6
Concrete, Wednesday, February 19, 1992
concrete Women
Post-modern or Pre-historic ? If you go down tothewoodstoday, you're In for a big surprise. Well, a massive post-modern building actually. The Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts (thats galley to you and me) Is very postmodern, very forward thlnking. Really? Step Inside this vast architechtural delight and surprise, surprise, you're back in the dark ages once again. In fact you may as well, be in any other major British gallery. That's right, less than 1% of the artists represented in the Sainsbury' s collection a re women. At the moment one painting by a woman is on display in the permenant exhibition (Berthe Monisot) and there are few examples of works by Germalne Rkhierin the reserve collection. Last term,. the black woman artist, Maud Sulter gave a series of lectures at the Salnsbury Centre. She is an established artist of great talent which Is highlighted by the fact that he was Mo Mart artist in residence at
the Tate Gallery Liverpool in 199091. She is now the co-curatonal director of The Elbow Room. She gave a lecture for two groups of students which was fairly well attended, due to it being run In conjunction w ith t heir seminars. The evening lecture was attended by no mo re than eight people, largely because of a lack of advertising. Both lectures were o riginaL accessible a nd a refreshing change. So why doesn' t The Sainabury Centre make a point of acquiring w ork by Sulterand hercontempories? Whilst ln residency at the Tate, Sulter produced a p iece of work entitled "Hysteria" . This work would have only taken up a small area of the Sainsbury Centre, yet no offer was made to exhibit her work. It's not just the Sa lnsbury Centre collection that's suffering from m isrepresentation. Not 200 yards away the School of Art History has nineteen staff members. Only one of these is a woman. Jane Beckett has been with the School of Art History for a
number of years and the constant demands upon her time are many. She only has the time and resources to run one semlnar a year on women artists, but nine weeks Is simply not enough time to lnvest in the topic of womens art history. Jane Beckett said "The study of women artists g rew out of the polltics oft he womens movement. Unlike the growth of womens publishIng the space given to women artIsts In museums and galleries is still very limited." ''There have only been a few exhibitions and scholarly publications on women artists. In a sense t here has been a reticence to examine the work of women artists in depth ." This sentiment Is echoed by a female student who wishes to remain anonymous . She stated : "It's outdated to view Art-History as a mans subject but In most classes here we are taught by men. and read books by men. It's like women never exIsted . Weird."
• It would appear that the high percentage of female students studying Art History does not affect what is taught. E Jack.son, a second year Art Historian. clearly believes the problem lies with faculty. "With Andrew Martlndale as our Dean of School I think the hope of increasing the female/male ratio within the academic staff Isn't worth contemplatIng." Whilst talking to various female historians lt became clear that t he position of fema le students at the Sainsbury Centre Is not an equal one. The Salnsbury Centre was designed by Sir Norman Foster as a "gend er neutral zone"; certain students felt that lt was the most m asculine space in the university. Helen Pratt, a third year Art H istorian said "Considering the high percentage of female students that do Art History it seems unfair that the female representation of tutors in the department is limited to only one." Sowhoistoblame? TheSainsburys,
Guerrilla Girl Warfare In America the sexism of the art world Is even more rife and d lscrlminatory than Great Britain. Major galleries persist In operating a biased buying policy that often stretches no further than a few token women's (usually one black woman among the few) work. The birth of the feminist movement In circa 1970 spawned many protest groups that attempted to a lter the status quo but still little or no notice was given to the rountless number of women artists who could not sell or exhibit their work simply because they received only adverse publicIty and no support from gallery owners. It all looked pretty dire for working women artists whose work had to centre on protestation and 9 times out of 10 risk being labelled "femlnlne'' until somethlng happened that threw a spanner in the power structure. Around April 1985 posters began appearing on buildings and galleries in New York. These posters gra phlcally, statistically and wittily documented sexism and racism In
the galleries and museums of New York. They named narr£'8 and pinpointed leading offenders. However, when public lnterest was sufficiently raised the protesters revealed the~ selve~r--as an anonymous group of gorillas, or in actual fact-guerrillas. The Guerrilla Girls employed tactics to correct the Imbalance of white, male, majority rule in the arts. They believe In taking positive action- not through traditional or violent means-but rather in a manner that has gained them publicity, support and, quite frankly, a When apfew stares: proached forinterviewsthe women would appear wearing gorilla masks! This highlighted their name, protected their anonymity and caught the public's attention . As their campa ign stepped up action rumours spread as to who was Involved. It is now believed that women involved in all areas of the art world are members; from leading artists to critics, to gallery staff. In actual fact the Guerrilla
Girls changes its core me~ hers every six months In order to protect anonymity and allow everyone to become Involved. The Guerrilla Girls continue to Hhit'' the major museums and leading private galleries (who are largely responsible for the success of a new artist) and it would appear that the tactics are working. The buying/collecting poll-
des of major museums such as the Metropolitan and Whltney are changing and smaller private galleries are choosing to represent more women. In particular the Bernlce Stelnbaum gallery represents 53% women and Is responsible for showing new women artists. It is even rutroUred that Ms. Steinbaum herself Is a Guerrilla Girls member.
UEA Warfare A few terms ago a spate of posters appeared, over aperiod of several weeks, on the outer and inside walls of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts . The posters seemed to be questioning the lack of women artists at the SCUA. Much to the annoyance of various male members of staff the posters used pictures by prominent male artists to highlight the underrepresentation of women artists, although the very first poster was a pastiche of the Sex Pistols' "Never Mind the Bollocks" album cover with ''Pollocks" (as in Jackson
UEA is just as backw ard as the rest in promoting women in art, writes Abi Patton
Pollock) substituted for "Bollocks." We managed to track down a student Involved with the posters who wishes to remaln anonymous. She said: "The connection is not representative of a huge proportion of our society. When over half the students In the school of Art History are female it would seem logical to place a much greater emphasis on women artists, and women in the arts, in general." She also said not to rule out the possibility of other posters appearing at a later date.
for their Idiosyncratic collecting polIty? Or the Art History department? It is difficult to say, but Jane Beckett believes that once a different art 'history' has been written- one that Includes all the women - then perhaps w omen w ill become more recognised in the Arts. As u sual it is left to the women themselves to redress t he balance. Jane Beckett said that female art historians are going to have to tackle t he p roblem of lack of representation themselves, as women ln other areas have tried to do already. "''n the broard field of cultural history women have looked at womens rep rese ntation and inv olvment ln populara.dturesuchasfilm, women's magazines and dress." As an area rich in unexplored flelds the canon of womens art history is ready to tackled by a department with over 50% female students, many of whom obviously wish to learn more about.
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