Woman Made Gallery’s Claudine Isé discusses ‘Feminism (n.): Plural’ in the art wor
Woman Made Gallery’s Claudine Isé discusses ‘Feminism (n.): Plural’ in the art world“While assembling “Feminism (n.): Plural,” her new show for Woman Made Gallery, Claudine Isé, the gallery’s new executive director, used Roxane Gay’s discerning essay collection Bad Feminist as her inspiration. The result is a display of work by 35 artists that encompasses various feminist themes. I recently interviewed Isé about the show and her thoughts on the role of feminism in the art world.Zara Yost: What specific aspects of Gay’s book inspired this exhibition?Claudine Isé: I didn’t focus on any one particular essay in the book. “Feminism (n.): Plural” is not meant to be an illustration of Gay’s ideas. What inspires me most about Bad Feminist, actually, was the author’s wonderfully conversational approach to writing it. Gay writes like she’s talking to you—and that’s my favorite kind of writer! She’s smart as shit but not academic-y or preachy. Bad Feminist is radically accessible, and radically empathetic, and both of those qualities are important to me. I used the book as a touchstone for generating responses, not as an academic reference point.In her book Feminism is For Everybody, Bell Hooks wrote that lifestyle feminism is “the notion that there could be as many versions of feminism as there were women” and that the hazard of such a perspective is that “this way of thinking has made feminism more acceptable because its underlying assumption is that women can be feminists without fundamentally challenging and changing themselves or the culture.” Does the intention of “Feminism (n.) Plural” differ from so-called lifestyle feminism?My intent with “Feminism (n.): Plural” is to engage artists and viewers in a conversation about what feminism looks, acts, and sounds like today, certainly not in a prescriptive way but rather as an invitation to participate. All of the works in the exhibition were selected by me through an open call process, so the resulting exhibition is intended not as my own personal curatorial statement about what feminism should or should not be, but instead, as a snapshot of a variety of artists’ take on what feminism means to them. I do agree with Hooks that feminism at its core must be about changing the culture—and to do that, we humans have to be open to changing ourselves.I wasn’t looking for works that were didactic or that were trying to make a statement about feminism with a capital F. I was looking for works that I thought would provoke a lively, even raucous, conversation about what feminism is, was, and can be.”Read the full interview herePhoto: Friendship by Frances F. Denny -- source link
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