Women Rise Up: Feminist Art Invading Major Institutions Throughout America

This week, as March approaches, women are the hot topic in the world of visual arts. Next month will mark the opening of a number of exhibitions at some of the country’s most prominent art institutions. The Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art will exhibit WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, the first international, historical exhibition to examine the foundations and legacy of feminist art produced from 1965-80. The show will feature renowned feminist artists such as Judy Chicago and Louise Bourgeois [right]. Exquisite Acts & Everyday Rebellions: 2007 CalArts Feminist Art Symposium and Exhibition March5-10, a curated exhibition of students, faculty and alumni, “seeks to produce discourse around the questions and contexts of contemporary feminist practice in art and society.” Timed to coincide with these exhibitions as well as the opening of The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art along with Global Feminisms at the Brooklyn Museum, Shared Women @ LACE, featuring a dynamic group of young feminist lesbian artists, is yet another attempt to further the conversation, bringing women, at least for the time being, to the forefront of the contemporary art scene in America.

This second coming of artistic feminism is no doubt due in part to a general economic gender disparity in today’s art market. As Zoe Williams of The Guardian explains, they are not only “staggeringly under-represented in the world's major galleries… [but] women artists working today still earn the most shaming fraction of what men earn.” In 1997, masked artist/activist group The Guerilla Girls ran a campaign against New York’s Museum of Modern Art for organizing the show Objects of Desire: the Modern Still Life, bringing to public attention the fact that out of 71 featured artists only 3 were white women and 1 a woman of color. At the 2005 Venice Biennale, they continued to shed light on the issue of gender inequality in the art world with their mega posters stating statistics such as “38% women artists in the curated group shows? Who cares that so many national pavilions are only showing men. French Pavilion has solo show by a woman? Who cares that it’s the first time in a 100 years?” While some would argue that both the status and power of women in the art market has undergone drastic changes in the last decade, few would deny the inequality highlighted by groups and individuals such as The Guerilla Girls. For as long as the Market is not advantageous to them, women artists are at a disadvantage in the art world at large. As Janet Bloch, former director of Women-Made Gallery in Chicago, points out, cases such as the “May 2004 Sotheby’s Contemporary Art auction in New York City…. Where [out of] 360 pieces of art offered for sale only sixty… were by women artists” is a common occurrence in the art market. Clearly, female artists who cannot make a living as such are most often forced to quit their practice. Although, as Bloch explains, we may be “on an uphill battle with the public, and the art world in general,” the end is not exactly in sight.

Surely, the upcoming events highlighting the works of feminist artists in the US and abroad are significant steps in this struggle. It is a chance for women curators to assert their authority, while utilizing the power of major institutions such as MOCA to promote and establish women artists as significant figures in the art world. Since having one’s work exhibited in the context of such institutions is perhaps the most effective way to boost or even renew an artistic career, one cannot help but wonder why only female artists who can be categorized as feminists are included in these exhibitions. Is the promotion of highly talented women who deal with issues outside the realm of gender and identity less significant in this “uphill battle”? While such artists may not directly address feminism, one cannot deny their place in the feminist movement at large. Here, a consideration of the notions of intention versus result in terms of artistic practice is of importance. If the goal of the artist is not to create feminist art, does that mean that the final product cannot be perceived as promoting feminist ideals? California artist Ruby Osorio , for example, insists that her work [Detained En Route by Moments of Human frailty, 2006 included here] carries no feminist agenda whatsoever. Critiques and a significant portion of her audience, on the other hand, would strongly disagree. Today, many artists refuse to be associated with any movement at all, fearing both creative and financial restrictions, escaping labels and pigeonholes. Perhaps it is not the true purpose of feminism to label and divide, but to celebrate and promote the efforts of all women.