Michelle Hartney
www.michellehartney.com
Michelle Hartney is a Chicago based contemporary artist whose work addresses discrimination in art institutions and other issues such as women's rights.
#Metoo & Music
Michelle Hartney
2018
Bowie: Consensual Sex with a Child
Kesha’s Accusations Against Dr. Luke: Sexual, Physical, Verbal, and Emotional Abuse
Elvis Used to Tell People He Liked to Look Out for Cherries – Underage Virginal Girls He Could Sleep With
Iggy Pop: I slept with Sable when she was 13 Her parents were too rich to do anything She rocked her way around LA ‘Til a New York Doll carried her away, look away
Ted Nugent: Well, I don’t care if you’re just 13, you look too good to be true, I just know that you’re probably clean... Jailbait you look fine, fine, fine...
Jimmy Page Liked Them Young
R. Kelly: Arrested and Charged for Possessing Child Pornography, Judge Dropped the Charges, Ruling Police Didn’t Have Sufficient Cause to Conduct Raid
Separate the Art from the Artist
Michelle Hartney
2018
Michelle Hartney’s piece, Separate the Art from the Artist, is a series of wall texts that contextualizes the work of misogynistic artists, specifically Picasso and Gauguin. This series appropriates words from Hannah Gadsby’s comedy special Nanette, and Roxane Gay’s 2018 Marie Claire essay about the need to separate the art from the artist.
Hartney also installed texts next to the Balthus' Girl with Cat painting at The Art Institute of Chicago, informing visitors about the museums failure to provide more information about the painting and emphasizing the need for separating the art from the artist. In 2017, a petition initiated demanding the painting be removed from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Despite gaining more than 8,700 signatures in a short amount of time, the MET ultimately decided not to remove the painting, and instead refers to the call for accountability as being an “opportunity for conversation.”
Read more about the Met’s decision to display Balthus' Girl with Cat painting here.
Correct Art History: The Truth Behind the Floating World
Michelle Hartney
2018
The audio guide, The Truth Behind the Floating World, actively challenges the histories that museums deem important, while they leave out vital information that is considered too taboo to discuss.