MISCmedia for 10/13/99
Women of Vision

THINGS OF BEAUTY: The current issue of the architecture mag Arcade carries the cover headline, "So There Are A Lot of Female Public Artists. So What?"

The short title essay, by Carolyn Law (not yet available online as of this writing), attempts to define a universal feminine aesthetic behind the success of certain women in the realm of government-commissioned sculpture and environmental-art pieces. A philosophy that would link women's historic role in influencing the look of the home, the private built-environment, and many women's current careers in influencing the public built-environment.

Law further believes (citing Carol Gilligan's book In A Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development) in a universal female point of view.

"Women," as Law paraphrases Gilligan, "tend to define the world through an ethic of caring, take into account circumstances and relationships in our consideration of events, and think of responsibility as a response to diverse considerations rather than a limiting action defined by rules and beliefs....

"As we work in the larger community of neighborhoods, towns, and cities, the potential exists for advancing a sense of meaning and living that is grounded in a complex sense of relationships, a recognition of the need for a flowing connection, less bounded by a hierarchy of rules and beliefs. I believe that this perspective can lead us to a more creative, more cooperative mode of life."

I'd offer an additional, less ideological reason for the achievements of some of the artists profiled in the Arcade issue's other articles (Sheila Klein, Norie Sato, Linda Beaumont, Elizabeth Connor, Beliz Brother, et al.).

Artists whose work isn't really very much alike, except in its shared sensibility of reassurance and emotional safety--something the buyers of public art (always justifiably paranoid of news-media "You Paid For THIS?" pieces and of censorious conservatives) like a lot.

My theory: Commercial-gallery art is run by a business aesthetic of rugged individualism and PR hype.

Public art is bought and sold by bureaucracies, in committee meetings--a realm North American women have historically felt comfortable in (c.f. school boards, church planning committees, ladies' aid societies, et al.).

Women in other careers could study these traditional areas of strength, to help organize more female-friendly structures in their own lines of work.

This goes beyond early-'80s "networking" buzzwords.

It also shouldn't be construed into a belief that everything in every social institution would be automatically better if "Women" were ruling them (no specific ones, just generic "Women").

For one thing, even the most officially "progressive" committee- or collective-style organizations can degenerate into quite hierarchical, procedure-laden entities, or into dictatorships of the bullheaded. Certainly, anyone who's been involved with a public-art bureaucracy can tell a few horror stories about its internal politics and those participants (M or F) who exploit and abuse it.

We'll close this with remarks elsewhere in the Arcade issue by Beliz Brother:

"I make sculptures that are components of a larger spatial experience, rather than isolated elements.... I develop public art projects that respond to civic need, to a specific space, to the human condition.... Is this gender specific?"

IN OTHER NEWS: Twenty years ago, my then-UW Daily colleague and now unemployed TV raconteur John Keister wrote a mock proposal for "Homosexual Cliff Notes"--study guides what would help you write a guaranteed-"A" essay proving every major character in every major literary work was really gay. Now, someone appears to have actually written such a guide, only covering composers, musicians, and singers.

WORD-O-THE-DAY: "Gazumping."

TOMORROW: "Alternative" college radio, sold out or rescued?

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