Pairing artworks from the 1970s with contemporary practices, Soft Skills critically examines interpersonal capacities like communication, cooperation, empathy, and flexibility, framing them as modes of feminized performance—and moreover, as work. Early feminist art often troubled the threshold between artifice and authenticity, using devices like masquerade and fictive personae to denaturalize the relationship between subjectivity and gender. This exhibition draws parallels from that pioneering work to more recent art from the U.S. and Canada, historicizing their connection in light of the transformation of labor practices in those countries over the past four decades. Together, the works demonstrate role-play and self-management as both feminist performative strategies and imperatives of post-Fordist labor.

Coincident with the heyday of second-wave feminism, the 1970s saw surges in both the service economy and the female workforce. As early as 1979, sociologist Arlie Hochschild identified the commodification of “emotion work”—the labor of managing one’s own appearance and attitude, often in order to produce for others experiences of ease, well-being, and satisfaction. Hochschild analyzed the job performance of feminized or “pink collar” workers like flight attendants, correlating their obliging, diplomatic, and patient affects with women’s work in nurturing and socializing children. Rather than confined to the domestic sphere or to private life, over the past several decades affective labor has been increasingly incorporated into a wide spectrum of waged occupations. Indeed, today’s corporations place a premium on “soft skills,” an elastic repertoire of relational attitudes and amenable behaviors.

Soft Skills exposes the effort behind these “desirable qualities,” deconstructing social suppleness into a series of postures: charm, comfort, poise, persuasion. The works on view demonstrate self-presentation as a subtle negotiation with the desires of others, playing into or subverting gendered and racialized codes. In concert, they sketch the contours of the stage-presence required in feminized work today.

The exhibition comprises works by Eleanor Antin, Endia Beal, Tasha Bjelić, Danielle Dean, Heather Keung, Barbara Kruger, Suzy Lake, Jen Liu, Martha Rosler, Emily Shanahan, Frances Stark, and Martha Wilson, and is curated by Kaegan Sparks, 2016–17 Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow and doctoral student in Art History, The Graduate Center, CUNY. 

This exhibition is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Programming at the Graduate Center, CUNY

Friday, April 14, 6:30–8:30pm 
Feminist Protest Songs 
Amalle Dublon, Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn
The James Gallery

Wednesday, April 19, 6–8pm
Opening reception
The James Gallery

Friday, April 28, 6–8:30pm
Labors of Love
Lalaie Ameeriar, Kaegan Sparks, Kathi Weeks, Shiloh Whitney
The Skylight Room, 9100

Thursday, May 4, 6:30–8:30pm 
Professions for Women
Corina Copp, Diana Hamilton
The James Gallery

Thursday, May 18, 6:30–8:30pm
Glitch Girls
Jen Liu, Aliza Shvarts
The James Gallery

Wednesday, May 24, 6:30–8:30pm
Intimate Measures
Nitin Ahuja, Amy Herzog
The James Gallery

The Amie and Tony James Gallery’s mission is to bring artists and scholars into public dialogue on topics of mutual concern. Located in midtown Manhattan at the nexus of the academy, contemporary art, and the city, the gallery creates and presents artwork to the public in a variety of formats. While some exhibitions remain on view for extended contemplation, other activities such as performances, workshops, reading groups, roundtable discussions, salons, and screenings have a short duration. The gallery works with scholars, students, artists and the public to explore working methods that may lie outside usual disciplinary boundaries. All exhibitions and programming is free, accessible, and open to the public on a first-come, first serve basis.

For more information, contact Jennifer Wilkinson: T 212 817 2020 / jwilkinson [​at​] gc.cuny.edu