In an unusual attempt at self-preservation I've tried to avoid the current revival of feminist furor in the art world being stirred up by Roberta Smith and her consort, (buddy boy) Jerry Saltz, but my curiosity was sparked by this Artforum Diary posting on a recent panel on "Feminism" by Rhonda Lieberman.

(I'll give you time to read it. Trust me, it's funny).

Schmoozebeasts? Have I been sleeping or am I behind in my Yiddish? Will this replace the increasingly tiresome "hipster"? Please? It rolls off the tongue like a boiled pierogi. And I'll take anything over the repulsive "art fag"; it wasn't funny the first time around and it's not ironic now. It's just sad. Really really sad.

About the panel: I thought Joan Snyder drank herself to death in France years ago. Oh, right, that was Joan Mitchell. Sorry, my mistake. And, yes Joan, men are to blame for everything bad in the world but can we also take some credit for the good things? We're not all Julian Schnabel, you know. Some of us are sensitive pussycats like, say, Richard Serra? Why is it that a bonehead like Schnabel is always the target. Too afraid to take on the real tough guy, hey?

When Collier Shorr first appeared everyone always referred to her as Richard Prince's boyfriend so I'm not sure how much sincerity is behind her statements of admiration for Snyder, or anyone.

Barbara Kruger is, of course, always right (just ask her!) and though "direct address" is out of style right  now in favor of all that relational stuff I hope she'll dump academia and be back on the bullhorn soon. Kruger designed commercial book covers early on in her career -- I had an Aldous Huxley paperback  with a cover by her at one point  --  and she definitely knows what she's talking about in terms of media. Po-Mo princess Cindy Sherman, on the other hand, watched movies. She's right: Victim/Aggressor are absolutely two sides to the same coin. I guess you could say I'm a Kruger butch rather than a Cindy Sherman femme.

Tamy Ben-Tor's work I don't know so it's hard to decide whether she or Joan Snyder made the dumber statement.

My question is: Why did four intelligent and respected artists let Roberta Smith set them up like that?

A more considered and thorough (but much less funny) account of the panel by Mira Shor is here along with a piece on an earlier panel with Vanessa Beecroft.

Keith Sanborn's catalogue essay on Wolfgang Staehle's "Untitled" from 2001:

Untitled

Keith Sanborn

Mankind, which in Homer’s time was an object of contemplation for the Olympian gods, now is one for itself. Its self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order.

  —Walter Benjamin, The Artwork in the Age of its Technical Reproducibility

 

Excursus

Wolfgang Staehle’s installation, 2001, ran at Postmaster’s Gallery in New York City from September 4 to October 11; by means of the events of September 11, it seemed to pass from interesting to extraordinary.

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Misnomer, Roxy Paine

 
The AI Interview: Roxy Paine
by João Ribas

New York-based artist Roxy Paine makes computer-driven machines that mechanically produce paintings and sculptures; he also creates hand-crafted replications of nature that are startlingly realistic. His work toys with assumptions about nature vs. culture and organic vs. artificial; it often confounds the distinction between the man-made and the natural.

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Panorama of Paine's studio by David Kelley