If you’re an artist who happens to be gender critical…

[Ponderoveryonder]

But your work isn’t ‘about’ gender, how are you doing?
Do you struggle with most funding/ exhibiting/ performance organisations singing from a different hymn sheet?

In short, yes.

Yep it’s hard isn’t it @PennysRevenge .
Even shared artists workspaces seem to have an ‘ethos’ that we’re all expected to automatically adhere to.

The rot is deep in the art world, and the arts council.

Yeah the capture of the arts makes me weep.

The arts wasn't supposed to be about rigid boxes, self important little labels and toeing the corporate line.

Where can rebellion live now?

When I was at uni we all knew that art was make believe, representation. We'd dress up in fancy dress, we'd bend aesthetic rules. It wasn't real.

Cindy Sherman was queen and Orlan was pushing boundaries. It still wasn't real.

I simply don't understand why they're so captivated and captured.

There's a trans artist who has made a name for themselves over the last 10 years by painting mostly self portraits. I quite like the work as it is all about dressing up and basically agp. It's honest.

I have no idea where this dishonesty has come from.

It is a massive problem as it's permeating schools via the arts council's tick boxing agenda.

I decided against applying for some particular arts council funding because it feels disingenuous to be supported by such an organisation.
I find myself really reluctant to participate in ‘group’ events, because I stand alongside so many artists who believe so strongly in something I don’t (don’t want to look as though I share the belief system by default).

To clarify , I want to associate with these organisations and artists no more than I would be funded by a racist organisation , or a religious cult. But it seems it’s every outlet for funding, exhibition space, gallery, performance space and academic institution.

Yes it's becoming very difficult.

The only thing I would suggest is to keep being there as a presence simply because otherwise numbers dwindle. I do know that there are people who disagree high up in some local arts institutions. It's also being communicated in the shows they commission

This is very reassuring @WarriorN !

Unfortunately the only demographic who can make it in the arts are the privileged. So they can hold privileged beliefs such as sex is immaterial.

This is such an important point. If you have a private income, you can afford to ignore these new hoops to jump through. So the independent voices that get heard are the wealthy ones.

Omg try working for the Third Sector.

I wonder if any of you artists on here would like to sign this petition against The Tate pushing gender identity ideology on to children through one if the resources they are providing for schools, and also bringing in Aida H Dee for Drag Time Story Hour with children over half term.

Art is always about transformations, taking something known and revealing it in a new context. That does not mean it is all right to tell children that they can play mix and match with their bodies and gendered minds.

www.tate.org.uk/documents/1404/051_iwtsyab_pages_aw1_ref.pdf

unherd.com/thepost/tate-criticised-for-inviting-drag-queen-story-hour-to-childrens-reading/

Helen Joyce is very good her about why DQSH is indoctrination of children, why it isn’t just like panto and why parents go along with it.

To sign the petition 🎨🖌🎭🖼🗿
www.mumsnet.com/talk/petitions_noticeboard/4719010-stop-the-tate-pushing-gender-ideology-on-children

I feel your pain @Hellibore

The struggle is real. Unless you want to go full-bore and make “gender critical art” your niche (I don’t), there’s not much room for diverse opinions in the art scene. I’ve lost opportunities and people I thought were friends because of this. My heart goes out to other artists in the same lonely situation.

YES! Feels like so many of my peers are performing their allyship even more than just "towing the line"/ keeping schtum cos they fear being outcast/ disregarded/ seen as irrelevant & out of date anyway due to their age. So there's a real need to differentiate yourself from 'the Terfs'.

Plus you are meant to be celebrating the new, supporting the outcasts, idealists and subversives. Driving change. Sooo much pressure to be demonstrating inclusiveness. ACE funding requires this to be baked into everything. I see it as a bit of a grift for many. Particularly white, posh folk who are overwhelmingly represented. Thus 'queer' and 'neurodivergent'/ some claim to chronic pain or disability have offered them an EDI USP.

Sorry if that sounds too cynical. I absolutely would love to see better disability representation and services in the arts. Well authenticity all round tbh. A fair whack of the last successful ACE orgs/ projects are in that trough in a v self serving way. Much like the rainbow spinners

I think things are changing. It’s a fad at the moment. For the first time an arts programme I was involved in said something along the lines of ‘we would welcome applicants from disadvantaged socioeconomic groups and those that are disabled as those are under represented in this area’. No mention of the alphabet umbrella.

Higher up the food chain, people are starting to get tired of it all. Plus, it doesn’t bring the money in so economically you have to keep a broad range of people happy - those rich older straight and gay people need to be catered for. And they don’t necessarily like being told they are not the liberal minded people they have always been.

I’m not in the same sector but I was heartened to see the other day on an application form something like ‘..were you ever on free school meals’. That seems like a good question to ask.