Storr and Nozkowski & de Keyser

You said: "...did you notice that all the examples he (Storr) gave in the Brooklyn Rail interview (including Nauman and Baldassari, Ryman, and Angelo Filomeno) are of the male persuasion? One exception: Louise Bourgeois—and jeez, she had to work into her 70s before anyone took notice. I know, this is another topic, but it’s all connected, isn’t it?"

I say: Yeah, I kinda sorta noticed, but didn't pay it too much mind, which, you know, uh, is kinda sorta just the way, uh, well, male privilege, or something. I notice things like that, but they don't always snag me. Sometimes do, sometimes don't. The artists Storr talks about are a narrow slice of names in the Bienalle, and these particular names are artists who have been important to him for a long time, are ones that he personally relates to. Not defending, necessarily, just think it was the slice of conversation. I do know that the actual roster for the Biennale includes way more than a handful of women, though I can't make an accurate head count because there are many names about which I can't be certain if they are male or female.

Peter Schjeldahl wrote in The New Yorker, "He (Storr) rose to prominence in New York in the nineteen-eighties as a critic championing artists at eccentric or challenging angles to fashionable taste, many of them women—notably Louise Bourgeois, Nancy Spero, Susan Rothenberg, and Elizabeth Murray—along with Bruce Nauman, Robert Ryman, Gerhard Richter, and Ilya and Emilia Kabakov."

You said: "By the way, I appreciate Storr’s comments about Nozkowski and De Keyser. Nozkowski is one of my favorite painters."

I say: Ditto. I am a big fan of Nozkowski & de Keyser. Such a big fan that they both deserve to have images included here:

Top: Thomas Nozkowski, UNTITLED (8-67), 2005, oil on linen on panel, 22 x 28 inches Framed , 55.9 x 71.1 cm
Bottom: Raoul de Keyser, Retour 11, 1999, 43,0 x 60,0 cm, oil on canvas