Community: feminist.bloggers@brooklynmuseum

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.)