The Recognition of Art by Women: In Retrospect show at the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach closes on September 27 so there is still time to plan a somewhat unfashionably-early-in-the-season trip to Palm Beach County (via DJT!).
Recognition of Art by Women series began at the Norton in 2011 in an effort to recognize and promote living women artists through solo exhibitions, addressing the persistent inequity in exhibiting and acquiring art by women.
I can’t figure out how this is legal under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which purportedly guarantees “equal protection” to women vs. artists of other gender IDs. The Norton Museum is heavily funded by taxpayers, sometimes directly from local, state, and federal government and sometimes indirectly via tax deductions taken by donors (such as Ken Griffin, a refugee from the collapse of public order in Chicago/Illinois). Given that about half of the money is coming from taxpayers, could they host an art show limited to white male cisgender heterosexual artists, for example? If not, how are they allowed to host a show in which art can be selected only from artists identifying as “women”?
How bad has the historical discrimination been against women that the museum needs to redress the imbalance with this limited-to-one-gender-ID program? “Of the Norton’s 10 directors, nearly half have been women.” The first director was named “Mary”. The “women-only” series was initiated, 15 years ago, by a director named “Hope”.
The most recently featured artist, Danielle McKinney, paints pictures of Black women not working, which the curators say is “radical”.
(There is some support for this in BLS data; Black women are more likely to work than white women, while the reverse is true for Black men. Non-Black men are more likely to work than any of the foregoing.)
One of the radical acts:
A previously featured artist, María Berrío, does some interesting work:
The sculpture garden features a work by Louise Nevelson, who objected to being pigeonholed (“I’m not a feminist. I’m an artist who happens to be a woman”).
Also an interior Nevelson (I love her work so much! Maybe this one would be easier to steal):
How about some kid art? Here’s a painting by a local public school kid:
And one from the private school for nerds started by Jeff Greene, a billionaire refugee from NYC:
Here are some folks who probably should have used Kodachrome. Check out the color fading on these Polaroids:
(Imagine a camera technology so that even Walker Evans seems incompetent.)
Exit through the gift shop… (these photos were taken in June, admittedly)
Stop at Costco on the way home for some low-priced steak:
