“This Is What I Know About Art” is a book by Kimberly Drew and her experience in making her name known in the art world and the struggles she faced along the way due to her being a black woman. In this book, we follow her and the memories she pulls from that range from her days in college to when she begins working in art museums. It is when she is in an art class that she realizes the lack of diversity and from this moment, she makes it her mission to advocate for black artists and to make sure their voices and talents are recognized. It is a quick read, and she writes in such an honest and casual way that it makes her words easy to understand and empathize with. Drews books tie in with what we’re learning about in class because what she does is activism. After realizing that there aren’t enough people of color in spaces of art, she started her blog titled “Black Contemporary Art” and still works to make sure spaces with art continue to be a place for everyone. There is a quote in the Art of Activism that notes, “When we protest, we are also demonstrating to the world who we are, what we believe in, and how we’d like the world to be. “ P.90. I believe what Kimberly Drew is showing what she believes in and what she’d like the world to be like, and that is very moving.
After reading her story, it made me realize that my own work as a musician could be considered activism. I’ve written several songs about the male gaze and how unnecessarily sexualized women are in society and the struggles that come along with how that treatment makes women feel. It’s not my sole focus but I do acknowledge those issues because they exist in my everyday life. Not only this but I relate to Drews' experience with the difficulties of fitting into the art world but instead, I have this issue with the music world. A lot of the spaces I’m in are male dominated and I feel like I am not taken seriously as a musician because I am a woman. I have also seen how other women are treated in these spaces and it’s horrible. I’ve seen women getting cat-called on stage and questioned if they really know how to play the instrument that they are clearly skilled in. Drew notes on an experience she had in college where she noticed a lack of diversity in her class discussions and in the art, she was seeing. After meeting with an art advisor regarding a discussion she had in class about an art piece and her classmate's reaction to the piece, she was told that “If you wanted to be in a classroom with other students of color then you should not have enrolled in art history classes.” P.27. Instead of her white classmates and Professor seeing this as a learning experience and acknowledging her feelings as a black woman, they completely disregarded her and instead of that bringing her down, she used it as fuel to light her fire.
Two moments stuck out to me in Drews book in particular and it’s because I was introduced to two pieces of art that I had never heard of before. The first was the 1993 documentary by Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gomez-Pena titled “The Couple in the Cage: Two undiscovered Amerindians Visit the West.” Drew notes that “The discussion began with anger and discomfort, and then a chorus of white guilt and tears erupted.” P.25 Before I got to this page, I watched the documentary, and it amused me because the same reaction her class had was the same one the people in the documentary had. I personally couldn’t believe that anyone actually thought they were serious, the entire thing looked like performance art to me. The second moment was when Drew reflected on Gonzalez-Torres' artwork Untitled (Perfect Lovers). This artwork was two clocks that start off in sync and then fall out of sync over time. This was a piece he created to symbolize his HIV-positive partner and his declining health and death from AIDS. The two clocks represent the two lovers beginning in sync and then falling out of that pattern as time passes on and their own lives change. This piece made me very emotional once I learned the symbolism behind it and Drew shared a quote that I absolutely found fitting. She says, “He made conceptual art about love and loss for all of us. His pieces helped me think about how I could bring tenderness to my work and that I didn’t have to divorce myself from my own identity.” P.33.
Overall, I believe that authors, historians and curators (such as Kimberly Drew) can be activists because they can choose what to write about, document or what art goes up in a way that ensures everyone's voices are heard and valid, instead of it all just being the white experience.
Works Cited (I'm having formatting issues and it won't let me put this on the bottom, sorry!!):
Duncombe, Steve. Lambert, Steve. The Art of Activism. OR Books, 2021.
Drew, Kimberly. This Is What I Know About Art. Penguin Young Readers Group, 2020.
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| Alison Saar, Washtub Blues: I found this artwork on Kimberly Drews blog. I did my own research on it from there and learned that this artwork represents how often domestic work gets overlooked and it is underappreciated. The colors in this piece were really striking to me and the way the womans back is turned and we can only see her face in the reflection of the water in the bucket is so moving. |
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| Feliz Gonzalez-Torres - Untitled (Perfect Lovers | ) |
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