Community: feminist.bloggers@brooklynmuseum

(Lorraine O’Grady, Mlle Bourgeoise Noire, 1981, Performance at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. Photo courtesy of Lorraine O’Grady.)

Young scholars of art history, and fans of performance art alike will be interested to learn that the pioneering performance artist, critic, and feminist scholar Lorraine O’Grady has recently launched a teachable website that showcases both her visual art and extensive writings. O’Grady herself is blogging too! Born in Boston, and educated at Wellesley College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, O’Grady pursued successful careers as a research economist, translator and rock critic for the Village Voice before she began making performance art in 1980, when she performed her most famous persona, Mlle Bourgeoise Noire. O’Grady’s writings about race, gender, and miscegenation, have been published and anthologized widely, and are all accessible or able to be downloaded in pdf format on the site, including her influential essay, “Olympia’s Maid: Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity,” (1992, 1994). Check it all out here.

(Lorraine O’Grady, after performance of Nefertiti/Devonia Evangeline at the Feminist Art Institute, NYC. 1981. Courtesy of Lorraine O’Grady.)

W.O.M.A.N., opened Saturday, March 22 and continues through Sunday, April 20 at Gallery 6, showcases the work of seventeen female artists from Staten Island, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and Austin. Curated by Jeff Kolasinski , these works embrace the wacky, obsessive, myriad, authentic, and nervy as a celebration of Women’s History Month. The show includes works by Susan Grabel, Melanie Hickerson, Helen Levin, Jenny Tango, and the late Barbara Valenta among many others.

(Susan Grabel and Jenny Tango, Inside Venus, 2007, cast paper with encaustic, oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artists.)

Heart Wall, by trailblazing feminist artist Nancy Azara, continues through October 2008. This 24 foot sculpture composed of carved and painted wood with gold leaf and encaustic is located in the lobby of 340 Madison Ave in Manhattan.

(Nancy Azara, Heart Wall, 2005. Photo courtesy of the artist.)

Mirror Universe by Devorah Sperber opened on Thursday, March 20 and continues through April 26 at Caren Golden Fine Art. Sperber’s work uses the television series Star Trek as a method of examining the relationship between popular science and art.

(Devorah Sperber, Spock (Beaming In) 1, 2007. Photo courtesy of Caren Golden Fine Art.)

Artist Tara Donovan will continue her six month run at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through April 27. Donovan is recognized for her use of manufactured materials to make works that bear a resemblance to topographical landscapes.

(Tara Donovan, Haze, 2003. Stacked clear plastic drinking straws. Photo courtesy of the Ace Gallery, New York.)

Lady Pink & Aiko: Brick Ladies of NYC opened March 21st and continues through April 20th at Ad Hoc Art in Brooklyn. Both Pink & Aiko mix street-art and modern-art with urban, pop-art themes into their work.

(Lady Pink. A Lovely Entrapment, acrylic on canvas. Aiko. 2. Both photos courtesy of Ad Hoc Art.)

The Love that Has No Opposite, by artist Georgeanne Deen, opened Friday, March 21st and continues through Sunday, April 27th. Deen’s work, exhibited at Amy Smith-Stuart, uses women, animals and natural elements as subjects in a creepy juxtaposition of scale and form.

(Georganne Deen, The Love That Has No Opposite, 2008. Photo courtesy of Amy Smith Stewart.)

Boudoir: A Hint of Sensuality opens March 27th and continues through June 10th 2008 at LUMAS Editions Gallery NYC. Boudoir features erotic photography by 9 talented male and female photographers, including Lilya Cornelli, Michel Comte, and others.

(Lilya Cornelli, Blind Senses, 2007. Courtesy of LUMAS Editions Gallery, NYC.)

Grace Hartigan: A Survey of Six Decades opened last week and runs through May 3rd at ACA Galleries in Chelsea. Hartigan’s remarkable career began in the 1950s as part of the school of Abstract Expressionists. She was also the only woman artist selected for the MoMA’s pivitol exhibitions Twelve Americans (1956) and its traveling show The New American Paintings (1958). This exhibition coincides with the April release of the documentary film Pushing Boundaries in a Painter’s World: The Art and Life of Grace Hartigan.

(Grace Hartigan, Male Image, 1966, oil on canvas. Courtesy of ACA Galleries.)

Matthew Marks Gallery presents Peter Hujar: Second Avenue through April 26th. Hujar, who passed away in 1987, shot the majority of his many portraits of men, women, children, and animals, as well as people he met on the street, in his studio on Second Avenue in the East Village. Whether his subjects be the conventionally beautiful or the grotesque, his work always reflects a unique empathy for the individual.

(Peter Hujar, Charles Ludlum as Camille, 1974, gelatin-silver print. Courtesy of Matthew Marks Gallery)

Leslie Hirst fourmation opened last week at Pavel Zoubok Gallery and runs through April 19th. Hirst presents seventeen “landscape paintings” in which four-leaf clovers are suspended between rich layers of paper and resin, alternately replicating the grid-like structures of urban environments and natural growth patterns.

(Leslie Hirst, Four:Circle, 2001 and 2008. four-leaf clovers, resin, enamel on wood. Courtesy of Pavel Zoubok Gallery.)

Tamy Ben-Tor will perform Judensau on Saturday, March 28th and Sunday, March 29th at The Kitchen. Ben-Tor creates videos and live performances that center on her ever-expanding catalogue of invented characters. For this commissioned new solo performance, Ben-Tor integrates text and live music by violinist Alva Stux to morph seamlessly from one portrait to the next with the simplest changes of clothing, accessories, and accents.

(Tamy Ben-Tor, Judensau, 2008. Photo courtesy of Riccardo Crespi Gallery and Zack Feuer New York)

Mary Coble performs Blood Script this Friday, March 28th and Saturday, March 29th from 1PM to 6PM at PULSE  Contemporary Art Fair at Pier 40 in Manhattan.  For a previous performance, Coble compiled a list of over 200 hateful words and phrases that viewers wrote on her in various languages. She will now have over 75 of the most common words tattooed onto her skin, without ink, which will appear in blood as the tatooing needles penetrate her own skin.

(Mary Coble, Untitled (from Note to Self), 2005. Photo  courtesy of Connor Contemporary Art, Washington, D.C.)

Venus, no. 192 (August 1988). “Numero special femmes voiles pour l’été 1988” (Special issue for veiled women, summer 1988). Collection of the artist

While living in Cairo in 1988, Ghada Amer had an artistic breakthrough when she stumbled across a fashion magazine titled, Venus. The artist tells me that this magazine was a “sort of Vogue for the veiled woman,” which featured images of Western models wearing veils and modestly fashionable outfits that were photo-montaged onto their figures. The back of the publication also featured sewing patterns for readers to create their own versions of the fashions seen in the photos. Amer’s immediate response was a series of spiral notebooks with miniaturized versions of these patterns, and soon after larger works emerged, including the title piece for this exhibition, “Love Has No End,” (1990), and “Untitled,” (1990), which features a tracing paper cutout of a miniskirt pattern mounted to a rectangle of plywood.

(Ghada Amer (American, b. Egypt, 1963) Venus n. 192: Numero special femmes voiles pour l’été 1988, modèle n. 3, taille 46 (Venus No. 2: Special Issue for Veiled Women, Summer 1988, Model No. 3, Size 46), 1988; Ghada Amer (American, b. Egypt, 1963) Venus n. 192: Numero special femmes voiles pour l’été 1988, modèle n. 3, taille 46 (Venus No. 2: Special Issue for Veiled Women, Summer 1988, Model No. 32, Size 46), 1988. Both spiral notebooks with collage elements: Bristol paper on Canson paper. Collection of the artist, courtesy of Gagosian Gallery)

This piece leads into an area of Amer’s work where she begins to explore connections between presumed “feminine” techniques or craft, and “masculine” or formalized constructions. The patterning of baby clothes, and dresses influences works such as “L’Ange (The Angel),” (1991), and “Untitled,” (1991), while the subject of “woman’s work” and the figure of the “bored housewife” infiltrates “La femme qui repasse (The Woman Who Irons),” (1996), as Amer begins to reframe the narratives of feminine domesticity. In the last piece from this section, “Test Piece for Conseils de beauté de mois d’août: Votre corps, vos cheveux, vos ongles et votre peau (Beauty Tips for the Month of August: Your Body, Your Hair, Your Nails, and Your Skin),” (1993), the models of feminine behavior and improbable ideals of beauty that are championed by magazines such as Elle and Vogue are rendered powerless in the folds of four handkerchiefs delicately embroidered with the French text about grooming and proper etiquette.

La femme qui repasse (The Woman Who Irons), 1996. Acrylic and embroidery on canvas. Collection of the artist, courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.

Check out these works and more in Ghada Amer: Love Has No End at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center gallery through October 19th.

Opening…

Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia: Sexe, humour et flamenco, opening March 18th at Passage de Retz, recalls the origins of gender-bending in avant-garde photography. The show includes both original works and reconstitutions of lost pieces. Tate Modern also hosts a concurrent show of these three artists’ work, The Moment Art Changed Forever, through May.

(Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Sélavy, gelatin silver print, 1920-21. Courtesy: Philadelphia Museum of Art.)

*While Duchamp, Man Ray, and Picabia are, of course, universally recognized and respected artists, the gender-inverted self-portraits of the lesser-known female artist Claude Cahun, at times associated with the French surrealists, are also definitely worth checking out!

Beginning March 20th, Jersey City Museum presents two intriguing new shows: SPRAWL and (Re)possessed. In depicting the manifestations of urban, suburban, and rural sprawl particular to New Jersey, artists included in SPRAWL touch upon larger issues of the treatment and transformation of public space. (Re)possessed, on the other hand, looks inward in order to transform the museum’s interior gallery space. Fiber artist Xenobia Bailey has collaborated with several artists and designers to create an environment that challenges the boundaries between fine and decorative arts.

(Valeri Larko, Convergence, oil on linen, 2007, image associated with the SPRAWL exhibition. Courtesy: the artist and Jersey City Museum.)

Now Open…

Global Feminisms artist Elke Krystufek shows Mother Observing at Venice’s Galeria il Capricorno through April 1st. In this new edition to Krystufek’s coherent body of work, the artist conflates past and present by portraying literary mothers Virginia Woolf and Caroline Muhr in her contemporary style. (For more information, contact galleriailcapricorno@libero.it)

(Elke Krystufek, Cyberlovers; Desire; Survivor, 2004. Courtesy: Galerie Akinci.)

Mizuma Art Gallery hosts Sissi: “Over the glance ties the rope” as the artist’s first solo show in Japan. Sissi regularly uses woven materials, brilliant colors, and repetition to create ecstatic sculptures and performances. Through April 5th.

(Sissi, detail of Over the glance ties the rope, 2008. Courtesy: Mizuma Art Gallery.)

Amy Cutler, known especially for her meticulous paintings and drawings of women, presents Alterations, her first major work of sculpture, at Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects through April 5th.

(Amy Cutler, two installation views of Alterations, 120 cast and painted figures, 2007. Courtesy: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid.)

Opening…

Opening on March 13th at Flomenhaft Gallery, Miriam Schapiro: Important Works since the 1960’s reminds us where feminist art has come from and how it has progressed. Pioneer feminist artist Schapiro worked with Judy Chicago in 1972 to organize Womanhouse, a landmark exhibition of woman artists that inverted stereotypes of domesticity by using a refurbished house as an exhibition space. Schapiro’s early signature aesthetic, reminiscent of traditional feminine craft techniques, has persisted throughout her oeuvre, as she continues to combine disparate media into compositions with a quilted feel.

(Miriam Schapiro, Dolls and Friends, 2005. Courtesy: Flomenhaft Gallery.)

Ghada Amer & Reza Farkhondeh: Collaborative Drawings opens March 14th at Tina Kim Gallery. This exhibition marks the first U.S. joint show for long-time collaborators Amer and Farkhondeh. These works play with ideas of artistic authorship not only in their collaborative origins but also in their inclusion of widely-recognizable cultural images, such as those inspired by pornography, Disney characters, or Hindu gods. Amer’s work is also currently on display, here at the Brooklyn Museum, in her solo show Ghada Amer: Love Has No End.

(Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh, Black Butterflies, 2007, ink and acrylic on STPI paper. Courtesy: Tina Kim Gallery.)

Now Open…

(Tracey Moffatt. Film stills from Lip, Artist, and Doomed (1999, 2000, 2007). Courtesy of the Artist.)

Location One presents three films by Australian video pioneer Tracey Moffatt through April 19th, with an opening reception and screening on Wednesday, March 12th. Known for her beautiful yet haunting portrayals of racial and cultural “otherness,” Moffatt’s films offer the viewer a glimpse into the realities and fantasies that subjugation based on race and gender churns out.

31 Under 31: Young Women in Art Photography, organized by Humble Arts Foundation in collaboration with Ladies Lotto, is on view through March 28th in the gallery at 3rd Ward. With this large group show of fresh new art photography, gathered democratically by an open call, curators Lumi Tan and Jon Feinstein hope to foresee an emerging generation of female photographers.

(Ahndraya Parlato, photograph from the inscape series, 2003-present. Courtesy: Humble Arts Foundation.)

Self Reflection: The True Mirror, showing at the Philoctetes Center at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, features work by Susanna Coffey, Jenny Dubnau, Deborah Garwood, Phyllis Herfield, Haresh Lalvani, Robin Tewes, and John Walter, all of whom subjectively approach the premise of self-portraiture as self reflection and exploration. While several artists see the self-portrait as a classic means to convey self-perceptions, Tewes cleverly offers the mirror itself, rather than simply what it reflects, as an object necessitating contemplation.

(Robin Tewes, I Want to be a Housewife, 2002. Courtesy: Philoctetes Center.)

The first U.S. retrospective of paintings, pastels, prints, and drawings by London-based artist Paula Rego remain on view at the National Museum of Women in the Arts through May 25th. Rego’s figurative, magical realist compositions allude to classical works of art and literature, yet reinterpret these historical influences from a decidedly contemporary and feminine perspective.

(Paula Rego, Looking Out, 1997, pastel on paper mounted on aluminum. Courtesy: Ivor Braka, Ltd., London, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts.)

Making It Together: Women’s Collaborative Art + Community at the Bronx Museum features art made through group collaboration, a process integral in and largely made possible by the feminist art movement. Guest curated by art-journalist Carey Lovelace and set to coincide with the WACK! exhibition currently at P.S.1, the show addresses historic as well as contemporary issues of inclusiveness, group identity, and authorship.

(Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Touch Sanitation, 1979-81. New York City-wide performance in all 59 community districts, with 8,500 NYC sanitation workers. © Mierle Laderman Ukeles. Courtesy: Ronald Feldman Fine Arts and the Bronx Museum.)