DIY Taste

A challenging discussion with students of color or of otherwise disenfranchised groups is how much they can make work for their own community (i.e. the folks they hang out with on the weekends) vs. the mainstream, mostly white, artworld that still holds a lot of power. I push them to explicitly think about the various layers involved in their choices. I haven’t found a solution by any means, and it depends on the students. I’ve been working closely this year in my one-on-one senior projects with 3 artists of color, one Chicana, one Af-Am trans woman, and one Haitian/Irish woman. Identity has been unavoidable in our discussions, as has the issue of taste and accessibility—who gets to understand the work, who is their audience, how can the barrier of "taste" be shifted, etc... I don’t have my thoughts fully worked out about it, but it seems a very vital issue right now, especially as many of us, particularly at public colleges, are creating the pipeline for the next generation of a more inclusive artworld—it’s a different context and outcome than when I started adjuncting at private art schools like RISD and Pratt in 2003, and has required a new set of tools

I plan on discussing case studies, and hope to integrate some of the texts that have influenced my methodology—in particular the “taste filter” idea from the Hammer Museum’s Radical Women, Nell Painter’s recent Old in Art School, and Judy Chicago’s Institutional Time.