WOMEN STILL FIGHT FOR ACCEPTANCE THIRD Edition

• Published in: The Boston globe
• Main Author: Temin, Christine
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston, Mass Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC 05.03.1989
• Subjects: Art exhibits; Art galleries & museums; Artists; Contemporary art; Fine arts; Men; Women; New York; United Kingdom > UK; United States > US; England
• ISSN: 0743-1791

Interviews last week with three Boston feminist artists -- Joanne Rothschild, Susan Schwalb and Leslie Sills, all in mid-career, all making strong, individualistic work -- indicated that things have improved somewhat here in recent years. But the artists weren't quite sure why, except that galleries may find art by women more salable because it is generally less expensive than art by men. Five years ago, Rothschild compiled statistics that showed that only 20 percent of the artists exhibited in Boston's leading contemporary galleries were women. By now, that figure has, again on average, nearly doubled. Of the dozen commercial galleries polled -- those generally recognized as the city's best for contemporary work -- Alpha, with three women out of a roster of 11 artists, and Stavaridis, with five out of 16, were the only ones where women accounted for fewer than a third of the artists. At the other end of the scale is Akin, with seven women out of 11 artists. Rothschild cautions, "As things get more prestigious, there are fewer women. The more important the show is, the fewer of us you'll see." In the American half of last year's much-hyped BiNational show at the Museum of Fine Arts and the Institute of Contemporary Art, six of 28 artists were women. In the German half, there was only one woman -- Rosemarie Trockel -- out of 18 artists. In the more modest "Currents" show now at the ICA, two of seven artists are women. In the ICA's forthcoming "Boston Now" show, seen by some as a token nod to "local" artists who are not shown in any quantity the rest of the year, four out of 10 artists are women. Leslie Sills is one of them; Sills thinks the high percentage of women is partly due to this year's "Boston Now" show being devoted to work in glass and clay, less competitive media that "don't have the aura of painting." While fewer than half the artists in all these ICA shows are women, the ICA reports that women account for 57 percent of both its members and its visitors. Since 1971, when art historian Linda Nochlin wrote her groundbreaking essay, "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" women artists have acted to change their second-class status, but it has been slow going: Not until 1986 did the standard college text, H. W. Janson's "The History of Art," include women. Women artists' activism has varied. Schwalb has worked hard with the Women's Caucus for Art and other politicized groups and believes she's lost out on teaching jobs because of it. Rothschild has aggressively researched the Boston gallery scene. The Guerrilla Girls, who remain anonymous so they can speak their minds without fear of retribution from galleries and museums, fight with humor. They wear gorilla masks when giving their statistics-based presentation around the country or plastering SoHo with statistics-laden posters in the dead of night. Those statistics are many and compelling. For example: Less than 10 percent of the artists in the grand-scale 1985 Museum of Modern Art survey of international art were women. That show led directly to the formation of Guerrilla Girls.