Catherine Opie, “Mitch,” 1994, courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles
At the end of her NY Times review of the Elizabeth Peyton show that just opened at the New Museum, Roberta Smith heralded the “girly art” movement, which she described as “a strand of painting that has historically been dismissed or marginalized, and for which respect tends to come late, if at all.”
I’ve certainly noticed the concurrence of several important one-woman museum retrospectives in New York this fall, although calling them “girly” curls my feminist hair. I suppose the term connotes the interpersonal and/or pretty, with a preponderance of portraits—Peyton, the Museum of Modern Art’s upcoming Marlene Dumas and the Guggenheim’s current Catherine Opie, whose photographed subjects deliver a confrontational (not very girly) wallop. At the New Museum’s upcoming Mary Heilman show, the paintings are abstract, but the titles hint at the personal subtext.
Is it any accident that these shows were all organized by female curators?
Silly question.