Misogyny in Art School

Sep 18

©Hilma af Klint 1907 Visit the Hilma af Klint Foundation

It's always so much fun to see previously unknown women artists being 'discovered', (especially after they're dead!), after being taught in my art history classes that they never existed.

I’ve been a feminist since I was a young teenager because I was smart, and could see the disparity in how my brothers (and all the other boys) were raised and treated, and how all of the girls were being raised and treated.

This made me distrust and dislike the Catholic Church from a very young age, which I instinctively knew from that very young age had a whole helluva lot to do with this disparity, at least in my neighborhood. A born heretic, I refused to be convinced to think like everyone else about church, god, rules, and women’s roles. I am sure I have at least a few past lives as a disgruntled nun who set shit on fire.

I’m writing about the misogyny that I, along with countless other students of all genders, experienced in art school.

I believe that a lack of representation is repression, because it programs everyone for generations to come to accept the absence of certain groups as normal. This includes gender inequality, racism and ‘other-ism’, homophobia, religious persecution, and all the rest. Being made invisible is being repressed.

As I’ve been updating myself as an artist into present time, my art school days have been resurfacing in a few interesting ways, including art school misogyny. I know this is coming up so I can finish with it and release old resentments and stuck energies, and be here now.

Since I earned my BFA in 1982 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, things have improved somewhat, in terms of representation in the arts. Time marches on and the old white guys who’ve held control forever over the narrative about what is art and who are the real artists, finally die off, leaving a bit more breathing room for everyone else. It’s easier than ever to choose to create, call yourself an artist, and express yourself, even if an old white guy didn’t deem you worthy of doing so.

©Remedios Varo See her show at the Art Institute of Chicago

But there’s a lot to deprogram, decolonize, and heal from.

We are learning how to tell new stories, and create new imagery that is outside of the same same patriarchal, racist, capitalist, and art market superstar narratives.

When I was in art school, students had to pass 6 art history classes, or 18 hours of art history minimum, to earn a BFA. Like many art schools, SAIC used the giant Janson’s History of Art, which was considered the bible of art history. And from 1976-1982, the years I studied at a school that was considered a great art school, not one woman artist was featured in that entire book. FFS. Apparently, ‘art history’ meant ‘European male artists’. Others need not apply.

There were no female artists in the Janson book at all until 1986. Nineteen freaking eighty six.

I graduated from SAIC in 1982, before Janson included anyone who looked like me as an artist, rather than a subject. The Janson book I was supposed to learn from had plenty of women, but they were all painted or sculpted by male artists, and a lot of them were naked.

Cue: 19 year old me, really pissed off to discover that the giant 10 pound book I have to buy for my art history class has not one female artist in it, coming up with a brilliant idea. I pitch it to my male art history teacher, who has just announced that the way he is teaching this class is that we have to read every single chapter and write a synopsis on each chapter. How mediocre of him. So my pitch was this: he would agree to give me credit for NOT doing all of that, but instead do a lot of research, reading, and write papers, on female artists. My idea was so exciting for me, how could he refuse?!

He didn’t think that women were capable of being artists worthy enough to be taught about in an art school, so no go.

So, I ended up failing that class. Being stubborn as I was, I was not going to cave and do all of this stupid non learning. If I’d been wiser, or told someone who could help me, or if they’d existed - it was 1977 and not exactly enlightened times (except that Roe was law for 4 years already, hallelujah!), I might have rallied support for my cause. I didn’t know I could have support with this. Who would listen, this was the Art Establishment, and they were telling me I was never going to be an artist worth writing about, because I was not capable of it, being female.

Happily, I had amazing teachers at that same school, lots of them women, most of them feminists.

They had been through this themselves, and responded by self educating, and teaching others. They directed me to books and history that male teachers, simply didn’t.

After this whole art history fiasco happened, a giant blessing and answer to a wish came in the form of an MFA student teacher at SAIC. This young woman created and taught a brilliant feminist writing and theory class, and taught about women artists. Besides being a creative and thoughtful teacher, she was also an artist, a photographer who created wonderful work. I loved her classes, they were so much fun, and validating too. Studying this topic helped me start to see myself in a new way in the art world.

I was never against learning about male artists, I just wanted to be represented.

I wanted to know about the artists who were not being taught as being the Great Artists. And who gets to decide who is a Great Artist anyway?

In researching this essay, I learned about Kristen Stolle, who deconstructed the Janson book, highlighting the sexist language and lack of women artists. She wrote that the Janson book didn’t include a single woman artist until 1986, with the current printing including 45 women, and only 7 women of color. The original book weighed in at a hefty 10 pounds. Removing the men brought in down to 2+ pounds. Check out her project.

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