Hello to everyone,
I’ve been following this discussion with curiosity. I have been
unable to participate to the extent that I would like, however I
found Danny’s and Janis’s posts as flash points for a brief response
– albeit a non-theoretical response – although the notion of sewing
velvet curtains gives rise to brilliant images and unfolding narratives!
Danny’s example of the all-male artist group did not strike me as
unusual at all – nor did Tyler Green’s "Curator as caretaker, guide,
encourager" (unfortunately, this link/ post seems to have been taken
down.) They stimulate a necessary follow-up - as this framing of
the genderization of both the role of a curator and the artist has
long been in play – at least in the States and I suspect elsewhere.
When Danny asks: "What is at stake in the shift in the ideal model
of curatorial practice from judgement to midwifery?" I ask - Is
this a false binary - ? Are judgement and mid-wifery simply various
functions of institutional hybrid role ... or does it say more as to
how we, as various cultures, look at the role of the "artist " as
well as the curator. Genderization is certainly one category to
examine -
In ferreting out a historizing example, I understand that there was
an early study conducted by the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts
in the USA) in the late 1970’s, which categorized the field of art
practices as a “pink collar ghetto.” This tag line concretized many
of the points long associated with the collective (rather Calvinist)
misgivings hovering above the suspect culture milieu of the times, as
well as to the subtext of a very real biases and devaluation of
culture within our respective socio-economic realms. These ranged
from economics (the plethora of low paying positions) to the
disproportionate number of curators, registrars and administrative
support staff positions that were inhabited by women. Apparently,
the directorships of the museums were not. These executive positions
that spoke of money and power were heavily (if not exclusively at
that point in time) inhabited by male directors/chief curators. The
curators (especially of smaller institutions and non-profits orgs.)
were ostensibly in the positions of caretaking (conventionally
inscribed as maternal) the museum collections, the museum directors,
and the exhibiting artists - who at that the time were, again,
primarily men.
An incisive historical example of this would be the Guerrilla Girls
actions of the 80’s. More critically pertinent to this discussion
was a poster they produced which pointedly critiqued the overtly
support “ caretaker” relationship of middle aged women gallery owners
to young male artists – their covert support took on a different
cast! It is with ease (and wicked fun ! ) that we are able to
extrapolate and draw analogies of these relationships of curators to
artists.
These museum stats were simultaneously cast within the afterglow of
the rather startling stats that as women progressed through the post-
secondary educational realms of art practice studies their number
decreased enormously by the time they graduated with an MFA and
entered and advanced through the professional realm of practicing
visual and media artists. In other words the “successful” artists
were disproportionately male. And…. I believe that there were a
striking number of seldom-noted husband and wife - boyfriend/
girlfriend artist teams that were publicly known solely under the
name of the male partner - thereby playing out conventional roles.
However, hybrid practices - cross-disciplinary practices did much to
dismantle these conventions and the hierarchy. And arguably, as
women progressed through their career paths into institutionalized
roles and systems, it appears as if artist/curators eventually follow
one discreet path over another - that one often being that being of a
curator/programmer, as it offers more career viability - the reason
for which goes to the heart of this discussion.
Further to the point, this genderization is easily extended to that
of media “ producer “ and “director” when framed by the conventions
of cinematic articulations. To this day only 4% of women are
directors (this stat varies over the past 20 years from 3-7%) with an
exceedingly high number of women who are media producers (ensuring
that the project gets done and the creative vision of the (male)
director is realized.)
In any case, I'd like to say that, yes, there are no simple answers
as we are dealing with an increasingly (re) entrenched and
institutionalized power dynamic. And yes, I have encountered
similar dynamics – throughout my entire career as a curator and
practicing artist/director and professor. I suspect that I am not
alone in that experience. And, I have engaged in a lot of hopeful
discussion about post-gender - but the stats/data speak of a
different reality. Although I have always appreciated Spivak's "To
introduce the question of woman changes everything " In the case of
new media practices, specifically in relation to the pragmatic
strategies of entrenched institutions, the introduction appears to
have offered some degree of change .... at least somewhat in the
hyper-temporal space of new media and cultural practices. How this
orchestrates itself in the larger material realm remains a pressing
question.
This all leaves so much more to be unpacked as we wade through these
complexities - thanks for the discussion!
Ciao,
Chris
.
On Oct 13, 2008, at 4:55 AM, Danny Butt wrote:
> Hi everyone
>
> A relatively quiet discussion (with many good points already
> though :) ) and I can't help wondering if this is because the
> relationship between technology and masculinity is (on the surface)
> so entrenched that we are just used to it whether we blindly accept
> it or actively resist it. I would add my own support to Janis'
> suggestion that this is a function of a relatively underdeveloped
> discourse, rather than any sense that gender is not an important
> issue or that we are in some space of post-feminism. My experience
> is that the feminist problematics that have been productive in
> other fields have so often not been considered in new media
> discourse, and it's hard not to see the "post-gender" talk as
> fairly tired repetition, when those who are most committed to
> investigating gendered practice in new media show us continually
> that gender is always "at work" in new yet not completely
> unexpected ways. As Spivak succinctly puts it, "To introduce the
> question of woman changes everything."
>
> It seems important to me to keep that as a *question* - discursive,
> not able to be adequately solved by discussions of physical bodies.
> "Well, there seem to be more women than men in our department", as
> if Condoleeza Rice as Secretary of State displaces racist
> patriarchy in the US.... By keeping gender as a question, we are
> always impelled to ask: how is gender being produced?
>
> To step into the field of curatorial practice, I had the
> interesting experience last week of participating in a great
> interview with a representative of an all-male artist group with
> experience in the new media scene. In response to a question from a
> female co-interviewer about the group's engagement with women, he
> noted that they have had a number of ongoing, successful
> collaborations with women, almost always women curators. Then, the
> other day, there is a post on Tyler Green's blog <http://
> www.artsjournal.com/man/2008/10/
> curator_as_caretaker_guide_enc.html> titled "Curator as caretaker,
> guide, encourager", referring to LACMA photography curator
> Charlotte Cotton sewing velvet curtains to protect some fragile
> works. This was presented by Green as a "neat-o story", but I
> couldn't help but think, what is this story (and Green's title)
> saying about the feminisation of the curatorial role? What is at
> stake in the shift in the ideal model of curatorial practice from
> judgement to midwifery? Is the female curator an instance of
> Irigaray's 'envelope' for the self-originating masculine artistic
> force? Of course I am not expecting that there are simple answers
> here, but I am interested to know if others are encountering
> similar dynamics?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Danny
>
> --
> http://www.dannybutt.net
>
> On 13/10/2008, at 5:24 AM, Janis Jefferies wrote:
>
>> Dear All,
>>
>> A little late to add into the discussion but I hope to add in some
>> ideas
>> concerning the theme that has been established by Verina and Crumb.
>>
>> By way of introduction I should add that I have spent 30 years in art
>> school/higher education/university art departments including fine
>> art,
>> cultural studies and most recently computing. The themes that
>> have driven
>> my practice and commitment to teaching during this time has been
>> around
>> feminism and textiles which I believe most people know. The
>> debates, or
>> rather an absence of them around gender and technology save for
>> standard
>> texts like Harraway, Hayles, Stone and Turkle and the women's
>> media group
>> that Erica Matlow established in the 90s at Westminster, would
>> appear to
>> suggest that we are in a post feminist era. Identities and
>> subjects can
>> change in the virtual but on the other hand there remains the complex
>> questions of sexual, racial and class differences which are in
>> productive
>> tension to that proposed through an uncritical relation to
>> technology. The
>> argument proposed by Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex, that
>> "one is not
>> born, but rather becomes a woman" holds in so far as gender
>> categories are
>> constructed (they may be played with, subverted or fantasized).
>> Culture is
>> central to gender formation. Art practices, including those that
>> work with
>> technology and from within cultural and social discourse, do not
>> simply
>> represent given gender identities, or reproduce already existing
>> ideologies
>> but rather participate in the very construction of those identities.
>>
>> I make one more observation which is that the shifts in the ways
>> in which
>> art practice was taught and organised meant that there is a
>> predominance of
>> women in art education. This has happened over the last 30 years.
>> I think
>> the programmes that cite technology in their titles are at a
>> similar stage
>> of development to art education in the 1970s, mostly men involved,
>> lab
>> lectures, not enough group team workshop teaching and not enough
>> senior
>> women programming them (there are as always notable exceptions).
>> What and
>> how programmes are established remain on gender lines (as are the
>> areas
>> covered, more women interested in physical and social computing than
>> gaming). Without a critical mass the curatorial debate is reduced
>> only to
>> statistics.
>>
>> .
Christiane Robbins
- JETZTZEIT -
... the space between zero and one ...
Walter Benjamin
LOS ANGELES I SAN FRANCISCO
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