' ' . · ~--..,_ ;. • j,fl • ' ?} ' Howardena Pindell : Y~s-No. Pen and ink on acetate. Photo credit: Amy Stromstem. / system by defining the artist as a "professional" or ~'hobbyist/' de-· pending on how much work is sold. A number of "great" artists sold few works in their lifetimes. • conscious of their own limitations and prejudices. The systeqi_, itself, could be influenced by the emetgence of a new buying public as increasing amounts of money, through-greater employment opportunities, are made-available to non-whites and women. New demands could be made·on the dealer, which would force the critic, locked into the system, to be iriflU:enced by.default. Artists could change the structure·by working and showing in a manner which circumvents the gallery, leaving it with less power over the artist or the critic. A possible solution would be the placing of critical writing in publications which are not controlled by advertising. The alternate periodical would.allow the critic to go directly to the public. A new generation of critics ~<mid emerge, a group-less ·given to nepotism, less meshed with the cotktail circuit or bedtime grapevine, more • f • Reprinted from HERESIES #8, "Third WorldWoinen," by permission. ARTISTS "Third World Women: the politics of being other,", issue #8,Heresies ($15/ yr:, 4issues), 1980, from: Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Poiitics ·P.O. Box 766 Canal Street Station New York, NY 1_0013 "As women we are aware that historically the connections between our lives, our arts, and our ideas have been s~ppressed, Once these .connections are clarified they can function a·s a means to dissolve alienation between ar.tist and audience, ~nd to understand th·e relationship between art and politics, work and workers." ' With that stated goal, the Heresies Col- •1ective turns over much of the editorial work of each issue to -women who want to create a special focus .'The Third Wo.rld Women.Editorial Collective which created this issue worked on it for a year and a half. .The results are extraordinary·._-CC Language of the Night, Ursula LeGuin, 1979, $9.95 from: G.P. Putnam's Sons 200 Madison Ave. New York, NY 10016 • I used to think of science,tiction as just futuristic flights of fantasy to the _starsalways very high tech and macho. But in the last few years I have discovered that the genre can also be used as a means to ~xplore ideals and create utopias as well as to delve into one's unconscious. No one does this better than Portland's own Ursula LeGuin. (Frank Herbert's Dune and Ernest Callenb~ch's Ecotopia also come to mind.). Her scientific "tools" are sociology, an- • thropology and 'psychology rather than • physics and.chemistry or rocket design. The characters and.the situations they find themselves in on-strange worlds provide moral and s·ocial dilemmas that relate directly back to our own world and life situa- ' tions. In this-they are often highly political. The·Language of the Night is a series of • essays in which LeGuin explores various facets of her art-how and why she writes, where the characters come from, what the role of SF is and can be. Sometimes she disc~sses the medium as a whole; often she delves into the specifics of her own and others' stories. She provides a fine glimpse into the world of the creative artist and the possibilities of art both personally and politically. Even where the juxtaposition of the two is awkward there's much to be _learned-isn't that always the case in our. own lives? Maybe more of us should be writing down·(or drawing) our visions and fantasies. -Lane deMoll • Contact Quarterly, published four ' times a year, $9/yr., from: Contact Quarterly Box603 Northampton, MA 01060 The first issue, Fall 1979, focus.ed 6n healing through movement. Its base_is primar- .ily contact improvi~ation, but features artists working in other new performance as well. -BBK Prologue, Mkhael Bowley and-Paul Sutinen, editors, subscription $8/yr., single _copy $2.50, published 4 times a year, from: I;.,obster Quadrille Press P.O. Box 6054 Portland, Or.ego~ 97208 Prologu·e is a quarterly journal for Northwest artists who are working in various new forms to expretss their artistic vie'A'.s in writing. -BBK Sq & So ,.quarterly, $1.00/yr., from: John Marrqn (Joma) 1730 Carleton Berkeley, CA 94703 Primarily poetry. So & So concerns itself ,with the."visual, concrete, alchemical, hieroglyphic, icleogrammatic, composed, drawn, architectural nature of writing as well as speech,'performance, dance and mind as continuous presence." Includes writings by perform_ing artists. -BBK New Performance, published 4 times a year, subscriptions $7 individual, $14 libraries and institutions, from: Oberlin Dance Collective, Inc. ODC Performance Gallery 223 Mississippi S.treet _.San Francisco, CA 94110 This is a fon~m for articles and interviews with people on the West Coast doing new performance in dance, theater, music, video and visual arts, or combinations of these art forms.-BBK
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