Comments on: Bias and Prejudice in the Art World

By: Bob Ragland

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 23:22:37 +0000

Face to face selling is my thing. I want people to say they met me.
I am thinking of my history as an artist. I won’t even try to do any selling via the web.
I have studio visits by appointment.

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By: Jan

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:19:34 +0000

Alyson, I didn’t say much beyond comments of the “hm. that’s Interesting–and surprising” variety. I usually put such client observations down to lack of art education and/or inexperience (as well as, occasionally, mental or societal bias). The gallery owner is a long-time friend. I encourage her to do a little educating but sometimes she feels it would compromise future business.

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By: Alyson Stanfield

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:02:59 +0000

In reply to Jan.

Jan: There are all kinds of theories about this. Take a feminist art history class sometime to learn more about gender and art.
I’m curious as to what you said to the gallerist.

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By: Sari Grove

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 22:45:15 +0000

In reply to Nancy Curran.

Nancy…What ran through my head was the ‘be a Jew to the Jews & a Gentile to the Gentiles’ thing, which I guess is a strategy used for missionary work…I thought that if I opened hard that I would lose the opportunity to be a witness to the curator, during a slower unrolling…But maybe a hard opening was the correct answer…Thanks…

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By: Nancy Curran

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:56:11 +0000

In reply to Sari Grove.

It is understandable to be uncomfortable with this question-because it is irrelevant.
It is a tough one. As a Christian myself I think for me the right answer is to be honest and say “I am Christian”. I might follow up with my own question of why is this relevant to our discussion of art?
Jesus was persecuted and those that are persecuted here on earth for their belief in him will be rewarded in the end.
Love him or hate him-when George W. Bush was asked who was the most important figure in his life –his shocking and unexpected answer of Jesus Christ–garnered him much respect.

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By: Andrew Borloz

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:31:41 +0000

I happen to be in the female-dominated mixed media world…and yet, discrimination is everywhere regardless of gender, age, race, or ability. And there is discrimination even within groups. Like for example – the deaf community is actually compromised of several groups: hearing-impaired (“oral deaf” – the ones that don’t use sign-language), in-between (both sign language & lipreading), and sign deaf (the ones that only use sign language), and I have been discriminated as an “oral deaf” only because I acted too much like an hearing person. And my biggest challenge with the mixed media art world is having to deal with “jealousy” – not the good kind but the kind that makes it difficult for me to get ahead. So, whenever I created art (or design), I have to ignore these negative elements and just do the best I can. As a matter of fact, I just signed a contract with a woman-owned business to do design work despite the fact that I am the only male artist in its design team. I just go with the flow and not worry about the gender…or my hearing handicap…

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By: Jacqueline

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:18:04 +0000

In reply to jennie rosenbaum.

After reading your post here Jennie, I just have to say something. I completely believe you have experienced these things.
I have a disability that is not apparent. I can only sit or stand for short periods of time and I am easily fatigued, which effects how I can present my work at say an art fair or gallery opening etc. Because of this my husband must help me and I am always amazed at how many people think he is the artist! If you saw him and knew his background, you would laugh hysterically too! But then again…I sign my name with my first two initials, so I have to remember it is a valid question. They do not automatically know the gender.
It still always amazes me that people think the way they do. I have to ask myself, where do all these beliefs about the disabled (and all the ism’s) come from? To think about how they came to believe that if your are not young/pretty/normal you can’t be a successful artist (or be anything for that matter), for example. The advertising slogan keeps going through my mind; “sex sells”, and it does and the gallery owners know this too! But in most cases…they take it too far (re: Embarrassed’s post).
My experience has been from a career in a male dominated proffession and I experienced every kind of discrimination you can think of (on one of my assessments was written, ” wears her uniform very well”…it took me a couple years to learn exactly what that meant). My biggest learning curve was watching other young/pretty/females, just take rude comments etc.
-I call it the ‘keep your head in the sand and they won’t do that to me’ syndrome. Sorry to say it but, if you think you are exempt from someones biases and prejudices, think again. Yes, it is a part of life. I try not to let it influence my actions or how I live. But, at every opportunity I have to confront those ‘beliefs’, I try to use tact and my intention is not to lash back at them (although that’s tough when one is actually offended), but to educate them on another way of thinking. Sometimes just asking them why they believe “that” can force them to confront their own prejudices. I have found that most of these people are ignorant to what they are proposing and it opens a door for them to rethink their belief…sometimes they don’t even know why they think what they are thinking. Others run when confronted!
Right or wrong, maybe it is human nature.
Remember that society is bombarded every day with how we are supposed to think through media which in turn, has influenced generations before them. Then on top of that there are regional belief systems, influenced by things such as religeon, or politics. The reasons are endless.
Let’s face it, you can not change someone else’s mind about something, but you can try to redirect them in another direction. They have to ultimately be willing to go there themselves though.
Don’t take it personally, because I don’t think it is meant to be. (Unless its made by a jealous artist who thinks they are in some sort of competition with you). ; )
Rise above, keep creating what you were meant to create for the world (whether they get it or not) and keep the hope alive that by doing this, one day the world might be a fairer place.

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By: victoria pendragon

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 19:56:21 +0000

In reply to tb.

tb…I’m inspired by the idea of a show for The Elders…hmmmm…I’ve got a new pot to stir…I really like that idea!

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By: Jan

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:11:59 +0000

I went “huh? really?” when a gallery owner told me that some people, looking at my paintings, thought I was a man. Also, apparently my signature looked masculine!
It makes me laugh–I like to confound expectations. But I still think “really?” because to me art is art–it doesn’t have a gender. I don’t even think of *my* art as having *my* gender!

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By: tb

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 16:34:27 +0000

This discussion has been directed to galleries, but I have found before getting to the point of producing professional level work, there is much discrimination in getting the means to perfect the craft to be at gallery level. Many people/women, start out with art degrees or even substantial but unfinished univ education but a certain generation which I fall in, did not have access to the many fine and geographically represented art academies to learn important fundamental.s Today academies are everywhere and turn out a fine crop of professional level artists and teachers who set up more smaller, powerful ateliers in outlying areas. Women who stopped their art to have family , may find themselves in a position as empty nester or with help of nannies and good time management, trying to pick up where they left off. This means at a later stage and having left any money-making opps usually they/we-without-fundamentals-era artists, try to beef up the degree where we succeeded with Joseph Beuys everything is art projects, now try to make ”real” art and do our best to fill obvious gaps in whatever way we can. Unable to attend a curriculum full time (minimally 3 yrs), for lack of time consumption nor financials, we are then also faced with the slap of fine print which states our obvious sell by date and inelibibility to obtain some of the best , well known study grants and awards. It can seem very quickly that the older artist cannot learn or should have a lower ranking order for eligibility based on the criteria we repeatedly see. Then we lower our standard in the search out of necessity or worse give up the search and inner soul for improvement as a mean of reaching commercial status. What a catch 22!
Many discussions exists on favorable situations like today’s 50 yr old is yesterday’s 40 and improvement in life, access to internet means new inroads for self teaching, TG. But there is a pragmatic side that we hear about constantly, where the generations who paid into the social system and expect and deserve therefore an adequate retirement will be faced with diminishing pots to fill their expectations. Then what? If hypothetically, we raised children, don’t have our skills updated, aren’t commerically viable and we outlve or cohabitate in a caretaking or care needing situation–all statistically possible and likely scenarios– why should we be held back from educational opps when our facilities still allow us to improve our situation and not be incumbent on the government when we age. No one will come to the rescue and it will be too late for us to improve our situation. I look for financial possiblities to add to modest teaching income and find myself being so thankful for a brain that works after the age of thirty-five, because apparently one does not deserve (male or female) to have funding after this age! We just need not apply. One can argue there are other venues but this is outright age discrimination and it is tolerated (too soft, ”blatantly promoted” is more like it) in some of the top, most renown schools and touted in the most circulated artist magazines. Okay a special conference for artists over 60, (appauling!) That being said, there are organizations who have come up at leawt to the millenium and changed their policy even if in recent years. I commend them and hope others follow suit. Is there anyone out there who shares my rant/vent? To all you who feel as I do– keep looking and keep applying. A particularly tenacious generation, we can be working in something we love and are capable of even into older/less physcially mobile segment of human development–at an age past 65 –and maybe like me even visualize this and want to be producing art that is commerciall viable. The retirement cutoff will slide up higher to match the trends of living longer, being healthier. Education is moving to a direction of more online programs–even masters of studio art as low residency programs. Life will get better and we can stimulate this movement. There is definitely safety in numbers and knowledge is power, so rallying forward will bring reward. Keep learning, improving, setting the bar for yourself , getting education, staying vocal and vital and following a path that serves to set good exampe for others who will join this direction–which is eventually all who are fortuntate enough to age with dignity and self worth, no matter which chosen method of contributing to society.

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