In Terms Of

Tag: Sexism

  • Good Ol’ Boys of the Appalachian Connection

    This week the College Art Association is holding its 104th Annual Conference in Washington, DC. In recognition of the event, In Terms Of is republishing four reviews of sessions from CAA’s 1979 conference, which also took place in the nation’s capital, on topics still relevant to the art world today.

    Recurring Regionalism: The Southern Rim
    Friday, February 2, 1979
    67th Annual Conference, College Art Association, Washington Hilton Hotel, Monroe Room, Washington, DC

    Moderator: William R. Dunlap
    Panelists: John Alexander, John Canaday, William Christenberry, Larry Edwards, Jim Roche, and James Surls

    Cynthia Navaretta, “Good Ol’ Boys of the Southern Rim” Women Artists News 5, no. 1 (May 1979): 11

    John Canaday, for those of you too young to remember, used to be senior art critic on the New York Times, and hence, some felt, the most powerful art critic in the country. I remember a Sunday column of his about a woman in the art department of Appalachian [State] University who had put together an exhibition so fine that he praised it unstintingly. This was particularly impressive to a New Yorker because at the time the very name of the university conjured up an isolated pocket of insularity where it was hardly expected art would be taught, let alone exhibited—and abstract art at that. Canaday’s Appalachian connection appeared again at College Art [Association], as we saw him on the panel, “Recurring Regionalism: The Southern Rim.” (The title came from an earlier conference of the same name.)

    Moderator William R. Dunlap of Appalachian [State] University acted like a suave cosmopolitan—that is, until he exhibited all the worst characteristics the rest of the country might attribute to New Yorkers. He was rude, egotistical, insulting, arrogant, uncaring, and crude. He also made a great show of swilling bourbon from a prominently displayed bottle. Typical of this Southern gentleman’s behavior was his reply to Elsa Fine’s question from the floor about the absence of women, or even one good ol’ girl, on the panel with the good ol’ boys. It was OK, Dunlap said, because there were two homosexuals on the panel.

    Having arrived late, I missed the opening presentation of slides, but I was in time to hear John Alexander entertain the audience with anecdotes from the past year which he had spent traveling the country in the role of famous artist, accepting recognition and success. He declared himself on the side of minority artists (Chicanos) but definitely against New York lady art critics with briefcases. (One had spent no more than three minutes scanning his show before writing a several-page magazine article.) He was bemused by Lions Club audiences who, in Lions Club tradition, roared approval of his witticisms rather than applauding. His other adventures ranged the country both sociologically and geographically. Alexander enchanted the CAA audience in general, the women less so.

    James Surls, apparently the only member of the panel concerned with human values, was generous in crediting the Dallas Women’s Co-op with opening up the art scene there. They did all the work, he said—politicking, letter writing, and the rest—that made it possible to exhibit art in Dallas outside the museum. He said he himself “rode in on the coat tails.”

    Discussion continued as, by and large, a series of rambling non sequiturs. Members of the audience seemed to feel compelled to make statements themselves, like at a revival meeting, and their random statements, usually irrelevant to the discussion, prompted other remotely connected observations. One item surfacing in this manner was the moderator’s statement that New York had “closed down for young artists.” He attributed that to Marcia Tucker’s departure from the Whitney. (Maybe it was the bourbon.)

    This profundity was followed by an editor of Art Voices South—an expensively glossy magazine dedicated to praise of Southern artists—who got to his feet in the audience to say that the magazine covers twenty-two Southern states and is trying to attract an audience not accustomed to going to galleries. The panel responded very warmly to this and the subject of regional art came up—whether the South was producing any, whether any Southern state had ever produced any. Washington, DC, got some credit here, specifically the Washington Color School, but that was quickly dismissed by a panelist—Canaday perhaps—as a “suburban” expression of New York Abstract Expressionism.

    Well, things just moved along. Soon Alexander spoke in recognition of the people of Iran—he felt they should be honored for “standing up and getting rid of a cancerous tyrant.” (This was the week of street riots in Iran.) Dunlap even managed an insulting joke on the subject. Then Margaret Gorove, chairperson of the art department at the University of Mississippi—and former teacher of moderator Dunlap—got to her feet to say, first, that a proper grad of Ole Miss would have kept the bottle in a paper bag, and second, to describe the very real problems of women artists in the South. She pointed out that, as is well known, women do well in blind-juried shows but aren’t included in invitationals, not having had the exposure or experience.

    Moderator Dunlap’s response to this serious and impassioned statement was, “Let me say, I love your hair, and the color of your dress.” Gorove, resigned, even gentle, replied, “You haven’t changed a bit.” Dunlap then felt it necessary to go on record with, “I make no apology for the sexual make-up of this panel.”

    Alexander added quickly that he himself is concerned with the problems of women artists and is aware of prejudice against them and minorities. But, he claimed, the previous night’s panel. “Modern Art and Economics,” had been “all big names, all men, and no one brought the issue up there.” Aggrieved at what he saw as discrimination against the Southern panel, Alexander wanted to pursue the topic. “I recommend we continue and go for the throat” (which throat he didn’t say).

    Surls mentioned that, having found the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston without a director, curator, or scheduled exhibition, he had grabbed the free slot to do a show of one hundred Texas artists (Fire!). He may have intended to say women as well as men were included, but never got to it, because next came Robert Pincus-Witten from the audience.

    Bitingly sarcastic about Art Voices South’s self-congratulatory tone and self-serving ways, Pincus-Witten said that “without a critical voice for the Southern Rim you’ll be back on this panel continuing this conversation for the rest of your lives.” Only the development of a critical voice can bring Southern artists recognition from the rest of the country, he said.

    Canaday didn’t see it that way. “American art would have been better off without all the known critics,” said the former known critic. He quoted from an essay by Harold Rosenberg: “Artists are faced with a wall of opinion—a formulated taste dictating the direction of art.” Canaday advised us that “what is really needed is a buying public for the arts.” (An exemplary opinion, certainly.)

    Next it was Irving Sandler’s turn. Sandler said from the audience that there was “more energy, more wit in this panel” than any he had heard in New York. That seemed like a good time to leave.

    In Terms Of count: unknown.

    Source

    Written by Cynthia Navaretta, “Good Ol’ Boys of the Appalachian Connection” was originally published in Women Artists News 5, no. 1 (May 1979): 11; and reprinted in Judy Seigel, ed., Mutiny and the Mainstream: Talk That Changed Art, 1975–1990 (New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 1992), 120–21. In Terms Of thanks Midmarch Arts Press for permission to republish this review.

     

  • Good for a Girl

    This essay was partly written during a November 2015 residency at the Luminary in Saint Louis, Missouri.

    Women in Music
    Thursday, November 19, 2015
    The Luminary, Saint Louis, MO

    April Fulstone (second from left) describes her experiences with sexism in the DJ world (photograph by Christopher Howard)

    How do you deal with sexism in the music industry, personally and professionally? This question from Liz Deichmann, operations and event coordinator at the Luminary, came halfway through the panel “Women in Music.” April Fulstone, known professionally as DJ Agile One, said that her experiences spinning records for fifteen years, specializing for a while in hip hop, have been plagued by “unintentional” sexism, such as comments about her ability to transport two Technics 1200 turntables, which weigh fifty pounds each with a case, by herself. At one venue, an older man was impressed that she was able to set up her equipment on her own.

    Syhrea Conaway, a black multi-instrumentalist who works under the name Syna So Pro, cannot separate sex and race: a white woman or black man is less likely to experience what she has. A case in point: after playing with a bluesy band at Ten Mile House, a man remarked to her, “You know what? When you first walked in here, I was like, ‘What’s this black bitch doing here?’ But now that I’ve seen you play, I respect you.” At a venue, she regularly needs to assert that she is actually in the band, that she isn’t the merch girl, and that she isn’t loading in equipment to get free admission to the show. Conaway acknowledged that she will always be “questioned by my mere presence.” The most devalued compliment of all, she said, is being told “you’re good for a girl.”

    Laura Sisal, a partner in the Ready Room, a mid-sized concert venue that can accommodate up to 750 people, must regularly persuade touring bands to accept her authority. “It’s extra pressure on you,” she said. “Do I bite my tongue or do I decide to fight this battle?” Often it’s a lose-lose situation when she stands up for herself—but why should she even have to? Christine Sanley, director of AAA radio promotion for co-sign, an artist-development agency for radio promotion, licensing, marketing, and brand strategy, is regularly asked “What does your boss think?” when she presents her company’s final decisions to others.

    Five successful women in music, from left to right: Christine Sanley, Syhrea Conaway, April Fulstone, Laura Sisal, and Liz Deichmann (photograph by Christopher Howard)

    Deichmann stated that “Women in Music” was held in response to “The Future of Music,” a discussion that took place at the Luminary in February 2015. Like that event, “Women in Music” had a local focus on the Saint Louis scene, yet the five panelists—all women, unlike the earlier, all-male event—shared personal anecdotes and experiences that, for better and worse, many across the country can relate to. Deichmann, who is also a musician and a promoter for Secret Sound Society and St. Louis Arts Project, began the conversation by asking how each woman first got involved with music and about their professional role models. Her questions, while job interview-y at times, garnered interesting and diverse responses.

    Promotional flyer for a Clothesline event

    A former DJ at Washington University, Sanley came from the Omaha suburbs and entered the music scene surrounding the band Cursive and the record label Saddle Creek. Conaway began playing music at age seven, breaking free from her classical training at age twenty. Her mother played violin, which she took up herself, along with guitar, bass, keyboards, and now drums. A formative experience for her was watching TLC’s video for “Baby-Baby-Baby.” An Iowa City misfit, Fulstone lived for a while in Detroit and now runs a monthly party in Saint Louis called the Clothesline. A child of the 1990s, she admired Björk, Kim Gordon, Courtney Love, and Lauren Hill, and later M.I.A. “I love unique women who have cross-cultural sounds and backgrounds,” said Fulstone, who is Asian. Sisal has played in bands (organ, piano, guitar), worked for music labels, and studied audio production.1 Her peers include radio professionals, publicists, and entertainment lawyers. A foundational moment for her was watching the music video for No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak,” in which the singer Gwen Stefani looked feminine, tough, and beautiful all at once. Sisal also respects Sade for dropping in and out of the music business whenever she wants.

    What are your biggest successes and challenges? As a kid Conaway performed at Carnegie Hall twice as a choir member—she is an incredibly gifted vocalist. Another highlight happened earlier this year, when four members of the contemporary chamber ensemble Alarm Will Sound performed as her backing band at the Sheldon Concert Hall in Saint Louis. Conaway claimed to be bad at promotion and social media, but her Facebook page looks up to date. Marketing is the fake version of you, Fulstone said. “I’m bad at being fake,” she added, noting that some music promoters actually want fakeness and femininity.

    Sanley doubted she can eclipse facilitating a collaboration between Boy George and the Black Lips—they covered T. Rex’s “Bang a Gong.” Her biggest challenge, going from college radio to AAA, has been talking on the phone to old white dudes, persuading them to change their programming. Mainstream radio, Sanley noted, plays about 30 percent music by female recording artists. I wondered how changes in music business—such as corporate media consolidation, the collapse of the record industry, and the decline of radio in favor of satellite transmission and digital streaming—have changed gender relations in the industry.

    Sisal, a self-described overachiever and perfectionist, pronounced that opening a concert venue—something she has wanted to do since seventh grade—was both an accomplishment and a challenge, especially for someone lacking an academic business or management background. “You don’t really have any type of instruction manual as to how to do this,” Sisal pointed out. Be patient and go with the flow, this Zen master advised. “If my thirteen-year-old self could see me now, she’d be freaking out.”

    Do the panelists self-identify as an artist or as a woman artist? “People are interested, a little more, if you’re a woman,” Fulstone responded. Conaway said the press perpetually touts her as a “one-woman musical enigma,” sends up the notion of a one-man band. “You want to be faceless, so to speak,” Sisal insisted. “You just want the music to do the talking for you.” But appearances matter. She explained two paths to success for female performers: “There are certain artists that are fighting hard to be recognized as an artist, not a woman artist. And then there’s other people taking the approach of ‘I want to use my sexuality to get noticed and then once I’m famous, once I have your attention, I’ll let you know who I really am.’” Sisal finds that approach to be counterintuitive—it doesn’t have to be this way.

    Conaway believes that “to slut it up a little bit” is a larger media problem that spills over into academic, athletic, and political life, where women’s achievements aren’t recognized or valued. Sanley argued that it’s transparent when a woman pimps herself, citing Du Blonde’s record cover for Welcome Back to Milk: “This woman, she’s like ‘Hey, it’s me with this banging merkin, and this really rad full coat.’” Du Blonde gets discredited, Sanley explained, for “doing her thing and embodying herself and being comfortable in her own skin.”2 Responding to Sisal’s comments, Sanley said, “It’s a clear line between someone going through the machine and getting oversexualized, and someone else just trying to take hold of their own body and sexuality and getting called out for it in a different way.” Look at Nicki Minaj, Fulstone quipped, “that’s what you have to do to be successful.” She also noted that fans of hip hop must often overlook a performer’s misogyny because of his talent. As a contrast, near the panel’s conclusion Deichmann recalled that she dressed masculine or androgynous on her band’s show days to make it easier to carry equipment, climb ladders, and kick stage divers off the stage.

    How does Saint Louis compare to other cities? New York is a competitive hustle no matter what sex you are, Sanley recalled of her three years there. On returning to Saint Louis, she expected to find a tighter-knit community of women but didn’t. In New York, she felt more connected to the scene, less so here—though she recognized that her job in radio has a national scope. Conaway bemoaned that indie rock is the only supported genre in town, especially by publications, at the expense of hip hop and R&B. Band ethics usually dictate that no performer leaves until everyone has played, she added, yet groups in Saint Louis don’t support the whole bill like they do in other cities. Fulstone found a strong scene in Detroit, where the music comes first, but in Saint Louis, it’s who you know. The racially segregated city is also a problem, she said. Sisal recalled that, in 2006 and 2007, you’d see members of other bands in your audience. They’re not there now. This may have to do with aging, the ebbs and flows of the scene, or both.

    Syhrea Conway (center) prefers to support musicians on their merit, not their sex (photograph by Christopher Howard)

    Any mentoring advice? Sanley advised, “Don’t be afraid, make connections, reach out to people, and support each other.” Emphasizing hard work, Conaway advocated setting goals and being honest with yourself and why you’re doing this. The panelists agreed that programming kids differently—with toys, for example—will help reduce sexism and change the music industry in twenty to thirty years. Deichmann acknowledged the power in collective action and support and, on a personal note, realized that tonight was the first time she and Sanley had talked about these issues, despite being longtime friends.

    A male audience member noticed an increasing female presence in the noise, punk, and loud music scenes, identifying Savages, Melt Banana, and Pharmakon as examples. Sanley agreed but pointed out that a member of Perfect Pussy was ridiculed for writing a tour diary for Vogue—for some it’s not acceptable to be a badass punk interested in fashion and feminine things. Meredith Graves of that band wrote a tour diary for Elle in 2014, but maybe Sanley was referring to the “Thrift Diaries” that Emily Panic of Foxygen wrote for Jezebel. Progress is being made, she concluded, but there’s a long way to go—especially when she relayed a story about how an unnamed band’s management dropped an all-female four-person group after replacing two members with men. Fulstone proclaimed that seeing women in power positions in venues, as organizers of programming, demonstrates significant progress and a positive model for younger people.

    For further reading (photograph by Christopher Howard)

    The contentious discussion of artist and woman artist resurfaced. Conaway brought up the quality argument often heard from men: “You’re not really that good at what you do, but you are getting a lot of support because you are a woman. That’s not okay with me. How about you support a person on the merit of what they’re doing?” Conaway opposed using sexuality to compensate for the lack of talent.3 From the audience, the artist (and former Luminary resident) Tori Abernathy found the staunch agreement of being an artist (and not a woman artist) to be surprising. If gender is removed from the narrative, she argued, history gets rewritten with men being in charge. Women should get documented and make history their own. Putting that aside, Abernathy was curious about how women communicate their strengths, such as the leeway (white) women have when dealing with police and fire marshals—using prejudice to their advantage. Sisal proposed empathy and compassion. Sanley noted that a person’s sex is more intrinsically related to music than to art: an artwork or style can more easily defy gender stereotypes, while a woman onstage or heard on a record cannot.

    In Terms Of count: 0.

    1 Laura Sisal and Syhrea Conaway played together in Stella Mara, a shoegaze-inspired band, in the late 2000s.

    2 Beth Jeans Houghton, who performs as Du Blonde, discussed the cover in Rachel Brodsky, “Du Blonde Pushes Dirt under Her Nails on ‘Welcome Back to Milk’,” Spin, May 12, 2015.

    3 April Fulstone said something similar about her DJ career a few years ago: “‘I think it was a big novelty,’ she says. ‘People were really pushing me to take gigs, even before I was ready. They really wanted to see a girl out there. But it was important for me to be respected for my skill and not thrown in there because I’m a female.’” See Kevin C. Johnson, “St. Louis Women in Hip-Hop Struggle to Break Through,” Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, July 26, 2012.

    Read

    Natasha Patel, “Gender Inequality in the Music Industry,” Music Business Journal 11, no. 4 (October 2015): 1, 3.

    Taylor Pittman, “This Is the Kind of Bullsh*t You Face as a Woman in the Music Industry,” Huffpost Women, August 27, 2015.

    Dianca Potts, “DJing while Female in NYC: ‘I Can’t Believe You’re a Chick…’,” Village Voice, October 8, 2015.

    Lindsay Zoladz, “Not Every Girl Is a Riot Grrrl,” Pitchfork, November 16, 2011.

  • The Last Woman’s Panel?

    Women Artists: What Have They Got and What Do They Want?
    Monday, March 31, 1975
    Artists Talk on Art, New York

    Despite Barbara Zucker’s accusations of “boring” or maybe because of them—this was a lively event, and the two responses stirred things up a bit more. Perhaps now that we have lived another sixteen years, anyone of us would respond differently. For Zucker’s afterthoughts, expressed at, yes, another woman’s panel, also at A.I.R [Gallery], see the Afterword.1

    Moderator: Corinne Robins
    Panelists: Joyce Kozloff, Barbara Zucker, Nancy Spero, Phoebe Helman, Howardena Pindell, and Mary Beth Edelson

    Judy Seigel, “Women Artists: What Have They Got and What Do They Want,” Women Artists Newsletter 1 (November 1975): 1.

    I think the best thing A.I.R. could do would be to have men. I hope there won’t be any more women’s panels and I hope this is the last one I’m on. You get what you want in this world by surprise, by doing the unexpected. They expect us to continue the way we are…. I don’t think feminism is the real world any more. The point was to get women artists taken seriously. Women still aren’t as equal as men, but I don’t think women’s galleries are helpful any more. I don’t think it helps to be in A.I.R.2

    —Barbara Zucker

    That statement came midway in a brisk discussion by six well-known women of the art world, speaking to a full house at the Soho Exhibition Center, an audience which included the video eye of Ingrid and Bob Wiegand, and a noticeable proportion of men.

    Moderator Corinne Robins began by noting that the six women artists “all benefited from the women’s movement, as every woman has. But what happens when ‘The Year of the Woman’ is over? Feminism is getting to be a tired issue to many people.” (Robins’s added, however, that “the abuses are still there.”)

    The six women showed slides of their work and described their artistic concerns, which could have been an evening in itself. The perception of six disparate and developed sensibilities was already a dense experience. The transition from Nancy Spero’s Body Count and Torture in Chile to “How much has the women’s movement influenced the direction of your painting?” was as difficult as Spero could have wished. But then the discussion swung into matters of practical, political and social concern, and the visual experience faded.

    Howardena Pindell: Without the women’s movement I wouldn’t have shown so soon. If I weren’t part of the gallery [A.I.R.], I don’t know if I’d be showing yet.

    Mary Beth Edelson: I was dealing with feminist subject matter before the movement, but I don’t think I understood why. Now I’m dealing in an overt way with feminist subject matter—pulled out and clarified by the movement.

    Phoebe Helman: I think the women’s movement, even though it was helpful in some ways, has nothing to do with my work. I haven’t been affected in the studio at all.

    Zucker: It’s much easier for the work to grow if it’s out there being shown….

    Nancy Spero: The feminist movement won’t fizzle out. We could never go back to the old standards. The new knowledge is too pervasive … it’s in our bones.

    Helman: It took outrageous things like dirty Tampax at the Whitney to get attention—then, hopefully, the pendulum swings.3

    Joyce Kozloff: I can’t imagine what my work or my life would be like if I hadn’t gone through the women’s movement. My work and the movement are very connected—they developed together. I see many feminist women whose work has grown, expressing their own growth and new confidence and sense of themselves as women.

    Robins: Some of the work in the Women Choose Women show [1973] struck me as very timid. Then those women got more exposure. That gave them the guts to take chances—to be less timid, no longer second-hand artists.

    Will there continue to be a need for A.I.R. and women’s galleries?

    Spero: Eventually there will be a reconciliation, but we still need outposts of independence.

    Edelson: I still see a need for A.I.R. and Soho 20, but we need to go on to another plateau. [U]ntil we integrate, we won’t have the main money and the main power.

    Helman: It’s a heterosexual world. There comes a time when this kind of support becomes a crutch.

    Spero: It’s not a heterosexual world. The art world is still male dominated. To join the system is to join the same old stuff. I’d still be excluded from commercial galleries…. There are still under 23 percent women in the Whitney Annual. We still talk about “good artists” according to male standards. Our standards for all artwork are male controlled.

    Robins: As a writer and reviewer, I have more chance to speak and write about women’s art because AI.R. and Soho 20 exist…. In 1973, as a critic, I thought Women Choose Women was a major disaster.

    Zucker: It’s time for a major museum to do a major show of women—not one started and paid for by the women—but started and paid for by the museum. [Quoting Vivian Gornick in the Village Voice]: “No one of us has the truth or the word or the only view or the only way….” It would be very comfortable for me to still be with A.I.R. I feel very fragile now. I left with great difficulty, but it was very important for me to leave.

    Audience: The world is so sick, it seems to me our only hope is bastions of what we’d like it to be—don’t corrupt yourself with that other “reality.”

    Helman: Don’t talk about Utopia! Are you aware of the politics that went on with the Women Choose Women show? That was politics!

    Zucker: It takes a great toll on an artist to always have to do everything yourself, to schlepp, and call, and carry and photograph…. To survive, and do well, a gallery needs a lot of money. We got certain grants at A.I.R., but those were tokens.

    Robins: But that’s part of every cooperative gallery.

    Edelson: I like doing some of the work you object to, but I’d like to have someone do a little of it. I have a dealer too, but he makes so many incredible mistakes…. It’s nice to have a little control.

    Man in Audience: What is women’s art?

    Panel: Art done by a woman.

    Man: Renoir dealt with the subject of women. Is he a woman artist?

    Spero: That’s a male’s view. [W]omen are supposed to conform to his view. We want to see how we see ourselves.

    Judy Seigel, “Women Artists: What Have They Got and What Do They Want,” Women Artists Newsletter 1 (November 1975): 2.

    My first comment is that, while the men never seemed to complain about the absence of women during all those years of “men only” galleries, many women found something missing in women’s galleries almost from the start. Is that because it’s a man’s world, or a basic difference in the needs of men and women?

    But the gallery in question, A.I.R., seems to have had a rather remarkable and nearly instantaneous success, considering that it is a cooperative and was initiated without “stars” or powerful patronage. It earned the respect and attention of the art world and the media from its inception and has had consistent review coverage that could be the envy of many a commercial gallery, let alone cooperative. Many of its artists have achieved prominence in the “establishment” and/or moved on from A.I.R. to “important” commercial galleries…. What do women want?

    As for feminism being a “tired issue”—American culture does use up and throwaway issues as rapidly as last week’s TV Guide. But feminism seems to have more than a few twists and turns left before subsiding into its long-prophesied demise.

    A Panelist’s Reply

    Panelist Kozloff wrote a rebuttal to panelist Zucker, which ran in the same issue as the panel report. Aside from reviewing the controversy, which was a most urgent one at the time, Kozloff’s commentary is interesting today for having forecast much art of the ‘80s.

    I felt pained to hear copanelist Barbara Zucker say that “women’s panels are boring,” “women’s shows are boring,” and “women’s galleries are boring.”

    Clearly feminism is not boring and women’s art is not boring—quite the contrary. Then why are these attitudes suddenly around? One reason is that the approaches to talking about and showing women’s art have become repetitious and unimaginative. Why is it that women artists are always expected to talk only about “Is There a Feminine/Feminist Sensibility?” or “Do Women Artists Want to Be Part of the System or Make Alternatives?”—with panels divided between those who say “yes” and those who say “no,” so there is no possibility for the development of ideas and theory?

    I have observed that women who have been through consciousness-raising and the political activities of the last five years have become strong, highly individualized artists. Their work reflects (in many different ways) a sense of personal and group identity. I see new kinds of imagery and content emerging: exploration of female sexuality, reflections on personal history, fresh approaches to materials, new concepts of space, a reexamination of the decorative (and the so-called decorative) arts, a reaching out toward non-Western sources and a nonpaternalistic attitude toward the “primitive,” direct political approaches to art making, and art which consciously parodies male stereotypes.

    These are all vital subjects and none of them precludes the others. What is exciting to me is the diversity of ways in which women’s art is emerging. We should not be confined to generalities and tired rhetoric. Let’s talk about the art and the ideas around the art.

    —Joyce Kozloff

    Letter to the Editor

    Over the years we received a number of angry letters-to-the-editor about such matters as having said a speaker was hard to understand or having run a cover cartoon in the style of a male artist. Therefore Zucker’s letter seemed only mildly contentious. In any event, we duly printed it—and my reply:

    Barbara Zucker, Judy Seigel, and Sylvia Sleigh, “Letters to the Editor: What Do Women Want?,” Women Artists Newsletter 1 (December 1975): 2.

    I would like to clarify some points which were not accurately presented in the last issue of Women Artists News [“Women Artists: What Have They Got and What Do They Want”]. I was quoted by Judy Seigel as saying “You get what you want in this world by surprise, by doing the unexpected.” Out of context, it sounds absurd. I amplified the remark to explain that (in political circumstances) guerrilla tactics, or constantly changing actions, are often those which produce results. I also said that I feel Feminism in Art has become a safe harbor, not only for the artists themselves, but for those who criticize it, or, even more reprehensibly, dismiss it. It has become an easy, predictable target. I do not believe our strengths will be reinforced by staying in this polarized oasis. Rather, I feel one’s individual tenacity and visibility in the male and female world is more relevant.

    I wish to also bring to light a fact Seigel excluded from her discussion of A.I.R., which is that, as a cofounder of the gallery, I know quite well it did not have the “remarkable and nearly instantaneous success” it allegedly enjoys without one solid year of slavish preparatory ground work and devotion on the part of all twenty women who first comprised its stable. In other words, A.I.R. didn’t “happen,” it was “made.” I do not know what kind of effort women must now make in order to push for continued change and recognition. I do know that in comfortably pursuing the familiar, we talk only to ourselves.

    —Barbara Zucker

    Editor’s Reply

    “You get what you want by surprise, etc.,” doesn’t sound absurd to me, in or out of context. The amplifications Zucker supplies are, I think, implicit. It’s not possible to repeat a two-hour panel verbatim.

    As for her second point, I never meant, and doubt if the reader would think I meant, that A.I.R.’s success was unearned. I meant rather to admire a notable achievement. Obviously a project of this order, whether a gallery or a publication (even, for that matter, dinner-on-the-table), requires endless work, much of which never meets the eye.

    So far as I know, by what I consider the relevant standards, A.I.R. has had an exemplary success. My question was whether Zucker’s expectations for such an endeavor might not be unrealistic. My guess is that a mixed, or men-only gallery of similar provenance, would not have fared so well.

    In Terms Of count: unknown.

    1 Judy Seigel, “Afterword,” in Mutiny and the Mainstream: Talk That Changed Art, 1975–1990 (New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 1992), 323–25.

    2 Howardena Pindell, Mary Beth Edelson, and Nancy Spero were members of the women’s co-op gallery, A.I.R. Barbara Zucker was a former member. This statement of Zucker’s was a shocker at the time. It wasn’t just that A.I.R. was getting much attention. [See above.] The love affair between the women artist’s community and A.I.R. was still going strong—much of the sympathetic art world, male and female, convened regularly at A.I.R. panels and openings. In retrospect, Zucker’s remarks suggest that what she had in mind was a larger effect than, so far as I know, has been obtainable in a co-op, whatever its membership.

    3 Lucy Lippard noted in a subsequent letter to Women Artists News that those were clean tampons.

    Source

    Written by Judy Seigel, “The Last Woman’s Panel?” was originally published in Women Artists Newsletter 1, no. 6 (November 1975): 1–2, 5. Barbara Zucker’s letter and Seigel’s response were originally published in Women Artists Newsletter 1, no. 7 (December 1975): 2. Both texts were reprinted in Judy Seigel, ed., Mutiny and the Mainstream: Talk That Changed Art, 1975–1990 (New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 1992), 18–20. In Terms Of thanks Midmarch Arts Press for permission to republish this review.