” and what bell hooks, referring to Sheryl Sandberg’s brand of “lean in” feminism, has called “faux feminism.”
Riding the Fourth Wave in a Changing Sea
By Wendy VogelAlthough I’ve heard the term “fourth wave feminism” referenced in casual conversation, its contours remain fuzzy as a movement. A quick Google search reveals that the term has been bandied about for at least the last four years.
LEAN BACK
Resisting Branded Feminism
By Chloe Wyma
Earlier this year, I ran into an old friend at an art opening. He asked about my studies and my area of focus. Unsure of what to say, I vaguely muttered the inadequate response: “something about feminism.”
Navigating the Nameless
By Redell & JimenezThe notion of a “gendered voice” is a complicated subject, a subject that hits close to home and one that we continually question in our collaborative practice.
ECOSEX MANIFESTO
Draft 1.0 of a Work in Progress
By Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle
The Earth is our lover. We are madly, passionately, and fiercely in love, and we are grateful for this relationship each and every day.
After the Slumber Party…
By Andrea Bowers and Suzanne LacyAndrea Bowers and Suzanne Lacy: Drawing Lessons consisted of drawing lessons provided by Bowers over the course of nine days at The Drawing Center in Manhattan.
Do I Stand in Darkness or in Light?
By Laura RaicovichDo I stand in darkness or in light? Do I speak or am I silent? When I do speak, how are my words received? Where does my power and privilege lie?
UPDATING (THE) USES OF THE EROTIC
from Georges Bataille and Jean Genet to Audre Lorde and bell hooks
By Lisi Raskin
The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women. It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, the plasticized sensation. For this reason, we have often turned away from the exploration and consideration of the erotic as a source of power and information, confusing it with its opposite, the pornographic.
Franklin Evans
By Franklin Evansgender dysphoria is thought to affect as many as one in 10,000
Feminism Rising
By Nancy PrincenthalWhy is feminism resurgent now? One answer may be the galloping growth of an economic inequality that no amount of effort or merit can overcome.
OBJECT ATTACHMENTS
The Indexical Form in Feminist Art
By Krista Geneviève Lynes
The success of feminist art is seen to herald a post-feminist era for women artists who no longer have to muddy the waters of the creative/procreative binary, for instance by gently unfurling a scroll from their vaginas.
The Language of Art is Still Defined by Men
By Nancy AzaraGender roles are ingrained in all of us. From the time we are born we are all “stamped” by our sex. Thousands of years of oppression will not change easily or quickly. Sometimes we lose this perspective and expect change now.
Frames
By Susan BeeAs the daughter of a woman artist, I saw, first-hand, the toll of discrimination based solely on gender. For my mother’s generation, the misogyny of the Mad Men-era of the 1950s and 1960s was well known. And while the style of suits has changed, the discrimination persists.
10 Divinations on Hip Hop As Sacred Medicine
Blood Time, Sex Rituals & Ancestral Communion of the Mother Tongue
By Katie Cercone
Robert Farris Thompson, a strong proponent of the traditional nature of hiphop, has made his life’s work translating African cool into terms acceptable to the ivory tower canon. His conclusions—that African cool entails the high sense of balance and transcendence, and is a sign of positive transition to ideal worlds, leads us to African Art as the ritual marriage of sensuous pleasure and moral responsibility.
My French American Potluck
By Coco DolleIn America, it is common to gather around a welcoming potluck. There is no such French counterpart. Luck is not something the French subjectively look at. A nation built on a Cartesian philosophy of mind, where concepts are validated through quantified numbers and scientific methods, would undoubtedly question its provenance.
All You Protest Kids, You Can Hear Jack Say, Sweet Jane
By Patricia MaloneyLos Angeles–based artist Andrea Bowers describes her intertwined art and activism as acts of bearing witness.
Notes from an Old Maenad in the Trenches
By Ann McCoyAt 68, I was part of the second feminist charge in Los Angeles. I was among the first group of women to gain anything resembling an equal share (thanks to Marcia Tucker) in the Whitney Biennial of 1973.
A Thick Neck in the Wedge of Habit Speaks with an Inherited Voice
By Nathlie ProvostyWithin the larynx “voice box” that manipulates pitch and volume are the vocal cords, which are abducted to breathe and adducted to speak, as well as the false vocal cords, the vestibular folds that we hear tremble in Tibetan throat singing or heavy metal growls.
Achieving Authentic Equality
By Anne Sherwood PundykA white T-shirt I have reads in hand-written black marker, “NAME 10 FEMALE ARTISTS & WILL GIVE YOU A KISS.” Artist Nicole Nadeau made the shirt for the “Clitney Perennial,” a rogue art intervention I initiated at the Whitney Biennial this year.
After Some Advances, A Backslide
By Martha SchwendenerThe idea of “progress” was widely debunked by critical postmodernism, but it is hard to dispute the fact that some genuine progress has been made for women in the art world.
