NASTY WOMEN ARE IN ART HISTORY TOO.

As some of you guys know who read this blog, (hello to my sister Sam) I am a curator and one of the founders of Nasty Women North East. We held the first Nasty Women Exhibition in the UK (how fancy!!) We also were the first group to expand the Nasty Women brand into the first Nasty Women Conference. Organised by the other founder of Nasty Women, Lady Kitt. Kitt organized an incredible conference, with many major players from the Nasty Women movement. Founder of the WHOLE movement, Roxanne Jackson, Founder of Nasty Women Amsterdam Airco Caravan. Sarah Maple, award-winning British artists who have been involved in many of the Nasty Women Movements. I curated two exhibitions to accompany this amazing event. The whole thing was a total success!! I am sure a blog will come of it!

One major issue which kept coming up over and over again was where are the women artists in art history. Why are they still not being talked about? Why are they not getting studied in university alongside the male artists? In colleges or schools? This needs to change, I remember being in university and we had one lesson about, name as many female artists you can. THAT WAS IT!! Until we did about performance art in just one other lecture, women were not really brought up. Is this because they weren't around. BULLSHIT!! Where there has been male artists there has been female, you just have to find them yourselves because they are not in the history books.


I was lucky to talk at the conference and at one point I tried to think of female cubist artists………………………………………………..

I could not think of one!!

 And I am a feminist curator with a degree in art history. 

So here I am on my blog, which I haven't touched for a while because I have been a busy bee with all this amazing curator malarkey. I do this to educate myself but if anyone else gets educated, it's a juicy bonus!

So my next season of blogs is going to be called  -

NASTY WOMEN ARE IN ART HISTORY TOO 

Cubist female artists, the forgotten members. 

MAW.

Because they were just forgotten.

I have not done a blog for a while, just because I have been so busy doing my own curatorial programs. I started this blog because I couldn't get my ideas out there so it's great that I am a busy bee now and hopefully making a difference. Plus the only person who reads this is my beautiful supportive sister. So if anyone else comes across this thank you!!! So this blog is going to be short and sweet. This blog is all about the trouble of having just one woman artist in the collection (or at least one artists being shown).

I recently went on a beautiful holiday to Sorrento, we went because my amazing best friend was getting married. The day was so beautiful and one I will cherish forever.

The next day I and my partner went to Naples for the day. It didn't help that it was hot as hell and with our pasty white skin, we just couldn't take it. So we started our adventure into Naples on a non air con train pack full of tourists and locals. I should have loved it because I love to people watch but that gets really old when you're sticking to a seat that is so uncomfortable, but you don't want to give it up cause the alternative is having many sweaty bodies pressed up against you and nowhere to move (trust me I did it two days before to Pompeii and I thought death would have been a sweeter deal). Of course, I am being dramatic, but you try that train ride for an hour and a half!! We finally got to Naples, unfortunately, I was not impressed. I don't want this to be a hate letter to Naples but all the things you have heard about Naples are true.

The only reason I wanted to go to Naples was to see the National Museum of Capodimonte, Naples. This extremely impressive art museum was sitting on top of a hill in Naples. I can tell you this now, walking up to that museum, in a playsuit was not a fun experience. You have not known struggle until you have tried to take a playsuit off with the sweatiest hands going. The struggle is real!!

The one and the only reason I wanted to go was to see two painting by Artemisia Gentileschi. If you do not know anything about her go to my previous blog and there a little story at how badass she was. I wanted to see her work because how many times can you go to a museum that exhibits art from the masters of Italian painters which includes a woman!!!!

Well, apparently you can't. I went there and a stroll around knowing that she will just appear and my breath with stop and I will become teary because I have walked up a big fucking hill and traveled the globe to see a woman in an art gallery.

She was not there!

I ask my partner,

He doesn't know what I am talking about, I ask one of the members of staff -

Floor 2

I have just been there unless I was just going through the paintings too fast and missed it, but how could I miss it I have studied these painting too much!!! There is a Caravaggio at the end of the floor, like a symbol, this is the end.

There was a room cut off from the public, what was in there? Why wasn't it opened??? Then I realized - 

SHE IS IN THAT ROOM!!! THE ONE I CAN'T GET TOO!!!

Finally, I got an honest answer from a very nice man who worked there. One of her works was enclosed in THAT room and the other was in Rome!!

FUCKING ROME I CAME FROM SHINEY ROW TO SEE THIS WOMAN'S WORK!!!!!!!

I decided this day was not mine and myself and my boyfriend had to laugh our heads off, if not I could have been crying into some religious art.

This, of course, is a fun story of bad timing but it's a more serious issue in the art world. WHERE ARE THE WOMEN!! There was not just Artemisia Gentileschi painting for all women, there were other women painting in Italy at the same time, They were just forgotten. I don't want to go to an art gallery or museum to just find the token women, heck! The token black artist, trans artists, gay artists. I do not want to see just white male club anymore and I am sick of going into a gallery because they have one woman artists, I want to go to a gallery and to never raise that question.

I am hopefully going to be starting a serious of art blog about the old and the new in women in the arts. A huge project I want to achieve is getting slightly known female artists even bigger and given them a platform to the world. So I want to use this blog and a jumping point. Also, learning and talking to contemporary women artists. So watch this space!!!

If you think that art galleries and museums should have more women in their collections, email them, send letters or phone them. We need different representation in every gallery and museum nothing should be “stuck in time” we should all evolve.

MAW

Nasty Women Throughout Art History.

So for the past four months, I have been involved in the Nasty Women Project in Newcastle. I offered my hand out and was thrilled for the two organisers, artists Lady Kitt and Aly Smith to say welcome aboard. If you have no idea what the Nasty Women Movement, here is what its all about.

At the back end of 2016 the reality TV show, The Debate aired. It starred orange face reality star, Donald Trump and the only hope for America, Hillary Clinton. In the final moments of the 3rd and final presidential debate, Trump interpreted Clinton as she was answering a question about social security,
   
                   “Such a nasty woman,”

He muttered into the microphone (Trump has both called Ted Cruz and Clinton “nasty” in the past but never before had he so publicly paired the term with the word “woman”) The small but extremely offensive word started a movement of women and men proclaiming they are a nasty woman themselves. This word is a powerful callback to the misogynistic messaging of Trump's campaign, and a demonstration of solidarity among artists worldwide. Brooklyn-based sculptor Roxanne Jackson posted a Facebook status that went viral, it read,

“Hello, female artists/curators! Let's organise a NASTY WOMEN group show!! Who's interested? We need a venue!?”


700 pieces of work were displayed and sold all from the fact that people were pissed and wanted to make a difference and show we ain't going to take it!

All there money went to Planned Parenthood, which is a brilliant organisation that helps a lot of women with birth control and practising safe sex. The Republicans hate that women have choices with their bodies so they are planning to defund the organisation.This exhibition was a huge success and all the work was sold. One of the works that were sold was Newcastle based artist and Nasty Women Newcastle curator,  Lady Kitt. Whose work was sold a local politician in New York.


People from around the world have started to organised their own Nasty Women exhibition. What's good enough for New York City is good enough for Newcastle! The exhibition was organised by Byker Community Centre “Maker in Residence” and Nasty Women “alumnus” Lady Kitt and artist and Byker Community Centre Development Manager Aly Smith. The little different for this exhibition is all work were welcomed from artists and non-artists. The profits for this exhibition have gone to two charities. All profits from the sale of artwork will be split 50/50 between LGBT campaigning group, The Fed and BCCs Women Group.




When I asked to help out, I thought I would just help with the opening and maybe promotion but I was fully on board and absolutely loved every minute being on this team. I was asked to write a little essay on nasty women for a booklet we were selling. Many ideas went through my head and I decided to write it about nasty women throughout art history, as many women throughout art history have been misrepresented or forgotten. There were too many women I could have included, Kahlo, Mendieta, Miller and many, MANY more. I chose these women because they had to fight to be recognised and got nasty doing it. Here is the essay what was printed hope you all enjoy.


There have been many nasty women throughout art history. It has taken many years for women to be taken seriously as artists, and throughout these years when women used to sign their paintings anonymous or not at all because of the repercussion of their actions. Here are a few nasty women, who decided not to lie down and became the greatest names in art history.  


Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi was an ambitious trainee painter when she was raped by one of her tutors, Agostino Tassi. Many people did not believe her story and to get the justice she agreed to be tortured with Sybille, thumbscrews, involving cords of rope tied around her hands and pulled tightly in order to “prove” that she was telling the truth.During the torture, which of course seriously injured her hands, she was repeatedly asked whether or not Tassi had raped her and she continually responded: “it is true, it is true.”With this defiant attitude she used her paintings as her weapon, she painted many strong and suffering women from myth and the Bible. Her masterpieces, Judith Slaying Holofernes shows the anger, attitude and strength we like in our nasty women. In this painting we see two strong, young women working in unison, their sleeves rolled up, their gazes focused, their grip firm for the man's neck ready to decapitate him. She depicts herself as Judith showing us the rage she felt. Artemisia was a nasty woman who used her work to express her rage of what happened to her and did not let it define her. She was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno In Florence. She is considered today as one of the most accomplished painters in the generation following that of Caravaggio. 

Georgia O Keeffe 

Georgia O Keeffe work has been described as being highly sexual, too many her work are the just representation of the female anatomy. Even feminist in the 1970’s took her work as a statement of female empowerment. Keeffe being the nasty woman she did not take this information lying down. She believed her work to be stronger than just a feminine theme, exploring nature, landscape, colour and showing the world her incredible talent as a painter. She believed her work was more than just “good for female artists”, she believed she was the best painter, period. Today she is one of the greatest artists of all time and her painting Jimson Weed/ White Flower No 1, was sold for $44.4 Million in 2014, The highest price paid for female artists. 


Romaine Brooks

Romaine Brooks was one of the first modern artists to depict women's resistance to patriarchal representations of the female in art. Brooks came from an extremely wealthy family, which gave her freedom that other women of the time never had. Because of her wealth, she was free to shake off the restrictive expectation of women artists, including female nudes. Most women were not allowed to paint nudes because it was “unlady” like, this did not bother Brooks as she would take classes in which she was the only woman. She specialised in portraits, mainly of her friends and lovers. She painted in grey, dark tones, not like cubism and fauvism which were reinventing the whole art scene. However, her subject matter was much more contemporary, crossdressers, and gender ambiguity. She understood that women in art had been treated as the object rather than a subject. She made it her mission to change all that. She was overlooked for many years in part because of her fluid sexual and gender identity. She was such a nasty women she couldn't care less who liked her work. She painted for herself and not to please the art world she was overlooked and only recently has been reexamined on how powerful and important her work is. 

These nasty women are only a few in the art world who have impacted art history, there are much more who have been nasty throughout history. Today we come together as nasty women to celebrate women in art and how many nasty women out there can change the world.





Hope you enjoyed reading this and make sure you follow Nasty Women Newcastle on Facebook as we are creating more events around the northeast in the near future.




MAW

Women in Amsterdam (not those ones)

Hello all, I have not done a blog for a while, I have been investing my time in an exhibition I created last year called Tell Her Story. I did a little blog about it on this page, when I have done my evaluation I am going to do a more in depth blog about the exhibition and the themes around it.

So after this exhibtion my beautiful partner surprised me with an amazing vacation to Amsterdam for my Xmas and Birthday present, (yes I am one of those sad sad people who hates having their birthday in January, it sucks!!!). Well, I just came back from Amsterdam with my partner in crime. We had a blast, what a beautiful and interesting city. We did a lot of sightseeing and did many museums.

Highlights of the museum  

Stedelijk Museum - I found it fascinating, very eclectic collection, note I was extremely tired so most of it was a blurr. My favourite work was Jordan Wolfson exhibition called manic/love. This work was of a robotic doll getting lifted and dropped my manic chains and strange sounds. It is so weird but I found it really interesting, to check this exhibition out here, http://www.stedelijk.nl/en/exhibitions/jordan. The second part of the exhibition opens in February.

Creepy, but amazing!!

Van Gogh Museum - Very interesting museum, I know a lot about his work and the artists around him. I still found it interesting and I can imagine people coming who do not know anything about his personal life and work and would be blown away because there is so much information which is displayed clear and interesting.

One of the last paintings by Van Gogh

Rijksmuseum - Very interesting collection, I LOVED seeing the Vermeer's. I didn't realize how small and intimate he painted. Loved also seeing Rembrandt's paintings, especially his piece “The Syndics” which just took my breath away and how realistic it was.

Its like the milk is flowing from the jug!

As you can see, as you read this blog and know what it's about. There is something missing… WOMEN!

WHERE ARE THE WOMEN

Of course this blog is about women, so where are they??

There was women artist in the Stedelijk but I didn't have my feminist radar on. Van Gogh, he didn't have female artists friends so it is rather hard to have women artists in the museum. Not impossible as there is a space for artists who have been inspired by his work.

So for this blog I am going to focus on the big one in Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum which holds treasures of the Netherlands natives.I am going to talk about two (yes only two) women artists I saw in the Rijksmuseum and why there is not more. Please note I didn't go into the Rijksmuseum with this agenda. I went to see some beautiful art. So if I have missed anything out just let me know.

Judith Leyster  (1609- 1660)

Judith Leyster was a Dutch Golden age painter, who painted happy scenario of men drinking, playing instruments and paintings of children. Leyster was one of only two women accepted as a master in Haarlem painters guild during the entire 17th century. She was well known during her lifetime but unfortunately like other women artists at the time, male historians did not archive her work and she became largely forgotten after her death. For many years historians dismissed her as an imitator or follower of famous Dutch artist Frans Hals.

There is an infamous story in the art world where her work was sold as an original Frans Hals. This story has grown bigger as many Impressionist Painters just loved her work (thinking it was Frans Hals) because of his (HER) loose and textured brush strokes. The painting was sold to The Louvre in 1893 and they sued when they realized it wasn't one of Frans paintings - THE JOLLY COMPANIONS

Classic Dutch Painting, by a "girl" who would have thought!!!

In the Rijksmuseum collection there are not many pieces of Leyster's work. Serenade (1629) which is on permanent display shows her aesthetic as an artist to the tea. She is showing joy and real people in the theatrical movement which was a big part of Dutch art. This painting (as it should) displays the themes well in Dutch paintings with the other paintings around the exhibition space.

Beautiful! 

She has more paintings in the collection such as, The Jolly Drinker (1629). Which is permanently loaned to another gallery.

Of course it is not on display at the gallery which makes me sad cause she is such an important figure and she only has one painting on display,  like it's a “token” painting even though many artists thought she was Frans Hals!!!! Cause she was so good!!! Plus that painting, to me sums up the Dutch aesthetic.

Because she is so connected to Frans Hals work, there is only 35 works which is recognized as her own, Many of her works are “attributed” or assigned to someone else, particularly Hals or Laysters husband, fellow Haarlem painter Jan Miense Molenaer. Which I found really disgusting, thankfully she printed her work with a distinguish stamp so people knew she did the work, but I believe people didn't think it was her just because she was a woman. It feels like reading texts and looking at her amazing work that she was probably better than her male  peers and people couldn't handle it!

Leyster signature - Great Tattoo Idea  

Therese Schwartze   (1851 - 1918)

Therese Schwartze, is rather different to Leyster, she came from a very well to do family. Her father was Johann Georg Schwartze a painter of portraits and historical themes. With his family trade, she herself became a portrait painter. Schwartze was of the few women painters who has been honored by an invitation to contribute their portraits to the hall painted at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. I will say here that I have been to the Uffizi, I can't remember seeing her work. So I researched online and still can not see that her work is display. So I do believe she is in the back with many other women artists.

If anyone has seen this on display let me know please!

There are two pieces of her work in the Rijksmuseum, YES TWO!! One is a painting of her niece, Lizzy Ansingh, TS (1902). This painting might just seem like a painting of a women, however Lizzy belonged to the  Amsterdam Joffers, a group of painters around 1900. Not just any painters, a group of women painter who just knew even back then they were getting fucked over just because they were women. The painting to is so beautiful, powerful and intimate,from brushstrokes and red accent on the bright green give it a powerful pressure. Also she doesn't paint her too “feminine,” in the traditional way many women were painted in the early 20th century.

Lizzy Ansingh

Puck

Many women in the art world in any time had moderate success and was mainly forgotten about when they died, just look at every women artist going!! Not Therese, she was extremely successful and very wealthy. When I say wealthy I mean a millionaire!! I didn't even realize you could get that much money at the beginning of the 20th century. Apparently so and by a kick ass woman. As a successful artist, she served as a role model to a generation of women painters most notably to the Amsterdam group I mentioned early, the Joffers. Unfortunately she got a lot of harsh criticism especially from advocates for democratization and the renewal of society and art.


So why is there only two women in their national museum when there are amazing women artists such as, Lizzy Ansingh, Rachel Ruysch, Maria van Oosterwijck, Margaretha Haverman, Wally Moes, Gesina ter Borch, Suze Robertson, Maria Machteld van Sypesteyn, Catharina Backer and Elisabeth Johanna Koning.

THAT'S NOT EVEN ALL THE WOMEN ARTIST OF THAT TIME!

I feel The Netherlands have more treasures I need to explore and need to do my blog on Dutch Women Artist and find out why they were such amazing artists and why they did/ or did not in most cases get the recognition they deserved.

Speak Soon!

MAW

Tell Her Story

I started this blog because I wanted to focus my attention on women in art. I wanted to keep up to date with women in the art world. Luckily I have been a busy bee creating my own exhibition around women and art through the art collection of Darlington, North East England.  

This exhibtion came from me looking at how women are represented in collections around the North East of England. It was not great, many permanent collections had no women artist displayed. 

I had an opportunity to explore the Darlington collection in response to women artists. I found in the collection a lot of subject of women, who were not known and the artist unknown. This created Tell Her Story,  how many works of women have been lost though time. 

Tell Her Story is a new exhibition, curated by me! Which looks creatively at the images of unknown women in the Darlington Borough Art Collection and considers what they are saying to us now? Many art collections come together over decades or centuries and contain mysterious works. Sometimes little is known about the subject, artist, the work itself or how it entered the collection.

Darlington’s Art Collection has around 500 original works, including portraits of women now listed as ‘unknown’ and pictures with women who are not named. This exhibition includes paintings and a drawing from Darlington’s art collection, where information on the women involved was either absent, has been lost through time, or where images were drawn from the imagination in the first place. Tell her Story invited artists working today to consider such works and to generate new work in response, with both incorporated in this exhibition.

Artists working today involved in this project are Alyson Agar, Mircea Cirtog, Sarah Cooney, Tallulah Lines and Helen Winthorpe-Kendrick and Darlington's own Jonny Lancaster, Norma Kyle, James Quinn and poet, Helen Steel. This project has been supported through a Grants for the arts award from Arts Council England.


Preview Wednesday 23rd November, 5.30 till 7pm

Candy says I'd like to know completely: Looking at Trans artists

I remember being 15 and doing an art project on the Klub Kids, who I was obsessed with and still totally obsessed with. Since then I have been obsessed with gay culture. I am not gay myself but I have always had a connection, I think it's because I felt like an outsider and could relate to these incredible colorful characters. Over the years I have followed, researched and just enjoyed what the LGBT community has to offer. However, I have never really looked into the T.

Amanda Lepore…. Chaz Bono…. That's about how many trans people I have heard of back when I was 15, thank god things have changed.

Amanda Lepore

Now we have modeled such as Carmen Carrera and Hari Nef (who I totally fell in love with in transparent). Actors such as Laverne Cox, Trace Lysette, Ian Harvie and Candis Cayne. This is just a few names just in the limelight. There are many others people out there being who they truly believe they should be. Of course everything is not rosy, there has been numerous of trans people being murdered just because they are trans. Don't even get me started on the bathroom drama in America. There is still a long way to go, but let's celebrate these artists who have paved the way and creating amazing work today.

Tuesday Smillie

I came across Smillie whilst researching for this blog and just loved her work. Smillie is a Brooklyn based artist who works in employs watercolours, collage and textiles as media to explore transgender feminist politics. She is interested in art as a form of protest and as a means of celebration. By cultural production to honor those dearest to her as well as queer and feminist icons. Smillie resists the hetero-normative eraser of non conformist queer identities.

There is not much information about Tuesday Smillie work online but I find it fascinating. I have always been impressed with photo montage. I feel it is a brutal way to create art, expressing your vision with humorous images, distraught figures and political messages, just look at Hannah Hoch and George Grosz work. Smillie photo-montage work are self portrait, she places herself with scissors, needles and thread and shapes which look like broken glass. To me this works looks like her representing her transition, the sharp hard images representing the pain and sacrifice she has physically and mentally been through. This is just my interpretation of the work, it could mean something else to others.I love the vulnerability of her work and I am looking forward to see more of her creations.

Kate Weakley

Weakley is an American visual artist who incorporates her experience as a transgender individual. She uses herself as a subject matter to depict the changes she has experienced going through her transition. She deals with gender, sexuality, masculinity, femininity. In her work called Dissociation, 2014 has all these themes are represented beautifully.

Dissociation, 2014

This picture shows the changes of a man transitioning to a women. Her breast are forming but her face doesn't “match” her new womanly body. Her Self Portrait, 2014 is my favorite, it's a very simple message but yet still powerful. The man with the disjointed face is the artist when she was still in her old body, the figure on the right is the artist five month into her transition.

Self Portrait, 2014

It is a very simple idea for a portrait but that's what I like about it. The artist wants her body of work to allow cisgender, heteronormative audience to experience the transgender narrative, in which that make the subject approachable and relatable. I believe this piece does this in a more gentle way. I am sure this artist is just at the beginning of her career and I am looking forward in seeing her work evolve.

Greer Lankton

Greet Lankon is such an unusual artists and had such a unique talent. She was a big character in the east village art scene, where she crafted dolls modeled of her friends she worked with. Her work is like how Nan Golden described her, “beautiful, glamorous, fragile with a disarming sweetness.” She used her friends and celebrities she knew and made them into modern day sculptures. Did she know that her friends and style were all going to be icons of their time! Hello Liza, Candy Darling and Jackie O.

She created her work with found objects, making them look distraught and twisted. She would change the sizes of the models making them fat, then skinny, then fat again, changing the faces and clothing. This obsession of change was prevalent in her work and her life. Her work can easily relate to her transformation from man to woman but I think her work is more about the pressures of being a woman. Even as a punk rock New York City artist you still have pressures of looking good. Not being pretty enough, thin enough, smart enough, these are the pressures that women (and men) go through day to day. Lena Dunham, who is producing a documentary about Lankton said it very well about her work,

“We all feel that sense of being lost in and betrayed by our own bodies. She made it poetry.”

My favorite piece is of her bust of Candy Darling. A Warhol superstar, she was herself  transgender who starred in many Warhol films. The bust is a beautiful yet painful piece of a homage to her friend. On the back of the bust is the song, Candy says by the Velvet Underground and on the front is a heart shape cut out. In the cut out are objects, relating to the song and her personal likes, such as makeup. Again it's a theme of the body as the first lyrics of the song was, Candy says I've come to hate my body.

I only scratched the surface with trans art and trans identity I need to come back and look at different artist who have different transition stories. I hope if anyone reads this that I didn't suck understanding the work and that we should research and understand more about trans identity.  

MAW