Community: feminist.bloggers@brooklynmuseum

Within a Budding Grove, an exhibition of artist Ellen Cantor’s work, opened this week at Participant Inc. in Manhattan. A London based artist, Ellen Cantor has mentioned Carolee Schneemann as one of her greatest mentors, and her work exhibits her dedication to feminism as well. At times diaristic, Cantor’s creations explore cultural stereotypes, violence, and the clichés surrounding love and sex. Within a Budding Grove is an installation piece including video and storyboards that deal with issues of loss and death to the destruction of innocence. Within a Budding Grove will run from May 22-June 6, 2008.

(Ellen Cantor, Death Skull, 2008. Courtesy of Participant Inc.)

A group exhibition featuring fourteen female artists opens today at the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery in Manhattan. (Un)common threads displays the work of many of the great feminist artists of our time, including Faith Ringgold, Betty Saar, Yayoi Kusama, Lee Bontecou, and Mimi Smith. The artists utilize new and recycled fabrics and fibers in non-stereotypical ways, questioning the tendency to pigeonhole “craft” mediums as inherently feminine.

(Mimi Smith, Basic Black, 1966 knotted thread, zipper. Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Art Gallery)

Jezebel, Works by Carla Gannis opens May 23, 2008 at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art in Colorado. Gannis couples a series of six large-scale digital prints with 14th century predellas in this exhibition, in an attempt to critique archetypal portrayals of women throughout time in both mythology and history.

(Carla Gannis, Bette from the Jezebel Series, digital print. Courtesy of Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art)

Two feminist films will be shown this week as part of the Seattle International Film Festival. Who’s Afraid of Kathy Acker, written and directed by Barbara Caspar, documents the life of Kathy Acker, a punk-rock icon and founder of the Riot Grrls, who expanded the bounderies of female self-expression and sexuality in her writing. We Want Roses Too, written and directed by Alina Marazzi, will also be shown this week. This film explores the effect of the feminist and sexual revolution of the ’60s and ’70s on women’s lives.

(Film still from We Want Roses Too, courtesy of the Seattle International Film Festival)

This is the last week to see Yoko Ono’s Touch Me, which closes May 31, 2008 at Galerie Lelong in Manhattan. This multi-dimensional fluxus artist focuses on the female experience in this exhibition through sculpture, painting, interactive installation and includes a film of her 1964 performance of Cut Piece.

(Yoko Ono, Touch me III, 2008. Cast silicone, wood, bowl, water. Courtesy of Galerie Lelong.)

Don’t miss the chance to see this legendary artist’s work at her first exhibition since 2003!