By Miriam Katz, trade magazine Billedkunstneren #3 2021
How do we improve the working environment in the art world? An important step is to get a common language to talk about invisible power structures, violations and discrimination. This is what visual artists Yvette Brackman and Bettina Camilla Vestergaard, who are with the project, think Art Different Communities opens up a new conversation between artists, art students and art workers.
It all started back in 2018, when the Federation of Visual Artists in collaboration with the art platform Idoart.dk held debate meeting about #Metoo in the art world. The meeting took place on Overgaden in Copenhagen, and in the packed hall both presenters and audience were surprised that #Metoo had not yet – as in many other western countries – led to an incipient confrontation with sexism, violations and border-crossing behavior in Danish art life.
As one of the Swedish artists who gave a presentation at the meeting said: Denmark is the place #Metoo took to die.
"I was also in doubt myself when I agreed to give a presentation at the debate meeting," says visual artist Bettina Camilla Vestergaard.
"Do we even have a problem with infringements in the art world? Or is it just me who experiences it that way? But even though I was nervous about having to speak publicly about these things, I could just feel a big YES inside when I was invited to participate. I didn't feel like I could say no. This was far too important," she says.
Bettina Camilla Vestergaard and Yvette Brackman in their exhibition Art Differences Communities, at ARIEL – Feminisms in the Aesthetics, Kvindernes Bygning in Copenhagen PHOTO Rine Rodin.
BILLEDKUNSTNEREN meets Bettina Camila Vestergaard and colleague Yvette Brackman at the minimalist exhibition venue Ariel – Feminisms in the Aesthetics, in the Women's Building in Copenhagen, where they exhibited under the title in June Art Different Communities.
At the exhibition in the 6 m2 window room facing Niels Hemmingsensgade, the two artists presented elements from their upcoming book with the same title, which will be published by ARIEL PRESS in November. The book consists of, among other things of a series of detailed question guides that can act as conversation starters for artists, art students and art workers.
They trade e.g. about whether you have experienced discrimination, sexual harassment, unwanted sexual attention, bullying or minority stress. In addition, the book creates an overview of exactly how the above concepts are defined in current legislation. And brings overviews of e.g. networks, knowledge resources, legal and psychological advice, which are good to know if you have experienced violations.
"We see our handbook as a kind of debate and self-help book for the art world," says Yvette Brackman. "We hope it can create a space to start conversations across different groupings in the art world. Conversations that we think are necessary to create a more respectful work culture, both in the workshop environments, on the exhibition stage and in the art educations.”
Art's #Metoo
Art Different Communities has grown out of the previously mentioned #Metoo seminar on Overgaden, where a group of artists, including Bettina Camilla Vestergaard and Yvette Brackman, subsequently joined forces to work further with gaining insight into – and seeking solutions to – sexism in Danish art life.
“We had a common need to do something, so we got together to talk further. Someone went to the basic group, others to the reading and questionnaire group," says Yvette Brackman about the work in the group Art and Solidarity (KOS), which spanned the following year and a half.
In the end, however, they had to admit that it was not possible to carry out the large, in-depth study in art life that they originally wanted. The group was disbanded, and Brackman and Vestergaard were given free rein by their colleagues to use the material they had created together and work on it. Subsequently, the two artists involved i.a. sociologists, gender researchers and other professionals in an extensive research work. It is all the research and the findings from the work with CUSHION, they carry on into the art project Art Different Communities.
"The question guides that we have developed in Art Different Communities, is created based on well-tested formats from the research world. We have then adapted the questions to the precarious working conditions in the art world. Because we think that question guides really can something in relation to raising awareness," says Bettina Camilla Vestergaard.
"I myself have experienced how the questions get some conversations going that I would not otherwise have had with colleagues and business partners. That they made me think about my own and other people's experiences and see them in a new light. It is an awareness-raising process which is absolutely necessary if we are to try to change the ingrained norms and values that pervade art life together," she says.
Yvette Brackman and Camilla Bettina Vestergaard: Question guides. Art Differences Communities | Ariel – Feminisms in the Aesthetics. 2021. Photo: Malle Madsen.
Open artistic process
At the exhibition in Kvindernes Bygning, the two artists asked the audience to contribute to the process: The exhibition space had the character of an open editorial office, where visitors were asked to formulate and co-create content for the upcoming handbook. The exhibition design itself was designed with references to female, feminist artists, theorists and activists.
Eg. Brackman and Vestergaard had installed a long table with archive and collection boxes, as one hommage to the American feminist artist Mary Beth Edelson and her work Story Gathering Boxes (1972). And all written material for the exhibition was prepared in the Women's Car Repair Collective font, designed by the American feminist and activist Nat Pyper, which builds on a design style created by the feminist collective the Lesbian Alliance in St.Louis in the 1970s.
Here, at the long table in the exhibition space, the audience could write down and share their thoughts, experiences and knowledge about (in)equal treatment in the art world, and hand in their notes in the archive boxes. Several well-attended reading group meetings were also held during the exhibition period, and the younger art audience in particular got involved, say the two artists, who are grateful for the good conversations that arose:
"It was very rewarding and important for us to have an open process in the project. After all, we are two white cis women in our 40s and 50s respectively - and of course we have blind spots and are influenced by our own background, education, social class, etc.," says Bettina Camilla Vestergaard.
Conversations about invisible structures
"Some of the visitors told, for example, how difficult it can be to navigate as a student on an art education if you come from a background where art has never been talked about. In contrast to if you e.g. is the child of an artist or academic. There are some of us who are fine with the informal power structures of art life and find it relatively easy to work in this kind of environment. While others are insecure because they do not know the invisible codes and norms that characterize the manners, e.g. between teachers and students on the art courses," says Yvette Brackman.
She points out that there is an invisible power structure in the unstructured, informal community that often exists in art education:
"Art education can be a Darwinian environment, where those who have the personal resources to establish good relationships with the teachers can get a lot out of the teaching. While those who are unsure and do not have a language or an understanding of the culture from home are at a disadvantage. As teachers, we have a great responsibility to see and understand that these mechanisms are at play," says she, who, like Bettina Camilla Vestergaard, is an experienced teacher:
Yvette Brackman has been a professor and head of the School for Walls and Space at the Kgl. Danish Academy of Arts and has taught in many other contexts in Danish art life. Bettina Camilla Vestergaard teaches i.a. at Holbæk Art College and has previously taught at the Jutland Academy of Arts and several of the country's preparatory schools and art colleges.
Yvette Brackman and Camilla Bettina Vestergaard: Art Differences Communities | Ariel – Feminisms in the Aesthetics. 2021. Photo: Malle Madsen.
Intersectional perspective
During the work process with Art Different Communities it was clear to the two artists that it was not sufficient to understand the discrimination in the art world in relation to gender alone. Other identity markers, e.g. social class, ethnicity, sexuality, age and functional variations are included.
"We developed with the task, and society's understanding of inequality issues also developed while we were working on the project," says Bettina Camilla Vestergaard, referring to e.g. The Black Lives Matters movement, which in the wake of the police murder of American George Floyd, has shed new light on structural racism, also in the art world.
"As we delved deeper into the research in the area, we could see that it is important to focus on a broader discrimination problem. And then our project got an intersectional one
feminist perspective," says Yvette Brackman.
Intersectionality is, the two artists explain with a quote from the American feminist theorist and activist Kimberlé Crenshaw: "the complex and accumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination associated with identity markers overlap and interact with each other on multiple levels, contributing to further discrimination."
Are you e.g. both female and have an ethnic background other than Danish, it affects your working conditions as an artist in ways that interfere with and reinforce each other. And both positions must be seen and recognized if you want to create change, goes the reasoning.
Precarious artist life
The two artists are calling for greater awareness of the complicated mechanisms at play in a precarious industry such as the art world, where a wide range of gatekeepers has great power over the individual artist's career:
"Political work also takes place on an individual level. It is about personal awareness. About asking ourselves and each other difficult but important questions. And about getting a common language to talk about the invisible, exclusionary mechanisms and power hierarchies that characterize us all," says Bettina Camilla Vestergaard.
"The inequality in art life is largely rooted in the precarious working life we have as artists. That we are not in permanent contract employment, but jump from project to project. Do you experience e.g. cross-border behavior from a client, curator or business partner, you do not have a shop steward to turn to. Often you are completely alone in the situation, and may not have colleagues who have witnessed what has happened. Art life has no clear structures, power often lies in personal relationships: If you give me something, I'll open this door. And no one is keeping an eye on it.”
"When we have tested our question guides, it is very clear that artists often doubt whether they are even 'allowed' to feel that they have been exposed to unwanted attention or abuse. Therefore, in the book we make a great deal of describing the various definitions of e.g. 'sexual harassment', 'bullying', 'sexual coercion' completely dry and factual, based on current legislation. The book also contains overviews of where to go if you need advice and support. These are not exhaustive overviews, because the field is constantly developing. But we hope that in this way we can help to create clarity about the concepts and give both artists and art students the opportunity to act if they are exposed to various forms of transgressive behaviour," she says.
The myth of the powerless space
Brackman and Vestergaard emphasize that it is important to protect the free space of art, where wildness and testing of boundaries have traditionally been idealized. But at the same time they insist that it must be possible to treat each other respectfully in the free space that art represents. Yvette Brackman:
"Of course we must protect and preserve artistic freedom. But we also have a responsibility to ensure that it is a free space that everyone wants to be in.”
"We don't come and impose some guidelines for respectful behavior on people, but in the book we point to both legislation and definitions about e.g. equal treatment, bullying, harassment and intersectionality. So people can reflect on what they experience. It all starts with knowing what is going on.”
The two artists hope that the book speaks broadly to everyone in the art world, across generations, professional roles and personal backgrounds:
"We do not only want to address those who experience violations, but also those who - perhaps unconsciously - violate. And to those who witness it. It is about making visible and becoming aware of complex, psychological and structural patterns that we are all part of. We need to talk together, across differences, to create mutual respect and empathy.”
They are aware that it is a difficult ambition to fulfill:
Yvette Brackman and Bettina Camilla Vestergaard in their exhibition Art Differences Communities | Ariel – Feminisms in the Aesthetics. 2021. Photo: Rine Rodin.
"It is perhaps a utopian project to speak to everyone in the art world. Some may shy away from this type of conversation because they feel they are being pushed into certain boxes. But on the contrary, we believe that it is some boxes that make it possible to talk about difficult things," says Bettina Camilla Vestergaard. Yvette Brackman adds:
“As long as we do not have a common language for the mechanisms at play here, the oppressive culture can continue. And the problem is that there are some who work hard at it and pay the price. There is also a generational clash here: Many artists of my generation have a strong awareness of the women's struggle, and perhaps tend to tell the young that it is their own responsibility to speak out against transgressive behaviour. But the younger generations see it completely differently. They ask: 'Where are the adults? Why is it we who have to speak up and not you who have to stop your own transgressive or discriminatory behaviour? Why do you hold your hand over known violators? You will e.g. like to talk about colonialism and racism, but when you exhibit, you don't include artists who feel the effects of colonialism on their own bodies.' We simply have to listen to that criticism and act on it in the art world, I think.”
Camilla Bettina Vestergaard: "We are a professional field full of power differences. We have no illusions about leveling all the power differences. Differences can be ok, and they create dynamics in many ways. But we must get better at seeing the differences, talking about them and taking responsibility for challenging power when it is abused.”
"We hope that this conversation can be spread in classrooms, at art academies and out in the art world. That it can provide understanding and perspective in relation to the relationships and hierarchies that characterize us. So in the future we will take more into account and contribute to respectful and empathetic ways of dealing in the various art environments.”
Echo chambers and scapegoats
At the same time, Brackman and Vestergaard hope that the book can create a space where it is possible to talk about the fact that people can rightfully feel unfairly accused of sexism or racism.
"That conversation is also important. We are gradually sitting in echo chambers and talking to like-minded people. Both on social media and e.g. in the wake of Metoo and the so-called 'bust action', where we often tend to single out some as bad and others as clean. It is scapegoat thinking that shuts down creativity and development," says Yvette Brackman.
"Instead, it's about learning to give space, take responsibility and treat each other properly, and this of course applies to e.g. students and teachers. You are not necessarily just a victim. You also have an agent, and we have to have the difficult conversations, even when we disagree or a conflict has arisen," she says.
The project Art Different Communities is precisely intended as an invitation to start these kinds of conversations:
"We ourselves have experienced in the process that our questions generated reactions such as: 'Oh, how good to be asked about this!' And then the floodgates opened. It is wonderful to be able to talk together and to be able to say out loud: What I experienced was not ok. Even if it is perhaps 20 years ago. Then you become free and can move on," says Bettina Camilla Vestergaard.
"Most of all, we want the book to point us forward - that it can contribute to us putting action behind our words, changing our behavior when necessary, and strengthening respect and empathy in our industry"
— Do artists find it difficult to see themselves as powerful or privileged?
"Yes, I would probably think that some of us have," says Yvette Brackman.
"Some people - consciously or unconsciously - hold on very strongly to the power they have. And are blind to the privileges we can have as artists or as e.g. teachers in the art courses. There is a great need to create more awareness of these positions. That we can talk about how we take responsibility for handling power in a responsible and productive way.”
This article was published in the trade magazine Billedkunstneren, September 2021.
#METOO: SECOND WAVE IN THE ART LIFE
The culture of silence in the art world was seriously broken when, in autumn and winter 2020, BKF was able to publish the shocking works of a large number of visual artists testimony about sexism and cross-border behavior in Danish art life.Subsequently, a large number of actors in the arts and cultural life, including BKF, have initiated the training course Art & Culture in Balance, which must strengthen inclusion, equal treatment and diversity. And in these months, a working group under BKF's board is in the process of formulating a code for equality in the arts, which can contribute to maintaining focus on the area and creating changes.