”Making Their Mark” is an exhibition based on a premise that seems self-evident: that in the last two decades, women have moved from a marginal position in the American art world to one of increased visibility and influence.
Their higher profile probably isn`t news to anyone who follows contemporary art, although the status of women artists has been ameliorated so gradually that, like any evolutionary development, it could easily be overlooked.
”Making Their Mark,” at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts through Dec. 31, doesn`t try to prove that women artists have achieved absolute parity with men in terms of major exhibition opportunities and other benchmarks of professional success. Exhibition curator Randy Rosen knows that this hasn`t happened yet, and she doesn`t try to make more of her material than the evidence will support.
But Rosen does believe that during the 1970s and the first half of the
`80s, the art world became considerably more hospitable to women.
”In the late 1960s and early `70s, when you talked about an artist it was assumed you were talking about a man,” Rosen observed at the opening of the show. ”I don`t think that`s the case any more.
”I think the term `artist` is no longer gender-based. The preconceptions of what is possible for women have changed, which means the options have opened up.”
Visibility by itself isn`t the only issue, Rosen added. ”Making Their Mark” further declares that between 1970 and 1985, the exhibition`s purview, women were instrumental in developing and articulating the esthetic issues that surfaced in contemporary art.
”The period is about diversity, and women were right alongside their male colleagues in every single development,” she said.
To support this notion, Rosen and associate curator Catherine C. Brawer have put together an exhibition of 164 works by 87 artists.
Most are familiar names such as Jennifer Bartlett, Nancy Graves, Barbara Kruger, Elizabeth Murray and Cindy Sherman, which accentuates the show`s deja vu quality.
Thirty-three of them, or about 40 percent, are video or performing artists.
Rosen believes that because these recent genres didn`t develop as exclusively male provinces, such as painting did, women were accepted more readily and were able to make significant contributions.
”Making Their Mark` doesn`t represent an ideological statement, although it does include work by such artists as Miriam Shapiro and Ida Applebroog that embodies strong feminist sentiments.
Rather, Rosen said, it`s a retrospective observation that, in her words,
”something did change; things are different now.”
It would be unwise to read more into the show than that.
Even the conclusion that ”things have changed” for women artists is arguable, for change is a relative concept.
It involves magnitude, which isn`t measurable, and individual circumstances.
”Making Their Mark” is unusual in not being a museum production. Rosen, an independent curator who runs an art-consulting business in New York, said she got the idea for the show about 1977, when a friend who was organizing an exhibition of contemporary art asked her to recommend artists he should consider.
Rosen gave him a list of names.
”He called back and said, `Do you realize that half the people on your list are women artists?”` she said. ”I hadn`t thought about it, but I realized then that something had changed.”
Before 1970, Rosen said, most of the women who became visible or significant in art-historical terms, such as Georgia O`Keeffe, Louise Nevelson and Helen Frankenthaler, were seen either as exceptions to the rule of male dominance or marginal figures on the fringe of major developments.
”But you cannot write a history of the period 1970 to `85 without including the contributions of many of the women artists in this exhibition,” she said.
Rosen took her idea to Maidenform Inc., well-known purveyor of women`s undergarments, and the firm agreed to sponsor an exhibition and catalogue.
In its initial conception, the show was only one-third its eventual size, ”but the more we researched, the more we discovered how many important women artists there were in this period,” Rosen said.
Academy curator Judith E. Stein contributed the principal catalogue essay with the assistance of Ann-Sargent Wooster, who wrote about the video artists. The exhibition began a national tour in Cincinnati in February and was seen subsequently in New Orleans and Denver.
The Academy of the Fine Arts is its final venue.
The painting, sculpture and photography part of the show, which accounts for 54 artists, is organized thematically into six sections dealing with abstraction, representation, art inspired by nature, structures and systems, the revival of decoration, and art that`s politically or socially motivated.
The video-performance section, which features 33 artists, is presented as six program segments that run daily beginning at 10 a.m.
Video often assumes a secondary role in exhibitions of this type, but the video portion of ”Making Their Mark,” which requires a full day to be seen from start to finish, affirms the exhibition`s premise all by itself.
Much of the best video and performance art of the last 20 years has been created by women. After watching excerpts from ”The Performance World of Rachel Rosenthal,” the sly social commentary implicit in Adrian Piper`s
”Funk Lessons” and the inventive brilliance of Laurie Anderson, one could easily be persuaded that women have exploited the potential of video and performance more successfully than men have.
”Making Their Mark” doesn`t attempt to make a case for a ”feminine”
esthetic; Rosen insists that, excepting the most overtly feminist work, most of the art in the show is neutral in terms of gender identification.
”That`s also a point we`re making, that women were absolutely a part of everything that was going on,” she said.
The show does affirm that argument-one cannot escape the conclusion that, in retrospect, women produced some of the most influential art during the period in question-but it also draws its strength from the fact that women seem to be intuitively more responsive to certain themes and methods of presentation.
This phenomeon, which one might ascribe to a ”feminine” sensibility, is quite evident in the video ”Mitchell`s Death,” in which Linda Montano, mourning the death of her former husband, adopts a quasi-religious chant to reflect on her failed marriage. It`s also demonstrable in the section of the exhibition called ”Responding to Nature,” which features work by such artists as Deborah Butterfield, Ann Mendieta, Michelle Stuart, Louisa Chase and Melissa Miller.
Stuart`s sensitive evocations of places associated with archaeological time employ earth from these places bonded to paper.
The tactic is not exclusively formalistic, in that it creates interesting textures, but also humanistic in recognizing the intimate relationship between man and his natural habitat.
Similarly, Butterfield`s poetically crude horse sculptures stand as primal images that evoke myriad associations, from the historical to the emotional. Mendieta`s body sculptures, created through performances, are perhaps the most graphic affirmation of humankind`s links to the natural order.
The thematic grouping, besides imposing an internal logic that the show might otherwise lack, does tend to emphasize areas in which women have been especially prominent in the post-minimalist, post-conceptualist period.
One of these involves architectonic structure, typified by the constructions of Alice Aycock, Jackie Ferrara and Mary Miss. Another is patterning and decorative strategies, seen in the work of Cynthia Carlson and Joyce Kozloff.
Most of the artists are represented by two mature works, barely enough to establish a personality and a sense of purpose for each. But much of the work is strong, and the overall level of quality makes the show satisfying on that level alone, apart from its sociological agenda.
Ultimately, though, one cannot escape the feeling that ”Making Their Mark” tends to belabor the obvious.
It examines a state of affairs that has been evident for some time, although not publicly acknowledged in an exhibition format.
As soon as one begins to walk though the show, the sense of recognition is overwhelming; one is being reminded rather than being informed.
Yet the reminder is useful, if only as a way of emphasizing that women artists haven`t conquered the world, that there still are attitudes to be changed and problems to be overcome.
”Making Their Mark” should be viewed as a progress report; to regard it as anything more would distort its essentially documentary purpose.
