Jess de Wahls

[Mollyollydolly]

The Royal Academy have removed Jess' work from their shop due to a handful of complaints that she's 'transphobic'. If you want to support Jess her website is here.
www.jessdewahls.com
So sick of these utterly craven organisations. I hope she has a legal case against them for discrimination.

Not surprised really, I know their shitty values. As a student in London my boyfriend and I paid to visit an exhibition there. There was absolutely nothing at all wrong with our behaviour (we worked in a field like museum studies so this was home turf for us). He was followed throughout the exhibition in every gallery by a security guard who was up close and invading his space every where he went. When the boyfriend challenged politely but firmly that they were making him uncomfortable, the guard started shouting at him and was abusive to him based on his colour. It was shocking. We left. If I'd been more savvy I should have asked for my tickets refunded but to be honest we just got out.

NoToast That's absolutely awful. I'm so sorry you were put through that.

Last year, the Royal Academy did an exhibition on Gauguin. www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/gauguin-and-the-impressionists-ordrupgaard

Let's learn a little about Gauguin.

"He spent his Tahitian years with an eye toward the French market, producing paintings, drawings, woodcuts, and ceramics full of tropical clichés to sell at home. He also took three young wives (ages 13, 14, and 14), infected them with syphilis, and eventually died from syphilitic complications at the age of 54 in the remote Marquesas Islands.

“There is a real blind spot when it comes to the more problematic aspects of Gauguin’s sojourn in Polynesia,” says Caroline Vercoe, an art history professor and associate dean at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, who has studied contemporary Pacific Island artists’ responses to Gauguin. “A lot of the way that he is framed, like many of the male ‘hero’ art figures in the canon, has more to do with progressing the Euro American art canon to keep it as Eurocentric as possible.”

Continues: www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-art-divided-gauguins-legacy

Kind of related, but in the opposite way. I have noticed a lot of TERF stuff available on Etsy: Fuck TERFS, No TERFS beyond this point etc.

Etsy's own policies state this:

^Etsy prohibits the use of our Services to discriminate against people based on the following personal attributes (collectively, “protected groups”):

Race
Colour
Ethnicity
National origin
Religion
Gender
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
Disability
Any other characteristic protected under applicable law

It is your responsibility to know your local laws and any other legal regulations on discrimination that might apply to you.

Additionally, Etsy does not allow hate speech. Hate speech occurs when violent, offensive, derogatory or demeaning language is directed at a person or group based on their one or more protected group attributes.^

Is it worth a little pushback reporting items to Etsy and reminding them of the protected characteristic? Or is that just as bad as trying to cancel Jess? I don't think it is...

I may or may not have already started notifying Etsy on certain items...

David Soul recently led an event: The Passion & Poetry Of Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda was an acclaimed leader and poet. He was also a self-confessed rapist, treated women very poorly, refused to support his daughter who had hydrocephaly after he abandoned her mother and left them to Nazi occupied Netherlands.

Some information: www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/23/chile-neruda-airport-rename-outrage-admitted-rape-memoirs

Daughter: worldcrunch.com/culture-society/the-tragic-story-of-pablo-neruda39s-abandoned-daughter

Soul's event was all about the passion and the poetry with a heavily sanitised biography. I don't recall anyone attempting to cancel it.

[quote PurgatoryOfPotholes]The twitter thread is brilliant.

I'm learning a lot. For example.

#RADailyDoodle I drew a picture of Royal Academician Jeff Koons subjecting his wife to physical and emotional abuse.

You seem ok with this behaviour, but not with women speaking up for their rights. That seems a bit strange. Can you clarify
t.co/S2fB9rP4vI

twitter.com/BigBillMoon/status/1405470055584964611?s=19

#RADailyDoodle I also doodled Royal Academician Georg Baselitz telling a group of female artists that “women can’t paint”.

Again, you seem happy with this belief of his, but not with women defending their sex-based rights. Why is that? t.co/ICJMgkuOEL

twitter.com/BigBillMoon/status/1405471808850206723?s=19[/quote]
Misogyny: confirmed.

I've just written. This all makes me sooo mad.

The RA is being roasted alive on twitter.

Far more than 8 people are making their views known.

Hope they get the message.

I do wonder if the artists involved in the harassment of Jess realise that there is no way that they will get to take her place in the Royal Academy.

Embroidery is an undervalued craft to start with 'cos predominately female, and their embroidery design and physical technique is absolutely not in the same league as Jess's. It really, really isn't.

If anything, they're damaging themselves by pulling Jess down because her inclusion in the RAA shop boosted the profile of embroidery as a whole, to their benefit.

I have just spent the most I have ever spent on art buying an item from Jess’s online shop. There are sewn patches which are less than £10. The RA needs to see what income it has lost through this

Just to be clear - because I don't think everyone reading this thread would see on cursury view - that people are citing the unfortunate views and actions of these male artists as examples of extreme double-standards against women, and not because anyone thinks these artists should be cancelled?

Because that is a whole other issue IMHO, we want to retain our arts heritage with appropriate context - and that's a separate conversation (which needs to be had, but is massive, and with many, many unintended consequences).

Also Jess is amazing and I have followed her on Insta for many years and seen her work grow so much. Solidarity Jess

Purgatory plus, she is prolific. I don't know how she isn't crippled with tennis elbow and RSD. She rattles amazing work out overnight, I have no idea how she does it - takes me months to do a basic cross stitch. A wee one.

Important point, too, textiles are a medium used by female artists more than male.

So, yeah, .

Soo angry to hear this! Hope people come out in support of her

Vivarium check out her feed - she uses these special needles that enable you to sew super fast - you poke it through and twist it and it makes a loop ( a little bit like a sewing machine does) - so you can 'draw' really quickly with thread.

What is she supposed to have done? (Sorry if I've overlooked this but all I can see is their apology not the offending art work.)

@Horizons83

Kind of related, but in the opposite way. I have noticed a lot of TERF stuff available on Etsy: Fuck TERFS, No TERFS beyond this point etc.

Etsy's own policies state this:

^Etsy prohibits the use of our Services to discriminate against people based on the following personal attributes (collectively, “protected groups”):

Race
Colour
Ethnicity
National origin
Religion
Gender
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
Disability
Any other characteristic protected under applicable law

It is your responsibility to know your local laws and any other legal regulations on discrimination that might apply to you.

Additionally, Etsy does not allow hate speech. Hate speech occurs when violent, offensive, derogatory or demeaning language is directed at a person or group based on their one or more protected group attributes.^

Is it worth a little pushback reporting items to Etsy and reminding them of the protected characteristic? Or is that just as bad as trying to cancel Jess? I don't think it is...

I may or may not have already started notifying Etsy on certain items...

I notifed etsy a few years ago about some “TERF Stomper” badges with a massive boot on them. They were still there months later. However with the results of the recent court case if they are a trader in the UK then etsy should take them off.

missproportionate

Good clarification!

No, I don't want any of these artists 'cancelled'. If we did judge art by the artist's character instead of its own merits, we would have practically nothing left in the galleries!

But I do want the RAA to respond on Jess's behalf the exact same way they would have done if someone had told them they had to stop displaying paintings by Caravaggio, who murdered a man. They would have said they separated art from the personal life of the artist then, wouldn't they?

If we did judge art by the artist's character instead of its own merits, we would have practically nothing left in the galleries!
Too true!

people are citing the unfortunate views and actions of these male artists as examples of extreme double-standards against women

I wasn't suggesting Soul's event should have been protested for its celebration of Neruda - in my case, I offered it as an example of double standards.

Purgatory - excatly that

and Embarrasssing yes absolutely I know you weren't suggesting cancel - I just wanted to make the point absolutely crystal clear for anyone skimming the thread and drawing broad brush conclusions

@SensibleJaneAndrews

I have just spent the most I have ever spent on art buying an item from Jess’s online shop. There are sewn patches which are less than £10. The RA needs to see what income it has lost through this

This is a picture I took at 00:50 GMT, 17th June.

This suggests that work by Jess De Wahls was very popular in their online shop.

Have the RA responded to anyone yet ? I've not seen anything on Twitter

So angry about this, but loving all the masterpieces being posted on that Twitter feed. I hope she sues.

I've just bought two of her ovary prints. Got a friends birthday coming up and I want one for myself. Hope her sales go through the roof!

I can’t help thinking that the RA are either stupid or didn’t bother to investigate de Wahls’ views.

If they have read her blog, the part about her growing up in East Germany clearly didn’t register.

The times have run an article about it. Can't see it behind a paywall