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Return of the Welsh Left-handed Lesbians There have been a lot of twitterings in the art press recently about a ‘feminaissance’: a resurgence of the 1970s feminist aesthetic long presumed dead and buried under a mound of kitten heels. The immediate cause of the excitement was the opening at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles on 4 March of WACK! Art and Feminist Revolution, an exhibition whose tremors have been felt far beyond the San Andreas fault – thanks partly to the declaration of MOCA’s director Jeremy Strick that feminism is the most important art movement since WWII. Why? Because, explains American critic Holland Cotter, it sewed the seed - well, laid the egg - of "identity-based art, crafts-derived art, performance art and much political art..." To be fair to WACK’s curator, Connie Butler, she’s not on a mission to rekindle the flame of bra-burning – a relief, considering the global boob prints the CFCs in today’s Wonderbras would leave. As she explained in Frieze - which devoted its March issue to feminism - her show is intended purely as an historical survey. But feminist art does seem to be back on the agenda. Later in March, New York’s Brooklyn Museum took the historic step of opening a separate entrance for women – sorry, a dedicated feminist art wing – centring on Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party, a conceptual high table of famous women laid with 39 plates containing painted vaginas. The surrounding excitement has brought out a rash of symposia, including one on The Feminist Future at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. With the bandwagon rolling, the Tate has jumped on. In April its Trustees apologised in The Art Newspaper for a century of under-investment in women’s art, which has left the collection with a gender imbalance of 348 women artists to 2,652 men. The 7% of holdings this represents include 128 Hepworths, 30 Rileys, 21 Whitereads, 19 Wearings and 14 Gwen Johns. In the past two years the Tate has purchased only two major works by women, one by Tracey Emin for under £50,000 and one by Cristina Iglesias for £115,000. A spokesperson assured The Art Newspaper that the Trustees’ new mood of contrition wouldn’t bump them into buying any old - or for that matter young - women artists. "We examine our holdings on a regular basis to identify what may have been overlooked in the past and research what may be available to fill the gaps." Among the holes they’re looking to plug, if they get lucky, are Georgia O’Keeffe, Frida Kahlo and Alison Lapper MBE. As a woman I should be pleased by all this attention, but I’m not. And, according to Frieze, I’m not alone. It seems that in our post-gendered society, many women artists are reluctant to be associated with feminism. The veteran 70s activist Miriam Schapiro even went so far as to forbid her gallery to lend a work to UCLA’s 1996 exhibition Sexual Politics. To which my immediate response is, ‘Right on, Sister!’ I wouldn’t want to be labelled as a woman writer. Why should artists be different, when there are now as many – if not more - women artists as men? OK, there are ishoos here. Years ago I read a letter in the women’s art magazine Make moaning that women with children couldn’t make it in the art world. As a mother myself, I thought this a bit pathetic and set out to demonstrate it by interviewing several successful artist mums – including Sarah Raphael, Shani Rhys James and Susan Wilson – about how they did it. I think I proved my point, but I didn’t manage to explain the price differences that still exist between men’s and women’s work. Serota may claim that "among the emerging contemporary artists, the gender balance is much more evenî, but Diamond Damien wouldn’t accept under £50,000 for the scrapings of other people’s paint off his studio floor. Tracey’s cheap, and not because she’s a slapper. Women artists, even at the top, earn less than men. Is this the result of prejudice? I don’t think so. Like most trends in art, it’s a function of the market. The reason women are underrepresented even in 20th century collections is that the great collectors of the past – the differently-gendered Peggy Guggenheim excepted - have always been men. Until there are as many millionairesses buying art as millionaires, women artists will continue to be at a disadvantage. Trends in art aren’t driven by aesthetics; they’re driven by money. Look at the paintings of Francis Newton Souza. Ten years ago you couldn’t give them away; now, with India’s tiger economy ravening for native painters, they’re fetching $1.4 million a pop. Of course there’s no such thing, strictly, as ‘women’s art’. Despite her obsession with looking under furniture, there’s nothing ‘feminine’ about the art of Rachel Whiteread, or of Gillian Wearing, two of the three women winners of the Turner Prize. Is this a coincidence? Certainly the sorts of subjects that often attract women painters and, yes, fit in with their domestic interests and routines - still life, domestic portraiture, quiet abstraction – tend to be sidelined even when painted by men. Which is presumably what Germaine Greer meant when she wrote in The Obstacle Race that a woman painter has the choice "to deny her sex, and become an honorary manÖ or to accept her sex and with it second placeî. If men and women see the world differently - and I think we do - we’ll be naturally biased towards the artistic vision of our own sex. I’ve got no evidence, but I’m prepared to bet that even postmodern art preferences divide along gender lines: Hirst vitrines for the boys, Emin quilts for the girls and Sarah Lucas fried eggs for all orientations in between. Of course, the picture is skewed by the socially inclusive policies of public art bodies like the British Council, which is taking Emin to Venice. Is this a blow for feminism? I should Coco Chanel. It’s a blow for feminism, without the ‘f’. Tracey may be a national treasure, but her particular brand of celebrity confessional narcissism - like Frida Kahlo’s - gives women’s art a bad name. I know I’m entering dangerous territory here. The last thing I want to do is reignite the Welsh Left-handed Lesbians debate that raged in Artists & Illustrators after we published a letter complaining about positive discrimination (the Welsh yelled loudest) but here goes. Women artists will have achieved complete equality when they stop treating gender as a serious subject for art. If fellas made art about falluses, we’d think it pathetic. Fortunately they don’t need to, and neither do we. Not everything in this world is gendered – the sea, the sky and the land are three obvious exceptions. Fixing your gaze on "the body as a site of inquiry, exploration and protest" - the proper focus of feminist art, according to WACK’s organiser Jenni Sorkin - restricts visibility. All art is political, but no art should be about politics; as Helen Chadwick sensibly pointed out, "there are placards that can do that job". There are many ways of being a woman artist - Gwen John, Barbara Hepworth, Germaine Richier, K the Kollwitz and Prunella Clough are just a few examples – but whingeing about inequality isn’t one of them. Unless the response you’re looking for is ‘Yes, dear’. Laura Gascoigne | ||||
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Laura Gascoigne All of this site is | ||||
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