For the first quarter of the year, we focused on protest art, and were assigned two readings for a socratic seminar. The first of our two readings focused more on a show in which several prominent protest artists would be appearing, detailing their works and how they served as protest art. It also introduced the term "craftivism," coined by Carrie Reichardt (#1, p.3). The second reading served as background for the Guerrilla Girls, a group of anonymous artistically-involved women who protested the sexist status quo of the art world. The two readings share a focus on "craftivism" (although the Guerrilla Girls article does not mention this term) and specifically how it is used by various activist groups. They also focus on modern artistic trends; neither article really discusses any period prior to the 1980's, so they essentially cover exactly the same period.
I was shocked to discover that the art world is still so imbalanced in terms of gender and sex today, having a similar reaction to that of the Guerrilla Girls article's author (#2, p.1). I did assume that women generally had fewer opportunities than men did in the art world, but I was horrified to discover that I was right beyond my expectations. Some of the statistics - of the artists on view at the National Gallery at the time of the article, 98% were male and 99.9% were white - simply made me shake my head (#2, p. 3). I simply could not comprehend such a large disparity. The first article was not as startling to me; rather, I found it very interesting to see that protest art was more than just posters and illegal graffiti, and examples of those that expanded beyond that stereotype. Although we have barely talked about protest art this quarter, what we have discussed is similar to the art discussed in these articles in the way that the art jumps out at you, forcing you to pay attention. I suppose that's the point of protest art anyway - forcing you to see the issue at hand rather than just letting you say "oh, dear, how horrible" and then get back to your day. Specifically, we were shown a protest piece in which clown mannequins were covered with KKK robes and then lynched in a circle around a tree in Richmond. Lynching is inherently violent and shocking, and so I was surprised to see it. However, it delivered an important message - racism is bad and needs to go away (for lack of a more elegant phrasing).
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AuthorMolly Goodman Archives
May 2019
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