Women artists’ fame propels the mythologization of Leila Sand
The process of growing famous for Leila Sand is conceived both as a natural and supernatural one. It is quite telling and central for the reader to realize how the woman artist is gradually turned into a myth and a role-model in her lifetime. This is the natural outcome of her wunderkind gifts for sketching as well as her urge to gain control and power over her woman artist’s destiny and career. As early as the early 1970s Leila has received ‘enough recognition’ as a painter to be earning a good living from her work, to be written in The New Yorker and Vogue (People and Architectural Digest would come later). At this early stage the narrator is proudly aware that this substantial recognition is not the household-word sort of fame but something much more valuable:
It was classier, more discreet variety-fame in the art world before the art world became a total media circus. p.57/III
What is of great concern for the woman artist as a would-be-myth is the way her public image is launched in the art world. The attributes of classy and discreet develop an air of unique and distinct character for Leila Sand. There are certainly classier venues for her career to get a good start. However it seems that Leila Sand is no longer disturbed about her poor chances of growing established as a woman artist. She is now more of a person worried for her own ‘proper’ mythmaking. Leila proves strong and man-like enough to approve of the mechanism for supporting male careers for her own sake. Since there is no particular public treatment of contemporary women’s art Leila is happy to adopt the tricks for appreciating men’s art. These are the only available ways for mythmaking, valid for the artist of a genius who is not necessarily a man. Actually there are also definite advantages to being a woman artist, one of which is of course ‘not having to undergo the embarrassment of being called a genius.’ [see Gablik 1995] Anyway the word genius is never ever used in the book as if to verify this hilarious view of Guerrilla Girls.
Copyright © : Iliyana Nedkova,1996-7
N.Paradoxa : Issue No.6, 1998