away back in the day i was interested in body art, as it may've been know then, and i'm reasonably certain that's when i first came across ana mendieta. it's possible i saw her work or read something about her earlier as i was living in new york just after her death.
so i was pretty interested to listen to death of an artist, pushkin's series about her death, which is ongoing just now. truth be told i've not enjoyed it overmuch. even when i was there, the art world, that heady sphere so breathlessly referenced again and again by host helen molesworth, was nothing to do with, or for, the likes of me, indeed, as she makes clear the role of the museum is to make people like me aware of what we should and shouldn't like. until the 'art world' has a disagreement with itself and suddenly the hangers on and the proles are expected to take a side. an implicit binary, if you will.
which is kind of the problem with this show. if you're familiar with 'the art world' then molesworth's observations need no reiteration. curious too that, and despite that very familiar trope of american podcasts where the presenter has a massive need to talk about themselves, in a show that's predicated upon silence, molesworth is coy, so far, about the particulars of her own exit from her curatorial role.
which is likely me being picky. what's more frustrating is an apparent basic lack of understanding of how her own justice system works. and this (and another silence) layered upon an almost complete avoidance of the nature of capitalism, esp as it applies to art, museums etc. her history is selective at best, there's all the usual double standards - mendieta is a 'refugee', at least she is when her privileged cuban existence is upended but she leverages that privilege to get herself back into the corridors of power. then there's the incidental music, the american racism of which i could rant about for a whole post on its own.
but that said, while it's worth ignoring almost everything that's said about ana mendieta in the podcast, and going and looking at her work and finding out for yourself, it's actually a decent listen. yes. i found great tranches of it annoying, not least molesworth herself but the questions it's asking, about gendered power overtly, then not so much about power itself, capital, and about privilege are absolutely worth asking. and then there's the stuff that she doesn't do - like asking why we should bother with this gilded class in the first place, why we should bother with galleries or museums (give all that stolen stuff back!), why we're so fixated on the past and the establishment of canons instead of dealing with stuff that's happening right now.
and then the guerilla girls. i knew nothing about them and they deserve a podcast all by themselves. so it was worth it just for that.
so i was pretty interested to listen to death of an artist, pushkin's series about her death, which is ongoing just now. truth be told i've not enjoyed it overmuch. even when i was there, the art world, that heady sphere so breathlessly referenced again and again by host helen molesworth, was nothing to do with, or for, the likes of me, indeed, as she makes clear the role of the museum is to make people like me aware of what we should and shouldn't like. until the 'art world' has a disagreement with itself and suddenly the hangers on and the proles are expected to take a side. an implicit binary, if you will.
which is kind of the problem with this show. if you're familiar with 'the art world' then molesworth's observations need no reiteration. curious too that, and despite that very familiar trope of american podcasts where the presenter has a massive need to talk about themselves, in a show that's predicated upon silence, molesworth is coy, so far, about the particulars of her own exit from her curatorial role.
which is likely me being picky. what's more frustrating is an apparent basic lack of understanding of how her own justice system works. and this (and another silence) layered upon an almost complete avoidance of the nature of capitalism, esp as it applies to art, museums etc. her history is selective at best, there's all the usual double standards - mendieta is a 'refugee', at least she is when her privileged cuban existence is upended but she leverages that privilege to get herself back into the corridors of power. then there's the incidental music, the american racism of which i could rant about for a whole post on its own.
but that said, while it's worth ignoring almost everything that's said about ana mendieta in the podcast, and going and looking at her work and finding out for yourself, it's actually a decent listen. yes. i found great tranches of it annoying, not least molesworth herself but the questions it's asking, about gendered power overtly, then not so much about power itself, capital, and about privilege are absolutely worth asking. and then there's the stuff that she doesn't do - like asking why we should bother with this gilded class in the first place, why we should bother with galleries or museums (give all that stolen stuff back!), why we're so fixated on the past and the establishment of canons instead of dealing with stuff that's happening right now.
and then the guerilla girls. i knew nothing about them and they deserve a podcast all by themselves. so it was worth it just for that.
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