How to escape the angry young woman-artist myth?
Lately I have been reading some texts that my brother and his all-male writers-collective are working on. Also the interview with them that a mutual friend of ours did in escaperoute.tk
The question of gender-writing and the fact that they constantly get epithets like "portraits of the artists as young men" and the whole young male writer thing is discussed in that interview. All three of them are very aware of the problem but they meet it in very different ways. One tries to ignore it, says that in his writing he wants to go away from the masculine/feminine text and enable many different readings of them, number two is very aware of his male voice, he is annoyed with that fact and tries to move away from it, sees the fact that they are an all-male group as something problematic but also self-inflicted, the third one is more positive, he sees his writing as a pose, a role, and toys with the young-male-artist-myth, he tries to find different voices and write as both a man/woman and child/adult, but he can't say that he cares very much about his texts being gendered.
This shows some answers to the question of "How is a young white heterosexual male supposed to act?" They are still the norm, no question about it. But there is an awareness that creeps through their texts. These guys _are_ young, between 21-24. And they have been writing together since around 1999. Yet they are not worried about their status as artist, they are writers and poets because that is what they do. No need to prove anything there. They just write. And do that very seriously.
As a contrast, I spoke to a female friend of mine, same girl who wrote that interview btw. She is currently studying art and has worked quite a bit with design etc. But she is always struggling with her identity. She has an upcoming exhibition here in Lund and was going ballistics about the work she was going to show. Among other things there will be some rather powerful paintings of fighting women dressed in something that look like a melange between burkhas and ninja-cloths. And what she was really worried about was the fact that art-schools all over the country are filled with young women creating just that. Paintings/sculptures/video-art etc of strong/angry/fighting women. And she is right. Looking at the young art-scene here in Sweden THAT is a common theme. But the question is whether the fact that many are using the same theme makes the theme less important. Maybe it just shows us that there is something here that need to be told. That a lot of young women are angry. And that is ok. The men have been it for ages, no one questions the angry-young-men, do they?
We will have to meet and react to all these art-objects for a while and see how they will influence society. More angry female art!
So her work might not be totally originally, but it is still worth showing, worth looking at and most of all worth discussing.
So are a lot of young female poetry currently popping up here. Often so very painful to read because it is so true to life. As with the young angry art, the young painful poetry by females has a void to fill. Yet it is difficult to work there, because it feels like you just ends up in that little box, the one people take out when they want to show that society is so equal and oh yes there are so many young women writing now too... yet do they use it otherwise? Outside the gender-discussions?
On a much more personal level I feel very torn, in some ways that box, those seemingly unavoidable themes have been major reasons for me to stay away from creating things. I have felt too young to have anything to say. I would not be able to go outside the themes, do anything that was "new" so I didn't do anything at all. That is such a weakness. And that is why I admire and try to support all young women that actually dare join the creative process. Those to whom the angry young woman-artist myth is no problem.
The question of gender-writing and the fact that they constantly get epithets like "portraits of the artists as young men" and the whole young male writer thing is discussed in that interview. All three of them are very aware of the problem but they meet it in very different ways. One tries to ignore it, says that in his writing he wants to go away from the masculine/feminine text and enable many different readings of them, number two is very aware of his male voice, he is annoyed with that fact and tries to move away from it, sees the fact that they are an all-male group as something problematic but also self-inflicted, the third one is more positive, he sees his writing as a pose, a role, and toys with the young-male-artist-myth, he tries to find different voices and write as both a man/woman and child/adult, but he can't say that he cares very much about his texts being gendered.
This shows some answers to the question of "How is a young white heterosexual male supposed to act?" They are still the norm, no question about it. But there is an awareness that creeps through their texts. These guys _are_ young, between 21-24. And they have been writing together since around 1999. Yet they are not worried about their status as artist, they are writers and poets because that is what they do. No need to prove anything there. They just write. And do that very seriously.
As a contrast, I spoke to a female friend of mine, same girl who wrote that interview btw. She is currently studying art and has worked quite a bit with design etc. But she is always struggling with her identity. She has an upcoming exhibition here in Lund and was going ballistics about the work she was going to show. Among other things there will be some rather powerful paintings of fighting women dressed in something that look like a melange between burkhas and ninja-cloths. And what she was really worried about was the fact that art-schools all over the country are filled with young women creating just that. Paintings/sculptures/video-art etc of strong/angry/fighting women. And she is right. Looking at the young art-scene here in Sweden THAT is a common theme. But the question is whether the fact that many are using the same theme makes the theme less important. Maybe it just shows us that there is something here that need to be told. That a lot of young women are angry. And that is ok. The men have been it for ages, no one questions the angry-young-men, do they?
We will have to meet and react to all these art-objects for a while and see how they will influence society. More angry female art!
So her work might not be totally originally, but it is still worth showing, worth looking at and most of all worth discussing.
So are a lot of young female poetry currently popping up here. Often so very painful to read because it is so true to life. As with the young angry art, the young painful poetry by females has a void to fill. Yet it is difficult to work there, because it feels like you just ends up in that little box, the one people take out when they want to show that society is so equal and oh yes there are so many young women writing now too... yet do they use it otherwise? Outside the gender-discussions?
On a much more personal level I feel very torn, in some ways that box, those seemingly unavoidable themes have been major reasons for me to stay away from creating things. I have felt too young to have anything to say. I would not be able to go outside the themes, do anything that was "new" so I didn't do anything at all. That is such a weakness. And that is why I admire and try to support all young women that actually dare join the creative process. Those to whom the angry young woman-artist myth is no problem.