… while male abstract expressionists are often credited for their aggressive brushwork, careful examination reveals that artists like Willem de Kooning applied paint with incredible delicacy.
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I’m not sure what is being said here. Are you saying that the gender bias at museums stems from preference for a perceived masculinist paradigm and this is bad since a masculinist painter like DeKooning painted at times w/ ‘delicacy’? So muscular bravura strokes (in somebody’s lexicon) equals masculine and less muscular (delicacy) equals feminine? What about medium speed gestures, are they hermaphroditic or tranny strokes? And when, Elaine DeKooning painted w/ muscularity, she too was masculine; and when they each painted in each others work, do we have a bisexual paradigm? Which DeKooning period early John Graham, later Gorky style, or Willem’s later wide brush style? I’m not sure sense of brush stroke can be exclusively coded sexually. Having met DeKooning through other older artists, the one thing I came away w/ was how different he was than the hype.

Museums: It’s hard to generalize about museums. If the board is strong, then often they dictate, especially if the Director is more business person and less arty. However, things have changed in terms of female representatio if u r headcounting. Artists like Susan Rothenberg, Schapiro, Murray, Chicago, Horn, Katzen dented most museum collections. Whether it’s a parity w/ males, maybe not yet. I’m also getting the idea that more females make up gallery artists lists these days than ever b4, so I don’t know if the above claim that the success of men remains consistent w/ the past is true. To that the list cited above of contemporary female artists could be a lot bigger. The discussion on the Winkleman blog re: the Broad collection could be useful.

Re Museums: Who is generalizing and how?

Re contemporary female artists list being bigger: Totally true, but for the sake of readability, you can only list so many.

Re gender break downs in gallery representation: I’m not making any claims about female representation in galleries being poor, I’m citing facts. See The Brainstormers Report.

Re: museum generalizing; who do u mean when u say “museum officials” and museums (as opposed to art centers, I assume?). I’ve worked at three diff major museums, and I have found little rational reasoning half of the time for what is exhibited or acquired. Museum size matters, endowment, how crazy or motivated the board is, etc.–I guess I find it almost laughable to think that some museum work was acquired in a rational way, while others seem to be very sensitive to public reception and sensitivity. I curated a show once purely on the wims of the directors lover who was into the southwest look, this is way back. So, u r saying that the museum’s (example would help) track record “suggests a collective preference for work made by men.” is a directed thing, and not just a default of a slowly fading sexist society?

Now what about adding race? can we discern a pattern of absentiism in museum, need I ask?

The assumption that change often meets strong opposition within museums and other fine art establishments may have its place in the conversation about gender representation not because museum officials are busy hindering the efforts of female artists, but because we’ve had so much trouble identifying unconscious behavior and unwitting mistakes that led to inaccurate evaluations of art made by women, as well as their disproportionate representation.

So, no I’m not saying that there is a directed effort by museums to exclude women. I’ve said the opposite. There is no directed effort, but as a culture, we are often unaware of biases so deeply ingrained we simply them as facts. This in turn informs our actions.

Re: Brainstormers Report. Prima facie I wouldn’t bank too much on one report and I certainly would not treat anything from Jerry Saltz as incorruptible. What’s his source? SVA and Columbia? I know one person who worked at Village Voice w/ inside stuff and she did not trust him. I personally know he ‘appropriated’ someone else’s idea for gain, minus credit. When Jerry S. did the whitney a few years back, what was the head count for woman in the Bi?

I worked last year as a visiting artist at an art school and a large university and as far as the art departments go, they mirror the general trend toward more females on college campus’s than males. In fact, the university, when u add in Fibers, Ceramics, anime, viscom, not just the so-called traditional fine arts, the woman outnumbered. My 2D foundation courses and color class at the art school, looking at my roster, ran 17-23 woman out of classes usually 30 in size. My figure drawing class out of 33 had only three males. Moreover, I thought the portfolio reviews for Thesis and grad exhi. definately had more females. So again, I wouldn’t trust that source, at least it’s not what I saw. I’ll email some friends i have at other schools.

Your attacks seem personal, and I’m not going to spend any more energy skirmishing with you here.