btw -my point of view: there are any number of long time powerful people involved in the art world here in Chicago -at the highest levels, who agree pretty much completely with much of what I say….its not that radical or far out there -its pretty straightforward and fact based.

…the old gatekeeper contructs are losing their power -..we as artists need to take that power back…isnt it a supreme irony looking at the likes of Dumas, Tuymans, Heilman, Doig not to mention some of our local ‘court painters/conceptual clones’ that the ‘seers’ mostly non-artists, people without vision, more attuned to trend, who confer power, in this time, chose work that epitomizes just that; a comple lack of anything interesting -visually! Work that is in terms of how it looks, how it is executed, -is weak -and in many instances, celebrated for being so-

It’s late, and if everyone will forgive me, I’ll say that on Art Talk Chicago (chicagonow.com) I’m going to try to really take apart this issue in a series of articles and interviews by a number of people. Dawoud is going to post a piece this week, which I suspect will cause a stir.

Yes, for mainstream media, I think there is a demographic awareness. But at the CORE, the CORE cool-kids club in the art world… well, like I said about Wesley – I don’t agree with his names – but I’ve come to agree that there is a well, I won’t use their concensorati term, but a few people annoint a few people and everyone gets in line and trots along. It’s not that anyone is excluded in the critical discourse scene based on demographics, it’s just that the focus is on a tiny percent of ‘important’ art that happens to be made by a white, upper class demographic. River North is as much left out of the discussion as Bronzeville. So the issue is that the real admiration goes to one sliver of the artworld, and it happens to be a largely white sliver.

I guess my argument would be: Who cut that segment out and designated it as important, and why, and should that “sliver” be re-examined?

here’s the audio of the panel for anyone interested
http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Content.aspx?audioID=33983&gsatype=amplified

I also think when we talk about coverage, we need to separate features from reviews.

K

New City, April 24, “Eyes Opened: Trib Protest Avoided”

http://art.newcity.com/2009/04/24/eyes-opened-trib-protest-avoided/

Lowell Thompson, Andre Guichard, and Ashley Moy-Wooten, “organized a protest for April 22 and sent out e-mails to their friends to meet them in front of the [Chicago] Tribune Towers.”

The newspaper [Tribune] yielded before the protest even took place.

[Eler's question answered from comment #1, above.]

In her column, April 30, 2009, at The Reader, Deanna Isaacs employed the title, “Reparations at the Trib?” when summarizing the events.

+ + +

It’s all [as you called it] “bone throwing,” and there aren’t enough bones: (a) USA/Illinois/Chicago all shrinking economically; (b) art isn’t a priority in the best of times; and (c) power is derived from careful rationing of the bones.

+ + +

If New City’s coverage isn’t deep — it’s broad. I see Jason out there looking at things. Precious few other people do it.

I would be shocked, in fact, to learn that more than a dozen people in the City really make a regular effort to “get out” and see what is being shown — outside of their own peer group, geographic territory, political affiliation, etc.

Likewise, when complaining about coverage, or collections, very few [any?] people demand fairness for the whole of the City — focusing rather on their own interests, or the interests of the group to which they belong.

Above, you wrote:

“no one is asking the museum collections to take a city’s demographic chart,”

“fears of the political correctness police are really exaggerated, and paranoia that if someone is 1% off there will be protesters outside,”

Refer to the discussion following Jason Foumberg’s New City piece published March 30, 2009, “Eye Exam: Why Have There Been No Great South Side Artists?”

And pay special attention to the comments made by Lowell Thompson:

http://art.newcity.com/2009/03/30/eye-exam-why-have-there-been-no-great-south-side-artists/#more-2728

Anyway, to moderate, I see all the sides here: so Paul, no, no one is asking the museum collections to take a city’s demographic chart and plop that into the permanent collection equation. Women have come a long way very quickly and even a generation ago, they were really outnumbered. Everyone understands that.

I also think throwing a group, any group, a bone by throwing in some undeserving artists is insulting and helps no group.

So to .. gasp.. take Wesley’s side here, I think the trick is to find a great curator, who, like WK, when following his gut, naturally has a good mix. If you have a curator who hands you a list of 99.9 male, white artist, then my thought is to just start over with a new curator, someone who’s taste just happen to be more balanced.

I think fears of the political correctness police are really exaggerated, and paranoia that if someone is 1% off there will be protesters outside unreasonable. Like Claudine said, after the fact, you do a little math, make sure you’re not totally out of whack with current cultural expectations about inclusivness.
K

Claudine -here, you and I completely agree: the artists I mentioned -because I would like to see that show…..something away from the curatorial/consensus correct miniMoMA genericism -with more originality, more of an individual point of view, -some as you put it, deeply thought out curating….

My only advocation is for the unique, inimitable, individual- artist or, curator or, Modern Wing- Clearly, whats up now particularly when it comes to contemporary art, its curators, the whole construct, falls short on all accounts-

But suppose I decide to apply for a solo show at threewalls gallery prior to their new July 1 deadline?

Looking at threewall’s exhibition program for the first half of 2009 I see the following names: Christa Donner, Judith Brotman, Anne Elizabeth Moore, Lisa Anne Auerbach, Shannon Stratton, and Jesse McLean.

Mark said: “I do not think quotas are a good idea for PLANNING or curating shows, but the ‘percentages’ can be a good way to begin CRITICIZING shows — helping to uncover masked-over prejudices.”

So that even if I like the aforementioned artists, and the artwork that they create or curate, I’ve got to recognize that the “percentages” metric reveals a curatorial bias favoring exclusively:

- female
- white
- college-educated
- people on the political left

And I’m wasting my time even considering the threewalls application — let alone applying?

I agree with this. I framed my post with an acknowledgment that I myself don’t count how many men vs. women artists are included in the shows I visit – nor did I when I was curating – However when I performed a little experiment and actually went down to the galleries to do some bean counting the numbers jolted me, and then the bean-counting naturally leads to questions you all have been asking and answering – well who should have been there, or who would you have put in instead? And those seem like the important questions to ask – the questions that perm coll curators should be asking themselves in the first place.

You guys call it ‘consensus curating’ – o.k. – for me it is an issue of adventurous AND deeply-thought out curating that’s lacking here. (But then again, it is the AIC – a behemoth encyclopedic institution that collects a little of everything – so maybe it’s not fair to ask them for too much on this score). When I was a curator I worked only for institutions that were not actively collecting (at the time anyway) and I had this idea that working with perm collections was somehow unsexy – much less interesting than organizing buzz-worthy thematic shows. Now that I am on the “outside” of all that I view museum collections so, so differently — there is so much potential richness for curators to explore there, the opportunity to revise or rewrite history, even play with it like Larry Rinder is doing with his outside-the-box rethinking of the BAM’s collection.

I think when perm colls are considered tourist attractions only, whose ‘greatest hits’ need to be on view at all times in order to satisfy the out-of-towners, it does a disservice to the ideas behind why an institution collects art in the first place. I do understand the need to play to the crowd to some degree, but why not throw in some “spinners” that make us rethink things, too?

I wonder if aspiring and younger curators today give much thought (or, if they’re in museum studies programs, if they are encouraged) to really think through what a perm coll is and should be, and the responsibilities that come with displaying it.

1)the AIC does own 1 painting by Grace Hartigan

2) The AIC owns 2 paintings by Helen Frankenthaler.

3) The AIC owns 1 painting by Lee Krasner

The online collections database is incomplete and not up to date, they are working on it but it’s a huge process.