Naked! or Nude?

“...the implication of Nair down there has made a comeback in contemporary portraiture...”

Naked!, the group exhibition that opened last night at Paul Kasmin Gallery in Chelsea, seems to have been curated by Adrian Dannatt to get a rise out of people. It’s all there in the phallic exclamation point.

The press release’s wording, “Women like to look at themselves, and they like to be looked at; they like to be looked at looking at themselves” invites a Bergerian analysis. By that I am referring to chapter 3 of John Berger’s Ways of Seeing (The Viking Press, 1972). In saying “...the classical nude often pretends to itself that it is not just plain naked,” the press release challenges the distinction between ‘naked’ and ‘nude’ as established by Berger. Feel free to disagree with my paraphrasing of Berger: to be naked is akin to visiting the gynecologist or getting dressed in the morning—it’s a lack of clothing for pragmatic reasons or in situations where there isn't a gendered power struggle; to be nude, on the other hand, involves objectification, either imposed or self-imposed, and it is associated with women. If the works in the exhibition are indeed naked(!) and not nude, it follows that idealism should be absent.

The exhibition purports to celebrate the physical beauty of “attractive naked females.” Here’s the bad news: beauty appears to be equated with slender, predominantly Caucasian women who have not yet experienced the onset of grey hair. On the topic of hair, which Berger noted is a symbol of sexual power, you won’t see a lot of it. The inclusion of historical portraits dating back to the Seventeenth Century—which is a curious curatorial choice—serves as a reminder that women were idealized in visual art, sans pubic hair, until the advent of photography, with ripple effects felt in paintings like Gustave Courbet’s L’Origine du Monde from 1866. Interestingly, the implication of Nair down there has made a comeback in contemporary portraiture, as seen in Naked! with works like David LaChapelle’s Nature’s Naked Loveliness, Moscow (2003) and Mark Ryden’s Sophia’s Bubbles (2008), and to a lesser extent in Mel Ramos’ Rita Ritz (2008). My question is, can the show really be considered post-sexist, as suggested by the press release, when idealism abounds? At least there are representations of homosexuality, portraits of women by women, and portraits of men by men included for good measure. As to the latter, I’m not sure that the press release’s mention of “male flesh...sully[ing] the haremic purity of this exhibition” puts me at ease though, if only because of the choice of words.

I think Dannatt’s writing in general is intelligent and mindful of gender issues, so I fear I may have missed the punch line of the exhibition, that its irony eluded me. Perhaps I was distracted by surveying myself instead of surveying the artwork? At any rate, it got me thinking about the possibility of nakedness and nudity converging in the studio. Last week-end, I paired a baby dress of mine with a garter in a cocoon sculpture to emphasize the uncanny and disturbing similarity of their pink floral embroidery. At first I was thinking that the dress relates to nakedness, since self-consciousness is a non-issue for babies, but that the garter connotes nudity. Then I realized that the baby dress involves objectification, in the sense that we take pleasure from dressing baby girls a certain way, which means that the dress could be about nudity as well. Even though I don't work in the realm of the figurative, the same issues are still very much present, and not necessarily any easier to tackle. Maybe the distinction between naked and nude can only be unclear.

Installation view added in 2020 via fair use/dealing. Source: https://www.kasmingallery.com/exhibitions/2009-07-09_naked

Empowerment in the Empire State

“…[Marcia Tucker] enforced affirmative action hiring policies, fought for equal pay for equal work, gave herself permission to be emotional in the workplace when it was warranted, and didn’t let the obligation to run a meeting interrupt her breastfeeding schedule.”

I’m new to New York and still getting a sense of who’s who, so I didn’t realize that Marcia Tucker was no longer alive when I began reading her heartwarming autobiography, A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the New York Art World (University of California Press, 2008). I was standing on the platform of the White Plains train station when I turned the page to her epilogue and saw that it was written by someone else (that someone else is artist Liza Lou, who worked tirelessly to complete the book after Marcia’s death).

It felt like I had been sucker punched. A wave of nausea followed and persisted for at least half an hour. Surely it must have been a case of my body remembering the insatiable grip of cancer, of having my father—who, like Marcia, was afflicted by lymphoma—whisked away to the afterlife as fast as the express train that was hurtling through the station just then, leaving me reeling. The hardened part of my personality insists that this was the reason for my visceral response to the autobiography. I mean, it’s not possible to become that attached to a person you don’t know in 208 pages is it?

Language has transformative powers though, and learning about Marcia’s resilience in the New York art world was encouraging to me personally. Reading about her transition from a poverty-stricken, fearless young woman living in a cockroach-infested apartment to the founder and gallery director of the New Museum gave me hope that moving here was the right thing to do. It’s the kind of reassurance I’ve needed since I got trapped in my broken apartment elevator the first week I was in New York and had to call 911, causing me to fear it was somehow symbolic, that I was fated to be an artist in transit to nowhere, literally and figuratively. It’s the kind of reassurance I would normally seek from my father but can’t.

Enough about me. I want to devote some space to Marcia Tucker's feminism and related contributions to the art world. A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the New York Art World follows this incredible woman from 1945 to 2004. It is a candid account of how personal life and professional life can be bound by a keen interest in and great respect for, contemporary art. She brushed elbows with artist celebrities and made celebrities out of other artists. However, her greatest pride seemed to be in contributing to feminism from the then unusual position of female curator (first at the Whitney Museum of American Art and later at the New Museum).

A self-described “die-hard feminist” (p. 110), Marcia channeled her dissatisfaction with the treatment of women artists and her own treatment as a female professional (she was objectified by select individuals inside the institution on top of being seen as the enemy from some women outside the institution). She organized solo exhibitions for women artists and fought against the 'art apartheid' that has traditionally segregated ethnic minorities from the rest of the art world. As an administrator, she enforced affirmative action hiring policies, fought for equal pay for equal work, gave herself permission to be emotional in the workplace when it was warranted, and didn’t let the obligation to run a meeting interrupt her breastfeeding schedule.

Her feminism extended beyond the workplace, although it was all related: in 1968, she helped develop Redstockings, a consciousness-raising group that still exists today, and two years later, she participated in the first Women’s March down Fifth Avenue. She was a risk-taker who really put herself out there. Her boldness came through not just in daring exhibitions but also in her ‘extracurricular activities’; she started an a cappella group of untrained singers called the Art Mob, and she embraced stand-up comedy classes which culminated in her quirky persona, the art-centric Miss Mannerist. Her tendency towards openness led her to unexpected and enriching relationships, from a husband seventeen years her junior to friends twice her age. All of these tales are delightful to read, but summarizing them doesn’t do them justice, so please check out the book yourself. You’ll find it on our new book shelf at the library, as soon as I return it, that is. Book cover added in 2020 via fair use/dealing. Source: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520265950/a-short-life-of-trouble

Putting the femme in femmage

“Although I wondered about the ironic risk of essentializing feminist artists by singling them out in an exhibition, I tried to let my mind relax and think about what these artists could teach me.”

I should probably take the subway more often instead of being frugal. Walking from Grand Central Terminal to Chelsea last night proved to be doubly frustrating. First of all, I was stopped multiple times by a Democrat wanting to know if I was a registered voter, meaning that I had to endure the quizzical-bordering-on-annoyed expression I receive when I say, “I’m not American.” It gave me a strong urge to read Edward Said. Second of all, I got stuck in a downpour, so I had to squeeze out the bottom six inches of my trousers before entering Pavel Zoubok Gallery, which made me feel anything but glamorous. The effect of gravity on wet fabric in combination with flats made for a tripping hazard, and I found myself wondering if the Manhattanites in high heels were onto something good. (Note to self: stop being smug about sensible footwear).

The exhibition that opened last night, Daughters of the Revolution: Women & Collage, showcases the works of over 30 fantastic modern and contemporary artists. I decided to go because I had written a paper on Hannah Wilke’s collages, which are severely underrepresented in scholarship. The paper was for a course on collage taught by David Moos, the curator of contemporary art at the Art Gallery of Ontario. It was the most intense class I had in my art history masters. A small group of us sat in a windowless room one afternoon a week to debate the importance of ‘the cut’ and other collage-specific phenomena, and confided in each other about feeling invigorated but mentally drained afterwards.

I was curious to see Wilke’s work in relation to collages by other feminists because it represents the opposite approach to what I argued. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really get a sense of the context because of the crowds at Pavel Zoubok. However, I can say that the first image to confront me was a checkerboard pattern of breasts, so seeing Wilke’s work a few seconds later naturally made her collaged forms seem corporeal even though she herself resisted a singular interpretation. Allow me to explain how my approach was opposite: in my essay, I suggested that the best way to insert Wilke posthumously into the lineage of collage—read: the old boy’s club—was to put her on equal footing with her male counterparts. Specifically, I called for a formal analysis over a feminist analysis (the latter is typically applied to her work). This was a difficult decision for me because there is nothing I would have loved more than to focus on the feminist nature of her work.

A formal analysis reveals Wilke’s contributions to the medium of collage, namely: her conceptually significant introduction of gum and erasers to the roster of collage artists’ media (her work in Daughters of the Revolution—Köbenhavn [1975]—features multiple eraser forms, a fascinating choice of material for an additive process); her blending of collage and assemblage through the addition of tiny sculptural forms on two-dimensional backgrounds; her playful enhancement of perspective through subtle changes in the scale of collaged forms; and her provocative merging of collage with performance. These developments warrant the attention of art historians, and not exclusively feminist art historians, for they represent a unique departure from collage while remaining firmly committed to its principles.

Although I wondered about the risk of essentializing feminist artists by singling them out in an exhibition, I tried to let my mind relax and think about what these artists could teach me. Here’s what I learned: ever since Toronto artist Vladimir Spicanovic asked the participants in our seminar if any of us worked in collage, I have felt like a fool for piping up about the assemblage of 30 dresses I was in the middle of making (see image above and below; double click to enlarge). I questioned the validity of the labels ‘collage’ and ‘assemblage’ because the dress was neat and tidy, devoid of the violence that is associated with ‘the cut’.
However, last night, seeing Donna Sharrett’s symmetrical and carefully rendered work made me feel less foolish and as I write this, I realize that Wilke’s placement of forms in her postcard collages was equally deliberate and also considered collage. Additionally, discovering Ann Shostrum’s wonderful piece, Strawberries (2009), with its jagged edge and hand stitching, made me feel justified referring to my cocoon sculptures as assemblages in my artist statement—even though a member of the art world has already done so. If only we could live in a world without labels.

After the downpour came to a halt, I made my way back to Grand Central Terminal and picked up some gelato. The cashier said with a warm smile, “Enjoy your 4th of July.” Thank-you, I will enjoy my 4th of July, even though I am not American, even though I am not a daughter of the revolution. I’m thrilled to be here, to be living in a city where I couldn’t catch all the gallery shows if I tried. Funny, I no longer feel the need to read Edward Said.

Click here to view images from the exhibition.

Socially engaged art

“When used to tell the truth,” she [Beverly Naidus] told the audience, “[beauty] can be really powerful.”

I missed my train at Grand Central Terminal by seven minutes last night, but it was worth it to stick around after a Bluestockings book reading. In that critical seven minutes, I got to meet the featured author, Beverly Naidus, and pick up her book, Arts for Change: Teaching Outside the Frame (New Village Press, 2009). Although I went to get ideas for an eco-art course that I’m developing in collaboration at Purchase Collegewith an environmental studies instructor, I found her talk to be very helpful for contextualizing my own artwork and for mitigating some of my insecurities as an artist.

Naidus made and defended feminist art in its early days, so I value her opinion. While listening to her presentation, I realized something about the creative process: inclinations can become convictions in the moment that someone you respect not only echoes your sentiments but manages to articulate them in a way that you cannot because you’re too close to the issue. It’s validating, and I don’t mean that in an egotistical way. For me, there were two things that Beverly said that resonated with me.

Early in her presentation, she defended the role of beauty in contemporary art. “When used to tell the truth,” she told the audience, “[beauty] can be really powerful.” Sometimes I wonder if I should make my work grotesque (picture Cindy Sherman’s use of vomit or Jana Sterbak’s raw meat), but it’s just not my style. Frankly, I like the idea of seducing the viewer with silky fabric in pretty shades of pink because it’s a reminder of the power inherent in feminine signifiers. I too am seduced by them in spite of myself, and that tension drives the work. Hopefully, by drawing viewers in with beauty, I can capture their attention long enough to get them to contemplate the underlying message, which is that girls are socialized through clothing that reinforces seemingly innocuous stereotypes that are potentially damaging from a feminist perspective.

The other thing that clicked with me was Naidus’ use of the term ‘socially engaged art’ rather than ‘activism’ because it is more inclusive. Her definition of “art that intends to provoke social change” made me really happy. (I feel that I should write something more profound and scholarly but that is the truth—it made me happy). I once knew someone who delighted in his ‘quiet rebellions’, bucking convention by doing things like wearing mismatched socks. I’ve always felt my work was more of a quiet rebellion than activism. It is not community-based, nor does it feed into a cause that would provoke a formal protest, and it is unlikely to get me arrested like some of the actions my artist friends have undertaken. Naidus’ use of the term ‘socially engaged art’ made me feel like there is a legitimate niche for me in the art world.

Art/work

“[ART/WORK]... guides artists effectively in taming the beast that is the contemporary art world.”

For the past week or so on my commute, I have been reading ART/WORK by Heather Darcy Bhandari and Jonathan Melber (Free Press, 2009), which I learned about through Facebook from Toronto artist Barbara Gilbert. Having taken an excellent workshop with her a year-and-a-half ago through CAR/FAC (Canadian Artists' Representation/le Front des artistes canadiens) Ontario, I was anxious to follow up on the tip.

Because the book is dense with quotations from members of the art world, I chose to pace myself and ended up retaining more when I took a break after reading each chapter. Even though ART/WORK is nice and compact, I suggest approaching it like a box of good truffles: don't consume it all at once.

Starting with the title, there is an absence of sugar coating. The message is clear: being an artist is work. It is a job, not a hobby, at least if you want to build a career as an artist. Bhandari and Melber’s tendency to be straight with the reader persists throughout the entire book, which guides artists effectively in taming the beast that is the contemporary art world.

As practical as the book is, addressing topics like writing an artist statement and tracking inventory, the authors have a sense of humour. Cartoons by Kammy Roulner are featured throughout; my favourite shows a young girl who asks, “Mommy…can you explain post-colonial identity politics to me?” Also enjoyable for its tongue-in-cheek approach to the arts is the chapter called The Gallery Courtship, which uses the analogy of dating to discuss commercial gallery representation.

The authors’ complement of skills is noteworthy. Bhandari is a gallery director and Melber is an arts lawyer. Bhandari is on the inside, so she can draw the reader’s attention to the way galleries actually operate. Melber, meanwhile, instills confidence in the reader about tackling legal issues like copyright and contract negotiation because of his background in representing artists.

ART/WORK is presented as a book that picks up where art school leaves off. From talking to artists, I gather that some instructors are more inclined than others to talk about life after the safety net of art school. Some schools even have courses in managing a career as an artist, like the Professional Practice course in the Art and Art History program at Sheridan College/University of Toronto at Mississauga. When I was a student there, they had not yet introduced that course. A few years after graduation, I remember sitting down with a former classmate to answer the kinds of questions that are addressed in artist career guides, because I was lucky enough to land a series of jobs that allowed me to pick up on some of the intricacies of the art world. Now, as a librarian instead of an arts administrator, I look back at that conversation and I see an information need—or is ‘information gap’ the current lingo?

If you are a studio instructor reading this post, I urge you to promote artist career guides to your students, or send them to this blog post or my other posts about artist career guides here or here.

I realize that with good reason, the emphasis in the classroom is on ‘finding the artist’s voice’ and making quality work, but eventually students will stop focusing solely on artwork and will need to turn their attention to the combination of art/work. Please, mind the gap between 'art' and 'work'.

Book cover added in 2020 via fair use/dealing. Source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6161407-art-work

What happens in the studio stays in the studio

"I was disappointed to see Emma escape the grasp of one male genius only to fall into bed with another."

After two long days spent packing and storing the contents of our Toronto apartment/my studio, I indulged in reading fiction on the road trip back to New York. With two sewing machines, a judy (body form), and boxes of fabric stowed safely, I was happy to lose myself in Samantha Peale’s The American Painter Emma Dial (W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2009). New York-based Emma Dial used to be an avid swimmer, but now she struggles to keep her head above water, so to speak, as the studio assistant for Michael Freiburg. He hasn’t touched a canvas in years because Emma’s work is such a good match for his own, which makes him incredibly dependent on her. Michael is Manhattan personified: thrilling and fast-paced, with no desire to slow down. Emma, meanwhile, would like nothing better than a reprieve in her Brooklyn studio. Alas, she is entangled in a complex relationship with Michael, compounded by their illicit sexual relations (he is married). Clearly, chain smoking isn’t the only addiction that Emma and Michael share. The female protagonist finds herself living a cliché that was once exhilarating but now feels suffocating. Emma is a talented artist in her own right who has been living in the shadow of Michael, but also of her scatterbrained and sensual filmmaker friend, Irene Duffy. Although she redefines her identity in relation to Michael and Irene, damaging her relationships with them along the way, it is her interactions with the peripheral characters that bring Emma the greatest clarity. For example, she confides in Michael’s collectors, the Breslauers, that she has a studio and subsequently daydreams about actually making work there. She inherited the studio lease from her former professor, Meredith Davies, whom she assumed to be a sell-out when she skipped town for love. However, she spots Meredith’s work in The Armory Show and realizing that she has maintained her artistic practice, is reminded of her own artistic goals. While walking through the lower east side, she encounters a former classmate, Chris Cagnasola, to whom she blatantly lies about her artistic pursuits, which reveals the heartbreaking discrepancy between the life she has and the life she craves. Overwhelmed with self-consciousness, Emma even avoids her mother over the holidays, because she can’t handle her judgment as an art historian about her daughter creating work for another artist instead of furthering her own career. Ultimately, Emma realizes that self-acceptance is more important than anyone else’s acceptance of her, prompting some major life changes that propel the book forward. Here's my two cents' worth: I have a hard time buying the idea that Michael, being a landscape painter, is one of the three artists that changed the face of New York painting in the 1970s. I suppose they needed to be landscapes so that he could gender them and make annoying remarks (in front of his wife, no less) like suggesting that Emma hasn't made the water “sexy enough”. I can appreciate the fact that as landscapes, they remind the reader that Emma is trapped in a metropolis. Overall, I was disappointed to see Emma escape the grasp of one male genius only to fall into bed with another. Even though she has a moment of self-assertion with her new lover, it’s rather subdued. I wanted more for her, but the book leaves off just where there is a suggestion that she will begin to give herself more. Book cover reproduced in 2020 via fair use/dealing. Source: http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/books/robinson/robinson4-6-09_detail.asp?picnum=1

The artist’s guide

“Battenfield shares her success stories but also discloses her professional foibles, which creates a sense of ‘we are all in this together’.”

Under normal circumstances, is The Artist’s Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love (Jackie Battenfield, Da Capo Press, 2009) a book that I would stay up into the wee hours of the night reading? Most likely, yes. I read it cover to cover on the bus ride to Canada, finishing it while the sun rose over Burlington, Ontario this morning. Because of the organization of information, it functions like a reference book so readers could also easily skim it for an overview of the issues they may face during their careers and then revisit particular chapters on an as-needed basis. Another way that it acts as a reference source is by including annotations of recommended books at the end of each chapter.

I really like the tone of Battenfield’s writing, which is firm, but not heavy-handed, not to mention empathetic. Her voice has not been diluted to the extent that it sounds neutral; the advice sounds like it is coming from a mentor or teacher. Battenfield shares her success stories but also discloses her professional foibles, which creates a sense of ‘we are all in this together’. I think this tone is very appropriate, especially after leaving the author’s presentation at the NYPL the other night. I rode the elevator with a group of artists who sounded excited to take control of their careers, but there was definitely a collective hint of trepidation that made the enclosed space seem a bit suffocating. Her ability to establish trust and camaraderie with the reader, if such a thing is possible in a one-way exchange, is a strength of this book. Her presence is not overwhelming though; it is not as though the book reads as one woman’s journey through the art world. Even if it did, Battenfield has balanced her own perspectives by including side bars of quotations from arts professionals about topics as varied as proposal writing and tax preparation.

Unlike so many artist career guides, this one has pictures, and lots of them. Occasionally they are images of work by an artist who has been quoted in the book so their presence is not critical (though it is certainly welcome), but usually the images are of artworks that illustrate a specific point. Since artists are visually oriented and presumanbly, many of them are primarily visual learners, breaking up the text with images shows that Battenfield really knows her target audience.
Book cover reproduced in 2020 via fair use/dealing. Source: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/jackie-battenfield/the-artists-guide/9780786748068/