Women + Art

I have previously groused about the dearth of women at Web conferences. This topic, surrounding the very same conference I dinged, was later picked up by SNAG Mike Monteiro first on Vox and then later on Mule Design’s blog. (Note to participants in that thread: Carson had PLENTY of time to round out their roster, I sent them an email in early August calling attention to their all male all the time speaker roster.)

Enough about women and web geekery though, now let’s pay a visit to my own backyard, the art one. Jerry Saltz recently wrote about the paucity of female artists in New York’s Fall season solo shows. This is something he talks about quite a bit (that fact echoed across the blogosphere as often as the article has since been cited). Tyler Green linked it, Dennis Christie retorted with his gallery DCKT’s artist roster which is 40% women (and used to be more). Edna V. Harris is militant and mad (and I don’t blame her) about Programmatic Exclusion.

I’m mad too, but I’m more than even: My artists roster is over 50% female. My inaugural exhibition featured not one, not two, but THREE talented female photgraphers. Current show? Yes, a woman by the name of Holly Lynton. My upcoming exhibitions (still TBA, stay tuned)? Mostly women.

What makes me nuts is the fact that we still need to talk about this shit. I don’t want the jb to be a “women’s gallery”. (And trust me, I’ve been asked if it was and it’s been referred to as such a bunch of times.) I don’t need to try hard to include women. It’s easy, because guess what? There are loads of talented female artists, and my network has grown organically from my very first exhibition.

I know it’s not effortless - I need to try a bit harder to diversify my roster otherwise. There are loads of talented [insert racial/ethnic/sexual minority here] artists out there. Being white, straight and female can limit my horizions, so I need to stretch a little harder to make diversity happen. But, y’know, it’s good for me, the stretching.