girl trouble

I'm not exactly a fan of Dave Hickey, so I've been enjoying the comments here in which he gets roundly criticized, even if it did make me think, "Y'all postin' on a troll video."  While I haven't had a chance to read all of the thread on Hickey at simpleposie that comes up in the comments at AFC, I have to say I find the bits of it (on Hickey and feminist art) referred to intriguing, especially combined with Tom Moody's comment on one of Hickey's, um . . . is "straw men" the mot juste?  There's no doubt that, as various people point out, Hickey's annoyingly glib and given to untenable overstatements.  But all of this only makes me more intrigued to see what happens on October 6, when he's scheduled to give the Gail Silver Memorial Lecture at RISD.  It comes the Museum will have just opened its Lynda Benglis exhibition, with Hickey's lecture listed as part of the associated programming.  I don't know what his take on Benglis is, or if he'll even actually address the exhibition specifically.  But if anyone wanted to stir things up over feminism, contemporary art, and the art market, let alone sex toys, a Lynda Benglis retrospective at RISD seems like the perfect occasion.

UPDATE: Now that I've had a bit of coffee, I have to say that I can easily imagine Hickey fawning all over Benglis, or at the very least, her best-known moment.  And it would be very easy, depending on how he was inclined, to use that praise as a stick to beat whatever target he might choose among his many favorite hobby horses (uptight academics come to mind, but it might be more fun, given the setting, to go over museums and art students.)  I do wonder if he'll have anything to say about the actual work, especially that from later years.  I obviously haven't seen it yet myself, so I'd just say that I'm personally skeptical but ready to be convinced.

2ND UPDATE: Please see the comments below by the curator of contemporary art at RISD regarding Hickey's involvement with the Benglis catalogue, his lecture in October, and a forthcoming project of his on women artists.  They add valuable perspective to some of my own too-glib remarks above.  Should be an interesting event.

Comments

[judith tannenbaum]

For a preview of Hickey's take on Benglis, he contributed one of the essays to the Benglis book produced in conjunction with the retrospective exhibition, published by les presses du reel. His essay is called "A House Built in a Body: Lynda Benglis's Early Work." so his focus there is as you predicted on the early part of her career. But by the title of his lecture, "Graduate School De-Aesthetisized," he probably will get into issues related to art students and academia. How he places Benglis in this context, we shall see.
Thanks for your post,
Judith Tannenbaum
Curator of Contemporary Art, The RISD Museum

[judith tannenbaum]

Additional Hickey info: He has a book forthcoming this spring from the University of Chicago Press entitled “HOT STUFF: ESSAYS ON THE WORK OF TWENTY WOMEN ARTISTS.” I think this is a first of its type.
Judith Tannenbaum

[JL]

Thanks for your comments, Judith. I must admit that I was a bit chagrined to see risd.edu show up in the sitemeter, followed by your comments, and then a hit from Las Vegas. But I do appreciate the additional perspective. I look forward to seeing the exhibition and (I hope) the lecture as well. Thanks again.

[CAP]

The Tom Moody's link doesn't seem to be working (anymore). But yeah I feel the same way about Hickey. Benglis is overdue wider acceptance, a re-evaluation in relation to Minimalism rather than feminism, but that's unlikely to come from this quarter.

[Arthur Whitman]

How was the lecture?

[Bridget]

Oh I wish I had a drawer full of free plane tickets.