Wack at PS !

Yesterday Julia and I went over the bridge to see WACK!: Art and the Feminist Revolution. The first wonderful thing was seeing Thomas who runs the bookstore. I didn't know he had that job -- cool. The second thing was that we were surprised by how wonderful the show was. There was a fair amount of work that was tedious, including the pieces that said 'Angry Marilyn', 'Angry Jennifer' and so on. Okay, you're angry -- we get it. Others bored me a bit. Some were so powerful that they were painful to look at -- particularly collages of neato sparkling houses with war scenes out the window. For me, some of the highlights were the 'stone' painting, the woodcuts, the Aunt Jaminina with a gun. And a few artists I already new about -- Aliice Neel, Eva Hesse, and Francesca Woodman. I must note that we only saw the first floor.

But, as much as I liked the show, I have a few questions. More notably, what makes all of these pieces 'feminist'? If I think and think, I might be able to attribute some feminist qualities to each piece perhaps, although that is not necessarily how I would think of them. I found myself wondering what made this or that work feminist. The work struck me as coming from many different points of view: anti-racist, sublime, figurative, abstract, feminist, and anti-war. Some were just, well, art works by women.

Julia pointed out that they probably used 'feminist' as a marketing scheme to draw in the crowd. This has worked. An unnamed source tell us that this has been one of the most successful shows ever. But, I am very uncomfortable with using the term 'feminist' to market stuff -- if this is the intension. Isn't this going against feminist ideals -- we are ultimately 'marketing women' because of their gender. Our household feminist, JIM, argues that men have had their shows for years, and women have been excluded and he's right.

Here's my very radical feminist idea...why call it a feminist show or a women's show? Why not slap the men in the face and just call it a show? Isn't that what men have been doing for centuries?

Gone Cold on PS 1's Warm Up

I'm such an old lady. I went to the Warm Up party today at PS 1 in Queens. I used to love this thing a few years back. It used to be a neighborhood-type-party thing. But them Manhattan got ahold of it. Now it is a hipster meat market. & what's up with those 1980's outfits. I swear Sex in the City killed fashion. Sure, everything looks good on Carrie, but boys and girls the 80's were ugly in the 80's!