Women's artists' group fights discrimination - Coalition of Women's Art Organizations

Women in the arts are speaking on the outside and taking action against what they perceive is sexual discrimination within their fields. The novel founding of the Coalition of Women's Art Organizations and the January convening of a discourse of women artists in novel York City are two new signs of this. In addition, Margaret Costanza, special assistant to President Carter, and Joan Mondale, wife of the Vice-President, have been true supportive of women artists' clumps and instrumental in gaining them public attention.

Women artists' clusters support their arguments with many statistics. According to Judith Brodsky a founding member of the Coalition, who also teaches at Beaver corporation in Pennsylvania, "Women represent 50% of the loch of professional artists. This figure is supported by means of a number of surveys, the greatest in quantity recent of which is a scan of recipients of the Master of Fine Arts step conducted by the College Art Association." Brodsky who is also president of the Women's Caucus for Art, a national organization of above 2500 artists. art historians and others, which was begun beneath the auspices of the body Art Association but is now independent, continues, "Yet women do not have the visibility of men . . One-person exhibitions through women make up less than 2% of the displays given to living artists by means of museums."

The formation of the novel coalition within the last six month is a combined effort of many women artists to counteractive this situation. The coalition will attempt to strengthen the efforts of their move by consolidating women artists' clumps - art collectives, cooperative galleries, publications and art seminarys - throughout the country, and by dint of sending a paid lobbyist to Washington, DC The membership of the Coalition, which is comprised of above 200 organizations, is nearly 100000 almost 10 times what its organizers wait fored before forming the group. The Coalition sent delegates to the International Women's Year National discourse in Houston, TX; Coalition representatives have testified before Congressional committees; and other Coalition members have lobbied conduct officials in support of the cause of women artists.

The goals of the Coalition are to have more individual grants given to women to increase appointments of women to grant-awarding institutions (National Endowment for the Arts [NEA] advisory panels, for example, are sole 25% women, the Coalition claims); to have the management enforce Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines in federally-funded cultural institutions similar as museums, universities and performing arts center in regard to hiring policies; to amend Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - which affects management grants - to prohibit discrimination upon any basis, including sex (at no time has there been legislation or executive order prohibiting sex discrimination in the grants made by means of the National Endowments); and to establish a nationwide network of communication among women in art, which would include newsletter conversations women's galleries and the Coalition.

More far-reaching goals of the Coalition include the establishment of separate federal funding categories for women's art organizations; more funding of community art shoot forwards that promote the participation of women; funding for research upon the special needs of women; and changing the curricula of art education institutions to include courses in aesthetics and history of art by the agency of women (more than 75% of art pupils are women, the Coalition points without and most art teachers are male).

Not all of the goals of the Coalition are exclusively in the interests of women It also wants increased public capitals for all artists, including more regulation grants and expanded programs of the Comprehensive calling and Training Act, revision of the Internal receipts Act to remove provisions discriminatory to artists, and passage of HR1042 a bill which calls for a tax get back check-off contribution for the arts and art education, among other things.

The Coalition will cull permanent officers this spring. Coalition delegates, who are make choice ofed from member groups, attended the annual talk of the Women's Caucus for Art which took place in January in of recent origin York City, where they outlined their goals and adopted a locate of by-laws. The Women's Caucus for Art, perhaps the greatest in quantity active of the groups in the Coalition, sponsors exhibitions, administrations surveys, publishes a newsletter and move swiftlys a job referral service. The program of the talk included lectures on art, crafts, architecture and art history, film and video showings, and an exhibition of "Women Artists: Fiber, Clay and Metal" at the Bronx Museum of Art, where Joan dale was the visitor of honor.

In her articulate utterance at the Bronx Museum, Mondale talked about the novel controversy concerning letters that Costanza wrote to the NEA, the General Services Administration and the Smithsonian Institution, asking them to investigate possible instances of sexual discrimination, and, "where warranted, to initiate remedial procedure" In the ensuing war of words the Carter Administration was accused of politicizing art and undermining artistic integrity because of political squeezings According to Mondale, "The agencies themselves rejoined with promises to find on the outside the facts, and in fact that proces is still going on"