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| Judy Chicago at the Black-E Taken from "archive.constantcontact.com" |
Tonight I went to a Judy Chicago book signing/ event at The Blackie, a community Arts Centre in Liverpool. I felt quite inspired by the speeches given, especially by a co-chair of The Black-E called Wendy Harpe who spoke very passionately about the subject of the role of women in art, which was quite moving.
Judy Chicago's speech highlighted her struggle to become and have her work be appreciated in the art world. She spoke of an anecdote where she was studying at university and her lecturer told her class that women had made no contribution to art, which was met with shocked gasps from the audience. I found her passion and ambition really inspiring, but for me, the whole subject of feminism in art sticks in the throat a bit. I know there are a lot of people who disagree with me, and this is possibly because I'm younger and I haven't been around to see the progress, or the struggle. However, recently I've been looking at Ai Weiwei's work, and this I think casts a questionable light over the issue of feminist art (perhaps rather unfairly). What I'm trying to say is, someone like Ai Weiwei is fighting physical and mental oppression - people having the identities of their children killed in an earthquake hidden from them, and being beaten up for speaking against the government. In no way can anyone say Ai Weiwei doesn't fight - his art has effect. But at the event tonight Chicago said "I thought "The Dinner Party" had eradicated that kind of thing", with regards to a sexist comment spoken by a woman. "The Dinner Party" is one installation in one art gallery in America - how can that alone eradicate anything? Arguably, art only gains attention from the middle classes who are interested in art - it's not exactly a huge demographic - and Chicago hardly promotes it in many other ways. Yes, there was a talk in Liverpool tonight, but it's 30 years after the work was made. I know I haven't changed anything and perhaps Chicago has, but I just think she might have for artists, she's not really changing society. By contrast Weiwei has caused uproar and massive attention for his issue - and the biggest difference I think is the difference of ego. Chicago said "I'd always wanted to be an artist ever since I was a little girl" but surely this is partly due to an ego trip - becoming part of history and getting your name in the art history books (her words not mine). But Weiwei isn't about the ego - he's about the issue. He reaches wider audiences and uses different mediums because yes, he is an artist, but he's a real activist. Chicago's having potentially elitist exhibitions and installations and assuming a wide cross-section of people will come to them - that's not the way it works, I don't think.
Wendy Harpe included the topics of pole dancers and anorexia in her speech - the idea of women being oppressed by society with these bizarre social pressures that people think can be liberating, when really they're quite demeaning. But again, she said she's been "fighting" for over 30 years and to be speaking to a room full of 50 or so art fans isn't exactly getting out there. And the work Chicago makes doesn't exactly hit this topic - these are issues of society as a whole: the way our whole history has had women as the second sex - the pressure to look good for men, to be objects, to not be thinkers or remembered. This isn't something that can be solved with a few installations, sure it raises awareness, but men are still in charge of the large art institutions. Men are still dominating the history books. Men aren't under as much pressure as women to be objects of desire. It's ingrained into everything - and I sadly don't believe that can be changed in our life time, especially not by art - it doesn't effect enough people.
This isn't to say I didn't admire the speakers or their determination, because I really did, this is just a slight annoyance at the regular use of the term "the fight" that they repeatedly used. I do admire them, because they do at least try and do something.
Wendy Harpe included the topics of pole dancers and anorexia in her speech - the idea of women being oppressed by society with these bizarre social pressures that people think can be liberating, when really they're quite demeaning. But again, she said she's been "fighting" for over 30 years and to be speaking to a room full of 50 or so art fans isn't exactly getting out there. And the work Chicago makes doesn't exactly hit this topic - these are issues of society as a whole: the way our whole history has had women as the second sex - the pressure to look good for men, to be objects, to not be thinkers or remembered. This isn't something that can be solved with a few installations, sure it raises awareness, but men are still in charge of the large art institutions. Men are still dominating the history books. Men aren't under as much pressure as women to be objects of desire. It's ingrained into everything - and I sadly don't believe that can be changed in our life time, especially not by art - it doesn't effect enough people.
This isn't to say I didn't admire the speakers or their determination, because I really did, this is just a slight annoyance at the regular use of the term "the fight" that they repeatedly used. I do admire them, because they do at least try and do something.
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