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Untitled (I'm in training, don't kiss me)

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Untitled (I'm in training, don't kiss me)

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By Claude Cahan

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Women Art and Art History; Gender and Feminist Analysis

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Women Art and Art History; Gender and Feminist Analysis

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http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199920105/obo-9780199920105-0034.xml

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Playtime is Ad Minoliti's first UK exhibition and is paired with a solo exhibition of two large paintings by Dale Lewis. Both exhibitions reference imagery from art history in order to address, in Minoliti's case, what it is to have a gendered or non-gendered body in the digital age. By utilising images of post-war Californian domesticity and the gilded imagery of consumerist driven American dream, the gallery becomes a postulated utopia where the white cube gallery formula is dismissed in a three-dimensional analogy. This is sparred with in a tit-for-tat discourse by the satirical and dry humour drawn upon in hedonistic subcultures that colourfully populate dystopian tableaus of London in Lewis epic' paintings.

Seen even before entering the gallery Play-G (2014) sits above the front desk, the only painting to be hung on a wall. A naked woman sits seductively on a dark green ottoman. Her legs are straddling a strange, vividly yellow shape that looks like a vintage arcade game where one would expect to see her husband lustfully about to embrace her. In the background, a salon style hang dominates the wall of a model living room. This is bleakly offset by the male to female transvestites in Fruits de Mer (2015). One in particular, dressed in black hot pants and stockings, on his hands and knees, reaches up towards two more who are undressing one another. What is fascinating is the way the characters in both Lewis and Minoliti's works are inhabiting fetishised scenarios yet at the same times brazenly unite all sexualities within society.

In Play-G Minoliti brings us into a world where 2.4 kids and white picket fences were glamourised in American lifestyle magazines. Gender roles were forcibly invoked through advertising: women should be homemakers and mothers please their men by providing their means of living and social status. Lewis takes us to a world of cross-dressing men in lingerie where one's own desire and socially deemed perversities are championed by hedonistic living. The viewer is reminded again of the constraints of gender roles that are still pressurised today; on one man a driver's L plate, a common novelty for stag and hen nights, the last sexually charged night before assuming a respectably place within an adult 9 - 5 society is mocked.

Both born in 1980, the artists have grown up in the tail end of Generation X where by sexual orientation and experimentation, drug addiction and violence have become commonplace earmarks within life to the point of almost being rites of passage into adulthood. This is captured in Lewis' mark-making which is sharp and unequivocally limited like the foggy memories of a hangover. In Acid Man's Funeral (2015) a carnivalesque burial becomes a 21 st century rival to Courbet's A Burial at Ornans (1849 - 1850) which at the time caused uproar due to its unflattering realism and vast scale which was usually saved for heroic religious masterpieces. Here, Lewis's tropes of Nike logos, cigarettes, lingerie and graphic sexual imagery acts within gay culture confront the audience. There will be no uproar. Instead, we have learnt, embraced and progressed. Minoliti's T extile As Sculpture series (2016) and Vol Rasant - Kimono Printemps (2014) are products of this. The idea of hanging art works on white walls within a gallery is pushed to include textiles designed by other artists.

These are dressed headless mannequins which are grouped around Minoliti's Queer Deco Series of paintings all of which are uniformed by a digitally and hand painted finesse that is both highly polished and highly attractive. The paintings are placed on carpets and leaned against the walls shattering the "fourth wall" segregation of the audience - a fundamental characteristic of modern and contemporary galleries. The audience's presence becomes the activating trigger of this trans-human utopia, where queer and feminist theories are applied to aesthetic language, design and architecture, continuously invoking the human body both through its insinuated presence and notable absence.

What these exhibitions so powerfully create for the viewer, is a double rootedness in the complexities faced by the flexibility of our evolving and progressing cultural understandings and identities. The potential openness of Minoliti's work is immediately at odds with limitations present in the assaulting imagery of Lewis work. And thus the audience is demanded to react with a sense of responsibility - to engage with it in their own lives.

William Davie

Credits:
1. Ad Minoliti, Playtime, installation view, Edel Assanti, 2016. c) Will Amlot, courtesy Edel Assanti.

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Aesthetica Magazine - Gender in the Digital Age

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Playtime is Ad Minoliti's first UK exhibition and is paired with a solo exhibition of two large paintings by Dale Lewis. Both exhibitions reference imagery from art history in order to address, in Minoliti's case, what it is to have a gendered or non-gendered body in the digital age.

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http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/beyond-gender/

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http://www.composingdigitalmedia.org/f15_mca/mca_reads/mulvey.pdf

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http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/5-to-see-international-womens-day/

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https://whitney.org/Education/EducationBlog/LookingBackAtBlackMale1

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https://youtu.be/IBM4pZm9Gyg

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By  Jusepe de Ribera

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https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lucas-pauline-bunny-t07437

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http://www.sculpture.org.uk/artwork/lingam-of-a-thousand-lingams

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http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/review-edel-assanti-playtime/

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gender models changing roles in dutch and Italian fashion 

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gender models changing roles in dutch and Italian fashion 

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https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09589236.2016.1155435

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http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/redefining-gender/

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Ted Talk

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http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/gender-identity-samoas-narratives/

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http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/redefining-gender/

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https://www.debutart.com/artist/corey-brickley/hack-gender-gap

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The Influence of Poor Gender Relations on Art

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The Influence of Poor Gender Relations on Art

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y-c59e4_IY

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Sexism: Women artists are still underrepresented in the art world

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Sexism: Women artists are still underrepresented in the art world

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Tate Modern's 'World Goes Pop' exhibition offers a valuable corrective to a male dominated art history, but how much has the art world really changed since the 1970s?

In an interview with the Independent (September 5, 2015), artist Judy Chicago recollects meeting Marisol Escobar, a high-profile female pop artist who was seen with the likes of Andy Warhol, in a New York bar: "Marisol said to me, 'the men hate me' - sort of out of the blue! There were a lot of important women, like Marisol, who were really not garnering the level of attention that they deserved - or that the men were getting."

Making a name as a female artist was no easy feat in the 1960s and 70s. While at art school in California in the 1960s, Judy Chicago's spray-painted car hoods were snubbed by her (male) tutors, and the project was abandoned. Five decades later her car hoods decorated with graphic imagery of reproductive organs are exhibited at Tate Modern's autumn show.

The 'World Goes Pop' exhibition serves to challenge the notion of pop art as an exclusively male, Euro-American phenomenon. The show pays homage to female artists all over the world who used the language of pop to critique society's restrictive roles for women. And who, like Judy Chicago, were largely ignored or overshadowed by their male colleagues. Assistant curator on the show Elsa Coustou explains: "In the 1960s there emerged a generation of young women who had a new eye on society. They wanted change. They weren't happy with how the art world was basically male."

Fast-forward to 2016. More women are in work in Britain than ever before, with 800,000 women joining the workforce between 2010 and 2014 alone. The Labour party has introduced gender quotas to ensure at least 50 percent of its MPs are women. The new Star Wars film is so progressive it is deliberately gender-balanced. Celebrity ambassadors such as actress Emma Watson have made feminism cool. From politics to Hollywood, there is a growing pressure to tackle gender inequality. And what of the world of visual art?

While superstar artists like Tracy Emin and Louise Bourgeois (whose 'Spider' sold at auction for £6.6 million in 2011) may seduce into thinking women are doing alright in the arts, statistics tell a different story. The 2013 art audit by the East London Fawcett Group (ELF) found that only five percent of commercial galleries in London represented an equal number of male and female artists. At the 2012 Frieze Fair, 27.5% of artists were women. Most staggeringly, of the 100 top selling artists at auction in 2012, none were women.

London-based artist Celina Teague, who graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2007, says it is general knowledge that the contemporary art world is 'a bit sexist'. "I used to hang around with a collector who took me and a bunch of young artists out to different shows where he would introduce us to people," she says of her student days. "It was always the boys who were introduced with a full CV whereas the girls, well... maybe he just thought it was nice to have a young girl on his arm. Those things happen, and they probably happen to a lot of [women] artists.
In a 2013 interview with Der Spiegel, German artist George Baselitz said women "don't paint very well. It's a fact", adding that women artists simply "don't pass the market test, the value test. The market is always right." Celina Teague rejects the implication that male and female art is qualitatively different. "I don't think you can go into a show and identify male and female artists right away. Generally there is no wholly male or female line. It's much more subtle than that."

Then why do women artists sell for a fraction of the price of their male counterparts? "Maybe we're not taken seriously," Celina Teague muses. "Perhaps people think we're going to run off and have babies and that's going to be the end of us so we're not really worth investing in."

The women artists that do fetch high prices tend to be older, or in Louise Bourgeois' case, deceased. The highest earning living female artists, including Bridget Riley, Cindy Sherman and Cady Noland, are all well into their sixties and beyond. "Women do tend to have to prove themselves a bit longer because of children," says Celina Teague.

In a society that still treats motherhood and career as mutually exclusive, women artists are particularly disadvantaged. "Listen, I'm a mum, I get it, it's actually bloody difficult, I mean I have to work every spare second. In order to work around [my children's] sleeping times I often work through the night," confides 35-year old Teague, who is a mother of two. "And childcare does still tend fall into the woman's domain. So I understand that can be a reason why people think that women artists will just disappear - a lot of them probably do."

The gender bias at auctions and in galleries is thrown into even greater proportion when one considers the current ratio of female versus male arts graduates. The Guardian journalist Rebecca Ratcliffe found that 61.7% of the undergraduate arts and design intake in UK universities in 2011-2012 was female. As numbers of women in the art industry are expected to rise, are we going to see a natural shift towards more representation of female artists? Celina Teague suggests the solution is not as simple as that, as women too can be biased: "You've got women doing really well and being really high up now. But a lot of women in these positions [e. g. gallerists, curators] are falling into the same track of seemingly not giving women artists a chance, subconsciously preferring men."

The 2013 statistics surprised Teague, who up until that point had not been aware of the extent of sexism in the industry. "When I started researching this and started asking my friends 'do you feel the art world is sexist?' then I was surprised to see that without fail every one of them did say that they felt there was a current against them. It's not that there are stories of really obnoxious treatment to write home about, it's more like a subconscious bias that you feel working against you," she explains.

Should we be angry that the struggle is continual, or optimistic that things are changing for the better? Elsa Coustou maintains that while the current is shifting towards more representation of female artists, societal shifts don't happen here and now, they take generations to fully manifest. Celina Teague puts her faith in the power of social media to achieve change rapidly. "I'm a total optimist. Perhaps by sheer force of desire," she chuckles. "All it takes is collectors like the Rubell family [one of North America's biggest private art collectors] who are saying 'okay we're going to put on a show focusing on female artists'. You've got groups dedicated to promoting women and supporting them. These will have great effect. And everything happens so much quicker now than ten years ago because of social media, which I believe is the best tool we have for changing things."

The public art sector is increasingly gender aware. Elsa Coustou, who worked with Tate Modern from 2012-2015, confirms that curators make a conscious effort to support female artists. "The Tate has a policy of showing more female artists, so the curators do have it in mind when they carry out research. When I was working there it was emphasised, notably by solo shows of Yayoi Kusama, Ellen Gallagher, Saloua Raouda Choucair, Mira Schendel, Sonia Delaunay, Agnes Martin and Mona Hatoum."

Public art institutions like the Tate are important catalysts for change, but so are audiences. The 'World Goes Pop' exhibition, which has a strong female presence, has divided critics, with reviews ranging from two stars in The Guardian to five stars in The Daily Telegraph and TimeOut. "Some critics thought it was fantastic and pointed out how extraordinary it was that we've never heard of these women," elaborates Elsa Coustou. "And then there were critics like Adrian Searle [The Guardian] who exhibited a very 'male' reaction, basically saying the works of art are bad and not pop and shouldn't be at Tate."

While research by organisations such as ELF and UK Feminista shows gender inequality is still a problem in the arts, things are headed in a positive direction. According to the ELF audit, 23,3% of solo shows hosted by commercial galleries in London during the 2012 Frieze presented female artists, compared with 11.6% in 2008. In a press release Gemma Rolls-Bentley, art director of ELF, commented: "The ELF art audit results provide statistical evidence that gender inequality still persists in London's art world. However, these results also demonstrate that significant positive progress has and is being made."

Recent events in the film and theatre worlds have set an example for the visual arts. Last year, actress Jennifer Lawrence penned an essay expressing her anger at being paid less than her male co-stars. And when Ireland's national theatre presented a heavily male-dominated programme last autumn, criticism from the #wakingthefeminist movement was swift and gained considerable support via social media.

Insistent debate is the key to overcoming gender inequality in the arts and in wider society, believes Celina Teague. "Just talk about it, loudly, and keep talking until things change. And it's important to do the number-crunching because that's where you see the evidence - otherwise it might just go over your head, like it went over my head initially."

At the Tate, Judy Chicago's boldly coloured car bonnets entitled Flight Hood, Birth Hood and Bigamy Hood stand testament to enduring feminist defiance. "I'm very glad I decided to bring new life to that early work. It taught me that one should always trust one's own impulses as an artist, even in the face of rejection, ridicule or silence," Chicago said to the Tate's press office.

Tracey Emin famously said it will be another 200 years before women are fully valued as artists. Thankfully, it looks like she will be proved wrong.

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Sexism: Women artists are still underrepresented in the art world

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Tate Modern's 'World Goes Pop' exhibition offers a valuable corrective to a male dominated art history, but how much has the art world really changed since the 1970s? In an interview with the...

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Cocktails inspired by Inspirational Women 

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Cocktails inspired by Inspirational Women 

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Beyond the Gender Wars: on Being Towards the Image of God

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Beyond the Gender Wars: on Being Towards the Image of God

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How Much Does Gender Influence the Art World

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How Much Does Gender Influence the Art World

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Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose: Gender performance in photography

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Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose: Gender performance in photography

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Women outnumber men at art school, yet underrepresented in industry

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Women outnumber men at art school, yet underrepresented in industry

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How much does gender influence the art world?

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How much does gender influence the art world?

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Gender Inequality In the Art World Film Series by Gucci and Artsy.

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Gender Inequality In the Art World Film Series by Gucci and Artsy.

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Women in italian renaissance art - gender representation identity

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Women in italian renaissance art - gender representation identity

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An investigation into gendered attitudes towards art and design education

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An investigation into gendered attitudes towards art and design education

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Dismissing the taboo: Gender, identity and inequality

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Dismissing the taboo: Gender, identity and inequality

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Women are still underrepresented in films

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Women are still underrepresented in films

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Psychology and you: an informal introduction. 3rd ed.

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Psychology and you: an informal introduction. 3rd ed.

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Jemima Kirke – Where Are the Women? | Unlock Art

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Jemima Kirke – Where Are the Women? | Unlock Art

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Gender Neutrality becomes fashion reality

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Gender Neutrality becomes fashion reality

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Mira Hnatyshyn: a Closer Look at Culture, Gender and Human Behavior

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Mira Hnatyshyn: a Closer Look at Culture, Gender and Human Behavior

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