Friday, December 04, 2009

On Being a Mother and an Artist

70-80% of art students are women.

70-80% of art in galleries is by men.

Why?

4 comments so far. What are your thoughts?

David Moles said...

Because 70%-80% of success as a gallery artist is the kind of irrepressible dickheadedness that our society encourages in men and discourages in women?

David Constantine said...

I think there's truth to DM's point. Success in art galleries has a lot more to do with being "cool" and "hip" and "alpha"--a particular set of social skills/strategies-- than it does with the kind of art you create. Which is one reason why most art galleries bore the fuck out of me. (go on, ask me how I really feel)

Kameron Hurley said...

I think it's the same as with the written word - men's art is just considered more "serious," and therefore, more worth notice. The hip/alpha part certainly also comes into play - there's a lot of "who you know" in artistic communities, and if it tends to be guys in charge of picking what paintings go in (like... what stories go into magazines/anthologies heh heh heh), it does tend to skew what gets picked. "I just like certain paintings/subjects," is all fine and well until you realize that everything that has to do with female experience is missing.

Jackie M. said...

I think "who you know" and "who you aspire to be" has a lot more to do with "hip" and "cool" than actual behavior, actually.