If Hannah Gadsby started smashing watermelons with giant mallets and wearing striped shirts I think it would be an absolute improvement on their shtick.
The year before the Pablo-Matic exhibit, a friend of mine insisted on taking me to the New Museum's Faith Ringgold retrospective because we'd gotten into a minor disagreement about it. I didn't like the way that the City of New York excised and sold the mural that Ringgold had been commissioned to paint in the women's prison on Rikers rather than transfer it to whatever facility they intended to send most of their female prisoners once Rikers closed, and this mural became part of that retrospective. There seemed to be a real reticence on the part of everyone involved in the exhibit to point out that this is what had happened - that Ringgold's art had been dubbed "too precious" and more or less just too good for her original intended audience of incarcerated women, taken from them, and decontextualized for this exhibit. While it was a privilege to see the work myself, and while I liked most of the exhibit, seeing it on a blank museum wall simply didn't change my opinion on this.
I was thinking of Ringgold's work when the Pablo-Matic exhibit came out because I read that Gadsby had chosen to feature a Ringgold piece (one that was actually intended as a counterpoint to another artist, Henri Matisse) juxtaposed to a Picasso drawing, even though Ringgold herself was profoundly influenced by Picasso, and did in fact create a quilt that acted as a comment on his use of the female body (though that piece - "Picasso's Studio" - is less critical of how he renders female nudes and more critical of how his art reinforced the presence of white female subjects as default representations of femininity). Ringgold's implicit critique isn't just concerned with Picasso's essential "male gaze" but with his white gaze as well. What's more, its not a flagrant rejection of Picasso's work or talent - its more of a simple acknowledgment of its limitations, and in many ways it also functions as a tribute at the same time.
This is one (of the many) things I find frustrating about Gadsby - and those who more or less fall in line with their thinking on these topics - which is that I don't consider their feminist critiques particularly relevant and in fact find them kind of dated. The entire idea of a "male gaze" has been problematized by lots of lesbian critics in the past few years - are women not also capable of gazing at other women through the lens of lust or in an objectifying way? LGBT critique of James Joyce follows a similar logic - whereas feminists have derided his descriptions of women as objectifying in the past, his work takes on a different dimension with queer theorists, especially those attracted to women. Gadsby identified as a lesbian themself until recently - do they, themselves, only look at women with reverence and respect and that's it? And do the Dederers consider artists like Ringgold foolish for wearing Picasso's influence on their sleeves? Do they think works like "Picasso's Studio" were created solely with a snarky joke in mind or with a more nuanced idea?
Comments like "Alain Delon was [x whatever bad person]" seemed to serve a function of shaming film lovers & viewers for, well, lusting over Alain Delon. Which is a normal thing to do, because he was beautiful. And if you're lusting over Alain Delon, you were likely either a gay man or a woman (though certainly plenty of others have caught themselves doing so as well). Was the point to just shame being attracted to men? I found myself genuinely wondering this time and time again when I saw those comments.
> The loss in faith in our institutions, the lack of leadership on several fronts has led to a lot of people to think, “What if I am secretly Joan of Arc and it is my mission to lead my people into glorious revolution?”
Related to this, I keep thinking on that other recent piece you wrote about the woman who went to Africa to do medical work that she was wildly unqualified for and that ended up killing people. Or like, various communes of separatist trans women that have crashed and burned within a few years. It feels difficult to look around and notice that change is needed-- and that if no one else is motivated to fix things, then maybe *you* should nut up and take a crack at it-- without tripping over your own feet taking on projects you were not at all equipped to handle. (The royal "you," I mean.) Like, I am not built to be a good organizer, but it feels hypocritical to sit around waiting for someone else to organize *for* me, right? How do we balance motivation for change vs dumb hubris, or self-awareness about our limits vs a sense of uselessness? Maybe it's just a matter of scale, and putting in the effort to at least *try* to know what you're doing before you get started? I don't know, but thank you for making me chew on it.
I think about this often, and have no real solutions or answers because the more I think about this the more I find the query kind of heady, but I will say this: I would just really, really like to see a lot less of a patronizing, guileless "savior" mentality from a lot of organizers that I find rampant these days. There's a degree of narcissism infecting a lot of otherwise okay ideas. Its definitely more noticeable in higher profile grifters like Shaun King, but its not just limited to grifters - and it seems like its the red flag that really indicates whether a project will sink or have some success.
“If no one else is motivated to fix things, then maybe *you* should nut up and take a crack at it” — a thought process that most good-faith organizers have had at one point or another.
There’s a difference between gunning for a leadership position and doing the grunt work required to keep things running. But it’s also hard to convince others to do that grunt work *with you*. Which leads to de facto leaders who don’t know what they’re talking about but they have, somehow, put in the most raw hours into the project and it’s too late to turn back now. If they step back then all the (good, or at least salvageable) work will be for nothing because no one else is willing to continue it.
Successful movements need thoughtful intellectual leaders; charismatic, front-facing activists who look good on camera; and organizers with actual people skills capable of building long-term relationships. But instead of separating these out as discrete functions and roles everyone prays for a martyr who can encompass all 3, then gets surprised when they turn out to be a grifter who runs with the money.
Absolutely yes, on all counts. That essential social prowess is exactly why I say I am not built to be an organizer, lol. But I also feel this vibrating motivation to do Something and the sense that I am being cowardly if I don't do as I beg others to do. How do the rest of us channel that will into, like, anything useful at all? I don't want to wither and do nothing, exactly the complacency that I habitually criticize in others. Maybe I should read some books by organizers anyway, surely their experience is something to learn from and apply to whatever I already find myself doing, right?? I'm at a loss otherwise.
I think the problem with the missionary Renee Bach isn't that she felt called to help children, it's that she decided to forgo any medical training but still felt confident enough to provide medical care, it's that she went to Uganda -- a country she knew nothing about -- instead of staying within her own community, it's that when she was being criticized she told herself these were the tribulations that must be borne by the godly and not legitimate problems.
I don't want to imply that I think things should only be done by the professionals. I think the biggest grifters these days are the professionals. there are not great models in the public sphere for how to participate, because the people I see there are mostly variations on Renee Bach, and their attitude is similarly "how dare you question me, I am doing god's work."
In Romania, Alain Delon will live forever because the shearling coats have been renamed "alendelon" after he wore one in Once a thief. When our parents die, it's a question that comes up: do you want your mother/father's alendelon? I had my mom's alendelon re-dyed and brought to New York in January 2017 after Trump won and wore it to some protests and an art show I co organized for Planned Parenthood. I felt like I added something to her life by having her be a part of the feminist uprising via her coat. It feels so silly now but it also feels like *chef's kiss* that I tried to include my mom in contemporary feminism by wearing a coat that's been named after a Problematic Man TM.
I had a long conversation in Bucharest (with our mutual contact) about Alain Delon. I think this is the best possible impact a Problematic Man can make, to make everyone be so troubled by his beauty, his difficulties, the way he disturbed the world just by being physically visible that again and again we come together to talk about it and argue over it, over food and wine. His beauty is a problem that cannot be resolved. What a legacy!
It’s telling that this mode of politics never questions the role of money in any meaningful way. Dismantling institutional power means getting rid of one corrupt boss not, idk, destroying the economic foothold that 20th Century Fox has on the industry. We’re jostling for power instead of limiting its excesses.
Maybe that’s why the feminist response feels so anemic? All that rage and intellectual might is put into yelling instead of actual force. Where is the self-defense? Where is the arson? There’s not even a consistent indifference to men’s work. Valerie Solanas did not die for this.
*typo on when The Pablomatic show came out - it says 2003 and for a second I thought it was as old as the X-Men franchise and got really confused
At least the Gadsby/Picasso exhibit was widely panned. Even the Times hated it. Unfortunately we are in cultural stagnation, so the sneer will never go away, even though more people don’t want to see it.
I have a friend who wrote a pretty good (bad) review of Jenny Holzer's latest exhibit at the Guggenheim, which is in fact not the only outright negative review of it I've read even though a lot of legacy press has been glowing. He didn't use the words "feminist sneer" but I'd say the gist is more or less there in what he had to critique about it. https://interlocutorinterviews.com/new-blog/2024/9/3/jenny-holzer-light-line-review-solomon-r-guggenheim-museum
If Hannah Gadsby started smashing watermelons with giant mallets and wearing striped shirts I think it would be an absolute improvement on their shtick.
The year before the Pablo-Matic exhibit, a friend of mine insisted on taking me to the New Museum's Faith Ringgold retrospective because we'd gotten into a minor disagreement about it. I didn't like the way that the City of New York excised and sold the mural that Ringgold had been commissioned to paint in the women's prison on Rikers rather than transfer it to whatever facility they intended to send most of their female prisoners once Rikers closed, and this mural became part of that retrospective. There seemed to be a real reticence on the part of everyone involved in the exhibit to point out that this is what had happened - that Ringgold's art had been dubbed "too precious" and more or less just too good for her original intended audience of incarcerated women, taken from them, and decontextualized for this exhibit. While it was a privilege to see the work myself, and while I liked most of the exhibit, seeing it on a blank museum wall simply didn't change my opinion on this.
I was thinking of Ringgold's work when the Pablo-Matic exhibit came out because I read that Gadsby had chosen to feature a Ringgold piece (one that was actually intended as a counterpoint to another artist, Henri Matisse) juxtaposed to a Picasso drawing, even though Ringgold herself was profoundly influenced by Picasso, and did in fact create a quilt that acted as a comment on his use of the female body (though that piece - "Picasso's Studio" - is less critical of how he renders female nudes and more critical of how his art reinforced the presence of white female subjects as default representations of femininity). Ringgold's implicit critique isn't just concerned with Picasso's essential "male gaze" but with his white gaze as well. What's more, its not a flagrant rejection of Picasso's work or talent - its more of a simple acknowledgment of its limitations, and in many ways it also functions as a tribute at the same time.
This is one (of the many) things I find frustrating about Gadsby - and those who more or less fall in line with their thinking on these topics - which is that I don't consider their feminist critiques particularly relevant and in fact find them kind of dated. The entire idea of a "male gaze" has been problematized by lots of lesbian critics in the past few years - are women not also capable of gazing at other women through the lens of lust or in an objectifying way? LGBT critique of James Joyce follows a similar logic - whereas feminists have derided his descriptions of women as objectifying in the past, his work takes on a different dimension with queer theorists, especially those attracted to women. Gadsby identified as a lesbian themself until recently - do they, themselves, only look at women with reverence and respect and that's it? And do the Dederers consider artists like Ringgold foolish for wearing Picasso's influence on their sleeves? Do they think works like "Picasso's Studio" were created solely with a snarky joke in mind or with a more nuanced idea?
Comments like "Alain Delon was [x whatever bad person]" seemed to serve a function of shaming film lovers & viewers for, well, lusting over Alain Delon. Which is a normal thing to do, because he was beautiful. And if you're lusting over Alain Delon, you were likely either a gay man or a woman (though certainly plenty of others have caught themselves doing so as well). Was the point to just shame being attracted to men? I found myself genuinely wondering this time and time again when I saw those comments.
> The loss in faith in our institutions, the lack of leadership on several fronts has led to a lot of people to think, “What if I am secretly Joan of Arc and it is my mission to lead my people into glorious revolution?”
Related to this, I keep thinking on that other recent piece you wrote about the woman who went to Africa to do medical work that she was wildly unqualified for and that ended up killing people. Or like, various communes of separatist trans women that have crashed and burned within a few years. It feels difficult to look around and notice that change is needed-- and that if no one else is motivated to fix things, then maybe *you* should nut up and take a crack at it-- without tripping over your own feet taking on projects you were not at all equipped to handle. (The royal "you," I mean.) Like, I am not built to be a good organizer, but it feels hypocritical to sit around waiting for someone else to organize *for* me, right? How do we balance motivation for change vs dumb hubris, or self-awareness about our limits vs a sense of uselessness? Maybe it's just a matter of scale, and putting in the effort to at least *try* to know what you're doing before you get started? I don't know, but thank you for making me chew on it.
I think about this often, and have no real solutions or answers because the more I think about this the more I find the query kind of heady, but I will say this: I would just really, really like to see a lot less of a patronizing, guileless "savior" mentality from a lot of organizers that I find rampant these days. There's a degree of narcissism infecting a lot of otherwise okay ideas. Its definitely more noticeable in higher profile grifters like Shaun King, but its not just limited to grifters - and it seems like its the red flag that really indicates whether a project will sink or have some success.
For sure, and same here. It feels especially weird that it's hard to tell how many grifters even know they are grifters.
“If no one else is motivated to fix things, then maybe *you* should nut up and take a crack at it” — a thought process that most good-faith organizers have had at one point or another.
There’s a difference between gunning for a leadership position and doing the grunt work required to keep things running. But it’s also hard to convince others to do that grunt work *with you*. Which leads to de facto leaders who don’t know what they’re talking about but they have, somehow, put in the most raw hours into the project and it’s too late to turn back now. If they step back then all the (good, or at least salvageable) work will be for nothing because no one else is willing to continue it.
Successful movements need thoughtful intellectual leaders; charismatic, front-facing activists who look good on camera; and organizers with actual people skills capable of building long-term relationships. But instead of separating these out as discrete functions and roles everyone prays for a martyr who can encompass all 3, then gets surprised when they turn out to be a grifter who runs with the money.
Absolutely yes, on all counts. That essential social prowess is exactly why I say I am not built to be an organizer, lol. But I also feel this vibrating motivation to do Something and the sense that I am being cowardly if I don't do as I beg others to do. How do the rest of us channel that will into, like, anything useful at all? I don't want to wither and do nothing, exactly the complacency that I habitually criticize in others. Maybe I should read some books by organizers anyway, surely their experience is something to learn from and apply to whatever I already find myself doing, right?? I'm at a loss otherwise.
I think the problem with the missionary Renee Bach isn't that she felt called to help children, it's that she decided to forgo any medical training but still felt confident enough to provide medical care, it's that she went to Uganda -- a country she knew nothing about -- instead of staying within her own community, it's that when she was being criticized she told herself these were the tribulations that must be borne by the godly and not legitimate problems.
I don't want to imply that I think things should only be done by the professionals. I think the biggest grifters these days are the professionals. there are not great models in the public sphere for how to participate, because the people I see there are mostly variations on Renee Bach, and their attitude is similarly "how dare you question me, I am doing god's work."
In Romania, Alain Delon will live forever because the shearling coats have been renamed "alendelon" after he wore one in Once a thief. When our parents die, it's a question that comes up: do you want your mother/father's alendelon? I had my mom's alendelon re-dyed and brought to New York in January 2017 after Trump won and wore it to some protests and an art show I co organized for Planned Parenthood. I felt like I added something to her life by having her be a part of the feminist uprising via her coat. It feels so silly now but it also feels like *chef's kiss* that I tried to include my mom in contemporary feminism by wearing a coat that's been named after a Problematic Man TM.
I did not know about this, but I love it.
I had a long conversation in Bucharest (with our mutual contact) about Alain Delon. I think this is the best possible impact a Problematic Man can make, to make everyone be so troubled by his beauty, his difficulties, the way he disturbed the world just by being physically visible that again and again we come together to talk about it and argue over it, over food and wine. His beauty is a problem that cannot be resolved. What a legacy!
What the world needs is a transcript of that conversation you two had 😌
Thank you for prompting me to re-read the William Davies review, which is superb
it really has a clarity that most writing on the subject lacks.
It’s telling that this mode of politics never questions the role of money in any meaningful way. Dismantling institutional power means getting rid of one corrupt boss not, idk, destroying the economic foothold that 20th Century Fox has on the industry. We’re jostling for power instead of limiting its excesses.
Maybe that’s why the feminist response feels so anemic? All that rage and intellectual might is put into yelling instead of actual force. Where is the self-defense? Where is the arson? There’s not even a consistent indifference to men’s work. Valerie Solanas did not die for this.
*typo on when The Pablomatic show came out - it says 2003 and for a second I thought it was as old as the X-Men franchise and got really confused
At least the Gadsby/Picasso exhibit was widely panned. Even the Times hated it. Unfortunately we are in cultural stagnation, so the sneer will never go away, even though more people don’t want to see it.
I have a friend who wrote a pretty good (bad) review of Jenny Holzer's latest exhibit at the Guggenheim, which is in fact not the only outright negative review of it I've read even though a lot of legacy press has been glowing. He didn't use the words "feminist sneer" but I'd say the gist is more or less there in what he had to critique about it. https://interlocutorinterviews.com/new-blog/2024/9/3/jenny-holzer-light-line-review-solomon-r-guggenheim-museum