This isn’t the same old take on sexism or misogyny in the art world, or in the world in general, we touch on topics that affect women artists in ways we might not otherwise be aware of.
art crush season 2 episode 6 – sexism in the art world
00:00:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to Art Crush with artists Fi Marks and Paula Telizyn where we talk about art, the art world. deconstructing art and more.
00:00:23 Speaker 1: Hi fi.
00:00:24 Speaker 2: Hi, Paula.
00:00:26 Speaker 1: In this episode, we’re going to talk about sexism in the art world. And it is.
00:00:32 Speaker 2: Is it still around? Is it? Oh, is this a relevant topic for today? Oh, yes. Yeah.
00:00:40 Speaker 1: Yeah it is. And we’re not talking about it in ways that you might expect, because that would be boring and it wouldn’t be us. We’re going to talk about it in in ways that you might not expect, because both fi and I, have been in the art world for quite a while, and we’ve seen things going on that we want to address. So why don’t you get started?
00:00:58 Speaker 2: The thing that struck me the other day I was talking to a friend about. We were talking about pricing your art. You know, the good old favorite. How do you price your art? People who? Artists that go, oh, I couldn’t put my prices up because no one would buy it. And, uh. And they showed me a something where somebody was selling their art for thirty pounds for a framed original piece. And it was like, okay, the normal sort of like what? You are basically damaging yourself. You’re damaging the art world. You’re damaging every single artist. But we did think this is a sort of female thing I’ve not seen as far as I know. Again, listeners, you can correct me, but I have not been at an event where I have seen a man who has underpriced his artwork. If you look at the prices, if you go to any exhibition or, um, art fair. If you have a look at the prices that men are charging versus what women are charging, the discrepancy is huge. And why is that?
00:02:23 Speaker 1: Yeah. And that’s that’s actually something to really think about because women are schooled from a very young age to be nice, to not make waves, to be seen and not heard, to be helpful and to not take themselves seriously. The number of times that women think I can’t create my art right now, I better do dishes first and laundry needs doing and whatever. Do the household chores before they can be rewarded with doing their business, which is art making is shocking. It’s something I had to train myself out of. We have a lot of deconstructing that we have to do as women, as to what our places are and how we should behave and how we should approach things. And you’re right with the pricing. It is largely a women’s issue for undercharging dramatically for art. What if they think I’m being arrogant? What if I’m being too big for my boots? What if I’m, showing that I’m better than somebody? So that hurt somebody’s feelings? This is not me putting down women. This is. These are thoughts I’ve also had before. I’ve deconstructed my own approach to my art business, and I did that years ago. but just understanding that we have been taught from the get go that when we were given our first dolls, when we were put in our first pink outfits, when we were told, let the boys go first, or boys need more food because they’re more hungry or whatever. we we’ve been taught by people who didn’t know any better, uh, by people who didn’t know any better to be small and let others take the limelight.
00:04:01 Speaker 2: Exactly. And you would think because a lot of these women would, would see themselves. And I say we are we are the women’s biggest cheerleaders that they are. And we want you to stand up and, you know, be treated in, in an equal status in the art world. And you had some of it we have to do for ourselves as well as getting the art world to listen. But, you know, it’s like I have heard, I have heard female artists saying, oh, well, I don’t really need to sell my artwork. And I’ve gone, oh, okay, thinking what? So not even for their self esteem, it’s because their partner or their husband is earning enough that they can do their art. So they’re in a privileged position, but they actually go with the mindset. It doesn’t matter if I don’t sell my art. It really, really doesn’t matter. And you look around and again, statistically I don’t know. But there has also been women that who have said in my presence, um, oh, I couldn’t be a full time artist if I didn’t have my husband’s salary. So it would be interesting to know how many professional artists are single parents or single, or are doing it all themselves compared with those who have another income coming in. And I think, as I say, this is just a I have no statistics for this, but I think if you looked at that, you would be shocked at the difference.
00:05:57 Speaker 1: as you were talking, I was also thinking about the, number of women whose art was taken by their partners and put under their partner’s names in history, and women either felt they had no recourse because of the situations they were in or. Or they felt like they, they couldn’t do anything about it. Or maybe they weren’t. It was better to let their partner put their name on it. It’s there’s been a lot of challenges for women to step out and be seen as professional, valid and legitimate, and then pricing accordingly and getting paid accordingly. I mean, we can go and look at other industries and see that women are historically paid significantly less for the same amount of work just because of gender. so we have to fight both the idea that the public has that our art is just for fun. It’s women’s art. It doesn’t have value, and we have to fight the idea inside our of ourselves that, oh, we don’t really need to sell. And actually having a business is too hard for me and things like that. Things. Ideas that are put in our heads. because I know, like when I first, when my marriage first ended, the artwork I was selling was what supported us until I had my accident. I had to flip to, supporting other artists. But it it was what supported us. Would I have chosen that starting out? I don’t know. Right. But it was my business was already running and I if I didn’t sell art, we didn’t eat, I didn’t pay rent. We we didn’t do well. when it comes to sexism in the art world, we have two things to fight as women. As as female creators.
00:07:34 Speaker 2: Only two.
00:07:38 Speaker 1: And number one is the fact that we are women in what looks to be like men’s worlds. Right. Because when we talk about famous artists, we immediately go Rodin, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Matisse and so on. All men. We don’t pull out from the women very often or pull up the women very often. and we have to also fight the, the sexism that we have learned and internalized so that we feel silly pricing or feel like fake pricing are art appropriately. And and then we feel like we have to fight to get paid appropriately for our work. And if you are doing what’s considered to be craft, which I really hate that term, or if you call yourself an artisan because you’ve decided to take in the idea that things that women historically make. So, uh, textile art, for example, is considered craft because it’s women’s art, embroidery, you know, quilting and all of that. Or if you take in the, the ceramics work, especially functional ceramics, that’s typically considered to be craft because it’s women’s art, that that also is internalized sexism because we just go, okay, it’s got less value because women historically made it. It was made in the home. It was made to function. So therefore it’s not art. We have to deconstruct a lot of things. but I think.
00:09:07 Speaker 2: The huge thing and I do think the whole freelance industry, is lagging behind hugely because you have to decide your own worth, whereas if you apply for a job and you go, okay, I’m going for this management job, I’m pretty sure I can do it. You know what the salary is? You know what you’re going to get that’s been decided by somebody else. And in the art world and in the freelance world, you have to decide your value and your worth. And that is where the discrepancy is. And I think, as you’ve said, I mean, if you work with somebody like Paula, she supports you with us knowing how to do this and helping you cheer, leading you on. But if you don’t have a mentor or somebody who is able to do that, you look around and you just go, oh, okay, oh, look, that person is celebrating because they’ve sold a piece of artwork for thirty quid. That must be what I’m minds were. Well, actually, I’m not as experienced as them. So I’m going to go for twenty. And it’s it’s just ridiculous because we haven’t, throughout our whole lives, been able to put a price on our worth or even recognize our worth as women and as artists.
00:10:36 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And when you do put a price finally on your work, you have to be prepared to defend it. And that goes against how we’re schooled as women, too, because we shouldn’t have to fight. Fighting is dangerous and and and potentially life threatening in our brains, our primitive brains. I’m not saying women have primitive brains. I’m just saying the primitive part of our human brain. and and we have to step up and show up. One of the things I did very early on in my own, before I was an artist, I was also, like, freelancing as a programmer and a graphic designer and all that is. I set up rate sheets and I set them up for my art as well. So somebody came to me and said, I want a painting that’s eight by ten and it’s got one person in it. How much is that? Instead of sort of going, I wonder if they can afford it and all that? Although I felt it in my heart, I went to my rate sheet and said, this is the rate because that’s what men do in the trades. They have rate sheets. You hire an electrician and you say, I need my light switch fixed. They go to their rate sheet and go. Light switches are X number of dollars or pounds. This is what it costs. Pay it or not, they don’t hinge their self-worth into whether somebody chooses to buy or not. They just have a rate sheet they consult. We have to be prepared to do the things that feel difficult in order to be paid appropriately for our art, and we have to do it for ourselves for that that love of ourselves, for that, recognizing that our art has value. It’s not just us playing around. It’s not just us, you know, going and and being in the big boy area. Fuck that. Let’s pardon my French, but let’s go and and create an area where women are playing big and we treat ourselves the way we deserve to be treated. We step up and push back. You can buy my art or not if you don’t like the price. Sorry. That’s that’s the price kind of thing.
00:12:28 Speaker 2: And the irony is, I think, if you go into schools, into secondary schools, anywhere, and look at the people who are choosing to do art as a qualification, it will be majority women. And yet, as a profession and deemed as a as a selling artist, that immediately changes. you know, I’ve seen at group exhibitions and there has been one woman and six men in that show. That does not reflect the amount of women working in the art world at all, at all. But yet it’s still deemed as acceptable because they are more serious and and you and you get that even with the type of art that you do. There is sexism within that. I have had people saying to me, oh, your work is very feminine. I’m like, what? You know. Yes, I do focus on women, but actually quite a lot of men have bought my art, you know, and it’s like, oh. Oh, really? It’s like, don’t demean it because you think it’s more appealing to women, because that is the topic that I look at. That’s because I’m a woman, and I understand the difficulties that women have and had faced in the past, but that doesn’t make it feminine and therefore less worthy. It’s really interesting. And when we look at the language that people use around women’s art.
00:14:13 Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think we can even drill deeper and talk about when did and why did being a woman or being seen as feminine become a negative. You know, like we can go back to I don’t know if this, this these ads occurred in the UK, but they did in North America from that dove beauty company years ago. They did a thing about throws like a girl runs like a girl and all that, and, and, in their corporate way. I’m sure the person who did this was immediately let go because they, they were speaking as a human and not as a corporation. But, they did that series of ads pointing out like, why is being seen as being female a negative thing? I mean, we know we we did.
00:14:53 Speaker 2: We did have have those ads. Yeah. They were very good at taking on breaking the stereotypes of women in their advertising campaigns.
00:15:06 Speaker 1: I think I think that’s a it’s an important thing for us to examine, especially if you grew up in the sixties and 70s and all of that, when supposedly we were becoming more so-called liberated. but we still have internalized stereotypes. We still have, internalized ideas of who we are and what we can be, and we still approach being female as being a negative thing. No man would want to be told he he is very feminine because that’s seen as a negative. So even as we look at how we approach selling our art and pricing it and showing up and all of that, we have to also examine our biases against ourselves as a whole in general.
00:15:51 Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And you know, I as I say, I think it’s it ties up, with working on ourselves as women and keep working on ourselves to know how important our work is, that we have a voice and we have something to say, and it needs to be heard. It is not good enough where we are at the moment politically. That and it’s getting worse. Not it’s going the wrong way in a lot of communities at the moment. and you know that we have to be stronger than ever, I think. I don’t think it’s not like things have gone in a linear way moving up. You know, things have taken a backward turn to where women are in society and their voices are being curbed now more than ever.
00:16:48 Speaker 1: Yeah. And we need to speak up. We need to speak up and show up in our actions. So I would invite our listeners to pause and examine their feelings around certain things. Number one, assuming that you’re an artist, how do you feel about raising your prices? Right. Examine why you wouldn’t or why you would. I would also say where you show your art. Do you feel like some shows Pricing of joining the shows aside. So put that aside. Do you feel that some shows are too big for you? You’re not you’re not an artist enough for them, or you would get too much visibility. Is that something that goes through your head and examine the reasons why? Because we have to constantly be on guard for it. So in a previous episode, you and I talked about our upcoming potential show that we’re working on right now. And one of the the things that we looked at was the original venues we had started looking at were fairly, you know, normal venues and whatever. And we are now looking at some places that are significantly bigger, bigger footprint, bigger audience, a more well-heeled audience, for example. And the first thing that went through my head, but it never came out of my mouth because I, I checked myself was that’s too big for us, right? That’s not something that I ever want to say out loud, but it did go through my head and I had to stop and think, where did this come from? Why is it too big for us? Why am I thinking that?
00:18:24 Speaker 2: And I thought exactly the same, you know it didn’t you know when we were talking about it and I thought, oh my God, oh my God. I immediately shrunk and was like, oh, oh, I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t, you know, but as you say, because we continually discuss and you recognize it’s like, why not? Why is it that we think, oh, we can only show our work in little shops and cafes and, you know, tiny little places because we’re so tiny? Yeah. I just wanted to add something to something that was mentioned earlier about, famous artists and I think, just giving an example of Frida Kahlo is quite an interesting topic in its own right. she has become iconic. But if you look at what has she become iconic for? It’s not her art. She has become dull, like an image that is nothing like how she looked. You know, they say it’s been turned into almost. She’s been turned into a cartoon character. And I’m sure if Frida Kahlo could come back and talk about what has been done to her image, she would be devastated. We don’t have that. You don’t have toys, you know, of male artists and mugs and cute, kitschy things. You know, it’s it’s really peculiar. Yes. She has now become possibly the most famous female Email artist, but at what cost?
00:20:10 Speaker 1: Yeah, and not for her art, as you said. Absolutely. She’s a caricature of herself and it’s offensive. I find that all representations of Frida Kahlo are offensive because they immediately separate her from her art, her creativity, her visions, her intentions. and so, yeah, yeah, we have the odd little toy of Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh. depending on which continent you’re on. but we don’t have the same sort of images or caricatures. Does anybody. If if I made a little Degas doll, would anybody but the most astute, historian.
00:20:50 Speaker 2: Wouldn’t know what Dagar looked like. Yeah, they they wouldn’t know, but they would know his art. They would know that he painted it the the the the ballet dancers and in the cafes of Paris. But his image is irrelevant.
00:21:07 Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It’s a huge, huge difference. So things to think about. in the art world and if you’re an artist, things to think about in your own practice, in your own business, in how you show up and in showing up different. And I would invite the women or the people who identify as women who are listening to this to to examine internalized misogyny, and how it expresses itself in how you show up in the art world.
00:21:36 Speaker 2: Yeah. And we’re with you. Yeah. Next time you hear a comment or you even hear things coming out your mouth, you know, let we will be there. It’s like a little voice in your head going, come on, don’t accept that. Just like Paul and I did when we started looking at big, huge venues in affluent areas, you know, and we’re still probably going to be scared about it, but we will push through because we have to. We have to.
00:22:05 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s I like to say get big or go home and we’re already at home. so might as well get big. So there we go. I think that wraps up this episode of Artcrush, examining misogyny and internalized and external misogyny in the art world and in artists themselves. So thank you very much for joining me again for this fun chat. And thank you to our listeners for listening.
00:22:30 Speaker 2: Been a pleasure. And thank you to all our listeners, because spread the word about Artcrush. And you never know, you might get season three.
00:22:40 Speaker 1: Exactly. This wraps up season two of Artcrush. You can listen to more episodes on Spotify or your favorite podcast app. You can find more episodes also on our websites WFI and Com. And, uh, we will see you in hopefully a future season.
00:23:02 Speaker 3: Bye.
