week 6
This Tuesday I came into class to find out our speaker could not make it in to make her presentation. I was a little disappointed because I think this writing reflection would be easier if I saw some artwork to tie into the readings.
With that aside our first reading this week had to do with female artists and their place in the artwork. I did not know what to expect when I started reading this chapter but I did find it quite interesting. It is true woman and females in general do not get the credit they deserve as we still live in a very sexist society. This is the main point the “Guerrilla Girls” want to show the world. The Guerrilla Girls are an underground group of colorful feminist who want to establish more female artists around the world. They feel that woman artists do not get the exposure that male artist get and I believe this is true. Many museums do not should as much female artwork and males art normally sells for more money than females. Sexist? I think the art world is sexist. On page 209 this fact proves woman are the minority, “There were 166 people in the show, only about 16 were woman, so that was 10 percent or less, and we knew we were in deep shit.” The Guerrilla’s feel that the museums and galleries are to blame but this is when they took a stand.
The Guerrilla Girl’s use Guerrilla like tactics to get their point around through street artwork. When they feel they have a situation they were make posters and put them up to open awareness. They all wear Gorilla masks to add to the Guerrilla image. They feel like they have been successful as they are growing in number around the art world. The Guerrilla’s feel like they are making a difference but more needs to happen. “You also need a network that’s actually supported by all artists, museum people, dealers and writers as well as collectors.” Page 213. I feel like if more galleries supported what they were doing they could get more exposure and get closer to their goal of more female art involvement. Romaine Brooks, on the G-Girls said her real art does not reflect her work with the guerillas and is not political. I feel like if instead of doing posters as a group if more artists depicted the problems in their own artwork more people would understand where the Guerilla’s were coming from.
The next reading on was female artist Mary Jane Jacob. At the start of her career she was the chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in where she would go into the real world to find a place for art. Mary’s quit her job as the curator after she did an exhibit critiquing the lives of people who walked through the museum. This exhibit was not loved or understood by its viewers and she realized she wanted to bring artwork closer to everyday living. This is where this chapter gets its name from “removing the frame”. The museums get to choose what is art and what they get to frame but there is so much good work that does not get represented and this is what Mary tries to accomplish. “I think the space within which we view art, the frame, is very important to our perception of it. Having grown up with a Western attitude about the “progress” of art and the importance of continual innovation, at a certain point it was no longer enough to see styles changing, as one saw succession of different things on the walls of the museum.” Page 300.
When reading the chapter on the Guerilla Girls I felt like they were similar to the gang called the 12 monkeys in the film 12 monkeys.
