Susan Bee, Mira Schor


496 pages (November 2000)

ISBN 0-8223-2534-9 Cloth - $69.95
ISBN 0-8223-2566-7 Paperback - $22.95

M/E/A/N/I/N/G brings together essays and commentary by over a hundred artists, critics, and poets, culled from the art magazine of the same name. The editorsùartists Susan Bee and Mira Schorùhave selected the liveliest and most provocative pieces from the maverick magazine that bucked commercial gallery interests and media hype during its ten-year tenure (1986-96) to explore visual pleasure with a culturally activist edge.

With its emphasis on artistsÆ perspectives of aesthetic and social issues, this anthology provides a unique opportunity to enter into the fray of the most hotly contested art issues of the past few decades: the visibility of women artists, sexuality and the arts, censorship, art world racism, the legacies of modernism, artists as mothers, visual art in the digital age, and the rewards and toils of a lifelong career in art. The stellar cast of contributing artists and art writers includes Nancy Spero, Richard Tuttle, David Humphrey, Thomas McEvilley, Laura Cottingham, Johanna Drucker, David Reed, Carolee Schneemann, Whitney Chadwick, Robert Storr, Leon Golub, Charles Bernstein, and Alison Knowles.

This compelling and theoretically savvy collection will be of interest to artists, art historians, critics, and a general audience interested in the views of practicing artists.

ôM/E/A/N/I/N/G reflects a time when artists were, in a sense, the critical theorists of the moment. Mira Schor and Susan Bee inspired many of them to write about the subjects that were closest to their hearts, minds, and art.öùElizabeth Hess, art critic

ôThe beauty of this book is the brilliant amassing by Susan Bee and Mira Schor of so many voices, ideas, and approaches. This anthology is full of gems, separately and in their juxtapositions. Fascinating, rich fare.öùMoira Roth, coauthor of Difference/Indifference: Musings on Postmodernism, Marcel, Duchamp, and John Cage

Susan Bee is an artist, editor, and designer who founded, coedited, and designed M/E/A/N/I/N/G magazine. She shows her paintings at A.I.R. Gallery in New York City and her artistÆs books include Little Orphan Anagram and Log Rhythms.



Mira Schor is on the faculty of the Fine Arts Department at Parsons School of Design. An award-winning painter and former coeditor and founder of M/E/A/N/I/N/G magazine, she is the author of Wet: On Painting, Feminism, and Art Culture, also published by Duke University Press.

 
   

 
  

Table of Contents for M/E/A/N/I/N/G





Johanna Drucker / M/E/A/N/I/N/G: Feminism, Theory, and Art Practice


Susan Bee and Mira Schor / Introduction





I. Feminism and Art


Amelia Jones / ôPost-FeminismöùA Remasculinization of Culture?


Mira Schor / Appropriated Sexuality


Corinne Robins / Why We Need ôBad Girlsö Rather Than ôGoodö Ones!


Barbara Pollack / Letter on Bad Girls


Aviva Rahmani / A Conversation on Censorship with Carolee Schneemann


Joanna Frueh / Aesthetic and Postmenopausal Pleasures


Laura Cottingham / just a sketch . . .


Patricia Cronin / A Conversation on Lesbian Subjectivity and Painting with Deborah Kass


Faith Wilding / Monstrous Domesticity





II. The Politics of Meaning and Representation


Charles Bernstein / For M/E/A/N/I/N/G


Mira Schor / Figure/Ground


Marcia Hafif / The Critic Is (?) Artist


Lucio Pozzi / 12 Questions of Art


Daryl Chin / Some Remarks on Racism in the American Arts


Joel Fisher / The Success of Failure


Johanna Drucker / Visual Pleasure: A Feminist Perspective


Charles Bernstein / ôI Don't Take Voice Mailö





III. Selections from the Forums


Arakawa & Madeline Gins, Susan Bee, Robert Berlind, Jake Berthot, Collins & Milazzo, Maureen Connor, Rackstraw Downes, David Humphrey, Komar & Melamid, Medrie MacPhee, Elizabeth Murray, Yvonne Rainer, Miriam Schapiro, Ann Schoenfeld, Pat Steir, Robert Storr, Lawrence Weiner / On Authenticity and Meaning


Emma Amos, Josely Carvalho, Daryl Chin, Tom Finkelpearl, Madeline Gins, Ren‰e Green, Hung Liu, Fern Logan, Juan Sanchez, Robert Storr / Contemporary Views on Racism in the Arts


Rudolf Baranik, Arthur Cohen, Hermine Ford, Nancy Fried, Leon Golub, John Goodyear, Nancy Grossman, Yvonne Jacquette, Ellen Lanyon, Ann McCoy, Melissa Meyer, Howardena Pindell, Lucio Pozzi, Jacques Roch, Miriam Schapiro, Carolee Schneemann, Richard Tuttle, David von Schlegell, Lawrence Weiner, Faith Wilding / Over Time: A Forum on Art Making


Emma Amos, Suzanne Anker, Susan Bee, Emily Cheng, Stephanie DeManuelle, Jane Dickson, Bailey Doogan, Hermine Ford, Mimi Gross, Freya Hansell, Yvonne Jacquette, Joyce Kozloff, Ellen Lanyon, Betty Lee, Lenore Malen, Ann Messner, Diane Neumaier, Nancy Pierson, Barbara Pollack, Erika Rothenberg, Miriam Schapiro, Arlene Shechet, Dena Shottenkirk, Joan Snyder, Elke Solomon, Nancy Spero, May Stevens, Martha Wilson, Barbara Zucker / On Motherhood, Art, and Apple Pie


Jackie Brookner, David Humphrey, William Pope, Robert C. Morgan, Barbara Pollack, Jerry Saltz, Mira Schor / On Creativity and Community





IV. Artists' Musings


Vanalyne Green / Mother Baseball


Tom Knechtel / Bats


Nancy Spero / The Discovered Uncovered


Susan Bee / Running on Empty: An Artist's Life in New York


Joseph Nechvatal / Reorganized Meditations on Mnemonic Threshold


Ann McCoy / The Critic and the Hare: Meditations on the Death of My Rabbit


Richard Tuttle / September 21, 1989


Aviva Rahmani / Alison Knowles: An Interview


David Reed / Media Baptisms





V. Artists in Perspective


Pamela Wye / Florine Stettheimer: Eccentric Power, Invisible Tradition


Nancy K. Miller / Cartoons of the Self: Portrait of the Artist as a Young MurdererùArt Spiegelman's Maus


Pamela Wye / Nancy Spero: Speaking in Tongues


Whitney Chadwick / Muse Begets Crone: On Leonora Carrington


Misko Suvakovic / Painting After Painting: The Paintings of Susan Bee


Dominique Nahas / When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears: An Interview with Thomas McEvilley


Appendix: Contents of M/E/A/N/I/N/G