Since the first public museums opened their doors in Renaissance Rome, women artists have been grossly under-represented. Robin Held, executive director of the Seattle-based nonprofit Reel Grrls and a longtime art curator, outlined the problem in CityArts magazine:
“Gender bias is less obvious in today’s art world than in the past, but contemporary women artists still face significant disparities,” wrote Held in October. “Only 5 percent of the art on display in U.S. museums is made by women, although 51 percent of U.S. visual artists today are women. In the current edition of H.W. Janson’s textbook, History of Art, only 27 women are represented – that’s up from zero in the 1980s.”
This fall and winter Seattle Art Museum is doing its part to help right the artist gender imbalance with two bold exhibits: "Elles: Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou, Paris" and "Elles: SAM Singular Works by Seminal Women Artists." They not only fill two floors of gallery space with amazing works by women, but also include honest commentary about the disparity Held describes.
And those are two good reasons to take your kids to the museum. Perhaps in seeing the incredible depth and range of women artists presented in 25 Seattle Art Museum galleries and learning about the breadth of the artist gap, the next generation will be inspired to close it completely.
The lessons start at the top of second floor escalators where visitors enter the "Elles: SAM" exhibit. First up are the works of “modern masters” Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner and Helen Frankenhaler who cut their teeth in the era of abstract expressionism. With bold colors and strokes, the works of each of these artists is dazzling and dramatic. My family's favorite was Krasner’s Nightwatch, a brown, black and white tapestry of strokes and eyes we could feel watching us from across Gallery One.
In Gallery Two, we found works by artists we recognized – a handful of women artists who have not had a difficult time gaining museum wall space: Georgia O’Keefe, Imogen Cunningham and Margaret Bourke-White among them. My kids (ages 14 and 17) tend to like art depicting recognizable objects and so it was no surprise O’Keefe’s Cow’s Skull on Red was a favorite.
The next galleries showcase a handful of women who boldly planted their easels among a sea of men to claim the title Abstract American Artist. These pieces are followed by others from women who made their mark in the Minimal Art movement of the 1960s, who successfully melded abstract with figurative form, or who created moving works based in found objects.
We were mesmerized by Jenny Holzer’s Inflammatory Essays installation, a wall filled with colored mini-posters of writings from a range of people and from the left to right on the political spectrum. In repeating swaths of color, the words of Hitler, Mao, Trotsky and Emma Goldstein left us feeling tense, invaded and inspired – all the marks of good art. Be warned: some of the statements in this work are difficult to read and hit on some disturbing subjects (domination, fear and molestation). That said, older kids are likely to be linger here, pulled in by the simplicity and power of the piece.
Video installations in this exhibit as well as the "Elles: Pompidou" exhibit on the museum’s third floor are deeply provocative and cover a range of subjects from the representation of women in the media to questions of race and privilege. If you are looking for something to spur family conversation on these topics, in particular race, performance artist Adrian Piper’s Cornered is a good place to start.
An entire gallery is dedicated to the surreal art of Yayoi Kasuma. The pieces in this gallery are sure to be the most titillating for smaller children. From a boat created out of silver-painted gloves to a sea of creature tails rising up out of the floor to a mesh-encased, all-white breakfast nook, Kasuma’s art is powerful but also bright, funny and inviting – like a child’s playroom.
Interestingly, few of the pieces included in the "Elles: SAM" exhibit include the female form.
However, when you move upstairs to the "Elles: Pompidou" be prepared to not only see that form naked and clothed, but also a radical re-visioning of traditional female roles and depictions in art. The exhibit starts in the early years of the 20th century when, as the gallery guide informs visitors, women artists who wanted any kind of success were required to create within the “vocabulary and milieu” of the male artists of their time.
“As the century progressed,” the exhibit guide continues, “we witness the rejection of old hierarchies, a struggle for self-definition and the establishment of new forms of expression.” Full of color, humor and intimacy, the artists in this exhibit challenge sexism and define feminism in their own terms, luring in viewers with both shock as well as the established art forms – Cubism, Dada, Surrealism and more.
As you tour this exhibit with children, especially those younger than 12, be warned that several of the pieces here include nudity, overt sexuality (on canvas, film and video), and mature themes. They bring up issues of violence against women as well as subjugation of women. Such pieces are clearly marked, so if you are not ready to have a discussion with your child on such topics, steer clear. If you are, you’ll find no better forum for discussion.
The bottom line for families is that SAM curators hope to see children, male or female, in these galleries. Be sure to pick up a kids activity guide (click here if you would like to preview the guide) at the front desk so that your children have a little fun while taking in the art, history and social lessons. As the "Elles" exhibits, exhibit curators and museum staff stress, it’s not all about gender.
“The goal is neither to show that female art exists or to produce a feminist event," says "Elles: Pompidou" Curator Camille Morineau. "The goal is to show that representation of women versus men is, ultimately, no longer important.”
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Source: http://www.seattleschild.com/article/women-take-over-at-seattle-art-museum
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