According to Andrew Johnson in The Independent, art dealer Iwan Wirth, who represents Louise Bourgeois, admits that women artists face prejudice and discrimination, with their works selling for a fraction of the price of their male counterparts. The huge gap in prices between the likes of Lucian Freud and Bourgeois was “a constant source of disappointment” for Wirth. Of course, maybe we should look at this shabby, well-worn fact slightly more positively: work by women is a bargain. Dealers should show more, and collectors should start snapping it up. After all, Wirth is certain things will change. “The problem has been that female artists have been historically excluded from museums,” he told The Art Newspaper. “Now there are more female curators and a new generation of male curators rewriting art history.”
So let’s start the ball rolling. Opening today at Jeff Bailey Gallery, “This Is Not About Landscape,” features the work of three accomplished women: Louise Belcourt, Sarah Brenneman, and Mie Yim. Treating landscape as stage sets, Belcourt, Brenneman and Yim use anthropomorphic shapes, spatial arrangement and high-keyed color to evoke a range of phenomena and emotion.
In terms of their careers, all three artists are certainly ripe for collecting. Canadian-born New Yorker Louise Belcourt has had numerous solo exhibitions in New York (two with Bailey), Paris and San Francisco, and has been featured in many group exhibitions, including ones at the Brooklyn Museum, the Fleming Museum, Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, Daniel Weinberg Gallery and Geoffrey Young Gallery. Ohio-born New Yorker Sarah Brenneman has had two solo exhibitions with Bailey, and her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions. She received a BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and was an artist in residence at Chashama and The Millay Colony for the Arts. Korean-born New Yorker Mie Yim has had solo exhibitions at Galleria in Arco, Turin and Lehman Maupin Gallery. Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including ones at ATM Gallery, Ise Cultural Foundation, the Drawing Center and the Weatherspoon Art Museum.
“This Is Not About Landscape,” Jeff Bailey Gallery, New York, NY. Through August 8.
Related posts:
Interview with Sarah Brenneman at The Old Gold
So how much is one of those giant spiders by Bourgeois going for these days?
This is nice Sharon, I like it when you show up here with your own voice. I posted a book on my site that is EXCELLENT as a history of women painters, with a specific interest in genre. Kirsten Swinth’s “Painting Professionals” (2001) describes the careers of those American women who in the late nineteenth century and into the 20th had successfully negotiated a career path as professionals, only to be shut out in the end by the gallery system, always to remain “second tier.” It is a history of gender as it appeared institutionally and discursively – I ate it up for the history of criticism.