Kathryn Andrews COMFORT + BUCKET 2009
hyde or die
Kathryn Andrews Liberty 2009
Here is my greatly anticipated review of the show “Bitch is the New Black” and Honor Fraser: it looked good. Was I ever worried it wouldn’t? No. These are really talented artists, which is why I got so upset about them being referred to as bitches. I had tea with Andrews (above) the night before the opening and discussed the different connotations of words, especially when describing women. Use the word lady and you get an entirely different feel than if you had used girl which is completely different than the implications of using the term female. I still don’t like the title, I get that it’s tongue-in-cheek and I understand that it’s also meant to be shocking, but I still don’t appreciate this term being tossed around, on purpose, to describe “independent and successful women, on purpose. It sets a precedent, and a bad one.
Emma Gray (curator) and Andrews both referenced what Jerry Saltz is trying to bring into awareness about MoMA’s permanent collection (Tyler Green has a good summary of it here) and I get that. Why is it that there aren’t more women artists? Why aren’t there more shows with women? Why, in 2009, are we still fighting for equality? I can’t give a definitive answer any quicker than the next guy, it’s deep within our culture and unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be going away as quickly as would be preferred. However, I don’t that the next-step is to have a reactionary show with such an aggressive (and in my opinion immature) title. By acknowledging that there is a division, we reinforce the barrier.
Also, if the press release wasn’t complete crap, it would have been better.
If you have the opportunity, go see the show, it really is very good.
Side note: Gray kept using the word flaccid to describe the art scene right now, once to me and once to this guy, and I find that humorous. I know that it isn’t only used to describe a certain part of male anatomy, but it is commonly used to describe that particular part, so in turn she sort of described the art world as a penis. We just can’t get away from this gender thing can we? Maybe she didn’t, she is British, I haven’t been to England in a bit so maybe they use that word more freely than we do here and I just have my mind in the gutter.
