Hilarious video, with some entertaining and thoughtful points. Questionable sociology, though. Perhaps the key misconception is in this point: "Further, they must perform “black artist” or “female artist” by adopting the identities that art critics expect and desire to see."

I think this overestimates the influence of art critics when it comes to determining who achieves "success" in the art world. The reality is that the arts aren't all that different from other institutions and industries when it comes to the inheritance of privilege. Well-positioned and well-connected white male artists have the exact same advantages as demographically similar aspiring politicians or enterpreneurs. In the upper echelons of art fame, it's not any more of a meritocracy than the Ivy League, and in the lower rungs of experimentation, white male artists have perhaps an even greater imperative to be "angry, unpredictable, and exotic" than their minority/female peers, lest anyone find them boring.

For those of us working in the middle, the problem is not so much that we have to produce marked art to become successful. Rather, it's that when we're on the ground floor, "black art" is often the only elevator that isn't already completely jammed with talented rich white kids, and even most of them are not destined for what most people would call success. Whatever it is that you're trying to do, there's usually someone with access to more money and better connections doing something similar enough, and the demand for it is not infinite.

The question of how the audience interprets and contextualizes the work based on race/gender is almost beside the point; the vast majority of work won't have an audience in the first place. You have to leverage every advantage you have to get one, and if it responds with enough interest to draw out questions of your race/sex/gender identity, you're already in that 99th percentile of success in the art world. After that, you're going to be pigeonholed and labelled no matter who you are, and if you're a white male, you better damn well find some other outsider quality to get the press to focus on.

I've noticed this. People always assume that my paintings are about gender identity. It annoys me that I'm expected to be making identity statements through my art. You have to be a white, heterosexual, male to avoid the identity trap.

I've written for television off and on over the years and I continue to be disappointed with the way people respond to my work. When I get a meeting, my script has gone ahead of me and my name is a little ambiguous--not clearly "black," in fact, it looks very European (two-word Dutch last name).

But when I get to meetings and people see me and realize I'm black, they're like "oh, wow...this script was great...do you write black?" or "why didn't you send over a black script?"

I've made the mistake of saying "well, I AM black and I do write, so does that count as writing black?" They usually laugh and then ask the question again.

I also get a lot of "wow, I can't believe a woman wrote this." *sigh*

I recently asked a fellow writer who is familiar with my work if he would refer me to his agent. He said he would and asked me to send a sample. I asked him what genre he would prefer. He said "I don't know. Why don't you see what genres are looking for black female writers." And I told him, "Hmm, I can't wait for the day when I'm seen as just a 'good' writer or a 'funny' writer and not a 'black female' writer." He hasn't really talked to me since.

I had a female friend who was told by a potential employer that her art "needed more testosterone." The girl in question drew nothing but burly men in armor swinging around enormous swords to bloodily behead huge monsters.

Meanwhile, another (female) friend was invited to a company party at a job conference and got all excited that it meant her work was being noticed. She later finds out that she was invited because she was a girl.

We have also had the experience of meeting someone who puts "female game programmer" right on her business cards.

It's pretty disgusting. :/

Yes, this pervasive perception that people of color, women, or other "minorities" must always be talking about their otherness is coupled with the assumption that the white, European descended male is the only artist who can speak on a universal and un-gendered, un-"biased" level. This is true not just in the contemporary art scene, but in art history too. The edition of Janson's History of Art that was current when I was in college in the 90s essentially made this claim in its introduction during a discussion of Jacob Lawrence's work. The authors suggested that black artists not include images of black people in their artworks.

Even in modern art history texts that college students use, this assumption about what the majority and minorities have to offer is apparent. It's difficult for casual readers to notice because there is still so little discussion of non-white, non-Western artists to begin with in survey texts. And unfortunately, even when authors like Marilyn Stokstad avoid expressing it, the issue is rarely addressed. This is important because students and other art appreciators often do make these assumptions without being told to explicitly.

By the way, my students and I have used "What Counts as Indian Art?", and though it can be hard at first to see past their own cultural consumerism, the students seem to get it by the end of the semester.

I'm so amazed. I'm sharing, I only hope my friends can handle it.

I fully support satire and sarcasm in all it's forms. This was funny as hell. Then again sad b/c it's so true. The other day I presented myself to a female musician and told her I was a Latin American artist and she said how exotic to me....like I'm a fucking cockatoo. Anything to dehumanize and subtly dismiss other people different from yourself.
This Opression is great(not in a good way).
Much Love
Hennessey Youngman

Much Love to Hennessey Youngman and Lisa Wade for posting this.

That's strange. Until I clicked into the comments, the videos seemed to have... shifted. They were for Fighting Game Female Costumes and It's OK to Like Cats, which didn't seem to fit the descriptive text.

I know this is an older post, but maybe someone could put a trigger warning on the second video?