The ‘Weinstein Effect’ Flooded Miami Beach With Feminist Art—But Will It Last?
On the heels of the viral #MeToo movement and an outpouring of sexual harassment allegations in recent months—including fallen art world luminaries Knight Landesman and Jens Hoffman—there was a distinctly feminist energy at Art Basel Miami Beach last week, an event not always known for its political high-mindedness.
From the debut of an all-woman art fair to an orgasming neon vagina sculpture in a hotel in South Beach to strong feminist art for sale at the fair itself, the cry for women’s equality felt louder than ever.
“We’re in a moment, we’re in a movement—perhaps even the beginnings of a revolution—right now,” said artist Zoe Buckman during a panel discussion on “Feminist Art for a New Era” at the SCOPE Art fair (which artnet sponsored and I moderated). Buckman showed a cluster of monumental boxing gloves covered in scraps of wedding dresses at Gavlak Gallery’s booth at Art Basel.
“I was simply thrilled to see such a strong feminist presence at the fair, writ large in so many deeply impactful ways,” Sotheby’s senior vice president Eric Shiner told artnet News in an email. He pointed to a Barbara Kruger text work, prominently positioned at the fair’s entrance, as well as to Judith Bernstein’s solo booth at the Box, and to PPOW’s display of work by Betty Tompkins, Carolee Schneemann, and David Wojnarowicz—“a temple to feminism and queer theory,” Shiner said.
While men continued to dominate Basel’s post-fair sale report, there was one major breakthrough on the market side for women. Abstract Expressionist Lee Krasner far outstripped her current auction record—$5.5 million, achieved just last month at Christie’s New York—with a $7 million sale at New York’s Paul Kasmin Gallery.
While the market still has work to do, one promising aspect was the amount of money that went into the promotion of women’s art in Miami. Take Fair., the all-woman art fair, which brought massive billboards by the Guerrilla Girls, among other overtly feminist works, to the Brickell City Center, thanks to co-sponsor and developer Swire Properties.
Though nothing was for sale at Fair., it clearly took significant investment to bring together the likes of Yoko Ono, Pia Cami, and the other women in the show. In another work at Fair., Micol Hebron filled a massive wall with posters showcasing the gender imbalance in gallery representation, for series called the “Gallery Tally Project.”