I’ve been pretty busy lately and, though I came to the conversation late, I did have every intention to respond to the Germaine Greer article, Making pictures from strips of cloth isn't art at all - but it mocks art's pretentions to the core, that has so many fiber artists and art quilters in an uproar, but have lost some of my interest in the task.
I will say that the first thing that struck me in reading the article is this: Did Greer miss post-modernism entirely? She’s upholding painting as an ideal even after its so-called “death” and death of any other material-based studio practice. To work with fibers, to work with paint, to work with any medium has not been necessary to constitute art for a very long time. And to claim any sort of permanence or immortality for the art object as criteria for legitimacy is so behind in the critical art discourse.... Surely Greer’s being ironic? Sadly, I don’t think so. Flippant maybe… glib, haphazard, ill-informed.
And there maybe is the irony… in the article’s ill-informed state, it shows itself to be a consequence / product of post-modernity (which seems to have escaped Greer) in that post-modernity has deflated the notion of expertise. Post-modernity affords a space for Greer where she can play the expert in fields where she is not. She or any of us have the freedom to write and pontificate about art (or science or whatever we choose) whether we’ve done our research about the subject or not. We are all equal to have our opinions. But still… some opinions are more informed than others just as some arguments are more valid than others.
Surely I don’t need to go into performance art, etc. or the material facts of all objects (no matter how mighty): they don’t survive forever. No matter how well protected, paint ages, it cracks – such is its history. Museums and conservationists help to preserve, but they do not try to turn back the effects of time on an old object, nor do they want to. Their jobs are to repair damage and prevent further destruction, not to make old paint look un-weathered and fresh. They reweave holes in old tapestries as well.
Regarding permanence and specifically media choice, Greer refers to Tracy Emin, whose sewn tent was “sadly burned.” Again, I’m not sure of Greer’s tone. Is she mourning the loss of a great object that mocks art, sarcastically calling it a loss as so many ignorant others who like to claim “that’s not art,” giving credibility to the patchwork of Edrica Huws by associating her with Emin or smartly showing the futility in hoarding the art object (as Emin’s tent was destroyed in an art storage facility)? Whatever the way, the object is gone as objects often become lost, destroyed, stolen, burned. (How many stories have we heard of “great pieces” being destroyed in studio fires?) That the piece existed in material form, that it was documented, that it fulfilled an idea and contributed to the discourse of art – this is where the meaning lies, not in the object's permanence.
To give privilege to an idea is not to say that this in any way does away with the cultural fact that an artist’s media choice and handling of materials always carry a history – personal, political and aesthetic – and each artist has a different set of histories and reasons for choosing his / her media to work through the ideas. For many, to chose fiber is a feminist statement that references a shared and inherited history of women’s work and, not only its "futility" as Greer recognizes, but its lack of commodifiable value. Historically, some labor is typically paid while other labor is neither paid nor recognized or, for that matter, even acknowledged as work. Certain labor lacks legitimacy and the proper sanctions from mostly male-dominated social institutions.
Might the "self-mocking" Greer writes about be related to art’s inherent uselessness and thus its often feminized role in a society (though the art heroes are, for the most part, male and the profession has historically been male-dominated)?
I’m not suggesting that any treatment of feminized materials (such as fabrics and fibers) is a “self-mocking” gesture though it can be or has been, espcially with so much irony being thrown around in the early 1990’s. Oftentimes a reference to the historically undervalued (i.e. women’s work) becomes a way to question what a society finds valuable. In that qualifying question, is the quantifiable… at some point, any artist who labors or, for that matter, any worker who labors must come to ask him or herself whether his / her work in particular or any labor for that matter (specifically the commodifiable and alienated kind) is futile. And then… embedded in that question of futility is its counter: Is all labor then potentially meaningful either intrinsically (meditative aspects, self-fulfillment, etc.) or extrinsically (financial gain, professional recognition, etc.) or both? That’s not to pretend that all work is equal in fulfillment or financial gain, but that some joy or meaning might be found in a variety of labor whether or not it is paid and “useful.”
And then there are those male artists who use fabric and fiber as their media. I won’t go into them either, though the point should be clear that they reference a history of women’s work as well.
I suppose it could very well be that fabric scraps are materials that are so over-determined and imbued with history that artists who use them are always at risk of “being misunderstood” or mis-categorized as the "wrong kind" of feminine. It is a fine line. And straddling this hybrid position where I'm sort of one thing and then kind of another, I often find I’m consciously shifting my weight from one side to the other of that fine line that divides the serious from the frivolous, the thoughtful from the sentimental and the powerful from the un-empowered.
I have no delusions that we are all able at all times to make equal choices with equal resources. We are not. We do not have the same career opportunities to do “important work” like developing cures for cancer or whatever constitutes “important [masculine] work” these days. The varying histories, privilege or lack of it, and our personal preferences make the difference in what is within our might or interest to pursue. Maybe we develop the compassion to recognize that some laborers / artists have more choices than others and the arrogance to hold ourselves to a higher standard by that recognition. Or maybe we hold to the compassion to let ourselves be where we are with our limitations and histories such that they are.
Ah, well... I ended up rambling on about it anyway.
So, thank you Germaine Greer, for generating conversation on this important topic as it concerns women, artists and those who labor.
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