Emily Jacir in the New York Times

The New York Times just did a great interview with Emily Jacir in which she discusses her upcoming solo exhibition at the Guggenheim. The exhibition will feature Material for a Film, Jacir’s installation piece re-creating the 1972 assassination of the Palestinian poet Wael Zuaiter.

In November, the Guggenheim bestowed Jacir with the $100,000 Hugo Boss Prize, one of the most influential international art awards. Previous winners have included Matthew Barney, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Pierre Huyghe. In 2007 Jacir won the prestigious Venice Biennale Golden Lion Award for artists under forty.

In October Jacir was part of Women & Their Work’s thirtieth-anniversary group exhibition The Activist Impulse, curated by Regine Basha. (If you missed that show, see it here.)

Why We Do What We Do

From Artnet News:

The National Endowment for the Arts has just issued Women Artists: 1990-2005 (the full text is downloadable here), a 17-page study about the status of women in the arts. The title of the report is mildly deceptive, in that Women Artists really tracks the challenges faced by women across all the creative professions — including, among other things, “actors,” “writers and authors” and “announcers.” Also unfortunately, “visual artists” are inexplicably lumped together in the survey into a single category with “art directors” and “animators.” However, the report does make some valuable points:

* The category of “art director, visual artist or animator” is the closest of all the creative professions to achieving gender parity — it is 47.4 percent female. For the curious, the field with the lowest concentration of women was “architect,” with only 22.2 percent. By far the highest concentration of women was to be found among “dancers and choreographers,” at 75.9 percent.

* The median annual earnings for women listed as “art directors, fine artists and animators” is $29,000. Median earnings are $36,000 for men in the same fields. Thus, on average, women in the visual arts earn 81 cents to a man’s dollar.

* Despite being equally represented in the field, female “art directors, fine artists and animators” are far more likely to have only part-time employment. According to the NEA’s findings, close to 40 percent of women are part-timers, as opposed to just about 20 percent of men.

* Women Artists reports that earning discrepancies increase for older women — quite substantially so. “In 2003-2005, women artists aged 18 to 24 earned $0.95 for every $1 made by young men artists. This ratio fell to $0.78 for artists aged 35 to 44, and to $0.67 for 45-to-54-year-olds. Women artists aged 55 to 64 earned only $0.60 for every dollar earned by men artists in that age group.”

* The median age of women working in the “art director, visual artist or animator” category is 46 — five years older than the median age for men, which is 41. Strangely, the trend among architects is the opposite: The median age for women is 38, six years younger than the median age of 44 for men. (A guess would be that this is due to the relatively recent inroads females have made into architecture, having increased their representation by nearly seven percent in the brief time span covered by Women Artists.)

* The percentage of what women artists earn relative to men varies regionally. In the report’s words, relative to what men make, “female artist earnings were highest in New York and New Hampshire (85 percent in both states), followed closely by Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, where the ratio was 84 percent.”

* And yet, perhaps the quirkiest generalization from Women Artists is the following: “women artists tend to concentrate in low-population states.” As percentages of the total, the number of women artists is highest in Nebraska, where it approaches 60 percent, followed by similar high concentrations in Iowa, Alaska, New Hampshire and Mississippi. The percentage of woman in the creative labor pool is lowest in California (42.6 percent), Michigan (42.9), New Jersey (42.9), Florida (43.3), Texas (44.2) and New York (45.8).

W&TW all over the Austin American-Statesman

Did you crack open The Statesman today? There’s a cover story in the Life & Arts section about our current exhibition The Activist Impulse, complete with backstory about the founding of the gallery and some ruminations on what our 30th anniversary year means for Women & Their Work. Jeanne Claire van Ryzin takes you through the whole exhibition and you can check it out here. The Activist Impulse remains open through Saturday, November 15th.

Red Hot Red Dot 2008

Another September at Women & Their Work, another Red Hot Red Dot: our largest fundraiser of the year, featuring a killer silent auction and art sale. Red Dot, named for the red dots we affix to the sold artwork, funds all of W&TW’s education programs. This year, our silent auction contained some incredible prize packages (a Marfa getaway tour, art books from Space 1026) and the art sale was packed with almost 200 pieces priced to move from the likes of William Hundley, Michael Sieben, Linda Ridgeway, Alyson Fox, Donna Huanca, and Sean Smith, just to name a few.
But the evening truly belonged to our emcee: Miss Rebecca Havemeyer. Rebecca Havemeyer is an entertainer, a loyal patron of the arts, and one of Austin’s most elegant public figures. She quipped, cajoled, mixed and mingled with the crowd, exhorted everyone to bid for a good cause, and generally acted as a beacon of sophistication and excitement. Continue reading for the rest of the pics!

All images by Neesha Thakkar.

Friday, August 15 – Live performative democracy at City Hall

SAVE THE DATE!! Friday August 15, 2008 // 7-11pm

Austin City Hall Pavilion Stage
301 W. Second Street

Join us for an evening of live performative democracy in musical form.
with:
The Lovers
Najeeb Sabour
The Noise Revival Orchestra Experience

Friday’s event will be a live performance and taping of three Austin-based musical acts that have participated in a lyrical and tonal experiment initiated by artists Angel Nevarez & Valerie Tevere. Sets will include the bands own material along with an arrangement of music to lyrics written by Nevarez & Tevere.

In October, excerpted video documentation of the performances will premiere in the exhibition “The Activist Impulse” curated by Regine Basha at Women and Their Work in Austin. For more information: http://www.womenandtheirwork.org/

—
Angel Nevarez & Valerie Tevere are the founders of neuroTransmitter, a collaboration that, since 2001, has fused conceptual practices with transmission, sound production, and mobile broadcast design. The Austin performance evening is part of their continuing investigation of contemporary music, dissent, and public fora.

The Lovers, born from a freaky family of friends deep within the oasis of the Texas Hill Country, are a new, retro-original folk-rock band with a conscience and lotsa love. The band, made up of three singers, electric and acoustic guitars, a lilting flute, imaginative percussion and steady bass, makes for a vibrant, ever changing sound that is both folk and rock and borders on psychedelic.

Najeeb Sabour is a cellist/singer/songwriter from New Orleans that has recently relocated to Austin. He has performed many concerts in the Czech Republic and toured Spain with the Brit pop band, “Capture the Flag”. Now after two years he’s finally back armed with the experiences of different cultures that you’re sure to hear in his unique style of composing and performing.

The Noise Revival Orchestra Experience, a unity of 13, is the latest loose knit line that connects unique styles of chamber music with orchestral compositions like John Corgliano’s, Circus Maximus, and John Mackey’s, Red Line Tango. The Noise Revival Orchestra Experience is currently featured on MTVu Ahead of the Curve and is currently mixing new songs for an upcoming album that builds upon the success of their 5 song E.P. released on USB drive.

May GiftShop Sale!

Women & Their Work is celebrating 30 years of helping women artists, and for the month of May, the GiftShop will offer 30% off many gifts. It’s a great place to get the perfect Mother’s Day gift. Don’t forget, Mother’s Day is May 11.

Look for the pink dots!