grumble grumble grumble
Jul. 25th, 2010 07:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyDear Milwaukee Art Museum:
While I very much enjoyed your exhibit, American Quilts: Selections from the Winterthur Collectcion, and was impressed by the excellence of the quilts, there was one thing that gave me pause.
The quilts in the exhibit were from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (1760-1850), and they were, of course, made by women. I said to my husband, "This is the most women's names you will ever see in a museum exhibit," and that was something I particularly appreciated: seeing women's artwork taken seriously and presented as worthy of respect, even if it was evident that the curators were struggling to find the vocabulary to talk about the quilts as art rather than merely as social artifacts. That's okay; I understand how hard that can be, having encountered the same difficulty with science fiction and fantasy many times, and that did not detract from the quality of the exhibit. However, in the gift shop (the last room in the exhibit), there were three quilts on display by Bruce Seeds.
Let me be clear: I think that it is awesome that a twenty-first century man has chosen to take up quilting, and furthermore, I think that Mr. Seeds' quilts are indeed excellent and gorgeous and quite interesting in juxtaposition with the quilts in the exhibit. But by placing them at the end of this exhibit of early American quilts, without any acknowledgment of the fact that women continued to make quilts for the 150 years in between and are still making quilts, some of which are every bit as iconoclastic, if not more so, than Mr. Seeds', are you not perpetuating a particularly unpleasant canard: that women may be competent to make, in this case, quilts, but it takes a man to make real art out of them? In this context, I cannot help but feel that Mr. Seeds' slightly supercilious self-consciousness ("not your grandmother's quilts" indeed) is an unfortunate sidelight on the valuation of women's artwork--the very thing that I had found so striking and admirable in the rest of the exhibit. (Let me also add that I know that's being unfair to Mr. Seeds, since I wouldn't find that nearly as troublesome in a different context--and the context is not his fault.) And while I understand that the focus of the exhibit was on early American quilts, and thus it did not have the scope to explore the rich continuing tradition(s) of American quilting, if you could find space for one modern quilter in your gift shop, could you not either
(a.) have found space for two?
or
(b.) have made that single quilter1 a woman, so as to continue the celebration of women's arts that made the exhibit so moving?
It's not hard to find examples of contemporary women quilters doing fascinating work. Here's a fairly intellectualized example, but jeez. Just take a look at the Smoky Mountain Quilt Show 2009 and see the amazing and beautiful things contemporary women are doing in quilting.2
After a lovely, thought-provoking, and even inspiring exhibit, this sudden descent into patriarchalism left me feeling dissatisfied, and in fact a little bitter--as this blog post now attests.
Nevertheless, thank you for putting on this exhibit of early American women's quilts. It is far better to have a flawed exhibit than no exhibit at all.
---
1For that matter, I was puzzled by the degree to which the exhibit ignored the fact that quilting was a social art. The quilts were all attributed as much as possible to single quilters, even when those single quilters' names were unknown. I would have appreciated an acknowledgment that the paradigms of Western art did not apply comfortably here.
2When I was a kid, there was a woman who exhibited her quilts at the Children's Museum of Oak Ridge. Her quilts were astonishing in their combination of quilting, calligraphy, and feminism--obviously, since I remember them twenty-plus years later. I just wish I could remember her name.
While I very much enjoyed your exhibit, American Quilts: Selections from the Winterthur Collectcion, and was impressed by the excellence of the quilts, there was one thing that gave me pause.
The quilts in the exhibit were from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (1760-1850), and they were, of course, made by women. I said to my husband, "This is the most women's names you will ever see in a museum exhibit," and that was something I particularly appreciated: seeing women's artwork taken seriously and presented as worthy of respect, even if it was evident that the curators were struggling to find the vocabulary to talk about the quilts as art rather than merely as social artifacts. That's okay; I understand how hard that can be, having encountered the same difficulty with science fiction and fantasy many times, and that did not detract from the quality of the exhibit. However, in the gift shop (the last room in the exhibit), there were three quilts on display by Bruce Seeds.
Let me be clear: I think that it is awesome that a twenty-first century man has chosen to take up quilting, and furthermore, I think that Mr. Seeds' quilts are indeed excellent and gorgeous and quite interesting in juxtaposition with the quilts in the exhibit. But by placing them at the end of this exhibit of early American quilts, without any acknowledgment of the fact that women continued to make quilts for the 150 years in between and are still making quilts, some of which are every bit as iconoclastic, if not more so, than Mr. Seeds', are you not perpetuating a particularly unpleasant canard: that women may be competent to make, in this case, quilts, but it takes a man to make real art out of them? In this context, I cannot help but feel that Mr. Seeds' slightly supercilious self-consciousness ("not your grandmother's quilts" indeed) is an unfortunate sidelight on the valuation of women's artwork--the very thing that I had found so striking and admirable in the rest of the exhibit. (Let me also add that I know that's being unfair to Mr. Seeds, since I wouldn't find that nearly as troublesome in a different context--and the context is not his fault.) And while I understand that the focus of the exhibit was on early American quilts, and thus it did not have the scope to explore the rich continuing tradition(s) of American quilting, if you could find space for one modern quilter in your gift shop, could you not either
(a.) have found space for two?
or
(b.) have made that single quilter1 a woman, so as to continue the celebration of women's arts that made the exhibit so moving?
It's not hard to find examples of contemporary women quilters doing fascinating work. Here's a fairly intellectualized example, but jeez. Just take a look at the Smoky Mountain Quilt Show 2009 and see the amazing and beautiful things contemporary women are doing in quilting.2
After a lovely, thought-provoking, and even inspiring exhibit, this sudden descent into patriarchalism left me feeling dissatisfied, and in fact a little bitter--as this blog post now attests.
Nevertheless, thank you for putting on this exhibit of early American women's quilts. It is far better to have a flawed exhibit than no exhibit at all.
---
1For that matter, I was puzzled by the degree to which the exhibit ignored the fact that quilting was a social art. The quilts were all attributed as much as possible to single quilters, even when those single quilters' names were unknown. I would have appreciated an acknowledgment that the paradigms of Western art did not apply comfortably here.
2When I was a kid, there was a woman who exhibited her quilts at the Children's Museum of Oak Ridge. Her quilts were astonishing in their combination of quilting, calligraphy, and feminism--obviously, since I remember them twenty-plus years later. I just wish I could remember her name.
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no subject
Date: 2010-07-26 01:51 am (UTC)Variolation was invented by some women in Turkey. No one bothered to get their names, they were Turkish and women. There is evidence it was practiced regularly in China and India hundreds of years before that.
It was championed by the wealthy wife of an English diplomat, because the Turks were obviously surviving smallpox a lot better than England was. She was rich and English, so we know her name Lady Mary Wortley Montague.
Several people figured out before Jenner that cowpox killed less and so might be a better thing to dose people with. At least two of those people were women. But in 1796 Jenner used the word 'vaccine' to describe this and therefore invented it.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-26 02:11 am (UTC)Maybe the museum curators should go mingle with the common folk and see what they're missing. A corn dog or two might do them good.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-26 02:41 am (UTC)As for quilts as modern art: wasn't that settled decades ago? For example: Joyce Wieland, whose quilts are in art galleries:
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/photoessay/that60s-show/index.html
no subject
Date: 2010-07-26 03:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-26 09:55 am (UTC)I know a bit about quilting and have seen the likes of Bruce's kaleidscope quilts. I actually own two books about this technique and can't wait until I get to make one.
In my opinion, Bruce's quilts, though marvelous in their own right, are very much out of place when compared to historical quilting. Basically what the museum did was take tape recordings from the '50s and blue-ray, and skipping all the steps in between that made the innovation possible. It's comparing the hand-cart or the horse-drawn boat to a sports car and a cruise ship, without showing the historically interesting steps in between that molded the quilt into the shape and made it possible to evolve into a new kind of art that was shown at the very end!
If you look at the process of quilting and how it evolved, I think it's clear on how different it became. It started out as making warm blankets by using scraps of cloth that were left over. These days we spend hundreds of euro's on new and untouched fabric, specifically designed and brightly coloured for the sole purpose of making a quilt. Where they used to make do with what they had, we now buy fabrics designed in colour depth, tranquility or motion to design our quilts. And quilts have evolved from being an object to use to being a work of art (as well).
In quilts like Bruce makes, there is no place for scraps and recycling, so there's another point its in disharmony with the exhibit.
Just my two cents I thought I'd share. =)
no subject
Date: 2010-07-26 12:13 pm (UTC)On the other hand, I think the museum's choice of quilt artist is more to do with the fact he's state-local. I have no idea where other quilt artists are based, but I'm assuming they wanted an art 'quilter' that was local and seemed kind of famous so they simply got the first person they found. Or he was the first person to say 'yes'.
I sometimes see that in local exhibitions - there'll be a commentary or a guest speaker or featured artist who is listed as a prominent figure in the field, but their field of expertise is actually at the other end of the spectrum.
Also, artists (and I presume people who manage art) are a pretentious lot and willing to make up any sort of BS in order to sell their art. Much like most other liberal arts people.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-26 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-26 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-27 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-26 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-26 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-27 03:53 am (UTC)