The LA times considers JFK as arts patron in chief...

Can formalism be political?

I love this half invisble shed in the desert... not as wild about the night time lighting but during the day this is just an outstanding project.

On KBOO Eva lake conducted a discussion of women in the visual arts... some provocative things here. *Note if you look at PORT over the last 12 articles (what we have on our mainpage: 4 images feature women artists, and 4 feature men. The two major articles are split between 1 man (Sean Healy) and one woman (Anna Craycroft).

Gender equality is a complicated issue to be sure... The 2014 Whitney Biennial wont have very many women and Jerry Saltz ruminated on the MoMA problem with women earlier this week. It is a hot topic that opens a local can of worms too. For Hallie ford fellows only 5 out of the 12 awardees have been women (I'd guess about 60% of the active/highly eligible artists in Oregon are women) and the Portland2014 biennial is far lower than that. The CNAA's this year only have 2 women in the 5 person field though last time around 4 out of the 6 were women. For the Betty Bowen awards this year no women were selected. What gives?

Well, for one the gallery system favors men and even though most of the galleries around here do not represent many installation and video artists (a majority are women) they seem to be given precedence in determining who gets awards and into surveys (only 1 of the already scarce woman in the Portland2014 survey is unrepresented, whereas many of the men are not). Seemingly every detail and distinction is fraught with peril, for example the premise around the last ladies only survey was, well... annoying to many women as Amy's review made clear (language like swelling bodies in the essay made it seem like motherhood or potential thereof was somehow necessary). It is a complex discussion that involves the art market, questions regarding self promotion, cliques and whether the response to art is simply too sensationalized (around money and dude-style attention stunts) to give the most worthy female artists their due? Clearly Madonna and Lady Gaga do just fine in music but visual art as a field certainly favors men, even when a majority of gate keepers (curators, gallerists, critics) seem to be women (like they are in Portland).

Ana Mendieta... did things her way

Yet all is not lost... Isa Genzken will have a looooooong overdue survey at MoMA. I prefer her to Gerhard Richter any day.