ART REVIEW : UC Shows It Has the Faculty to Pull Together Art by Women

A woman at a dinner party playfully snapped her napkin at her husband as he and another male guest shared a private, disparaging remark about women. “Are you doing that male bonding thing again?” she asked.

To a surprising degree, the art world continues to do its “male bonding thing.” Although half of the art degrees awarded in the United States go to women, work by contemporary female artists still accounts for minuscule percentages of the one-person exhibitions and permanent collections of major museums.

So it isn’t surprising that studio art departments at major educational institutions long have been men-only clubs, or nearly so. In 1963, when 44 University of California faculty artists showed their work at UCLA, only two were women.

Twenty-five years later, 22 female professors--slightly less than one-fourth the total number of artists employed by the statewide system--are included in “Diversity and Presence: Women Faculty Artists of the University of California” at the UC Irvine Fine Arts Gallery through April 30.

In the glacial world of institutional change, that is progress. But the real story is much more complex and personal than statistics show. And it falls through the cracks of this routinely packaged exhibition.

Organized by UC Riverside, “Diversity and Presence” succeeds on a basic level in drawing attention to the “diversity” of this group of artists. Ranging in age from late 20s to late 50s, they approach various media in inventive ways that easily span “art” and “craft” distinctions and (at least in some cases) render them meaningless.

Presence is another matter.

The works of art themselves have varying degrees of “presence” in the sense of commanding the viewer’s attention.

But what kind of presence do the artists have in the classroom?

Have they inspired female students by helping to legitimize not only a career decision but also personal “female” experiences that provoke particular kinds of imagery? Have they directly or tacitly suggested different (possibly “subversive”) ways of thinking to male art students?

And what about these artists’ presence on the art scene? As it happens, although some of them have significant reputations, none is a “superstar” (even of California dimensions), unlike some of their male colleagues. Why is this? Does it matter?

As the product of a university environment--which exists to encourage inquiry and analysis--the exhibit would have been strengthened by discussions of these or other pertinent issues in the accompanying catalogue, where instead we simply get individual remarks about each artist.

Also, the exhibit seems to coast on the assumption that a smorgasbord approach--whatever recent work by each artist happens to be available--will do the trick. But some of the pieces on view beg more questions than they answer about the shape of the artist’s mature career.

A more meaningful show would have included carefully assembled constellations of key works, recent or not. Video could have filled in background on several artists whose work confounds traditional notions of art.

A two-part show--or at least better timing--would have eased overcrowding of the gallery space (partially committed this spring to UCI graduate student exhibitions). As it is, some “Diversity” works listed in the catalogue had to be left out.

Joan Brown, who teaches at UC Berkeley, is one of a handful of artists who have set the tone for Bay Area painting for the past 20-odd years. Her bright paintings with flat figures deal with such varied subjects as animals, women pursuing sports activities and the romance of travel.

In the 1970s, Brown translated some of these themes into fresh, idiosyncratic sculptures. In recent years, she has ventured into the more confining sphere of commissioned totems for outdoor locations.

A photograph in the exhibit shows Brown’s “The Pine Tree Obelisk” in situ : sitting on a patch of grass at a waterfront development in San Francisco. Inspired by ancient Egyptian culture, in which the obelisk was seen as a link between Earth and the Sun god, the bright blue tile piece features images of white birds in flight.

Anyone looking at this innocuous item of public decoration might be hard pressed to understand the reason for Brown’s reputation. And what a pity to have to make do with a photograph instead of a real piece showing the artist’s hand.

Eleanor Antin, who teaches at UC San Diego, is justly celebrated for her witty and exhaustive approach to performance art. But not much more than a taste of Antin’s role-playing adventures comes across in “The Field Hospital,” a tableau of cardboard figures in Civil War-era dress from a performance piece called “The Angel of Mercy.”

The show’s conventional structure also fails to do justice to the innovative approach of UC San Diego’s Helen Harrison, who works (usually with her husband, Newton) in an area where social science and art converge. A single annotated drawing (“Sea Grant” from “Book of Seven Lagoons”) makes Harrison look more like a scientific illustrator than the co-creator of an oceanographic research project.

On the other hand, Gyongy Laky, a fiber artist who teaches at UC Davis, was well served with a single piece. “House” is a colorful briar patch of cotton- and plastic-wrapped twigs that allows no entrance into its pristine inner space. It stands on its own as an example of the potential of craft materials to assume an allusive resonance distinct from the usual bland “eye appeal” of bowls and baskets.

Barbara Drucker’s aesthetic also emerges unscathed in this show--in part because the UCLA professor builds her own environments. “Four Sisters” is an enclosed plywood structure with a Masonite door. Entering it, the viewer turns a corner to encounter a narrow space with a seat and a small grooved area overhead. Not oppressive, exactly, but sort of demurely confining, this enclosure effects the subtlest of pressures on its temporary inhabitants.

Judy Baca, who teaches at UC Irvine, is best known for masterminding mural projects involving inner city youth. To these eyes, the results tend to be screaming, stereotypical images that lack even glimmerings of seriousness and subtlety. But in this exhibit, Baca’s politics and aesthetic approach merge more happily in a series of six TV-screen images of Oliver North’s face as he testified during the Iran-Contra scandal.

Reducing that malleable face to oil stick renderings of variously scrunched up facial features and frown lines, framed by The Box, Baca nailed down a chunk of American pop culture--Ollie-watching--with an immediacy that more studiously “finished” work probably wouldn’t convey.

Regardless of imperfections, the exhibit does introduce artists who may not be widely known. Of the several artists new to me, I was most intrigued by UC San Diego’s Patricia Patterson. (Would someone please explain why UCSD has the lion’s share of individualistic female art professors?)

In her painting “P.S. I Must Tell You About the Dog,” Patterson juxtaposes a painted text--a letter in homely, Irish country prose about the death of a dog--with an image of a blue stairway with a newel post against a vague, incomplete background.

That lone remnant of interior architecture seems to represent the sturdy center of an ordinary household. Lonely “Pat” and “Mary” probably sat heavily on the lower treads to contemplate their sad news before they trudged up to bed.

Other artists represented in the exhibit are: Kathleen Bick and Patricia Wickman (UCLA); Sylvia Lark, Anne Healy and Mary O’Neal (UC Berkeley); Squeak Carnwath, Lucy Puls, Cornelia Schulz, Frances Butler, Victoria Rivers and Barbara Shawcroft (UC Davis); Faith Ringgold (UC San Diego); Cheryl Bowers and Irma Cavat (UC Santa Barbara); and Kathryn Metz (UC Santa Cruz).

Diversity and Presence: Women Faculty Artists of the University of California”

* Through April 30. Gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.

* Fine Arts Gallery, UC Irvine.

* Admission is free.

* Today at 5 p.m. the artists will discuss their work at the gallery. A reception follows from 6 to 8 p.m. Admission is free.

* Information: (714) 856-6610