Evening At the Improv
I recently found myself engaged in a mild argument following the slide lecture
and informal interview with renowned painter Lisa Yuskavage at the Brooks
Museum. The issue: Yuskavage’s refusal to engage in a discussion of gender
issues raised by the racy content of her paintings.
The artist presented images of work dating from the early ’90s to the present —
heaving bosoms and pursed lips of lounging seductresses cast in a soft-porn
afterglow, which inflamed lust, cynicism, or dry wit from those present. A
moderated interview that was supposed to follow the lecture never got off the
ground. Instead, Yuskavage drifted into a protracted shtick of self-deprecating
banter and intimate disclosures, punctuated by several well-timed gags from
giddy audience members. But for anyone desiring a full-frontal reckoning of her
use of negative stereotypes, the artist dismissed the subject with impunity.
The unapologetic explicitness of Yuskavage’s canvases follows a current in
culture and criticism that invokes the notion of women as libidinous, albeit
sovereign, beings. The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler, Tracey Emin’s
stained and disheveled My Bed, or the popular HBO series Sex In the City
present gendered themes which are perhaps antagonistic to patriarchy but are
more confessional than confrontational. Yuskavage’s stereotypical blond
bombshells, sporting baby-doll pouts and tan lines, are portrayed with tender
empathy or, more importantly, in the words of University of Memphis painting
professor Beth Edwards, “without irony.”
“She gets such impish joy from pushing your buttons,” says Darla Linerode-Henson
of Yuskavage, referring to the artist’s painted sexpots gazing banally into the
eyes of the viewer, her eye-popping primary-color schemes, and even the
artist’s public demeanor. Yuskavage gushed about how her “fancy” art dealers,
critics, etc. were obliged by their professions to repeat titles such as The
Asspicker and Motherfucking Foodeater “over and over and over.”
Likewise, she projected a Vermeer alongside pages from a ’70s-era Penthouse
to mumbles and nervous giggles, asking viewers to recognize the “Dutch light”
in Bob Guccione’s cheesecake photos.
Of course, subversive behavior is infectious, and one fellow, sensing slackened
mores, caught the artist off-guard with the compliment “Your tits have gotten a
lot better over the years.” Then a quavering voice behind me trumped that, to
riotous laughter, with “When you’re older, do you think you will still paint
such perfect breasts?” Such was the tenor of the evening.
But a young woman’s inquiry regarding pornography received a terse “I smell
theory in that question” from Yuskavage consistent with her attitude of leaving
ideology to the critics and not being pigeonholed by gender-rooted
interpretations of her provocative imagery. And her position is fundamentally
legitimate, barring one objection. The artist, brought to Memphis by the U of M
art department with the generous aid of Delta Axis’ Dr. James Patterson, asked
as a condition of her visit that Dr. Katy Siegel accompany her to conduct the
interview. Siegel, former faculty member at U of M, critic, and contributing
editor of Artforum, is one of Yuskavage’s ideological proponents and
wrote the essay “Local Color” for the artist’s monograph, which was
published concurrent with her retrospective at the Institute of Contemporary
Art in Philadelphia last year. For many, by not addressing the question she
dared the audience to pose (“Why are you so obnoxious?”) while courting her
critic, Yuskavage seemed to be denying the elephant in the room.
Gender-o-rama
Among the many attending the floor act at the Brooks was Allana Clarke, local
curator of “Venus Envy,” an event opening March 30th in both Memphis and St.
Louis featuring visual art and performance created exclusively by women. The
annual “celebration” began in 1999 in St Louis with a conviction that “women
are primarily responsible for perpetuating culture and strengthening the arts
in our world,” says “V.E.” founder and chairwoman Mallarie Zimmer. Memphis is
the first satellite city to observe the event, and organizers plan to expand
into other metropolises in the future. “V.E.” in Memphis promises to be a
treat, given the impressive lineup: Elizabeth Alley, Danita Beck, Brenda Fisk,
Jean Flint, Anastasia Laurenzi, the aforementioned Linerode-Henson, Carol
Harding McTyre, Annabelle Meacham, Leslie Snoke, Mel Spillman, Amanda Wood, and
Nanci Zimmer.
Clarke assures that, despite the “mature audiences” disclaimer in the
literature, the art in “V.E.” is “not as provocative as Yuskavage’s body of
work.” However, with the hoopla over the public art at the entrance to the new
library and the Memphis-Germantown Art League’s ridiculous hand-wringing over a
nude, Clarke, a recent graduate of Rhodes College, wouldn’t be surprised if
some were “offended by the tampon cross or bra-wearing feline.”
Linerode-Henson’s Emerge, exhibited at U of M’s juried student exhibit
earlier this year, is an anachronistic choice for the gender-conscious
theme: a writhing length of articulated pipe, tipped by an orange glass bulb,
dangling flaccidly from the wall.
Otherwise, says Zimmer, “V.E.” doesn’t have any axes to grind, insisting that
the enterprise cannot be reduced to any “political, religious, or sexual [huh?]
identity.” Clarke adds, “Some of the work has strong feminine content, some
work could be interpreted as sexual, and other pieces do not seem to relate to
women at all, except that a woman produced them.”
Such broad criteria beg the question: Does “Venus Envy” designate a theme so
ubiquitous as to dilute any urgency that the provocative moniker implies? Go
find out for yourself.
“Venus Envy,” 960 S. Cooper (at the corner of Cooper and Young), 7-9 p.m.
Saturday, March 30th.
