I feel there was a time when I experienced loftier minds, relatively unloaded with politics, fashion and chic. They encouraged the endurance of a great tradition and protected important development in the arts. I recall spirited, productive discussions and arguments (…) Raise the level. We need more connoisseurs of culture.

Helen Frankenthaler, 1989

Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) was a very good-looking woman. She also was the leading female figure in Abstract Expressionism. Frankenthaler was a pioneer of colorfield painting. In contrast to the strict, formal or energetic painting of fellow Abstract Expressionists her signature style (as the specific innovation she brought into the domain), was light, lyrical and seemingly lacking „finish“. Fellow female artist Elaine de Kooning referred to her specific style actually as „Abstract Impressionism“, and Frankenthaler´s art also bridged Abstract Expressionism with Art Informel. Other Abstract Expressionists – like Joan Mitchell – were more critical and rejected Frankenthaler´s art as unserious and incoherent. Helen Frankenthaler had studied under the auspice of Hans Hoffman and had produced substantial paintings, yet her initial ignition she would receive from the explosive innovations by (the then little known) Jackson Pollock (whom she had met in private). She wanted to do something similar. At the same time, in the early 1950s, she dated Clement Greenberg, the art critic that provided an intellectual framework for the (self-) understanding of Abstract Expressionism. Greenberg, Hofmann, Pollock and many other men (including her father) had been fond of Helen Frankenthaler as an artistic spirit. In 1952 she achieved her own artistic breakthrough with Mountains and Sea. Her specific soak stain technique would then be adapted and further developed specifically by Morris Louis. In contrast to the often complicated and/or short lives and tortured personalities the Abstract Expressionists often had, Helen Frankenthaler´s career spanned decades and seemingly was more in line with the light touch and the lyricism of her paintings.

Abstract Expressionism had been a good and a heroic undertaking. It was deeply introspective and an investigation into the deep structure, the deep possibilities and virtualities of paining, and of art in general. It was meant to produce something significant – and it finally did. There is great room for romanticism in the history of Abstract Expressionism. The artists that would develop Abstract Expressionism gathered in New York in the 1940s and 1950s. They were a small scene, and they formed informal relationships to each other and inspired each other (as at least it would later turn out, they also competed with each other a lot and despised each other a lot). It was a quiet scene, as Lee Krasner noted in retrospect. Many of them came from humble backgrounds or from places completely unappreciative, if not antithetical, to modern art like Wyoming (in the case of Jackson Pollock). Many of them lived and worked in extreme poverty for many years (an exception being Helen Frankenthaler who came from a well-to-do family). Yet the spirit of avant-gardism was in the air and would electrify them. They longed for a breakthrough innovation, which finally came with the drip paintings by Jackson Pollock around 1950. Pollock´s work expressed exuberant, vivid creative energy, a radical and relentless approach and a grand and precise intelligence that provided an intellectual framework for the art. Within that framework the Abstract Expressionists found room to operate and to develop their own specific, and quite diverse, solutions, some of higher significance, some more derivative. The relentless intellectual propaganda efforts by Clement Greenberg had made at least Pollock moderately popular (tough not rich) with time, yet it was the tragic death of Pollock in 1954 that suddenly elevated Abstract Expressionism to mythic proportions and created a sense of the extreme importance and gravity of the movement in a wider audience. With Abstract Expressionism, America seemed to have managed to also become a leader in the arts; the center of the Avant-Garde seemed to have shifted from Europe to America, from Paris to New York. Abstract Expressionism became the next big thing, on a world scale. Yet many of the Abstract Expressionists remained tortured souls. In a way, their radical gesture and quest for the divine, even if it is culturally approved, does not match with society. The Abstract Expressionists had been concerned with the seemingly decreasing room for maneuver to come up with genuine stylistic innovations and to produce something meaningful in modern painting. With Abstract Expressionism, they then thought, they had laid a foundation for genuine ways of painting „for the next thousand years“. They seemed to have been in error. Pop art, that followed after Abstract Expressionism, was the last movement within modern art that was unquestionably significant and intellectually superior. From the 1970s on things have become more blurry.

The most significant figures within Abstract Expressionism were Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell (to whom Helen Frankenthaler was married from 1958 to 1971), Mark Rothko and (as a more shadowy figure) Clyfford Still. Yet there was also a significant number of female Abstract Expressionists, apart from Helen Frankenthaler they were Elaine de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan or Hedda Stone. The (male) Abstract Expressionists are said to have cultivated a macho-attitude, including an attitude to look down on women. However, no clear picture emerges concerning a clear racism or sexism within the scene. The (male) Abstract Expressionists longed for a viewpoint of the most elevated order, and so they consciously strived for a „white male“ intellectuality – as the supposedly clearest intellectuality and the least entangeled one in mundanity – and they rejected particularities and the voices from the „others“ (so it has been said about them). That is actually not stupid or evil, especially if you can, after all, keep your shit together nevertheless. At least inside the scene the woman of Abstract Expressionism obviously did not find themselves truly belittled by the male Abstract Expressionists, who often were their husbands or their friends. Some years ago I read a book, Abstract Expressionism: Other Politics, by Ann Eden Gibson (from the 1990s) that tries to shed light on artists of that era excluded or forgotten because of their race, gender or sexuality. It introduced me to an actually practically forgotten artist who made some astonishing work (and achieved success at her time with it), the afroamerican Rose Piper (aunt of the more prominent performace artist Adrian Piper). At the recent exhibitions on Helen Frankenthaler (Kunsthalle Krems) and Abstract Expressionism and Art Informel (Albertina Modern) I got me biographies about Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner and Helen Frankenthaler. Especially delighted I am about a 700 page biography about the Ninth Street Women, the leading women of Abstract Expressionism (written by Mary Gabriel). I am very interested in that exciting, artistically relevant period and how especially women thrived in it. I also need to study the modern jazz scene that thrived in New York as well, more or less at the same time.

*

Women in the arts. In 1971 the ARTnews magazine came to publish a special edition on women artists. It also contained an essay written by art historian Linda Nochlin, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?, that tries to explore the reasons for the absence of women in the canons of great art. It is said to have had a great impact on feminist art criticism, and it has been republished, as a 50th anniversary edition, by Thames & Hudson last year. The question about the (relative, actually absolute) absence of women in the canons of (great) art is indeed a striking one. Have there been fewer female artists than male ones throughout history (i.e. a smaller pool of female artists of whom only a tiny fraction would rise to greatness at any rate in relation to male ones)? Apparently yes. But how much does it matter? Have women artists been neglected and underappreciated within („male dominated“) art history? Likely yes; yet also likely not in a way that art history would need to revolutionised and profoundly reconsidered if women artists finally got their fair share when significance is attributed. Is it „the institution“ or „gender stereotypes“ that pose insurmountable obstacles to women if they want to become (great) artists? Likely yes, yet likely they are not insurmountable. Or have there been great women artists that have remained completely unknown? If there had been more than just some very isolated few, then likely not. At the end of the day, it seems, there have been no great women artists in art history because there have been no great women artists.  As Linda Nochlin admits: The fact, dear sisters, is that there are no women equivalents to Michelangelo or Rembrandt, Delacroix or Cézanne, Picasso or Matisse, or even, in very recent times, for de Kooning or Warhol, any more than there are Black American equivalents for the same.

If there actually were large numbers of „hidden“ great women artists, or if there really should be different standards for women´s art as opposed to men´s – and one can´t have it both ways – then what are the feminists fighting for?, she then asks.Well, feminists fight for the empowerment of women; plain and simple. They fight for balance between the sexes. The first line of Linda Nochlin´s argumentation about why have there been no great women artists is that is has been made institutionally impossible for women to achieve artistic excellence. For instance, nude models were unavailable to women artists. Yet much more examples – or any examples – for why it should have been institutionally impossible for women to achieve artistic excellence she does not offer. While institutions may discriminate against people they do not make an individual success impossible (notably greatness and genius are not institutionally tought and they are, intrinsically, anti-institutional and iconoclastic and develop, for the greatest part, autodidactically). She rather goes on in suggesting that women are generally oppressed by patriarchy and therefore hindered to achieve equal successes like men. Yet how generally oppressed women are in patriarchy seems not that clear either. Patriarchy needs not be that oppressive, monolithic, determined, malicious and identical to itself that it flat out denies women the possibility to engage as artists (or in other domains). Feminism though, or at least feminists, tend to see patriarchy in that fashion more often than not. In a way, they tend to accumulate assets of oppressedness on women´s behalf, if they don´t try to monopolise the privilege of being oppressed quite exclusively for women. Also Linda Nochlin identifies the „victim“ as patriarchy´s favorite position for women. Although, after you have observed it for a while, it rather appears as the favorite position for women in the feminist discourse. But if the artist in question happens to be a woman, 1,000 years of guilt, self-doubt and objecthood have been added to the undeniable difficulties to being an artist in the modern world. I understand what she wants to say. But first and foremost I would like to see a thousand year old woman artist that has never experienced anything else but guilt, self-doubt and objecthood. (Repeatedly Linda Nochlin talks about women being plagued specifically with guilt. Why?)

There is also a second line of argumentation in the essay: „deconstructing“ greatness. As Linda Nochlin cannot find „hidden champions“ of great art who are women she can uplift, she decides for another strategy to balance the sexes: to subvert and downplay, if not to demolish what is behind that disturbing „Greatness“. For instance, she considers „genius“ and „greatness“ as fuzzy categories. While „great“ may be a shorthand way of talking about high importance in art, it seems to me always to run the risk of obscurantism and mystification. How does the same term „great“  – or „genius“, for that matter – account for the particular qualities or virtues of an artist like Michelangelo and one like Duchamp, or, for that matter, within a narrower perimeter, Manet and Cézanne? (she writes in the 2006 reappraisal to her initial essay). To be honest, the shorthandedness and the intention to obscure and mystify „greatness“ rather lies in her own (weak, pathetic) argument. It is your task to sort that „mystery“ out. Genius and greatness she considers overly as qualities attributed by others, by the outside world (for instance the man´s world attributing genius and greatness mostly to other men), and that one is mostly able to develop in oneself due to privileges (for instance being born into an artist family, a rich family, or being born a boy, not a girl). Stories about the prodigousness of great artists at an early age (or thereafter) she suggests as being fairy tales of the Boy Wonder or as such stories, which probably have some truth in them. She derides „common“ notions of genius that consider it as something „innate“ or a „golden nugget“ inside someone, that is immutable and impossible to supress (i.e., in the case of women, also not by „patriarchy“). Instead, she insists, genius and achievement are much rather dynamic activities, something that needs to be developed – and some environments are more supportive and provide more development opportunities than others.

Yet that genius still needs to be developed is something no serious voice would truly deny (and actually genius and greatness are not something that is shorthandedly conceived and obfuscated as something „divine“ and little else; they are subjects that have been extensively studied and written about. And as a professor for art history at Yale, Linda Nochlin should actually know about that.) And granted: there is a role of the environment – but it is still the individual that develops to higher or lower levels. If greatness or genius is something that, primarily, has to be developed (as opposed to being a static essence or „gold nugget“) why did not more painters reach the height of Picasso or Caravaggio (since this is what they usually strive for (at least in former times))? Why did not other artists – of any sex – who were not that super good at painting come up with other strategies to make profound artistic statements, as did Marcel Duchamp? (S)cholars will have to abandon the notion, consciously articulated or not, of individual genius as innate, and as primary to the creation of art, hopes Linda Nochlin. Yet, for that matter, genius is, primarily, eventually, innate, a static essence, and (for that matter) a „golden nugget“. In order to be developed, or for the development process to reach it, it needs to be there in the first place. Maybe, after all, genius is a quality that appears more often in men than in women. (In the enlightened discourse it is easily considered antediluvian to attribute actual differences between the sexes to anything else than to („socially constructed“) „gender roles“ and „stereotypes“ (that need to be, or can be, overcome). But there is no reason to rule out the possibility that differences between the sexes are not innate, eventually invariant and firmly rooted (in „biology“)). Creative individuals, though, as they say, are „genderfluid“, and usually radiate both masculine and feminine qualities: Creative women are more assertive, rational and determined than average women; creative males are more intuitive, gentle and empathetic than their male peers. I actually don´t know how much patriarchy can „fuck“ with a truly creative woman – and how much the rest of society actually wants to have her subjugated; and not, much rather, elevated.

It is irritating how much (a certain branch of) feminists likes to see little else in genius and greatness than arrogant masculinity. Maybe to attribute (neutral) qualities like greatness and genius to the „phallic“ and to the masculine is less a problem within the „official“ („male-dominated/centered“) discourse, but rather a problem within the feminist discourse. A genius and a great person is also not someone concerned with masculine erectness or with being a powerful, godlike creator that creates ex nihilo. A genius usually is someone who – highly independently from what´s going on or is indicated around him – gets immersed into something, develops a need to explore that domain and to know everything about it, who will identify deep problems within the domain that sHe wants to adress and to solve. This sHe will also see as a moral duty. With the extremely playful intellect of the genius, sHe will maybe rather try to arrange and rearrange things within the domain (rather than to „create“ – and what is „creation“ anyway?). From this comes the selflessness, the extreme independence and the determinedness of the genius (as a genius: as a person sHe might be driven by more mundane motives like money, fame or ego-gratification all the same). I happen to like these qualities, since they simply are greater than the indifference, the opportunism, careerism and the neglect that prevails in the human realm. In some others, these qualities might cause jealousy and disdain, and they might even like the genius (and its beneficial nature) not to unfold. They might mask it under the guise of feminism, for example.

*

Life is a mystery. Genius, as they say, too. Why there have been no great woman artists seems a mystery as well. Light may be casted on this mystery though if we think of the male:female ratio in the audiences of extreme metal, noise, or free jazz concerts. Extreme metal, noise or free jazz concerts usually enjoy an audience with a male:female ratio of 13:1 (and concerning the artists who play such types of music the imbalance is distinctly more pronounced). That may seem insignificant, but maybe is not. Stuff that truly happens outside society, attracts outcasts and introverts, is highly experimental and performs beauty in (an abrasive) disguise – i.e. true, complex beauty – marks territory that, for some reasons, is not a sucker for females. The abyss of very abrasive, non-conformist creativity is a place where few females dwell. Why is this so (and still remains so)?

We may consider: extreme metal is fearsome. And women are frightened and intimitated. Women like to be frightened and intimitated all day long. They make a cult out of it (a twisted branch of that is feminism). Heavy metal, noise, free jazz are abrasive, and women loathe the abrasive. This may be because women likely score particularly higher (or are more pronounced) than men on the (Big Five) personality trait of agreeableness. Women are more dedicated to fit into a society, respectively to create environments that are friendly, non-confrontational and non-violent. There is perfect reason to that because if archaic violence breaks out women are more likely to become overpowered by it than men. Women are more „sociable“ because they more strongly rely on others (males and females) for their self defense, and more „empathetic“ since they want to reduce the potential for aggression and violence that could turn against them. Most importantly, they are more sociable and empathetic because they need to raise (and protect) children and establish stronger bonds to them. Women are also mothers, whereas fathers are („technically“) more distant figures in the reproduction process. Women are actually a dualistic, a dyadic sex, they psychologically and mentally live in a duality, in a dyade with their (prospective) children. An artist, Georg Baselitz, once suggested that women actually may not be that interested in men. They are interested in their (prospective) children.

In their dedication to create non-violent environments women develop and incorporate their well-known gimmicks like hugging, kissing and complimenting everyone, chit-chating about trivial, inoffensive (above all: interpersonal) subjects, giggling and laughing and seductively touching others (notably males). It is true that the empathy of women is empowering, but first and foremost, in their survial instinct, they try to weaken everyone. In trying to signal they are deserving of protection they weaken themselves and make themselves smaller than they are: in order to vice versa weaken others (men and women) and to weaken the entire collective. Especially loving and sympathetic they are when a fellow woman has qualities to receive (a status enhancing) protection by the collective (e.g. women being much more obsessed and willing to kiss ass of a distinctly beautiful and shiny girl than actually may be men); especially fiece (and, often, fiercer than men) they become when a fellow woman tries to break out of the collective or challenge its (hallucinated) integrity. They are so obsessed with the upkeep and maintainance of „patriarchy“ that, upon reflection, one does not know whether they are only the accomplices of patriarchy, or its true creators.

Whereas men´s methods and weapons of self defense lie in tool-making and strategy, women´s methods and weapons of self defense lie in psychological manipulation. Tool-making and strategic thinking require a sense for abstraction and a dedication to (inanimate) stuff that truly is different from oneself (therein, it requires intellectual transcendence). Psychological manipulation lies in the manipulator trying to convince a fellow human being that they are (in an intimate way) „the same“. And it practically needs to stay away from intellectualism and abstraction, since introducing intellectualism and abstraction basically ruins psychological manipulation (psychological manipulation needs to appear/be distinctly identical to itself; intellectuality/rationality introduce additional layers within a process that confuse, reveal, or cast doubt). Psychological manipulation requires that those intented to fall prey to it remain unreflected and abstain from rationally analysing what is inflicted upon them. Therefore, women abhorr abstract and analytical thinking, intellectual reflection and trying to establish a meta perspective on something. When they encounter such qualities, they feel pulverised and they´ve got to get away from the situation. Yet all these qualities are necessary if you want to do great art.

Among heavy metal fans, there are females too. It is just that the more extreme or the more progressive or experimental a metal act gets, the less it usually attracts (also male, yet in relation to them) female metal fans. Whereas differences in approach seem to reveal themselves already on the general level. Metal is a music to get immersed into and to become very dedicated to. I remember how we, the metal dudes, were analysing with great passion certain guitar soli, song structures or the specific innovations in style drummers like Dave Lombardo or Vinnie Paul brought into Thrash Metal. We learned the lyrics by heart (and many of them I still know, although I may not have heard the specific record for over 20 years). We wanted to know everything about our favorite bands (just like, granted, girls want to know everything about Nick Cave or Adam Lambert et al.). Yet the metal girls, in general, used to remain (what would appear as:) more superficial. They did not dive that deep into the matter, and they did not form bonds to it by graving for a more abstract as well as a more concrete, a theoretical as well as a practical understanding of it. So, it is not surprising that they hardly became musicians (artists!) themselves.

(Also, women do not form bands. Because women do not form groups. Although they seemingly have less osmotic personalities, men are more casual at becoming buddies and at collaborating in a friendly, casual way. They have a greater group instinct. Women have (girl)friends or they may form cliques. But they do not, exactly, form groups. This is maybe so because women are a dualistic/dyadic sex, and so they form dualistic/dyadic bonds (i.e. projecting themselves and their (prospective) children in others). They have less tolerance, or appreciation, less instinct for (unity in) diversity, e pluribus unum: and that is the essence of groups. They have a greater (egocentric) power instinct and they can become frighteningly more competetive against each other than men. (Likely since they are less inclined to see stuff at a more abstract level) they take everything more personal and therefore are more easy to fall out, in intransigence. It has been said (not least in Linda Nochlin´s Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?) that women are hindered in their careers because they confront powerful networks of men. But women do not form networks.)

Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? has inspired publications on the absence of women in diverse professional areas. There is also a publication about Why Have There Been No Great Women Chefs? I could not read it, but it has also always bewildered me, why – although traditional patriarchy identifies a woman´s status as being a mother whose place is the domestic kitchen at least – the great chefs, as well as the intellectuals on pedagogy, overly are still males. I recall, in my childhood, in the 1980s, the great chef had been Paul Bocuse. Today it seems to be a guy named Jamie Olivier. Although women cook „with love“, they still do not seem to cook „with profession“. They may cook with the heart, but still not with the intellect (and therefore only with a semi-passion that does not open new perspectives on the subject in question). (Paul Bocuse I remember because it was my dad who regularly liked to watch Bocuse à la carte on TV, not my ma.)

In their dedication to tool-making and developing strategy, men need to think in abstract terms. In abstraction (and in tool-making and strategy) there is proximity to the inanimate. Therefore one might be inclined to think that males are necrophiliacs who love the dead. Whereas females are biophiliacs who are drawn to humans, animals, nature, harmony, the divine, genesis and birth. According to Helen Frankenthaler, the greatest thing art can do is to convey a sense for being alive at a certain time. Yet if there is no sense for abstraction and a need to theorise on something and to view things from a meta perspective, it is doubtful how robust and reliable, how comprehensive your interest and your attractedness to something actually can be. In order to establish „object stability“ I guess it is required that there is not only an emotional bond to it but also an intellectual bond, that you develop a mental representation of something – that actually confirms the others´ proximity to oneself, but also its seperateness and containedness in itself. Such mental representations are necessary for intellectual pursuit and for the creation of (true) art (in fact, (great) art is about delivering mental representations about stuff). If you do not experience the world on such a level, (great) art, and, more profoundly, interpersonal/object stability becomes a more difficult exercise. On that account, women actually may not be truly drawn to other humans, animals, or nature. They only experience it as an extension of themselves. Women are not interested in art; or anything. Women are, through their empathetic and sociable disguise, only interested in themselves (and their (prospective) children).

Because women are only interested in themselves (and their (prospective) children), they are not truly rescued in the object world; and neither in themselves. That women live in a state of fear due to the violence of men is only part of the issue. Since they are deceptive and manipulative in nature, women do not even trust themselves. They are frickle and the reason for what, on the outside, frequently appears as a pure random walk through life they call and mystify as „female intuition“. The „now you see me, now you don´t“ behaviour of women is part of their manipulation toolbox, creating a backlash against themselves, imprisoning them in a permanent state of emotional confusion and an insecurity of their inner selves. As an apparent consequence, … the voice of the feminine mystique with its potpurri of ambivalent narcissism and guilt, internalized, subtly dilutes and subverts that total inner confidence, that absolute certitude and self-determination, moral and esthetic, demanded by the highest and most innovative work in art. Such is the deep answer Linda Nochlin eventually provides on the question for Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?

(It is, by the way, striking how (certain) feminists are drawn, if not addicted, to the notion of masculinity as something frighteningly monolithic, shielded by total inner confidence, absolute certitude and the like (although total inner confidence, absolute certitude and self-determination probably has never existed in any person, man or woman, alive or dead). They are fond of this, and they are intimitated, feel crushed by this. The next moment, they feel compelled to ridicule and undermine, if not destroy that idea, envisioning the male sex as colossaly frail, and men´s total inner confidence as a fake identity, an actual blunt arrogance that just masks a deep inner insecurity. Their views on their own sex are, then, a mirror image to that; envisioning women as strong, powerful, intimitating etc. on the one hand, and weak(ened), intimitated and dependent on the other. An in-between, balance, there is none. There just is this oscillation between ambivalent narcissism and guilt. Yet between such extremes, in balance, this is where life actually dwells, and where there is normality. (Granted, true balance is an abnormality again. Normality is actually: „so, so“. Yet life in itself means and brings about: „win some, lose some“. The more balanced („wise“) an individual is, the more sHe will adapt to that.) (A certain branch of) feminists, by contrast, seems very much in love with the idea and the emotions of total inner confidence, absolute certitude and self-determination that they want to establish/maintain in themselves; notably by weakening the total inner confidence, absolute certitude and self-determination in others (notably in their „adversaries“: males). It is yet the archaic female strategy to „establish balance“ by weakening everyone, and so – and although they strive for masculinity (or at least for the „privileges“ that masculinity brings) – feminists appear, in a way, as the most effeminate women of all.)

The point she is obviously missing is that genius – or any accomplishment – is not a matter „inner confidence“. As an illustrative example, the greatest writer of the 20th century, Kafka, had pathologically low self confidence (he obviously suffered from an avoidant personality disorder). Which is why he wanted to have his ouvre destroyed before his death. Yet he had created it in the first place; like Emily Dickinson or Emily Bronte had. He had been aware of, and haunted/plagued by the enormous significance of his thoughts and visions even before he had written his major works, which he then created in a considerably hostile or neglectful environment. Yet he also had friends like Max Brod, and in a circle of established writers and cultural figures he was, despite having published little and being practically unknown, treated like some kind of god.  Most, practically all, people have other people who are (highly) supportive. At least in private environments (in which we end up living all the same) individuals, and also „lonely“ geniuses, usually find protection; fuck the world. The loneliness of geniuses and Great individuals yet is something inherent to them. Great artists, so it says, radiate an aura of profound solitude.

(Total) inner confidence or (absolute) certitude are not required to do something great or genius (maybe they are rather a hindrance to it). Confidence is matter of the personality. Genius is a matter of the mind. The genius mind is a very good mind, and so geniuses do have very good personalities. Yet, empirically, only partially. Apart from their incandescence, they may be as neurotic, frail, unloving, competetive, disordered or even psychopathic as anyone else may be. Developing genius and greatness in oneself, developing (new ways in doing) great art, is painful, is born with pain, for anyone. The path of the loner is full of horrors, Agnes Martin, a fellow female poineer of Abstract Expressionism and Minimal Art and a contemporary to Helen Frankenthaler, noted. It is, likely, not so much a matter of how „confident“ and „determined“ you are while you are walking this path, but whether how much it is your path that you walk, driven by a consequence that lies inside you (and that may haunt you). (Total) inner confidence or (absolute) certitude is something that you obtain with time – when you have created something great, genius, or of substance. Then you live in the realm of ideals – respectively your mind does. The world does not look the same anymore, and the struggles in this world become more distant to you. The realm of ideals is pacified and timeless. Yet, living and succeding in the material world may just become more alienating and a greater struggle. 

Geniuses and artistic souls are isolated and alienated from their environments, yet they are also distinctly more connected to it and sympathetic to it (i.e. there are factors of great instability in their lives, but also of great stability). The characteristic of genius is probably not extreme creativity, but that it is an extremely penetrating mind, being able to come to unique insights, or establish unique connections (and their confidence, certitude and self-determination actually is their stubbornly penetrating, restless mind). The genius and the artistic soul lives in a distinctly more connected, more meaningful world, that sHe tries to translate to his fellow humans. From this comes the usual sweetness, tenderness and friendliness, the tolerance and the mellowness of the genius (as a genius: as a person sHe may be quite different). Since they are so much more receptive to (inner and outer) stimuli, and a need to create, geniuses are restless and they live, if we may say so, under permanent stress. They often are „tortured“ and have complicated, uncomfortable lives. People suffer. Yet „genius suffers the most“ (says Schopenhauer). Often, it is other people that make them suffer („hell is other people“ one of them once said lol).

Geniuses may encounter praise and approval in their lives and times, yet they may also, and easily, encounter an enormous amount of ignorance and neglect. Just like women! True artistic creation of any kind is a very lonely process, a totally selfish act, Helen Frankenthaler put it, yet that is also a totally necessary one that can become a gift to others. The true artistic genius, first and foremost, (and therein probably not wanting to make a top-down „gift“ to others, or seeing her work and motivation as „selfish“ but rather as selfless), wants to bring joy and enlightenment to others and wants others to participate in his richer and more meaningful world. Often, this gift is not wanted. In the contemporary era, an annoying disrespect and disapproval for genius comes from the feminist rhetoric, that does not see the sweetness, the importance and the enrichment of the world due to the gifts of the genius and the great artist, but that primarily (if not singularly) views the „white male genius“ as a principle for the erection and maintainance of an ideal of a loveless, self-congratulatory masculinity, which it therefore wants to overthrow (to erect an ideal of their own loveless, self-congratulatory feminity, as it occasionally seems). Because of their uncanny, mixed-at-best experiences through history, I think geniuses should start a #MeToo movement too. Unfortunately, they are too isolated and dispersed over space and time. They cannot even truly found a collective. 

The feminist notion of the greatness of women being squandered or made more difficult to achieve for them due to patriarchy at least does not completely take into account that great people/women are distinctly more competent than society. Why should a great woman succumb to a weak shit like patriarchy, or a completely weak shit like „sexist“ jokes or mansplaining? Greatness, more or less by definition, means that one is bigger than the environment. Geniuses, like psychopaths, are not even actually humans. Like psychopaths, geniuses cannot effectively be intimitated nor controlled by anyone, for their inner lives and motivations are distinctly different from those of ordinary people. Whereas the psychopath follows the drive that comes from his abnormal ego, the genius follows the drive that comes from her abnormal mind; therein, both cannot even effectively control themselves or adapt themselves to social norms and expectations (hence the occasional „tragedy“ of such people). The (occasional) feminist notion on genius also partially fails to take into account that geniuses and Great people, inherently, are addicted to difficulties. And the greater the difficulties they encounter get and the more they get driven into themselves, the more powerful and productive geniuses usually become. (Great) Genius, also more or less by definition, is a mind that wrestles with difficulties no one has been able to overcome so far. Geniuses see a problem, or witness an uncanny atmosphere – others usually also do: but they become immersed in finding a solution to the problem, or coming up with solid stuff that creates other atmospheres. They want to clean and rejuvenate the atmosphere. Geniuses and Great individuals thrive on difficulties.

(Granted, it seems situational whether or how much genius or Greatness may unfold. For instance, a high proportion of geniuses has been Jewish – at least since the 19th century: when Jews did become „liberated“. Yet if I try to figure out Jewish geniuses before that time solely Spinoza would spring to my (partially educated) mind. Geniuses and Greatness seem to appear clustered in space and time, in tandem with unusual historical eras. You may think of ancient Athens around the time of Periclean democracy, the Renaissance, the Age of German Idealism/the Goethezeit, the Golden Age of Islam a thousand years ago or Vienna a century ago; the golden period of Spanish painting or of the Dutch masters (when Spain or Holland had been on the height of their power). Great art and innovation in general is something that does not happen. Art in Latin America/Argentina, for instance, has steadily produced stunning and worthwhile things; yet stubbornly it so far has never managed to transgress the threshold to true innovativeness and high intellectual significance: it has remained epigonic. Not least in our time, and obviously on a worldwide scale, great art there isn´t either. Maybe the postmodern subjectivity actually (on a deep level) isn´t ingenious, or is lost and confused by its own complexities and patchwork character.)

Is genius a quality that is rarer among women than among men? According to research a minimum IQ of 125 is needed in order to exhibit genius. And maybe the threshold is even lower, or does not exist at all. With a more moderate IQ you can be a genius as a comedian, an actor, a pop musician, a sportsperson, a politician, a criminal – or a scientist, artist, philosopher all the like. There are, in absolute numbers, plenty of geniuses around – with plenty of them being female. Maybe one person out of ten thousand truly is a genius (which makes a lot of geniuses in this world). Greatness at intellectual pursuit, i.e. to create something of high intellecual significance, yet requires great intelligence, being very erudite, being able to keep a lot of things together and put them in a perspective, operating at a high level of abstraction and differentiatedness, and genuinely thinking at the level of theorising. Greatness necessitates an intellect that relates to an IQ of, say, 160 or higher (your score at IQ tests may however vastly be different, especially if you are an artist). Greatness can also happen without genius; without genius greatness may then be „eminence“. Greatness, in general, is more associated with a distinct breakthrough and establishing a new level of human understanding (geniuses just may – primarily – remain singularly creative and distinctive). Yet the higher the IQ gets, the smaller is the percentage of females in the respective cohort. Very high IQ societies like Prometheus (IQ 160+) or Mega Society (IQ 175+) have few (if any) female members. In a way, like the historical canons of Greatness. (A common experience among people of this intelligence is, by the way, that they frequently are „not wanted“ and rejected by society. Society is as racist and sexist against them as can be; and in relation to them, society´s oppressive force is not patriarchy or capitalism, but its mob rule.)

Today, many established artists are female. And as far as I can see their outputs are on par with those of male artists. Women thrive in the art world of today. Ok, great. The downside, however, is just that art and the art world today is not Great anymore. There isn´t a IQ 160 level of Greatness that is dominant anymore, but an IQ 140 level of Smartness. Great minds are, for mysterious reasons, absent from today´s art word; it´s „smart“, intelligently adaptive people who run the place. Hence, it is also more easy for women to thrive in the domain. Art is not Great anymore. The disturbing „Greatness“ has been demolished and dethroned. Greatness is a dethroned emperor. And, inside the wire, they even seem to delight on that! Today I believe that it is safe to say that most members of the art world are far less ready to worry about what is great and what is not, nor do they assert as often the necessary connection of important art with virility of the phallus … There has been a change in what counts – from phallic „greatness“ to being innovative, making interesting, provocative work, making an impact, and making one´s voice heard. There is less and less emphasis on the masterpiece, more on the piece, Linda Nochlin writes in her postsrcipt and reappraisal to her essay 30 Years After, in 2006. Greatness has been effectively subverted by the feminists, and the lobbyists of diversity; and with her essay Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? Sister Linda has laid a foundation for that. That´s where we stand today. We´re liberated. We don´t have to be Great anymore.

Upon reflection, I actually have to admit: Women, you are cool. Nice, how you played that lol. And actually, you did the greatest job of all. By weakening everything and everyone you, once again, elevated us to a higher level of societal progress. Qualities like beauty, harmony, intellect, stimulation etc. are good when they appear in art. Yet is even better when they appear as characteristics of society! Today we may not live in a peak period of art, but we live in a peak period of society (notably as concerns the position of women and children, non-western cultures, and minorities). The Renaissance produced better art than is produced today. Yet society today is better than in the Renaissance era. Heck, by weakening everything and everyone women, once again, elevated us to a higher level of societal progress! In the labor division between the sexes women´s call may be not to create culture. Women´s call may even be the more noble, the more sublime one: it is women who build civilisation.

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There has been a solo exhibition on Helen Frankenthaler at the Kunsthalle Krems recently which presented artworks from all periods of her career in a chronological order. I have been especially delighted yet by her ultimate works from the 2000s. Now there is another exhibition on Abstract Expressionism and Art Informel at the Alberina Modern which also more extensively presents art by Helen Frankenthaler (and Joan Mitchell and, notably, Lee Krasner). I have to say that I like Helen´s reduced, pacified large canvas color field paintings from the 1960s and 1970s presented in the Albertina better that most of her (signature) paintings (from the 1950s) presented in her solo exhibition. Her latest works from the 2000s still strike me most. They are very reduced, almost monochromous. An art that you may find stupid, but these works display great taste and an exactitude that you feel that it cannot be transgressed. She has reached the gound and became identical with the mysterious abyss of imagination, it appears. There seems nothing „behind“ it anymore. It is like the colour field finally coming to itself. With Rothko, as it has been indicated and as would spring to mind, this has nothing, or only little, to do. It does not have the mannerism and not the intellectual framework (therein the high intellectual significance) of Rothko´s paintings. Yet while it does not have the intellectual gravity and cultural significance, the icon character and the symbolic character, the objective weight and the highly distinctive signature style of Rothko´s art, it does also not have its repetetive mannerism. It shines as subjective and private. Yet it is subjectivity and privateness of the highest order and of the highest (true) self-containedness. It has reached the ground of imagnation and mastery the artistic process is aimed at gaining access to; it has amalgamated with the ground, as it throws up simple, pacified and contained images and visions, aesthetic clarifications of the (frameless) ground; in privacy, in silence, in self-containedness (via having reached the ultimate objectivity), in solitude. It cannot be disturbed by anyone or anything from the outside anymore. Maybe it is beyond the good heroic quest for the absolute that characterised Abstract Expressionism. Maybe it is a more „feminine“ amalgamation with the ultimate principles. Maybe a trajectory leading to such a final result has lied within the calmer, more unagitated style of that artist all along. Eventually, Helen Frankenthaler seemed to have reached the Nirvana. Virgo Heroica Sublima.

Today I believe that it is safe to say that most members of the art world are far less ready to worry about what is great and what is not, nor do they assert as often the necessary connection of important art with virility of the phallus – haha, fuck you. Get a life, (wo)man. Actually Helen Frankenthaler worried about what is great and what is not a lot during her artistic career. She was melancholic (and underwent, like many creative people (and notably the Abstract Expressionists), frequent bouts of depression) as she felt that hers was not a time where art was great, or can be great. The greatness of the Old Masters seemed out of reach, intangible. Rubens was her favorite painter. To her, Rubens was the principal painter of vitality and of the flesh, exuberant, positively and in the most cultivated way indecent and obscene. Helen Frankenthaler´s notion of greatness in art was that great art delivers a charge that strikes the viewer. And, to her, Rubens was supercharged: the greatest painter, and the wettest painter, who had ever lived. Helen Frankenthaler came to the conclusion that art´s greatest purpose is to convey the sense of being alive at a certain time. Yet times are a-changing. While great artists like Rubens or Shakespeare had managed to convey that sense of being alive in their time, the 1950s in New York were a different time, that required the artist to come up with different solutions. Shakespeare and Rubens were probably greater than any other artists, but the 1950s were not their time, in which their specific art could be convincing. Jackson Pollock and Arshile Gorky, in their combination of exuberant creativity and creative virility and a sharp, precise intellect, she though considered great masters of her time – though maybe not as great as the masters of the older times. Alas, men again.

Raise the level. We need more connoisseurs of culture, at any rate. And get a life, (wo)man.

Disclaimer: There is some irony, some bluntness, some exaggerations in this text. They should primarily be understood as reactions to the questions that the essay by Linda Nochlin (unintentionally) leaves open or provokes. I am usually sympathetic with the underdog, but the then-underdog attitude and heuristic expressed in the 1971 article has become quite more powerful today, and the powerful need to be questioned. Also, feminists usually like to „challenge“ patriarchy and the status of men and to become „uncomfortable“ to them. Well, challenge accepted. It´s a heyoka empathy thing.

Disclaimer on disclaimer: The deep irony of the piece however is that the provided explanations for gender differences actually seem quite plausible. Not that I actually want it to be this way. I am rather indifferent on whether one sex is superior, inferior or equal to another. Concerning this human realm, I am mostly a neutral observer.

November 2022