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Camouflage opens this Friday at Amos Eno Gallery in Manhattan. This solo exhibition features artist Wei-Hui Hsu’s series of the same name. Using cosmetic facial masks to construct sculptural bodices and high heeled shoes, Wei-Hui Hsu interacts with her creations to create a voyeuristic atmosphere in her photographs.

(Wei-Hui Hsu, Photographic print from the Camoflage Series, 2007, Installation with facial masks, fabric stiffener, performance, toy guns, spray paint, army uniform. Courtesy of the artist.)

SOHO20 Chelsea Gallery just opened its 14th Annual International Exhibition last week which includes a solo show in their second gallery with artist Jong Sun Lee. Lee explores gender and power relations in her work through the use of unusual materials like human hair. When we emailed SOHO20 Chelsea’s director, Jenn Dierdorf, this morning, she mentioned that Lee “is currently preparing for a trip to Guatemala, where she will finance and work to build bathrooms for a community in return for their collaborative effort on an art project.”

(Jong Sun Lee, Yes You Are II, included in the 14th Annual International Exhibition. Courtesy of SOGO20 Chelsea Gallery)

2b female:perceptions of femininity opened last week at the Pendleton Art Gallery in Newport, Kentucky. Artist Pattie Byron combines female symbols with gender stereotypes to create her sculptures. The show runs through August 18^th, so if you’re in the area, check it out!

(Pattie Byron, Habitual Femininity, painted metal, polished metal and yarn. Included in the 2b female: perceptions of femininity exhibition, 2008. Courtesy of the artist.)

Yayoi Kusama currently has a solo exhibition up at Ota Fine Arts in Tokyo. On view until August 22nd, this artist’s unique vision is not to be missed!

(Yayoi Kusama, Original Infinity Nets, 1999. Acrylic on canvas, 194 x 391 cm. Courtesy Ota Fine Arts.)

Using familiar objects in unfamiliar ways, artist Heidi Forssell includes everything from a toothy teddy bear to a deep fried ball gown to get her message across. Her MFA graduate exhibition, The Right Kind of Girl: Video, Sculpture and Drawings about Female Identity and Experience, just opened last Saturday at the Arts and Consiousness Gallery of JFKU Berkeley and runs until August 2nd.

(Heidi Forssell, Image from exhibition announcement for The Right Kind of Girl.)

The National Museum of Women in the Arts is currently showing Modern Love: Gifts to the Collection from Heather and Tony Podesta. This group show will be up until September 21st, so if you are in the D.C. area anytime soon, feel free to take a gander!

(Icelandic Love Corporation, Where Do We Go From Here?, 2001. Diasec lazerchrome print, 27 3/4 x 27 1/2 in. Courtesy of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.)

In part an exploration of the hybridization of female identity in a global culture, Neti Neti (not this, not this) opened last week at Bosa Pacia and features artists Michael Bühler-Rose and Sheba Chhachhi among others. Don’t miss out on this exhibition, on view until August 16th.

(Michael Bühler-Rose, The Secret, Alachua, FL. 2006)

May Stevens: Paintings and Works on Paper 1968-1976 opened last Thursday at the Mary Ryan Gallery and includes works from Louise Bourgeois and Kiki Smith. The work by May Stevens focuses mainly on her “Big Daddy” character who symbolizes her view of the archetypal middle-American man.

(Louise Bourgeois, The Night, 2001, lithograph, 20 x 16 inches, edition of 50. Courtesy of Mary Ryan Gallery.)

Rendering their own interpretations of goddess and female myths throughout time, a collection of women artists around the globe participate in …All About Eve, open until August 3rd at Siren Song Gallery in Greenport, NY.

(Kathleen Bifulco, Barbie Bustin’ Out, charcoal, pastel and pencil on paper, 31 x 24 inches. Courtesy Gallery Merz.)

Stories We Tell Ourselves, an all women show that explores the narrative in art opened July 10th at the Rhonda Schaller Studio in Chelsea. This show includes a work by Maureen Kelleher, who was inspired to become an artist after refusing to evacuate during Hurricane Katrina.

(Maureen Kelleher, I’m Gonna Try, H. Tubman, 2003. Paint, paper, cloth and engraving on wood, 46 in. x 30 in. Courtesy of the artist)

Investigating the link between clothing and identity, the Kniznick Gallery of Brandeis University presents Dress Redress, opening this week and running through September 25th. Artists represented in this exhibition include Aparna Agrawal, Candice Smith Corby, Maryjean Viano Crowe, Carol Hamoy, Sandra Eula Lee, Esther Solondz, Andrew Thompson, and Leslie Wilcox.

(Sandra Eula Lee, Clothing Inventory – under 2” tall, 2006. Courtesy Kniznick Gallery.)

History Keeps Me Awake at Night: A Genealogy of Wojnarowicz opened last Thursday at the PPOW Gallery. This exhibition features the work of artists influenced by David Wojnarowicz, activist for queer rights and against AIDS discrimination in the 1980’s.

(Carrie Mae Weems, Untitled from The Hampton Project, 2000. Inkjet print on canvas, edition of 5, 61 x 69 inches. Courtesy of PPOW.)

Flesh, Akino Kondoh’s second solo exhibition at Tokyo’s Mizuma Art Gallery opened last week. This time around, Kondoh is showing her oil paintings, which examine the potential crossover between the human body and plant life, rather than the animations, which made up her previous exhibition at this venue. The show will be up until August 9th. If you’re in the area, this one is definitely worth checking out!

(Akino Kondoh, Flesh (work in progress), 2008. Oil on canvas 112×162cm. Photo by Kei Miyajima, courtesy of Mizuma Art Gallery)

(Ghada Amer (American, born Egypt, 1963) and Ladan S. Naderi (French, born Iran, 1960). I ♥ Paris, 1991. Three chromogenic prints from a series of six. Courtesy of the artists.)

A notable section of Ghada Amer: Love Has No End contains three photographs from a larger series that Ghada Amer collaborated on with two fellow artists in 1991, titled I ♥ Paris, 1991. Then an art student living in Paris, Amer and close friend and artist Ladan S. Naderi walked around the city, dressed in veils and other conservative garments, staging group portraits in front of famous Parisienne tourist attractions such as the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and the iconic merry-go-round located at the Sacre Coeur. These photographs were taken shortly after a string of terrorist bombings by Islamic militants in Paris took place from 1990 to 1991. The series also extended into performances of Amer and Iranian-born Naderi attending art openings around Paris dressed in the Iranian chador and Egyptian naqqab, which called attention to the regional variations of Islamic attire and the meaning associated with choosing to wear the garments. Needless to say, the pair did not get much of a warm reception at many of these stuffy openings!

This is the first time any part of this series has been shown publicly, and recently got some attention, inviting comparisons to the likes of Emily Jacir and Shirin Neshat.

Related to this section of the exhibition, is Reign of Terror, 2005, an installation in the gallery that is not easily overlooked. Working with students at Wellesley College in 2005, this installation features the bold pink and green wallpaper and a plastic and paper place-settings that the artist covered with the phrase “Terrorism’ is not indexed in Arabic dictionaries.” The paper goods were displayed in the Davis Museum and Cultural Center, and also used by staff and students in the College’s cafeteria!

Stop by the galleries tomorrow, July 12th, to hear Maura Reilly, Curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, talk about these works and others from the exhibition Ghada Amer: Love Has No End. For more details on this, and other programs in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art this weekend, click here.

(Ghada Amer (American, born Egypt, 1963). The Reign of Terror, 2005. Wallpaper from installation at Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts)

Social Conditioning opens July 5th at Femina Potens gallery. Each of these four artists subjectively contemplates and deconstructs the social, cultural, and emotional conditioning experienced while growing up queer.

(Announcement for Social Conditioning. Courtesy: Femina Potens.)

Power Change (Initiated by a Woman), a show of work by Global Feminisms artist Elke Krystufek, opens July 6th at the Ulmer Museum.

(Elke Krystufek, Katherine Mansfield, 2008, ink on canvas. Courtesy: Galerie Barbara Thumm.)

When Color Was New: Vintage Photographs from Around the 1970s opens July 7th at Julie Saul Gallery. Three female pioneers of fine art color photography are included: Nan Goldin, Helen Levitt, and Jan Groover.

(Helen Levitt, New York, 1980, C-print. Courtesy: Laurence Miller Gallery.)

Asian Cinevision and Asia Society host the 2008 Asian American International Film Festival (AAIFF08) July 10th through July 19th. This year’s festival spotlights female documentary filmmakers. On July 17th, don’t miss the panel discussion Documentary Subjects, Female Gaze with three of the four AAIFF08 featured female directors Ann Kaneko, Risa Morimoto, and Mirjam van Veelen and moderator Anne del Castillo.

(Still from Megumi, directed by Mirjam van Veelen. Courtesy: Mirjam van Veelen.)

A show of work by Global Feminisms artist Sigalit Landau remains open at MoMA through July 28th. Landau here presents a video trilogy in which she employs circular movement and spinning in her performative exploration of the Israeli landscape.

(Sigalit Landau, Dead See (From Cycle Spun, 2007), 2005, video (color, silent). The Museum of Modern Art. Fund for the Twenty-First Century. Image © Sigalit Landau. Courtesy: MoMA.)

Mona Hatoum: Present Tense at Parasol Unit of London features work representative of the span of Hatoum’s career thus far. Hatoum renders ordinary domestic objects uncanny in her efforts to address notions of displacement, uncertainty, and extant power structures. Open now through August 8th.

(Mona Hatoum, Misbah, 2006. Courtesy: Jay Jopling/White Cube (London) and Parasol Unit.)

A Year in Drawing, which continues through August 1st at Galerie Lelong, brings together a diverse collection of work including drawings by Kiki Smith, Louise Bourgeois, Nancy Spero, Jane Hammond, and many more!

(Kate Shepherd, Untitled (1-7), 2008, assembled cut screenprints. Courtesy: Galerie Lelong.)

Women in Photography is an ongoing online exhibition space for both emerging and established female photographers, featuring a solo show, curated by Amy Elkins and Cara Phillips, of work by a new artist every two weeks. Currently on view, Sarah Sudhoff’s photographs reveal a personal take on “body art” as well as a meditation on the female body as an object to be examined.

(Sarah Sudhoff, Exam 2, 2006. Courtesy: Sarah Sudhoff and Women in Photography.)

June was a rather fruitful month for programs in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art! On Target First Saturday we listened to Ghada Amer talk about her work from the exhibition Ghada Amer: Love Has No End, which is currently up in the main galleries of the Center for Feminist Art through October 19th.

(Standing in front of the wallpaper from the installation The Reign of Terror, 2005, Ghada Amer speaks about the work during June’s Target First Saturday events. Photo taken by Eleanor Whitney.)

That same evening the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective board members Mareena Dareida and Sadia Rehman, along with artists Sara Rahbar, Samira Abbassy, and poet Sarah Husain gave us a sampling of their work during a panel discussion moderated by artist Miriam Ghani.

(The SAWCC panelists pose with Katie Apsey, former Brooklyn Museum Education Intern. Photo courtesy of Katie Apsey.)

As if that weren’t enough, on the twenty-first, Dr. Kay Sloan shared her film Suffragettes in Silent Cinema in conjunction with the Votes for Women, the exhibition in the Herstory gallery that is up through November 30th. Included in the footage from the documentary were some hilarious portrayals of women activists as aggressive homewreckers or child-like in comparison to their more mature and virtuous husbands. Writer and television producer Coline Jenkins gave a resounding presentation on her great-great-grandmother, the pioneering suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and her own dedication to uphold the legacy of her famous relative’s activism, while working to ensure that women everywhere realize “the full potential” of the Amendment that early suffragists fought so hard for in their lifetimes.

(Coline Jenkins shares a family portrait that includes her great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Photo taken by Maura Reilly.)

Highlighted in the discussion following the film and Jenkins’ presentation was the implication that many of the same prejudices and discriminations present at the turn of the century are still alive in representations of women in the media today.

Stay tuned for more coverage of programs in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art throughout the summer!

(From left to right; Melissa Messina, curator of Votes for Women, Dr. Kay Sloan, and Coline Jenkins during the panel discussion. The quote on projection screen is article XIX of the U.S. Constitution, which states: “The right of citizens of the U.S. to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex.” Photo taken by Sarah Giovanniello.)

(Film Still from Moolaadé (2004), directed by Ousmane Sembène.)

This month’s Target First Saturday events at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art here at the Brooklyn Museum includes a screening of the film Moolaadé. Directed by Ousmane Sembène, this award winning film tells the tale of six young girls who are about to be circumcised and the subsequent attempts to protect the girls from this trauma. “Moolaadé” is the name for the magical protection one of the village women uses on the girls to prevent their imminent circumcisions.

The showing of the film begins at 6pm and is followed by a discussion with Dr. Natasha Gordon-Chipembere, who has worked extensively with, and as an advocate for, circumcised women. If you can’t make it at six for the film, stroll on over to the galleries to see Ladan Akbarnia, Hagop Kevorkian Associate Curator of Islamic Art here at the Brooklyn Museum, give a talk on Ghada Amer: Love Has No End at 7pm. Free tickets for both of these events are available at the Visitor’s Center at 5pm!

(Film Still from Moolaadé (2004), directed by Ousmane Sembène.)