It’s International Women’s Day today.
At the Carnegie Museum last night, the docent tells us that this International is the second show to have more women artists than men. He is so excited for us to know that the Carnegie is paving a path of positive disruption in the art world, long organized by and focused on the works of white men.
It is my third visit to the Carnegie International, but The Hubs’ first, and I’m trying not to be that person who sings along at the concert, getting too loud during favorite songs. But I’m visibly excited about so many of these works.
A few are not to my tastes, notably the giant carpets featuring gaunt representations of high heels and the neon green tulle draperies. But around the corner from the carpets, where you go when your eyes travel the massive blue tiled path on the entry wall, are hung Lynette Yiadom-Boakye‘s black bodies on large canvases. They are stunning. They don’t exist in any particular time. They have no black pigment, in the same way that black people are, of course, not actually black. They are simultaneously emotionless and overflowing with shared human experience.
I read in an article later – oops, is it news? I’m having a hard time figuring out where news ends and research begins – that she has won the exhibit’s prize, which includes a cash sum and a medal from Tiffany’s. I can’t imagine what an artist with that degree of talent and work ethic might do with a sparkly trinket from Tiffany’s, but perhaps it will be a welcome addition to her studio, or mantel, or neck.
I’m grateful for all the women making art, just going about their business of creating. And for those working in more physically taxing labor, like the ladies in my restaurant’s kitchen, muscles straining under the weight of giant stock pots of chili and gravy, then mopping the floors at night after a long shift. And the moms at home, doing some of everything – a little art, a little cooking, a little negotiating – but not quite enough of anything. Women in education, getting pummeled by feisty toddlers and eyerolled by cranky teenagers. Women in healing fields: surgeons, nurses, therapists, chiropractors, yoga instructors, massage therapists. For the strengths, and the colors, that women bring to the world.
Thank you, ladies.
Post #3 of 40 Daze: A Lenten Writing Practice.
