Looked at how literature can affect artists.

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The following were recommended reading / investigating:

Carl André podcast "Death of an artist."(https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/death-of-an-artist/the-numbers#play)

Blurb to the podcast: n the wake of the #metoo and Black Lives Matter movements, art museums began publicly touting their dedication to diversity. In this episode, we hear from two arts journalists about whether there are actually more artworks by women and people of color on the walls.

Quantifying the disparities in the art works."It's a great time to be an African-American artist?  In 2019 Trump world.

Charlotte Burns: Looking at representation of women and Black American artists. Data analysis: power dynamics between curators, director, trustees.

Women's place in the art world - an illusion: 1 in 5 of artworks were by females: a downward trend since 2008 - 2020. What goes into the permanent collection is determined by those who are entrenched into the systems of power. More impact because it is a reflection of what the museum stands for and which is dominated by men, white men.  Racism & sexism are built into what the structure of how institutions operate.  

Arts and artists are inextricably linked.  Art acquisitions are suffused with money and power and so are resistant to change.  If we don't change the power dynamics, nothing will change.

Sophie Strand: relates the importance of how we relate to and are connected with nature.

Chris Kraus: Going around the contemporary art world now, so many of the people who create and support the career, the curators, gallerists, and dealers, are women. It’s common to see these incredibly dynamic and gifted women nurturing and maintaining the careers of male art stars. You don’t see that happening in the same way with women. A woman who is trying to work in that arena has a lot less support and tends to be on her own. The cultivation of the male celebrity artist, as done by all these gifted women, still makes me catch my breath sometimes.

“I’m not writing about feminism. I’m a woman writing about things” – Chris Kraus

Ursula K. LeGuin : Carrier bag theory rather than hero: gathering ideas and holding them rather than attacking.  technology is not a weapon of domination.

Hélène Cixous - under cover surrealism - I must get to grips with surrealism as there seems to be much more to it than Rene Magritte and De Chirico. "This principle of exclusion is summed up by Cixous thus: “Intention: desire, authority—examine them and you are led right back . . . to the father. It is not possible not to notice that there is no place whatsoever for women in the calculations.” "Patriarchy is maintained by the exchange of women as possessions from father to husbands in order to gain something. The male gains authority, power, virility and pleasure in this economy based on property and exchange. The feminine economy is based not on the proper and exclusion but on the gift." "Writing is also structured by a “sexual opposition,” one that favoured the male and reduced writing “to his laws.” "The need is thus for a woman’s writing, one that will be a flow of “luminous torrents,” excess, never-ending and open, without hierarchy, repressive logic or control." Écripture feminine for Cixous: “flying in language and making it fly,” since for centuries we’ve been able to possess anything only by flying;  we’ve lived in flight, stealing away.” Puns, declamations, fragmented syntax and associative word play are very often the staple of Cixous’ writing. Here creative and academic/theoretical discourse cannot be distinguished, for to separate the two would be to put into place a binary opposition. Femininity is plenitude, excess."

Heather Peak: Studio Morrison novella: Falling into place.- on order.