#gurilliagirls

The CoUNTesses @ blogspot.com have cast a gendered eye over the most popular art blog in Australia, The Art Life to see where they stand as far as gender representation is concerned. The Art Life blog began in February 2004 under a cloak of anonymity, an independent voice critiquing art, curators, galleries and the art media. Five years later it has practically become an institution and now has its own television show. Sadly we have discovered that gender balance for the Artlife is just like most other art media and follows the old familiar conventions where male artists make up the majority of their content. CoUNTess wonders why this fact always goes unmentioned. CoUNTess has counted the last twelve months of Artlife's 178 posts which can be categorized into the following groups; artlices about single artists, artists mentioned in general articles, attributed images, interviewed artists, new work artists and videos by and about artists. There were 18 articles that were primarily about a single artist only 3 were about women artists; Linda Marrinon, Fiona Hall and Adrian Piper while male artists were the subject of 15 posts; Ai Weiwei, Bill Viola, Michael Riley, Darren Sylvester, Callum Innes, Frank Littler, Bill Henson (like a milion times) David Mandella, Cai Guo-Qiang, Sam Leach, Otto Dix, Martin Creed etal. These posts are generally in response to the museum shows or retrospectives and most are "branded" A-list artists who have already passed through several gate keepers, they are artists accepted and shown by mainstream and superstar dealers and are on the whole considered "international", or even the most collectable on our national scale.  One would assume from the evidence the current natural order be that the majority of these types of shows and artists are men. But it is still interesting how this idea is reinforced in the general language and context the reception that their work recieves. For example the wistful not quite there yet tone of the first paragraph on Linda Marrinon;

They come loitering down a runway, into Linda Marrinon’s sixth solo show Figure Sculpture II at Roslyn Oxley9 [until March 1]. Beautiful troopers that they are, it’s hard not to wish for a battalion rather than the mere eleven figures that carry on from the sculptor’s last figure collection. But perhaps there’s something about the exclusivity of the bevy that adds to its sense of preciousness, a gem-like quality that makes these little (mostly) women seem as if they’ve been dug up from the earth after years of rest.

compared to the gushfest on Darren Sylvester

Mister Darren Sylvester's exhibition of photographic prints, painting and sculpture at Sullivan & Strumpf [until Saturday] is a beguiling and seductive collection of art poised, like a plastic surgeon's scalpel, over the skin of contemporary life. This is a remarkable show of sophistry by an artist working so deeply in the realm of double blinded irony and signifier play that the possibility of meaning has become vertiginous. Yet this is no simple retreat from a task many of his peers shun as too difficult. The disavowal of meaning, particularly in contemporary photographic work is a familiar trope, often consisting of nothing but a refusal to commit to anything more than the surface of the print. We are all familiar with this type of work. Vistas of banality that resort to arguments of reflection to justify their contempt for depth.

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While the single artist articles make up about 10% of the total posts, the majority of Artlife articles review large museum shows or survey a number of exhibitions. In these posts we counted the times an artist was mentioned as the subject or reference in the article (each artists was only counted once per article) Individual women artists were mentioned 63 times, while male artists were mentioned 205 times.  Of note in this category are the reviews/responses to the Biennale of Sydney. In the interview with Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev she claims

So as a feminist I've never done an exhibition of art by women, it think that's anti-feminist to do that. I mean I would never do an exhibition about the sensibility of an – only artists who are gay, for example, I would never do that, I find that racist, I find that wrong. So my way of being um, against those ah … inequalities which I think there are, my way of doing it is not to, to isolate and celebrate, I think that’s hypocritical. But to break the boundaries and bring together, that's what I like to do.

If the biennale revolutions were to break boundaries and bring together they had little to do with the work of women artists in the show. In all the reviews responses to the Biennale of Sydney posted on The Art Life there were only four women mentioned; Lia Perjovschi, Destiny Deacon, Tracy Moffatt and one work that was critiqued that of Adrian Piper. While the work of 11 male artists in the biennale were mentioned and discussed including William Kentridge (3 times), Mike Parr (3 times) Vernon Ah Kee (twice), Pierre Huyghe (twice), Nedko Solakov (twice) Malevich (twice) and Richard Bell, Giuseppe Penone, Stuart Ringholt, Robert Smithson and Ross Gibson. There were also two articlesWhere is Philip Gunston, and Much More Than WYSIWYG that wonder why two male painters works are not included in the show. Countess feels the more pressing question is why only 26% or a quarter of the artists in the show were women? Two other post categories are New Work and interviews. In these categories the featured artists provide the text and images for the articles. In New Work; 10 were by women artists and 13 by male artists while the interviews have been with 7 women artists and 6 male artists making these the two most balanced categories. It is interesting that these categories where the artist has a voice come out so gender equal, why would this be? Is it because the art writers function is to generate approval and sanction an artists career and in the process ensure future employment from editors and university research points for backing the winning horse and thereby ensuring ongoing relevance? 

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