Part two of this review of the Women Frame American Landscape will examine how the Guerrilla Girls character assassination of the Hudson River School white male painters in Part One attempts to justify the inclusion of the Contemporary artists whose relationship to anything having to do with landscape is a brain teaser in addition to being a challenge to artistically critique.
A summary statement for this division of the show includes the following context.
Landscape Today Claims
The first paragraph can claim that the cohort of Contemporary art solicited for this show are outstanding artists and yet anyone with a set of clear eyes and even a small exposure to art history can see that the actual art objects were either mailed in as an after-thought or thoughtlessly manufactured to satisfy the thirst to justify the political narrative. Nothing here indicates a deep interest in landscape art or even a sustained body of dedicated work to create a new vision of landscape.
The phrase "Reimaging the single point perspective and horizon line" in relation to the politics of any painting is pure nonsense. The Hudson River School paintings are largely romanticized (atmospheric and :luminous") woodland scenes in which architecturally obvious perspective is absent. And horizon lines are defined by natural ambiguity rather than consistent and uniform horizons.
This word salad is an excuse to include an disproportionately large inkjet print of a digital photo rendering of an I Spy-ish collage of forest floor artifacts by Tenya Marcuse. The wall label description sugar coats it as having something to do with the Hudson Valley where she lives, weaving, and the ecosystem. Oh yeah, something, something... perspective.
Okay. So what?
The claim that this work "holds economic, historical,-snip- spiritual and personal realities" is no different today than in the nineteenth century. Only the opinions have changed. As an artist, the political identity politics that saturate this work add zero value to its aesthetic contribution to the show.
As I said in Part one, the Guerrilla Girls assertion that they upturn male-dominated histories is nonsense. They don't have a clue about that history as is obvious by their so-called contribution to the show.
Plesset's piece is cheap appropriation of Thomas Cole's original work. She turns it into a coloring book learner's copy of the work. The reason?
The assertion that art historians (who, when, and with what frequency) criticized copies by women more harshly than anyone else smells funny. Copies are rarely original art except with forgeries and the idea that anyone in their right mind might spend the time criticizing copies rather than the originals makes zero sense.
Some reference:
"Sarah Cole (1805-1857)
Sarah Cole was an American landscape painter and the sister of Thomas Cole. Although she did paint some original compositions, many of Sarah Cole’s surviving paintings are copies of her brother’s paintings, including her painting View of Catskill Mountain House. "
Does this seem harsh?
Plesset suffers from the same intellectual deficiency that afflicts the Guerrilla Girls. There is very little veracity to the claim that she or they are doing anything artistic at all. They don't do the research or do it so incompetently that that its worthless. There is no historical recovery in appropriating Sara Cole's need to cash in on her brother's popularity to earn a living. And every woman artist of the time who painted in the Hudson Valley (and there were multitudes) isn't a Hudson River School peer by magical thinking association.
This show, if it illustrates anything, makes clear that rather than adding clarity to art history - a sludge of belligerent advocacy of woman artists whose work needs to be independently promoted on their own merits is instead being shoehorned and distorted into categories they don't belong to and strains credibility.
The Invasion of Private Space
Another repeating and identifiable pattern of political bullying that has become a recognizable trademark of Guerrilla Girl interventions is the act of violating either the space, integrity, or belongings of their intended targets. This is not an act of virtuous pursuit of truth or anything high-minded. There's a sociopathic fascination with, for lack of a better word, molesting the subject.
Plesset's grooming of Cole's sister's knockoff is intended to cheapen the original as if anyone can manufacture these things with a well articulated grift.
Likewise two another artist's offerings, Shin and Mattingly, somehow acquired some of Cole's belongings and there's a necrophiliac ambiance to the readymade application of these artifacts to their art. In both cases there's an implied indifference to the sanctity of their belongings as if being indifferent to the objects entitles the individual to be indifferent to the art (just another object) and finally indifferent to the history involved.
Whatever spirituality the artist invested in their work can be rationally dismissed. After all, if the posthumous loot of an artist's estate can be re-appropriated to disparage their reputation then no one will object to a disingenuous tweaking of their historical character.
The Conflation of Landscape with Land Ownership Claims
The Gorilla Girls sorority is careful to curate shows that are always representative of their enablers. Antone who agrees with their particular viewpoint and will add another iconic letter to their alphabet parade is eagerly enlisted.
And so a number of works by indigenous women is included.
One piece by W. Red Star is an organized collection of signs from the midwest relating to navigating through Native American labeled destinations. Personally I'm not offended by useful signage and maybe this is a comment that the Hudson River School painters had unobstructed views of the landscape. So true. AND... it takes a woman to really drive this point home!
The art of Jaune Quick To See Smith has become a de facto sidekick of GG sorority infused gallery shows. She represents the politically correct, wise noble native archetype whose virtuous virtues are, well, native.
Her work claims that the existing government, its monetary system, and the rule of law governing property ownership are just an inconvenient social trapping.
Unfortunately, Smith's "critical questions" are, quite honestly, juvenile as is the imagery and exercise of her messaging. She makes a broad unsubstantiated accusation that that all North America is stolen land from cultures whose own claim of ownership is dubious at best or profoundly different from the rest of humanity. Her myopic opinions include the idea that historical confrontations were always maliciously one-sided and then she sugar coats all that in GG sorority virtue slogans [woman, race, commerce, ad nausea].
Your eyes aren't deceiving you. Diversity metrics require little more than a non-white skin tone and a claim to a cultural charm - in this case beads. The irony is that she charts the United States of America with Western civilization's cartography (hat tip: Columbus). By now it should be obvious and compelling that no trespassing signs were ignored by colonial settlers, money is bad so why bother paying for anything, and don't forget grammar and gender. Got it? Bonus observation - north is north and south is south.
But that's not all.
In this piece North is south and south is north - "a thing of Indian power". Sorry, I'm not buying it (too soon?). Have a look.
Jaune "Quick to See" enrolled (who knew???) in an Indian tribe and what she sees, in my opinion is a window of opportunity to pass off some crafty art that more appropriately belongs in a 12 x 12' tent at an arts and crafts show than a museum. This is not the stuff of representative fine art produced by Indians - this is just opinionated, self-serving propaganda.
Even the most average middle school child knows that Columbus was the first of many, many previously failed attempts to navigate the Atlantic ocean west to the North American continent.
Navigational errors? Really? In addition to being pathetic art its historically as useful as driftwood.
And confusing the map with the territory is a long learned lesson from far more authoritative sources than Smith. Oh well.
The Kitchen Sink
The rest of the GG sorority contributions are nothing to pay good money to see if you're looking to enjoy or broaden your love of landscape. It's a mixed bag of tedious videos, climate warnings less effective than no littering signs, and an unimpressive litany of readymade woke, bumpersticker virtue signaling.
As an artist I find the abuse of museum gallery space for this kind of nonsense aesthetically sinful. As a critic I wonder how curators, in good faith, get away with selling this artistic malware. For artists and wishful young artists this set of galleries has nothing positive to be learned and in many cases flaunts a systematic weakness toward political bullying as curatorial practice.
This section of the show abuses the Hudson River School fraternity of painters for being citizens of their time. And by GG sorority word salad definitions the show is an act of violence and bigotry toward long dead historical actors who can no longer accurately contextualize their "lived experiences".
In part three we'll examine the rest of it.
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