Into every life advice falls. Few things are as unwelcome, except if it comes from an artist who wraps it in spin. Such messages can be comically explicit, fearsomely obscure or rooted so deeply in banality as to turn on the light inside a cliche. (Previous post expanding on the theme here.)
What follows is a small survey of artists whose visual exhortations and aphorisms deserve to be cited.
Dave McKenzie, Self-Help Hyperventilation Bag, 2002 (Image via)
Shawn Wolfe, Panic Now
Zack Bent, 2007
Charles LaBelle Exterior Song, (detail) Hollywood, (Cracked Actor), Alley W Fairfaix N Beverly 2003
Jason Hirata, Untitled, from video, 2008
Marc Dombrosky Get Signatures/Drop Tub 2009, Embroidery on found paper, 5 x 3 inches
Squeak Carnwath, Good Ideas, 2006, Intaglio print, ed. 24, 12 x 12 inches
Mark Mumford, Break it Down, 2004 Color Lamda print, 40 x 29 inches
Allison Manch, Wink
Grant Barnhart, Beg For It, exhibit announcement card, Ambach & Rice
Regina. If this had been a show you’d curated, I’d be objecting to it on the grounds that the men outnumber the women by such a wide margin. Why is that?
Whoa!
CATFIGHT!
But honestly, Helen- do you really believe that because Regina is a woman, she is obligated to select art with a specific ratio of female artists?
She is white, too- should she also be expected to only like white artists?
Or US citizens?
Or people who grew up in Northern California?
Or only artists with english degrees?
How do you decide which group you owe the most allegiance to?
Seems silly to me.
Obviously, there has been documentable sexual discrimination at most every level of the art world for a long time. But that doesnt mean that every Sister is obligated to compensate for that by being politically correct in every single post, show, or even conversation, does it?
Regina is hardly an agent of the Patriarchy.
Ries. I expect curators of good will not to favor men over women, straights over gays and white people over everybody else.
Yes, I expect that if any group is invisible in certain organizations or societal settings it’s worthy of question. For, you may be the one who is excluded at some point in the future. If you are a curious person iyou’ll notice that older women artists are invisible in the art world and most other arenas of life, unless they’re generous philanthropists or volunteers – which I call work without pay. I have actually experienced this invisibility/exclusion recently. A Chelsea gallery owner saw my work on a website. She made an appointment to see the actual work. She saw me in person when I visited her gallery to check out the space where my work might be shown. I said I was looking forward to her visiting my studio and she cancelled the appointment by email the following day pleading sickness and never rescheduled. Women are even more biased against older women than are men. That’s just the most obvious incident. I recently did a series on age with one piece called Wear Masks and have been asked to write a piece against this invisibility for an art publication.
Thank you for making this point. I once was at a lively opening for a group show I was in. The curators of the show told me a gallerist was there who was really interested in my work. But when the gallerist was introduced to me, her expression changed immediately and she barely gave me her contact information. This is more of a problem in New York than elsewhere in my experience. It’s hard to not be discouraged by it sometimes, and saying it’s all about being in the studio and doing the work is a little disingenuous. It’s a career issue and unfortunately it’s not going to go away.