A Feminist Tea Party at SEVEN Art Fair in Miami

Would you like to play a game and win a prize?

On December 3rd at SEVEN Miami, A Feminist Tea Party had an exciting change of scenery. Instead of our usual mid-century parlor, we recreated a pre-suffrage era carnival/county fair.   Imagine Miami circa 1919.  Leaving the creature comforts and niceties of the domestic space behind, we dressed as carnival barkers—corsets and all— and asked visitors to play a simple game.  The game involved answering one or more of a series of questions:

Is the art fair a carnival or county fair?

Can feminist art reshape hierarchy?

Are women an underclass at the art fair?

Words or deeds?

People who played got prizes; those who didn’t, didn’t.  Conversations at the carnival/county fair were a bit more brief and a little less nourishing than those typical of our tea parlor.  But mini apple tarts sweetened the deal.  Short and sweet…

As participants in Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida’s #rank, we were in especially good company.  #rank set out to question the hierarchies of the art fair at one of its most status-conscious events.  We (and our guests) played our part, making sure that women stay a part of this conversation.

#rank  is a continuation of #class, by Jen Dalton and William Powhida of Winkleman Gallery. #rank aims to explore what is the matter with the art fair and the art market, and to question how it might be improved, tweaked or overthrown.

Please read more about #rank, including a list of participants here and here.

Last weekend on the Island: Invigorating the past and Interrogating those present

Our final weekend at Governors Island Art Fair saw two very different tea parties.

On Saturday, performance artist, Laurel Jay Carpenter hosted, bringing along Hanna Wilke, Carolee Schneeman, Linda Montano, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Faith Wilding and Marina Abramovic. Laurel performed a series of gestures during the course of discussion that helped us rediscover the work of women artists in the 1970s. Reflections on how these works influence our contemporary feminism framed the day’s conversation.

Sunday, our final day on the island, brought a lively conversation between men, women, feminists and non-feminists. Malik Martin, our first male co-host, began the discussion by asking guests to answer a question that had, until then, been gingerly avoided: “Are you a feminist?” The answers ranged from questions of political identity to broader questions related to the relationship between men and feminism. There were many surprising answers that we’re sure will affect our approach to the tea parties to come.