Community: feminist.bloggers@brooklynmuseum

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.)