Data Study

A commenter made me curious what a woman critic's male to female review ratio might be, so I looked at the previous six months of Roberta Smith's NYTimes Art in Review contributions.

Roberta Smith contributed 35 reviews of single artist exhibitions to the Art in Review section of the NYTimes between May 23rd through November 23rd, 18 of which were reviews of female artists. I am pretty bad at math but that is clearly 50%!

The above tally is for reviews of a single artist only, no group shows and no reviews featuring more than one artist. If you include the two-person/partnership shows and reviews which note a second solo show within the same review (Fischli & Weiss, Matt Keegan and Jedediah Caeser, Dawit Petros and Bryan Jackson, Nick Z. and Kai Althoff) the total becomes 43 artists, 18 women.

Really good, right?

UNFORTUNATELY (for women), that is not an inclusive tally of Roberta's NYTimes writing within that period. It doesn't count any of the longer feaures/reviews she writes that are not part of the weekly Art in Review. This was a surprise -

11/23 Jeff Koons, 11/16 Lawrence Weiner, 11/08 Robert Greenwold, 11/02 Martin Puryear, 10/26 Georges Seurat, 10/20 Aleksandra Mir, 10/19 Gustav Klimt, 10/16 Damien Hirst, 10/13 Rudy Stingel, 10/5 Renoir, 9/28 Richard Prince, 9/16 Christoph Buchel, 8/23 Robert Gober, 8/17 Richard Pousette-Dart, 8/8 Morton Bartlett, 8/3 Peter Young, 7/25 Chen Chieh-Jen, 7/13 Martin Creed, 6/30 Daniel Gordon, 6/29 Rudy Stingel, 6/15 Neo Rauch, 5/30 Karen Kilimnik.

Twenty-two features/reviews, two of which are of female artists.

Urs Fischer/Christopher Wiedeman.... PLUS

Today's NYMagazine Urs Fischer review makes me want to re-post images of Christopher Wiedeman's piece from last year, in Richmond (scroll down).


Christopher dug a deep pit, through a concrete floor, inside a small cinderblock building. A narrow ante-chamber on a raised platform was constructed from plywood, around the corner of which the plywood flooring becomes a curved ramp directing your eye and body toward the black hole.

The NYMag review, by Jerry Saltz, refers to Fischer's piece as "a Herculean project". It looks cool... but with a backhoe, a $250,000 budget, and a team of assistants.... whatever. Herculean it isn't. Chris did everything by himself, it was a fantastic piece.


Chris building entry, stage, and ramp.


Chris digging pit.

RELATED: Christopher doesn't have any website that I can find.... but you can see another one of his installations here, documented by Michael Lease. MORE: a video.

PLUS: JERRY SALTZ DATA REPORT

I am a guy, so I can point and laugh at Jerry Saltz writing yet another feature decrying gender disparity followed by yet another review of a male artist. Jerry has written twenty-six reviews of individual artists so far this year, only seven of which have been reviews of women artists.

MoMA is a museum, and it's asking a lot to go back and revise history, unfair as it may be, but Jerry is writing new history NOW. If I were a girl I guess I would have no option but to put on a gorilla mask and wheatpaste a poster somewhere. I don't think you can expect much more than 25% representation anytime soon, if Jerry is supposedly your champion.

RELATED: Art Candy hasn't been updated yet, so it still stands at 59 men to 16 women.

Cartier Award

I am preparing my proposal for the Cartier Award, to be realized at Frieze next year. This is still just a rough proposal, but please have a look and tell me what you think.

(you need to turn your computer sound on)

Data: Art Candy Study... UPDATED 2x

New York Magazine has two pieces on gender disparity; Jerry Saltz's Where Are All the Women?, looking at MoMA, and this tally of women to men at six other art-world institutions.

New York Magazine should maybe do a tally of it's Art Candy feature... fifty-nine men to sixteen women since August 1st.

BUSTED!


UPDATE: i made a new label, guerilla anaba, for posts mentioning gender disparity. Here's the post in which I note that of the SIXTEEN consecutive individual artist reviews (12/04 through 12/05) written by Jerry Saltz, only FOUR featured women. i get anonymously attacked in the comments, Jerry gets nothing but praise.

UPDATE to the UPDATE: okay, i've re-checked all of those individual artist features, and counted even the smaller blurby ones i'd ignored previously.... the NEW tally is TWENTY-FOUR artists reviewed, SEVEN of whom are female.

Herman 'Ray' Davis + Christoph Ruckhaberle

An artist and flickr contact named BlueCin recently favorited two of my flickr photos. These were both taken at shows in Saratoga, but at very different spaces and a month or so apart... I had never connected them. Thanks, BlueCin.


Herman 'Ray' Davis, at Uncommon Grounds (a coffee shop). The subject of this painting is Tatyana Grossman.


Christoph Ruckhaberle, at Skidmore.

PLUS: here are all of my flickr favorites... some real good stuff.

*NEW* - from Marketa.

Barnone Witpleasure

Rachel Hayes, in Red Badge of Courage, curated by Omar Lopez-Chahoud, in Newark, suported by the Newark Arts Council. Through December 9th.


Barnaby Whitfield, in Just a Ghostly Paper Sigh, at 31GRAND. Through December 22nd. Perfect show for this piece!

(plus... this should be in that Momenta show)


Diana Al-Hadid, at Perry Rubinstein (photo by Kai). Through November 21st.

PLUS: Diana label, Rachel label.

SuperJesus VS. Sister Dolorata

Michael Scoggins, at Freight + Volume (photo by Kai)

VS.


Sister Dolorata, drawn in the sixth-grade (or maybe seventh).

Sister Dolorata would cream SuperJesus.

RELATED: my Michael Jackson painting.

Total Despair

Matthew Higgs, at Murray Guy (detail here).


me, at Dumbo Arts Center.

photos

i like the blues and roses...

i took all of these photos with disposable cameras, sometimes they turn out blue-ish, sometimes more rosy. they look best all together, mixed-up.

in the tradition...

In the anaba tradition of giving you the relatively early scoop on really good new artPOWERblogs...

- Mountain Man and Fairy Butler 2/23/2005, Militant Edna 1/07/06, PaintersNYC 1/19/06, Corny 4/26/05, Winkleman 6/06/05 (in the comments), Hans Heiner Buhr 5/27/05, Artworld Salon 3/05/07, James Kalm 4/02/07 -

Presenting... How's My Dealing?

leaves

it was pretty, but now they are almost all gone.

***NEW PAGE!!!***

I've re-submitted to the White Columns Artist Registry. CHECK IT OUT!!!

update 2008 - it's been erased by white columns... just a blank page now... still funny.

RELATED: White Columns Slide Registry Part 1, White Columns Slide Registry Part 2


Matthew Higgs. Click to enlarge.

The Blogger Show, at Agni Gallery

James Kalm has posted a video on The Blogger Show opening... talking to John Morris, Stephanie Lee Jackson, Chris Rywalt, Libby Rosof, Bill Gusky, and Nancy Baker. I also caught glimpses of Roberta Fallon, James Wagner, Barry Hoggard, and Brent Burket.

Agni Gallery is so cute! Nice little space. It's an anaba.

I'll use this space to post updated links to any further Blogger Show references.

UPDATE: Susan Constanse with images from the opening reception. Nice last pic of Bill Gusky, with my piece (with Steven Larose work to the left of it, Warren Craghead work below it).
UPDATE: Chris Rywalt on hanging the show, and on the opening.

Richard Prince, Third House, American Dream

Richard Prince bought the house next to his Hamptons house. Maybe this will become Third House? Looks cool, kind of sinister.

Found Architecture:

First House - images of First House, 1993 Artforum feature on First House, 1993 LA Times article on First House.
Second House - info on pre-fire Second House, first visit to ruined Second House, VBS.TV visit to pre-fire Second House, my show at Second House, something.
Third House? - Corcoran listing, with many pictures... SOLD!

RELATED: Richard Prince at the Guggenheim.

Jenny Holzer Auction BARGAIN

Jenny Holzer's chair went for $5,000 at the Hoosick Rocks auction...


BARGAIN! Somebody got a treasure. I don't think it was part of an edition.

UPDATE: another person at the auction says it went for $6,100.
UPDATE: someone else says it was sold to someone who works for Jenny, in which case it may have been a way for her to help bring attention to the auction, contribute, and still be able to keep the piece.

Jenny's show at Mass Moca opens November 18th. CultureGrrl has info on the Mass Moca benefit auction and party next week in NYC.

Haim Steinbach, Meyer Vaisman... The Incomplete!

Haim Steinbach, from The Incomplete, at The Chelsea Art Museum.

I went to the opening for The Incomplete last month... lots of good work, all from the collection of Hubert Neumann. Actually, I am now remembering that I was introduced to Mr. Neumann at the 31 Grand opening in July, but then I saw James Kalm and pretty much ran over Neumann in my excitement to say hello to James Kalm. I don't know, maybe I am exaggerating... maybe it was more normal.


The Meyer Vaisman was a creepy favorite. It's a stuffed turkey under two black wigs, on a pedestal. Or maybe it is two turkeys? I don't know, but there is only one head. It's very sensual, very repulsive. I can't believe I have the only Meyer Vaisman photo on flickr, and it isn't even very good. Sorry, Meyer.

It was a busy opening, so I didn't get a lot of pictures or take any notes.. but I think I saw almost everything in the show (it was like three or four floors of work). Most artists included were represented by a number of works, the standouts for me included Haim Steinbach, Meyer Vaisman, Tom Sanford, Ashley Bickerton, John Simon, Haluk Akakçe, and Kelli Williams. This was the first time to see Kelli's work for real, the paintings were a lot smaller than I had imagined, really dense. Haluk's stuff was unexpected, different than the previous stuff I'd seen.


John Simon, aka John F. Simon aka John F. Simon Jr. - this was one of the few artists whose work I was not familiar with, and this may have been his only piece in the show. I don't remember seeing anything else. Was really drawn to it...

Here's John Simon on James Wagner's blog two plus years ago.


Tom Sanford - sorry, this picture is crap. I love the shine, and textures that Tom builds up on some of his surfaces, or rather the devotion to surface of some of the represented objects - the bumps on the basketball, the scales on the snakeskin - and the way those contrast with the flatter parts.

Writing "devotion" above I'm thinking about how that word sort of carries through all of Tom's work for me... the format, subject, presentation. Not writing very clearly, but maybe I will edit later.

EDIE FAKE - definitely a high point of this evening was meeting Edie Fake, or seeing Edie at the show and meeting outside. I first saw Edie inside walking up the stairs carrying a big flowery suitcase, dressed kind of strangely... later, walking down the street Meridith and I saw Edie again, and we all walked together a few blocks and talked about the show. Edie also liked the John Simon. The suitcase was because Edie had just come from the NY Art Book Fair next door, and the suitcase was full of Edie's books.

RELATED: Here's a 1997 NYTimes profile on Hubert Neumann.

Blart the Blogger Show

I am in a huge real-world Blart... it's called The Blogger Show.

Very psyched to be included in a show with some of the excellent artist bloggers I was following even before I started this blog: Roberta Fallon, Eva Lake, Libby Rosof... it is cool to show with some of the people that inspire you.

The show is curated by John Morris and runs concurrently in Pittsburgh and NYC. The Pittsburgh version will show at four different venues, lots of space, so all of the artists can show a selection of stuff (if desired), with each artist represented by a single piece at the smaller NYC space.

Also included are Michael Lease, Warren Craghead, Lisa Call, Nancy Baker, Bill Gusky, Loren Munk, Mark Creegan, Amy Wilson, Marc Snyder, Christopher Reiger, Ann Gordon... and many MORE! Too many to name, plus too many really good artistbloggers to name that aren't included. I think some probably were asked and declined, and many others who could have been asked but just weren't on John's radar.

I don't think anything in the show will directly address the "blog as art" possibilities, or how much the other included artists think about that stuff. I know that I do. My piece in the NYC show will be the painting that Jerry S. passed on by in this digital photo-narrative piece (it was vertical at Stuffy's, but will be horizontal at Agni).

Special thanks goes to Marc Snyder for making this website, Stephanie Lee Jackson, and MOST ESPECIALLY Susan Constance for a stupendous amount of effort.

The Blogger Show will open in NYC this Saturday, November 3rd, at Agni Gallery (170 East 2nd Street,Storefront #3), with a reception from 6-9pm. The Blogger Show will open at Digging Pitt Gallery in Pittsburgh on November 10th, with a reception December 8 from 6-9pm.

MORE -

It's been an interesting week attention-to-artblog-land-wise. For me the major thing was that Jerry S. issued that statement in New York Magazine... but also there is a Peter Plagens feature in the current issue of Art in America with a number of popular artbloggers (including Roberta and Libby), and of course Charlie Finch's artblog piece for Artnet. My feeling is that Charlie's piece is a response to, or acknowledgement of, the recent Blogger Show publicity + Jerry's response to blog + the Art in America blog feature.

Here's a 1998 Village Voice profile on Charlie. PLUS, Charlie's follow-up letter and Gary Indiana's must read follow-up letter (scroll down a little for the two letters).

Francois Dallegret

Francois Dallegret's 1966 vision of the artist of the future - "a man-in-space who instead of making concrete art objects sends forth electrical emanations..."

Dallegret diagrammed something called a High Art Space Way Complex, the legend of which explains that the Electro-Structural Overlapping Circulatory System "allows intensive chance contact between artist-senders and people-receivers".


"this image shows the artist beaming the beginnings of an electric environment at an art appreciator; the latter is called a collector because he collects - receives - the artist's waves."


Art in America, March-April 1966 - "projecting electric emanations into space with the purpose of creating an environment."

The Origin of Roberta Smith! Special Supplement to the Friday Edition of the NYTimes

There is, unfortunately, not much Roberta Smith in today's NYTimes... so, I will give you some Roberta Smith. But not just any Roberta Smith. I will give you the ORIGIN of Roberta Smith.


This is the 1970 letter that the twenty-two year old Roberta wrote to ArtForum, taking umbrage with Robert Pincus-Witten's review of Donald Judd, at Castelli.

The Pincus-Witten article, Fining It Down, was published in the June 1970 issue of Artforum. Roberta's letter ran in the October 1970 issue.

CLICK here to see the 1st page BIGGER. CLICK here to see the 2nd page BIGGER.


Now it can be revealed... the Secret Origin of Roberta Smith!!!

I hope Jerry has not eaten her.

at second house

before...


after.