Community: feminist.bloggers@brooklynmuseum

Now Open…

The hand-painted terra cotta sculptures in Snow White and the Seven Sins mark a new level of mastery by artist Judy Fox. Slumbering Snow White is surrounded by seven anthropomorphic “dwarves,” each representing one of the seven sins. At P.P.O.W. through November 24th.

(Judy Fox, left: Envy, center: Snow White, right: Anger. All three: terra cotta and casein, 2007. Both Images Courtesy: P.P.O.W.)

Nation Building, a show of drawings by Karen Finley, is open at Alexander Gray Associates through December1st. Finley, known for her provocative performances, critiques U.S. politics and the Iraq War. The artist will also be performing her new solo work WAKE UP! at The Green Room, Sunday nights through November 18th.

Cinema Remixed and Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the Moving Image Since 1970, at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta through December 8th. This is an influential and groundbreaking survey that includes both early and contemporary video works by over 40 artists, including Global Feminisms artists Berni Searle and Wangechi Mutu. If you are in Atlanta or will be visiting in the next few months (Part II of the exhibit runs from January 24-May 24), this is a must see.

(Berni Searle, Snow White, video, 2001. Image:Brooklyn Museum.)

Opening…

Work by Nicole Eisenman, A Show Born of Fear, opens October 27th at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects. Eisenman satirically maps the intersections of personal life, artistic conventions, and philosophical concerns.

(Nicole Eisenman, A Show Born of Fear, exhibition announcement. Courtesy: Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects.)

Tres Años, Tres Amigos, Trés Chic, a multi-media, 3 artist show styled on a Mexican marketplace, opens November 2nd at New World Museum in Houston. In this refreshing exhibition, Franco Mondini-Ruiz shows his paintings, porcelains, and piñatas; Alejandro Diaz presents his Make Tacos Not War neon signs; and Chuck Ramirez includes his playful photos and sculptures.

(Tres Años, Tres Amigos, Trés Chic exhibition announcement, Franco Mondini-Ruiz, Alejandro Diaz, Chuck Ramirez. image: New World Museum.)

In 2002, the Brooklyn Museum’s Community Committee established a tremendous award to celebrate women artists, patrons, curators, collectors, and critics whose contributions have had a positive impact in the areas of arts and culture. Keeping in step with the aims of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, the Women in the Arts Committee acknowledges individuals who have been influential to the ongoing advancement of women and the visual arts. Previous recipients of the award include Annie Leibovitz, Maya Lin, Dr. Mary Schmidt Campbell, and our own Elizabeth A. Sackler. Although the Center has no involvement with the selection of potential Women in the Arts honorees, we are delighted to share that the Museum will be presenting this year’s award to The Guerrilla Girls, a group of fabulous women who have made an enormous contribution to the formation of feminist discussions in the contemporary art world.

I saw one of their performance lectures at the Feminist Future Symposium at The Museum of Modern Art earlier this year (video above), and I can tell you it was an electrifying experience to share a moment of their feminist history. What I find is really awesome about this program is that guests will have an opportunity to speak with members of the Guerrilla Girls in person at the reception. Check out all the details on our website.

Now Open…

Out of Ordinary/Extraordinary: Japanese Contemporary Photography is open at New Jersey City University Galleries through November 16th. This show of work by 11 young Japanese photographers, including Global Feminisms artists Tomoko Sawada and Hiroko Okada, broaches underlying cultural anxieties and will likely broaden your perceptions of Japanese aesthetics. Don’t miss the show’s reception and an artist talk by Tomoko Sawada on October 22nd at 6:30pm.

(Tomoko Sawada, Costume/SHISUTA (a nun), 2003. Courtesy: Zabriskie Gallery.)

Carolee Schneemann: A Selection of Recent and Early Work is open at Pierre Menard Gallery, in Cambridge, through November 25th. Schneemann is one of the most important figures of the Feminist Art movement, and her performances, such as Interior Scroll and Meat Joy, were groundbreaking achievements.

(Carolee Schneemann, Illinois Central, body collage and montage, 1968. Courtesy: Galerie Akinci.)

Opening…

Exhibitionism: An Exhibition of Exhibitions of Works from the Marieluise Hessel Collection opens October 20th at Bard College’s Hessel Museum of Art. In this series of 16 autonomous exhibitions, installations, and displays, an “exhibition of exhibitions” that can’t help but encompass innumerable perspectives, there’s bound to be something for everyone, including you feminists out there. With a free chartered bus from NYC to the opening and free admission when you get there, this is a great opportunity to experience a vast overview of contemporary art.

(Left: Cindy Sherman, Untitled, 1984. Courtesy: Metro Pictures. Right: Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Questions), 1991. Courtesy: Mary Boone Gallery.)

There will be an open house for Karen Heagle: Monotypes at 10 Grand Press in Brooklyn on October 21st. In these new prints, feminist artist Karen Heagle images women who unabashedly own their sexuality.

(Karen Heagle, Whipped Cream, 2007. Courtesy: 10 Grand Press.)

Information for those who are interested in women making film and video art.

Rutgers University is running Resisting Images: Women in Film,
Women’s and Gender Studies 2007-2008 Film Series, which explores women’s past and present roles in creating films that challenge and create alternatives to the familiar stories and characters promulgated by the Hollywood studio system. The series is open to the public.

Tracey Moffatt’s “Love,” which was included in Sackler Center’s Global Feminisms show, will be shown on October 22, Monday. If you had missed out on this piece, you should definitely visit Rutgers! The series runs on till March next year so mark your calendar for the schedules that interest you.

[Schedule]
Monday, October 22 2007, 6:30 pm
“Hollywood Harems” (Tania Kamal-Eldin 1999);
“Meeting of Two Queens”
“Encuentro entre dos Reinas” (Cecilia Barraga 1991);
“Love” (Tracey Moffatt and Gary Hillberg 2003);
“Illusions” (Julie Dash 1983)

Monday, November 26 2007, 6:30 pm
“Sisters of the Screen: African Women in the Cinema” (Beti Ellerson, 2002);
plus shorts by African Women Directors: Safi Faye, Selbe: entant d’autres (1982); Agnès Ndibi,/ Fantococà (2001); Maji-da Abdi, From the other side of the river (2001); Fanta Regina; Nacro, Laafi bala (2000)

Tuesday, January 29 2008, 6:30 pm
“Filming Desire: A Journey Through Women’s Film” (Marie Mandy, 2000);
“Novela, Novela” (Liz Miller, 2001)
“Rang de Nila (Color Me Blue)”*

Thursday, January 31, 2008, 4:30 pm
Artist Siona Benjamin collaborates with classical Indian dancers
Ishrat Hoque and Pranita Jain in a performance related to her paintings.
Benjamin, originally from Bombay, was brought up Jewish in
a predominantly Hindu and Muslim India.
This event is held in conjunction with the exhibitions,
“Tiger by the Tail! Women Artists of India Transforming Culture”
and “Passage to Jersey: Women Artists from the South Asian Diaspora in Our Midst.”

Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 6:30 pm
“Sexto Sentido” (Puntos de Encuentro 2000);
“Honey Moccasin” (Shelly Niro 1998);
“Welcome to Africville” (Dana Inkster 1999)

Tuesday, March 25 2008, 6:30 pm
“Lover /Other: The Story of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore” (Barbara Hammer 2006)

[Directions]
Take Northeast Corridor Ner Jersey Transit from Penn Station and get off at New Brunswick. The films will be screened at Art History 100 on Douglass campus. You can take a EE or F shuttle at the station to get there.

For more information, please visit: >http://ruevents.rutgers.edu/events/displayEvent.html?eventId=41297

Opening…If you haven’t quite gotten your Kara Walker fix after her Whitney show, you, my friend, are in luck. Kara Walker: New Work opens October 20th at Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

Opening October 21st at P.S.1…

Kathe Burkhart, a show, including the artist’s photography, installation, and video, that centers around her Liz Taylor Series paintings. Her work evokes a Pop aesthetic but takes a clear critical stance on gender roles and performativity, addressing feminist resistance and female power and sexuality.

(Kathe Burkhart, Up Your Ass: from the Liz Taylor Series (Cleopatra), 2006. Courtesy: Alexander Gray Associates.)

Interruption of a Course of Action, new works by the artist duo Lovett/Codagnone, continue to deal with the artists’ interest in power relations and conflation of the public and private spheres. They are best known for their performance and photography addressing S/M subculture and domesticity.

(Lovett/Codagnone, I Only Want You to Love Me, 2004. Image: Editions Fawbush.)

Closing…

Lil Girl Slim “Cosmic Willingness” Pipe Dreamz a Revelation, works by Bianca Casady, closes October 20th at Deitch Projects. Performance by CocoRosie, October 19th at 9pm.

(Bianca Casady, Lil Girl Slim “Cosmic Willingness” Pipe Dreamz a Revelation show announcement, Courtesy: Deitch Projects.)

Women in Modernism Colloquium at
The Museum of Modern Art
October 25, 2007

Do you still believe there is such a thing as all men’s field? Do you count architecture as one of them? If you do, think again, and there is a colloquium coming up to open your eyes to women in modern architecture. It will be a great chance to broaden your knowledge on prominent women architects and how women have been strive to make a place within the profession.

Moderator: Barry Bergdoll

Speakers: Gwendolyn Wright, Sarah Herda, Toshiko Mori, Karen Stein

Thursday, October 25, 2007. 6:30 pm

The Museum of Modern Art

The Celeste Bartos Theater

40 West 54th St. NYC

To reserve tickets, go to:

http://www.moma.org/calendar/adult_programs.php

then scroll down to Thursday, October 25, 2007, 6:30 p.m., click on Women in Modernism: Making Places in Architecture, then click on Ticketweb and scroll to the Women in Modernism program.

Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love opens October 11th at the Whitney Museum of American Art. This exhibition, Walker’s first full-scale American museum survey, features the artist’s signature cut-paper silhouettes as well as her film animations and works on paper which elegantly confront oppression, liberation, violence, and sexuality.

(Kara Walker, Excavated from the Black Heart of a Negress (detail), 2002. Courtesy: Sikkema Jenkins & Co.)

New Photography 2007: Tanyth Berkeley, Scott McFarland, Berni Searle is at MoMA through January 1st. In particular, Berkeley approaches questions of gender and conventional beauty in her portraits of transgender women and striking local characters.

(Tanyth Berkeley, Grace in Window, 2006. Courtesy: Bellwether Gallery.)

In Chicago, at Columbia College’s A+D Gallery, Girl on Guy: the object of my desire shows that there is no contradiction in being a feminist and loving men. The show includes work by over twenty female artists in various mediums and aims to engage in the national dialogue of feminism from a Midwestern perspective.

(Sylvia Sleigh, Max Warsh Seated Nude, 2006. Courtesy: A+D Gallery)

The F Word is an all-day symposium being held Friday, October 26 at the Alexander Library Teleconference Room. Registration is required, free and open to all disciplines.

Feminism in the visual arts remains as fiercely contested today as it was thirty-five years ago. Despite recent backlash against feminist concerns and even an atmosphere of anti-feminism among younger scholars, in terms of both artistic representation and criticism, feminism remains highly relevant. The legacy of 2nd generation feminism has been explored in several recent art historical conferences. This symposium seeks to extend this investigation by examining how feminism currently informs a broad range of discourse within the visual arts. We hope to create a view of feminism that acknowledges society’s systematic exclusion of minorities as well as women. This perspective will dispel stereotypical portrayals of feminists while also examining feminism’s relationship to institutional critique, queer theory, and issues of race, class, and gender. These issues are distilled in the subjects of body, space, and performance, which are the three panels that comprise our symposium. We aim both to reaffirm and re-appraise the state of feminism today and its direction for the future. Our title invokes the boat-rocking, bold attitudes of our 2nd generation feminist forbearers, whose spirit informs and inspires this process of new discovery.

<Schedule>

8:30 AM Registration and coffee
8:50 AM Opening Remarks Dr. Joan Marter, Rutgers University
9:00 AM Keynote Address: “Fillies and Nags: Feminism and Art Today”
Dr. Kristine Stiles, Duke University

10:00 AM Break

10:15 AM “A Woman’s Place: Female Territory and Feminine Status”
Panelists: Dr. Abby van Slyck, Connecticut College
Dr. Despina Stratigakos, State University of New York, Buffalo
Discussant: Andres Zervigon, Rutgers University

11:45 PM Break for lunch

1:00 PM “On Display: The Role of Performance”
Panelists: Coco Fusco, artist
Dr. Midori Yoshimoto, New Jersey City University
Discussant: Dr. Elin Diamond, Rutgers University

2:30 PM Break

2:45 PM “Body: Feminist Self and Non-Self”
Panelists: Dr. Anna Chave, City University of New York
Aviva Rahmani, artist
Discussant: Susan Sidlauskas, Rutgers University

4:15 PM Closing remarks: Joan Marter

4:45 PM Reception

<Registration>

Registration is required, free and open to all. Pre-registration by October 19 is required to join the speakers and organizers for a catered lunch held on-site, at a cost of $10

Te Register, please send the following information to rufeminist@gmail.com:

Name ________________

Would you like to register for lunch?
Yes __ No__

Payment for the lunch is by check only, which must be received by October 19, 2007. Please send checks to:

The F-Word Symposium
Department of Art History
Rutgers University
Voorhees Hall
71 Hamilton Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Attn: Olivia Gruber

Checks should be made out to Rutgers University, with “F-Word Lunch” written in the subject/memo line.

Openings…

Tiger By the Tail! Women Artists of India Transforming Culture opens October 2nd at the Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University. Three generations of Indian artists, including Pushpamala N. and Anita Dube, challenge the representation of women as symbols of fertility. Dube’s work is also currently on view, through January 20th, at The Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh.

(Pushpamala N. and Clare Arni, The Native Types-Cracking the Whip, 2004. Courtesy: Bose Pacia.)

What We Saw Upon Awakening, a film by feminist artist Lida Abdul, opens October 4th at Location One. On October 9th, Abdul will speak about her body of work, including What We Saw Upon Awakening, in conversation with Pieranna Cavalchini.

(Lida Abdul, What We Saw Upon Awakening, 2006, video stills. Courtesy: Location One.)

The California premiere of Mary Kelly’s Circa 1968 opens October 4th at University Art Gallery of UC Irvine. Kelly’s show launches the UAG’s “Canonical Works of Art Series.” For more information…

My Life with Nam June Paik, video sculptures and installation by Fluxus and Feminist artist Shigeko Kubota is showing at Maya Stendhal Gallery through October 20th. Kubota began working with video in the late 1960’s and is often cited as influential in the fight to legitimize video as an art form. Her work Nude Descending a Staircase (1976) became the first video sculpture acquired by the Museum of Modern Art for its permanent collection. In this show of numerous video works, Kubota specifically pays homage to her artistic partner and husband, Nam June Paik, with two new sculptures evocative of and named after Paik.

(left: Shigeko Kubota, Korean Grave (detail), 1993. right: photo by Peter Moore, Shigeko Kubota/Three Mountains Sculpture, 1979, (at the artist’s studio). Both images: courtesy Maya Stendhal Gallery.)