From this, modernists are not concerned with difference, they see art as homogenous. No value is placed on gender politics. So when imagery and feminized art is portrayed... it is 'foolish, feckless and thin. '
LYNN HERSHMANN, DEEP CONTACT, THE FIRST INTERACTIVE SEXUAL FANTASY VIDEODISC, 1984-1989
image from Media Art Net
Ed. Katy Deepwell, Manchester University Press, 1998
Susan Platt. Chapter 5, Pg 83. Elizabeth McCausland: art, politics and sexuality
McCausland (1899-1965) wrote emotionally charged articles on contemporary art during the 1930's that call for the modern artist to be immersed in society.
The 'American Action Painters' as characterised by Harold Rosenberg were celebrated for being active in terms of moving paint around a canvas.
Clement Greenberg: issues outside of artwork were seen as violating its 'purity' (addressing political issues compromises art).A recent example, 1993 Whitney Biennal. Critics dismissed the first Bennial as having a significant representation of women and people of colour and not, coincidentally, politically engaged art. Arthur Danto, for example, declared that it was 'mawkish, frivolous, whining, awful and thin'. There was no analysis of the political issues.
Canonical separation of art from politics basically forces artists to remain as part of a powerless 'Other'.
'Apolitical' art is a political position that diminishes the power of art and artists.
Houston Baker callls it 'an assumed supremecy of boorishly, racist, indisputably sexist and unbelievably wealthy Anglo-Saxon males'.
Post-structuralist females see its definition as 'construction neccesary to a highly political and successful cultural production of a highly privileged subject position. Modernist self-fashioning is accomplished... over and against a feminized and devalued other.
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