I had a great time tonight at the Red Bar Gallery where I gave a talk and showed some new paintings – great music, great cocktails, great people. So what’s new?
The news that Red Bar Gallery had been threatened with closure because of 2 of my paintings that were in the window.
When these paintings went in the window several males noted with pleasure that the women looked hungry and aggressive. But some other people – with influence – apparently think them ‘porn’.
Hmmm, so it’s OK for a woman to be naked in a picture and look miserable and totally powerless, like she’s just been raped – which is how a lot of nude women in paintings look – but it’s not OK for her to look like she owns herself, like in my art? Yes, in 2010 that’s how things apparently are for some people. This really sucks.
It freaks me out how acceptable it is for women to be so powerless in ‘art’. The idea of a woman being so broke she gets paid for sitting naked (art ‘model’) or dancing naked (‘dancer’) in front of a pile of pervs is really wierd and unacceptable to me. In my painting ‘Lapdancer’ (now on on show at the Vlada Bar, Miami) the colours I use are unusually miserable for me and suggest what I think of that situation.
