From: Ed Halter @ NYUFF (email suppressed)
Date: Tue Feb 17 2004 - 19:28:20 PST
May I say one thing meta about this entire discussion -- and I feel like I
have noticed this other times when the issue of women in experimental film
comes up -- the discussion turns into a whole bunch of dudes going at each
other on the topic the exclusion/marginalization of women, with about one or
two women actually joining in the discussion...
What this means I suppose is open to interpretation. But within this irony,
undoubtedly something crucial is revealed.
> From: Shelly Silver <email suppressed>
> Reply-To: Experimental Film Discussion List <email suppressed>
> Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 22:15:35 -0500
> To: email suppressed
> Subject: Re: 15+++
>
> i just want to add that men have historically benefited and continue to
> benefit from these curatorial imbalances (and in the case of essential
> cinema, almost complete exclusion) of a large proportion of the population.
> they have very practical reasons not to recognize the imbalance while at the
> same time doing their best to maintain the status quo.
>
> by writing this, i am not trying to be inflammatory or point fingers in
> terms of this specific discussion. but so often discrimination is seen as a
> faceless act of god or mysterious illness, and more often than not the
> reasons are sought with those discriminated against as opposed to those who
> benefit.
>
> shelly
>
>
> on 2/17/04 8:15 PM, John Thomson at email suppressed wrote:
>
>> 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>.
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.