There's this show on BravoTV, called Work of Art. It is another reality show where participants compete for US$100,000 and a spectacular grand prize that will explosively jump start their careers. For a period of several months, challengers are asked to produce pieces and are then judged by a notable panel of art honchos. It gets ugly, sometimes dramatic, and of course garish, luring in viewers by the promise of a good train wreak to watch. I've got the bug and when able to watch eagerly await who will be dumped next and what colorful disagreements emerge among this group of strangers forced to endure each other's presence. I've also got the bug for seeing what art work will be created next, the challenges under which these pieces are to be created and the process (although very much edited) that the artists undertake. The show began with a motley crew of artists. Some very well known in their field like Nao Bustamente, others working artists with solid track records or freshly plucked from university fine art programs. And yes, there is one “outsider” artist without formal training. Why I'm going on with this is because, the selected cast represents, to the best of its ability, diversity in the fine art world. There is/was a white gay man, an Asian man, an African American woman, a Latina woman (maybe 2, one has the last name of Santos), an African American male, a Latino male, 4 white males (including the gay man), 2 white females (maybe 3 if Santos 'fesses up). There's more diversity on this show than in your average Chelsea show. Quite frankly, this was a bit of a shock to me. The established art world is still very much upper middle class+ white male. When you go to any major museum, there are still very few white women on the walls of permanent collections or featured in major solo exhibitions. The statistics dwindle for everyone else outside the two previously mentioned groups. As I read further into Mixed Blessings (the book doesn't seem to end), I continue to discover more artists that I have never heard of. Some great work touched by the magic wands of quality such as from Kristine Stiles in the late 80's. There are moments while reading when I can't help but feel an agenda to subconsciously categorize the work into what art by non-European/third world/forth world artists should be about. Is it coming from ideas impregnated by my education where work by prominent artists of color were brought up in relation to an issue (race, immigration, post-colonialism, etc.). At the same time, I'm not really sure from who this is coming from. Blaming Lippard is easy. I rant on to myself about how she's pushing the reader to categorize by the chapter titles: 'Landing', 'Telling', 'Mixing', 'Naming'. They border on being so Carlos Castaneda in their eagerness for simplicity. Yet, stories and experience of race, immigration, colonialism, etc. are so actively present in communities of color that to deny their occurring wouldn't be honest either.
There is an image in Mixed Blessings of Carrie Mae Weems' photograph “Mirror, Mirror”, 1986. It shows a black woman looking through a frame to a veiled older woman. The caption is a take on Snow White and the Queen Witch looking into the mirror: “Looking into the mirror, the black woman asked, 'Mirror, mirror on the wall who's the finest of them all?' The Mirror says, 'Snow White, you black bitch and don't you forget it!!!'” I look around subway car interiors, at the movie posters advertising films and TV programs and the faces have changed only slightly. The everyday “human”stories they tell continue to come from the perspective of the dominant culture. Even in the super natural world of vampires, werewolves, and sorcerers other is made human when seen as suffering, humorous, or devastated. Few images involve other as just Joe from the block who is friends with X. Jennifer Lopez started out pretty smart (don't know if it was conscious or not) about her roles and how they were perceived. Her roles in “Angel Eyes” and “Out of Sight” didn't really go into what her background was. She simply was. Now when I glance at the popular films I see Jessica Alba dying her hair blond. Thank goodness, Robert Rodriguez has snatched her up as a brunette for his latest shoot 'em up bang bang Mexican revenge flick, "Machete".
PS: I think for my next entry I will google some of the names I've underlined in Mixed Blessings. Do a wee “where are they now” search and report back. I hope to be finished with Mixed Blessings. Have to make a dent on the shelf.
