Blackpaint 496 – Women’s Half Issue; Diebenkorn; Caligari

George Baselitz and Women Artists

Reading in the Guardian this week about Baselitz, I was interested to see he hasn’t modified his opinion about women as artists; just not up to it, apparently.  Baselitz figures prominently in Klaus Honnef’s “Contemporary Art”, a Taschen book published in 1990 and claiming to be “the first attempt to provide a comprehensive survey of contemporary art”.  It draws on the work of 102 artists from nine countries (mainly Germany, Italy, USA and UK) and out of the 102, ELEVEN are women.  There are several group photographs of ten or a dozen smiling artists; only one contains a woman – Francesco Clemente’s unnamed wife.

To avoid compounding the error, these are the artists in the book who are women; four are American, the rest German:

• Susan Rothenberg (below)

• Ina Barfuss
• Elvira Bach (below)

• Jenny Holzer
• Rosemarie Trockel (below)

• Asta Groting
•  Isa Genzken
• Barbara Kruger (below)

• Katharina Sieverding (below)

 

• Cindy Sherman
• Astrid Klein

So there we are; I’ve mentioned all the women artists in a 25 year old Taschen book and can no longer be fairly accused of misogyny.  Thank goodness that things have changed and there is no longer any perceptible sexist bias in the art world…

Diebenkorn

I’ve been back to the RA exhibition for another look and spent 90 minutes just wandering round these fantastic pictures in delight.  This time I noticed sections in “Day at the Race” and the Urbana to its left which both have little groups of colours in them, as if exposed by scraping – sort of oblong insets.  And “Sea Wall” (below);

and the unganly, collapsed beauty of one of his women drawings (knee up, she’s lying on her left arm);

and the charcoal drawing with the straight lines, the collages and the cigar box tops – and everything else.  Fantastic – see it while you can, it’s not on much longer.

 

 

 

The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)

What I’d forgotten about this great German Expressionist horror film is the twist at the end; is the narrator really mad, and “Caligari” the master of the asylum? Or has he been telling the truth?

 

Conrad Veidt on the roof with friend

 

Werner Krauss and Conrad Veidt

Back to the talkies next week.

John the Conqueror Root

Blackpaint

24.05.15

Tags: Asta Groting, Astrid Klein, Barbara Kruger, Baselitz, Caligari, Cindy Sherman, Diebenkorn, Elvira Bach, Ina Barfuss, Isa Genzken, Jenny Holzer, Katharina Sieverding, Robert Wiene, Rosemarie Trockel, Susan Rothenberg