From: John Thomson (email suppressed)
Date: Tue Feb 17 2004 - 17:15:10 PST
I think that curatorial decisions are not necessarily made to exclude, but
that choices are ideological and can exclude. I like Shelly's referencing
the Guerilla Girls: in the late 1980s I walked around the NY gallery area
(then Soho) which was plastered with posters by the Guerilla Girls demanding
shows in the galleries there. I don't think that day I saw ONE commercial or
independent space exhibiting art by women. More women are exhibited now, but
it is still harder for women to have their shows reviewed than for men,
harder to have their work sold even if they are well known, and I also
believe that the range of "acceptable" form and content for art by women is
much smaller. Wasn't it felt that the non-profit world should balance this
situation?
>From: Shelly Silver <email suppressed>
>Reply-To: Experimental Film Discussion List <email suppressed>
>To: email suppressed
>Subject: Re: 15+
>Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 15:33:07 -0500
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Received: from mc12-f4.hotmail.com ([65.54.167.140]) by mc12-s4.hotmail.com
>with Microsoft
>
>In terms of Anthology in '77, it is a difficult situation when there are
>few
>or only one institution promoting or preserving a wider field. I think of
>John Thompson's comments about curating. If I look at the range of
>Electronic Arts Intermix's artists, one of only two video art distributors
>in the US, they are clearly trying to support the range of what's going on
>in the field at any given time. If I look at what the individuals working
>at EAI are doing in their own curatorial practice, then the choices become
>much more particular and personalized, as it should be. The
>responsibilities are different.
>
>Below some responses to Matt Teichman, written before James Kreul's
>additional comments, which point out, among other things, what a difference
>a woman curator can make....
>
>
> > The point of asking it was that the question of how to interpret these
> > sorts of stats is a very deep one...the matter is an
> > inordinately complicated one, leading to labyrinth upon labyrinth of
> > chicken-egg regressions....
>
>I don't think what I'm talking about is so complicated. I have not done a
>study of women in the experimental film world, but I can't imagine that the
>situation was that much different in the 60's and 70's for women than in
>other male dominated worlds. I didn't use the word 'discrimination' in my
>e-mail, I was talking about a phenomenon that I've noticed of
>identification
>and privileging of a certain experience/viewpoint. This is often not done
>consciously. From the curating I've done, I find that the more conscious
>one is of imbalances of all kinds, the more one can address this question
>in
>an interesting way, usually to the benefit of the artists, the community
>and
>the show. I would still hold that of crucial importance is the necessity
>for more diversity in terms of those in power, especially as one approaches
>the top.
>
>This imbalance as well as the phen. of identifying with those in power is
>something I know quite well from my experiences in the art and video art
>world. For example, the art school that I attended had 90% female students
>and over 90% male faculty and much of the attention the women got was
>related to 'non-art' activities. This is complicated by the fact that
>many
>first generation women curators and dealers had the tendency to also select
>only male artists. Certainly we are in a different situation today,
>although I would still hold, not one of equality.
>
>The mathematics question - I assume you would not say that there have been
>historically fewer women in mathematics because we're just no good at it,
>so
>the solution must be found elsewhere. I would hazard that it is based on
>lack of encouragement and support at early ages as well as outright
>discrimination and lack of role models at university level and onward.
>There is still such a thing as an old boys network. Affirmative action has
>done quite a bit to help this, where those in power are forced to
>consciously change their previous means of selection.
>
>I would still hold very strongly to my statement on invisibility. It is
>very difficult to recognize that such a thing as bias exists, even for
>those
>that are negatively impacted by it. Discrimination is most often seen as
>natural, the air we breathe, the workings of the world, just the way things
>are.
>
>
>'Sociology is rarely more akin to social psychoanalysis than when it
>confronts an object like taste, one of the most vital stakes in the
>struggles fought in the field of the dominant class in the field of
>cultural
>production.... Here the sociologist finds himself in the area par
>excellence of the denial of the social.' P. Bordieu, Distinction, A Social
>Critique of the Judgement of Taste
>
>
>__________________________________________________________________
>For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
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__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.