Raw and Radical Women in the Arts Podcast | Conversations with extraordinary women in the arts – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Curator and art historian Nathalie Herschdorfer shares with us her wisdom and thoughts on the body and body-image, the influence of photography on the self-conception of the body, including its importance in the emergence of social media.

Nathalie Herschdorfer talks about her journey of becoming an art historian, the experiences that have raised her awareness of the gender disparity in the art world, what this means for the industry, and for her research on the body and body-image. She speaks about several kinds of deconstruction and reflects on how the evolving photography practices have impacted these processes. Finally, she gives insightful thoughts on her book “Body” and the ‘feminist prism’, sculpting the landscape of art photography nowadays and how it has come to change through the emergence of social media. Nathalie closes the conversation with final reflections on the importance of women’s experience – as women – as they relate to their art.

Conversation Highlights

• When it becomes clear that countless women were erased from Art History
• The challenge for women to make a living through art
• Nathalie’s book Body and the “feminist prism”

For more information on our guest or the podcast, please visit www.rawradical.com

In this episode, Laia Abril discusses the origins of her career, her methodology, the themes she explores in her work, often related to women, such as rape and abortion. She also shares her insights from creating art out of polarizing issues, and being a woman in the art world.

Laia Abril traces back to what led her to study journalism, then end up doing art photography through a need to communicate about certain stories. She discusses the myriad ways in which to express a story, and the roadblocks she’s faced during her career in attempting to shed light on certain difficult stories and realities. Laia tells us how her work has naturally veered towards a central theme: being a woman. Moreover, she explores with us what this means in the art world, discusses the roles of our institutions and the paradoxical fact that these very creative institutions are sometimes averse to work that depicts themes that still create unease: abortion, rape. She shares with us the intricacies of her art and the challenges of working with subjects on such delicate issues.

Conversation Highlights

• Laia’s methodology and the need to tell certain stories
• Womanhood in Laia’s work and in the art world
• Laia’s latest project: History of misogyny

To learn more about this episode or the podcast, please visit www.rawradical.com

This episode is part of a series of four live round tables that took place in the art fair artgenève in early March 2022. They took place in French and will be available soon in English as a dubbed version.

La Financiarisation, la Valorisation Économique et la Représentation Médiatique/Financialization, Economic Valuation, and Media Representation

Samedi 5 mars à 15 heures, stand A10 / Saturday, March 5th, 3 p.m. stand A10

avec
Laurence Rasti, artiste photographe, CH
Anne-Claire Bisch, directrice générale des Ports Francs et Entrepôts de Genève, CH
Frédéric Elkaïm, conseiller en art, spécialiste du marché de l’art et fondateur de Art Now! CH/FR

Les faits sont éloquents ! Si le prix record d’une œuvre d’art contemporain d’une femme se situe dans les dizaines de millions de dollars, le niveau maximal atteint par l’œuvre d’un homme doit être multiplié par dix ! Difficile alors pour certains de ne pas considérer que la « valeur artistique » des pièces réalisées par les artistes femme seraient inférieures à celle des hommes. On voit donc que la valeur « financière » surdétermine un biais de représentation négative beaucoup plus profond qu’il n’y paraît. Au-delà de ce constat, on peut également s’interroger sérieusement sur les analyses publiées dans les médias, qui amènent encore les « prescripteurs de l’art contemporain » (curators, collectionneurs, galeristes, responsables d’institutions, critiques d’art…) à établir la liste des « Top artistes » où les femmes sont reléguées à un petit vingt pour cent du panel. Ces chiffres ne signifient pas que le travail dynamique actuellement fait pour une meilleure validation du rôle des femmes manque d’efficacité. Mais il témoigne de la pesanteur d’un ancien système de validation du travail des femmes. L’inertie d’un mécanisme genré de reconnaissance qui s’inscrit dans l’Histoire de l’art est toujours bien présent ! Et au niveau des mécanismes purement économiques, la notion de « sécurisation » des transactions est évidemment à l’œuvre. En clair, la cote des femmes reste globalement largement inférieure à celle des hommes tout simplement parce qu’elles sont trop peu à être considérées comme les « blue chips » (les valeurs sûres) des maisons de ventes aux enchères et des grandes galeries internationales. Il est évident que la présence massive des hommes dans la direction des galeries ou des départements de ces grands acteurs du marché de l’art sont également des facteurs importants. Comment donc faire évoluer cet ensemble de phénomènes solidaires ? Peut-être en commençant à s’interroger de manière plus consciente sur les liens de cause à effet qui se nouent entre la valeur artistique, médiatique et économique de la pratique artistique des femmes…

Texte de Frédéric Elkaïm
conseiller en art, spécialiste du marché de l’art et fondateur de Art Now!

This episode is part of a series of four live round tables that took place in the art fair artgenève in early March 2022. They took place in French and will be available soon in English as a dubbed version.

Vendredi 4 mars à 15 heures, stand A10 / Friday, March 4th, 3 p.m., stand A10

L’actuel enjeu écologique est majeur. À̀ travers lui est engagée la survie de l’espèce humaine. Rien moins. À travers lui, se pose la question du maintien ou non de cette même espèce humaine au sein de la « Terre Mère », si possible dans des conditions non-apocalyptiques. Lutter contre le désastre environnemental ? C’est maintenant ou jamais. À cette aune que peut l’art ? Que peuvent les femmes, pionnières dans l’art écologique ?

D’un côté du ring – comme l’écrit Paul Ardenne, auteur de la première « bible » de l’art écologique mondial – d’un côté donc, l’art – une affaire de poésie, d’esthétique, de créations plastiques et d’élaborations sensibles. De l’autre côté de ce même ring, la réalité écologique à l’ère de l’« anthropocène » et sa déferlante de calamités de toutes sortes ? L’art, et nous, femmes, du monde de l’art, que pouvons-nous ? Quelles responsabilités pouvons-nous assumer ? Qu’avons nous fait, déjà ?

L’écrivaine et biologiste marine Rachel Carson publie en 1962 une des premières alertes au son de « Pour qui sonne le glas » : Printemps silencieux évoque un monde dans lequel les pesticides auront éliminé les oiseaux. Vingt ans plus tard, Ágnes Dénes fait pousser un champ de blé à Manhattan, puis une forêt de 11 000 arbres en Finlande. Starwhak, écrivaine pacifiste et militante est l’une des premières « sorcières » à lier féminisme et écologie et à poétiser la nature, en alliant action politique, danse, poésie, mythologie, voire magie. Critiquée vertement et ou-vertement par un Luc Ferry par exemple, elle est aujourd’hui une star du monde de l’art. L’australienne Janet Laurence crée dans des musées des « cliniques » pour les arbres, les poissons, les espèces marines en voie de disparition. La grande artiste suisse Ursula Biemann fait de l’écologie un art sensible depuis plus de quinze ans, après avoir travaillé sur les migrations vingt ans avant tous les autres artistes. Nicole Dextras, elle, aborde l’écologie du point de vue de la mode et nous propose de merveilleuses robes en feuillages et en fleurs. Et aujourd’hui ? Et ici à Art Genève ? Et demain ? Comment lier la beauté de l’art à l’efficacité politique – pour prévenir le silence des oiseaux – et notre disparition ?

Texte de Barbara Polla
autrice, commissaire d’expositions indépendante et galeriste

Dana Hoey, a San Fransisco born artist and photographer based in upstate New York, talks about her photography and video work which investigates gender roles, archetypes, aggression, and power in society.

For the last episode of the season, we welcome Dana Hoey, an American artist that captures videos and photographs, and blends fact and fiction to question society’s preconceived ideas of gender, relations between each other, masculinity, and femininity. Avid in her practice of combat sports, she integrates that into her work as well and uses it in the directions she gives her models.

She also talks to us about her thoughts on being a woman in the arts as well as her philosophy on motherhood and how it impacted her career.

Conversation Highlights

• The use of combat sports in her work
• Exploring gender roles and identity
• In for freedom and being a woman/mother in the art world

To read the story and learn more about Dana Hoey's work, please visit our website rawradical.com

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Raw and Radical Women in the Arts Podcast is supported by Pro Helvetia the Swiss arts council, The Republic and Canton of Geneva, and the City of Lancy. We thank them for their support to women, culture, and the arts

Lyz Parayzo, a Brazilian-born artist currently studying in the Beaux-Arts de Paris talks about her art, inspired by her personal experiences, and which focuses on the body, gender identity, and fluidity.

Lyz Parayzo, a Brazilian artist who works sculptures, live performances and audiovisual pieces, is with us on the show recorded from the gallery Espace L in Geneva, where there’s an exhibition called “PornoChic”. It was inspired by one of the tale of the book of the “Erotic Tales” by the Brazilian writer Hilda Hilst.

In this episode, we talk about the feminine performative, gender, its fluidity and its place in the art world that sometimes remains conservative. Through her work, like sharply cut sculptures representing ‘jewelry as self defense’, she aims to create the aforementioned debate, raising questions on desire and violence and its relation to the feminine performative.

She shares how her personal experiences have heavily influenced her art, along with external inspiration through writers, artists and thinkers such as Lygia Clark, Hilda Hilst, Hudinilson Junior, Kubra Khademi, Paul Preciado and Annie Sprinkle.

Her work is provocative, and affronting to some. Some of it has once been censored. But her art, as her body - which she draws from for her creations - takes a political stance, as the LGBT community still suffers from hate crimes, phobia and rejection.

Conversation Highlights:

• Lyz’ “Guerilla Plans”: claiming art spaces for her art
• Her series: “Bellic Prosthesis”, sculptures of ‘jewelries for self-defense’
• Desire and violence, gender and identity

To learn more about Lyz and this episode, visit our website rawradical.com

This podcast is supported by Pro Helvetia The swiss arts council,  The Republic and Canton of Geneva, and the City of Lancy in Switzerland. We thank them for their support to culture, women and the arts.

Calling herself a ‘visual narrator’, ‘intimate outsider’, and ‘subjective documentarist’, Mimiko Türkkan comes on the show to talk about her visual video project on water, in relation to fear, her creative process and social identity.

Our unique guest in this episode is Turkish artist Mimiko Türkkan. She creates artwork such as photography series, books and videos with a focus on gender roles and socially constructed identities.

She shares with us her artistic process in coming up with ideas, forming a narrative and going through a project. We focus particularly on her most recent creative endeavour, resulting in “Energy Watery Incantations” in the Galerie Analix Forever in Geneva, to which we get to listen to an excerpt.

She investigates her fears, in relation to ‘the flow’, her creative process and her relation to the world. With traveling and physical activity playing a major role in her artistic process, she gives us a glimpse into the making of “Energy Watery Incantations.” She also gives her piece about being a woman in the arts and gender equality in Turkey.

We also welcome Barbara Polla, owner of the Galerie Analix Forever, adding to the subject of the show ‘Water Paintings’, having had the opportunity to follow Mimiko throughout her creation.

Conversation Highlights:

• Mimiko’s artistic process where traveling and physical activity have an important place
• “Energy Watery Incantations”, her relation with fear and the flow.
• Her thoughts on female identity, gender equality, and being a woman in the arts in Turkey

To listen to read the story and learn more about Mimiko, please go to our website www.rawradical.com

This podcast is supported by Pro Helvetia the Swiss arts council, The Republic and Canton of Geneva,  and the city of Lancy, Switzerland. We thank them for their support to culture, women, and the arts.

Spanish curator, art historian, writer and currently the director of the Art Gender Nature Institute at the FHNW Academy of Art and Design in Basel, Chus Martinez talks about reimagining the exhibition public space, the transformative role of art in society and being a woman in her field of work.

It’s a pleasure to welcome Chus Martinez to the show and to listen to her enriching thoughts, opinions, and experiences as a woman in the very pit of the artworld. She talks about how she reimagines and innovates the exhibition space as a curator, art’s powerful impact in driving social change, and being a woman in the art world.

We also discuss the mindset of artists working collaboratively versus this false idea of “the genius”, the experience of being immersed in the art education world, and the gradual coming back of man into cohabitation with nature.

Conversation Highlights:

• Reimagining how to organize exhibitions
• The impact of art on society
• The gradual reconnection of man with nature
• Chus’s experience being in the world of art education
• Being a woman, and also a mother in the art world
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For more information on our guest, read the show notes or the transcript, know more about our podcast, or subscribe to our newsletter, please go to our website www.rawradical.com

This podcast is made with the support of prohelvetia the Swiss Arts Council,  The Republic and Canton of Geneva and the City of Lancy, Switzerland. We thank them for their support for culture, women, and the arts.

Photojournalist, and then litigator turned one of the most celebrated photographers of the female nude of our time, Renée Jacobs talks about her career transformation, the visual representation of women in society and being a queer woman in her field of work.

I’m happy to receive Renée Jacobs on today’s episode. She explains her career choices and transitions, details on her “PARIS” and “POLAROIDS” book, insights and anecdotes on the pressure of being a woman, especially queer, photographer of the female nude.

We also highlight the importance of authenticity in the depiction of female sensuality, and of accurately shaping our own image (as women). In her words, “women can’t be heard if we can’t be seen.”

Conversation Highlights:

• Her transition from photojournalism to law to photography of the female nude
• The visual representation of women in our society, particularly of the erotic woman
• Her books “PARIS” and “POLAROIDS”, and the “PHOTOS DE FEMME” organization

For more information on our guest, read the show notes, see the transcript, know more about our podcast, or subscribe to our newsletter, please go to our website www.rawradical.com

This podcast is made with the support of prohelvetia the Swiss Arts Council,  The Republic and Canton of Geneva and the City of Lancy, Switzerland. We thank them for their support for culture, women, and the arts.

Radical feminist artist, video artist, and Italian-Swiss performer Angela Mazullo talks about artistic alter egos, motherhood, and third wave feminism

Today I’m delighted to welcome Angela Mazulla to the show to talk about her artistic alter ego, how she has combined motherhood and art, and a unique oral history project she has nurtured over the past several years titled, “The Archives of Radical Feminism.”

Today’s podcast is unique in that it was originally conducted in French, and the interview is overlaid with an English translation.

Key points of the conversation:

• Her artistic alter ego
• Being a mother and an artist
• The Archives of Radical Feminism

Her artistic alter ego

Angela was born to an Italian father and a Swiss mother and grew up in a small village near Zurich, where there was a great deal of liberal thought and conversations about progressive political movements. This shaped a great deal of her early thinking and influenced the direction of her artistic exploration later.

After she moved to Geneva for art school, she created an alter ego for her art performances named “Makita.” She says this allowed her to have more freedom to experiment with more sensitive and provocative subjects in her performances than if she’d performed under her own legal name.

Angela says that “Makita” is a role that she plays that lends more power and depth to her performances, but because it is an alter ego, she doesn’t have to inhabit that role all the time, which makes it possible for her to be more courageous and provocative in her performances.

Being a mother and an artist

Angela says that she always wanted to be a mother, but unlike many women, deliberately chose to get pregnant with her children while she was also in school. At the time, this was a radical, defiant act because many women either hid their pregnancies or dropped out of school.

However, not only did she have two daughters, she also found ways to include them in her work, ultimately creating a project called “Homeschool,” which features her daughters reenacting portions of critical texts to highlight the childishness of certain critical actions.

The Archives of Radical Feminism

For the last five years, Angela has been working on an oral history project of feminism, which includes both recording conversations among contemporary women about critical topics, and transcribing an audio archive of 1970s radical feminist Italian consciousness-raising sessions.

These conversations and transcriptions raise the questions of how feminism has evolved over the last several decades. It also cemented Angela’s position that feminism is a movement best done by groups of women.

She says that as a performer, she is a lone activist. But once she began working with small groups of women, she realized how feminism is a moment of many and that it is a collective vibration.

For more information about our guest or the podcast, visit our website www.rawradical.com

This podcast is produced with the support of The swiss arts council prohelvetia, the Republic and Canton of Geneva,  the city of Lancy.