Community: feminist.bloggers@brooklynmuseum

Opening this past weekend and running through the 27th of September, Everywhere is War (and rumours of war) is a group show including artist Sara Rahbar, who spoke here at the museum earlier this summer with the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective. This exhibition will be held at Bodhi Art in Kalaghoda, Mumbai, and should be a great opportunity to see this amazing photographer and textile artist’s work.

(Sara Rahbar, Flag#30, 64×34, 2008. Courtesy of the artist.)

Patty Chang, a daring video artist who resides here in Brooklyn, is showing her most recent work at the Arrow Factory in Beijing. Chang’s body of work spans the last decade. Both Eels, 2001, a performance video in which Chang traps an eel inside her blouse, and In Love, 2001, in which Chang passes onions from her mouth into the mouths of her parents, remain vivid in this blogger’s mind (and, Losing Ground, 2000 is favorite of Sarah’s!) Touch Would will be available for viewing by the public at the Arrow Factory until the 29th of September.

(Touch Would exhibition announcement. Courtesy of The Arrow Factory.)

Allyson Mitchell is participating in a show at the Textile Museum of Canada in Toronto. The exhibition, Close to You, which runs through October 12th, takes a closer look at contemporary social and sexual customs via pop culture and through the mediums of knitting, crochet, embroidery and appliqué.

(Allyson Mitchell. Big Trubs, 2004. Courtesy of the artist.)

Printmaker and installation artist, swoon, has taken her work to the Hudson River this month with her most recent project Swimming Cities of the Switchback Sea. This performance/conceptual/just-plain-rad project consists of an armada of eco-friendly ships made from recycled materials which will make their way down the Hudson from Troy, NY, where they launched earlier this month. The fleet will be docking at Beacon, Croton-on-Hudson, and Nyack next week for music and performances before they reach their final destination at Deitch Projects in Long Island City, Queens on September 7th for the opening of swoon’s latest installation.

(Portion of Swimming Cities of the Switchback Sea exhibition poster. Courtesy Deitch Projects.)

Sabina Baumann’s death of cool opens at Galerie Mark Muller in Zurich next Thursday, the 28th of August. This show runs until September 27th, so stop on over if you happen to be in the area!

(Sabina Baumann, aus der lumpenserie, 2007. Pencil on paper, 60 x 40 cm. Courtesy of Galerie Mark Muller.)

The Percipient Eye, opened last Friday, August 22nd at The Gallery at Mansion in Manhattan, and features photography by Jennifer Maeve. This exhibition was curated by a former graduate intern here at the Center, Saisha Grayson. Good luck with the show and congrats Saisha!

(The Percipient Eye exhibition announcement. Courtesy of Saisha Grayson.)

July was a hot month for programming in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art! First off, Ladan Akbarnia, Hagop Kevorkian Associate Curator of Islamic Art here at the Brooklyn Museum, with the assistance of sign language interpreter Jina Porter, gave a gallery talk on our current exhibition, Ghada Amer: Love Has No End as part of the Target First Saturday events.

(Ladan Akbarnia and Jina Porter explaining Ghada Amer’s photo series of her various public works installations for the crowd. Photo courtesy of Jessie Shaffer.)

Akbarnia was very insightful in her take on Amer’s work, at one point questioning the attitude of Muslim women towards their veils and other traditional head and body coverings.

(Dr. Natasha Gordon-Chipembere describing her extensive work with circumcised women. Photo courtesy of Jessie Shaffer.)

Concurrent with the gallery talk was a screening of the film Moolaadé, directed by Ousmane Sembène, which addresses female circumcision. Afterwards, Dr. Natasha Gordon-Chipembere graciously led a heated discussion of the film and female circumcision in general. Moving from semantics to female circumcision in Brooklyn and the West’s misconceptions of the practice, and emotions understandably ran high as audience members volleyed back and forth on this controversial issue.

On Saturday, July 12th, Curator Maura Reilly gave a public tour of the exhibition Ghada Amer: Love Has No End, which is on view in the Center’s main galleries through October 19th.

(Maura Reilly presenting her take on Ghada Amer’s work. Photo courtesy of Jessica Hester.)

Reilly discussed the artist’s appropriation of the aesthetics of male Abstract Expressionists such as Barnett Newman and Jackson Pollock, and also suggested that Amer’s use of stitching – a traditionally-female endeavor – in some of her work is part of a reclamation of female sexuality and artistic autonomy. Like Akbarnia’s talk earlier in the month, Reilly touched on Amer’s investment in portraying both the social and political disenfranchisement and personal empowerment of Muslim women.

(Photo courtesy of Jessica Hester.)

Also on July 12th, the Center hosted filmmaker Katrina Browne for a showing of her documentary Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North. Presented in partnership with PBS’s P.O.V., a showcase for independent nonfiction film, the documentary chronicles Browne’s discovery that her New England ancestors were the largest slave-trading family in American history.

Don’t forget to stop by this Saturday at noon for the reading of excerpts from Live Through This—The Art of Self-Destruction, edited and read by Brooklyn-based feminist performer Sabrina Chapadjiev. Chapadjiev will lead a discussion following the reading with artist Fly and poet Nicole Blackman completing the panel. Thanks to everyone who came last month for your continuous support of the Center’s public programs!!

Tracey Moffatt’s exhibition, First Jobs Series 2008 opens Thursday, August 21st at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney and will be up until September 3rd. If you’re in the neighborhood, you really shouldn’t miss this amazing photographer/video artist’s work!

(Tracey Moffatt, First Jobs, Fruit Market, 1975, 2008. Archival pigments on rice paper with gel medium. Image from First Jobs Series 2008 exhibition announcement.)

Global Feminisms artist Shahzia Sikander’s first major solo exhibition in the U.K. is on view now at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham. Intimate Ambivalence features this incredible artist’s recent paintings, a wall drawing installed in Ikon, and a series of graphite portraits done over the last couple of years titled Monks and Novices.

(Shahzia Sikander, Monks and Novices Series - Novice Chandon, 2006-08. Graphite on paper 14 x 11 inches. Courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co.)

in your face, a group exhibition that investigates portraiture and representation of the figure, will be on view at Tria Gallery from August 19 – 23. Curated by Nikki Cohen, the show features the work of emerging artists Ben Aqua and Mike Ruiz (the collaborative team OK!Fresh), Elizabeth Dyer, Mary Lydecker, and Megan Cedro. The opening reception for the exhibition will be on Tuesday, August 19, from 6-8pm. Stop by and check out innovative work by these exciting up-and-comers!

(Ok! Fresh, photograph from in your face. Courtesy of Nikki Cohen Enterprise.)

April Vollmer’s Doing What Comes Naturally opened this month at The Sirens’ Song Gallery in Greenport, NY, and runs until September 2nd. Continuing an age old medium, Vollmer uses woodcut to explore the stereotypically feminine medium of floral design.

(April Vollmer, Rococo Puff, 2007. Hanga Woodcut. Courtesy of the artist.)

Karen Finley’s Impulse to Suck: The Performance of the Apology and the Separation of Sex and State, happens tomorrow night, the 14th of August at Performance Space 122 in Manhattan. In addition to performing her latest piece, Karen Finley with discuss aspects of Eliot Spitzer’s televised apology that followed the discovery of his criminal activities. Make sure to check out Performance Space 122’s website for advance tickets to this one night only event!

(Artwork by Karen Finley. Courtesy of Performance Space 122.)

Mother’s!!!, a solo exhibition by Lin Tianmiao just opened at Long March Project’s Gallery Space C in China. Tianmiao was also featured in our Global Feminisms show last year. As the exhibition title suggests, the theme of the show revolves around a mother’s role and all of the emotions-both positive and negative- that come with it. This exhibition runs until August 24th.

(Lin Tianmiao, Mothers!!! No. 5, 2008. Courtesy of Long March Project.)

Woman Made Gallery in Chicago is opening Her Mark 2009, an exhibition celebrating the publication of the gallery’s annual art and literary journal. The reception is this Friday, August 1st, and the show will be up until August 28th.

(Elizabeth Bruno, The Illusion of Control, oil on canvas, 24 x 24 inches. Courtesy of Woman Made Gallery.)

Will Happiness Find Me, at the Marvelli Gallery ends this Thursday, August 8th. This exhibition features artists Daphne Arthur, Mary Reid Kelley, Jason Ledet, and Juliana Romano and includes a video by Kelley about an aviator(played by the artist) and his lover, a ballerina named Camel Toe, who leaves him for her vibrator.

(Mary Reid Kelley, Camel Toe, 2008. Video, 1 minute 25 seconds, Edition of 8. Courtesy of the Marvelli Gallery.)

Sexy Time: A Group Effort closes today at the Morgan Lehman Gallery. From the work of Susan Anderson, which explores the world of the young girl’s beauty pageant, to Chrissy Conant’s Chrissy Skin Rug, this show approaches the issues of sex and gender from a variety of innovative angles. If you have time today or after work tonight, stop on by!

(Chrissy Conant, Chrissy Skin Rug, 84 x 60 in. Silicone rubber, human hair, glass eyes, wood. Courtesy of Morgan Lehman Gallery.)

If Loved Could Have Saved You, You Would Have Lived Forever closes next week at Bellwether gallery. This group show investigates loss and memory and includes the work of Tammy Rae Carland and Patricia Cronin.

(Tammy Rae Carland, My Inheritance, 60 x 40 inches, Digital C-print, 2008. Courtesy of Bellwether Gallery.)

One of my fellow interns here at the museum discovered some really neat hand-stenciled shirts featuring feminist women throughout history the other day. Here’s what Lindsay Keating-Moore, creator of KMStitchery has to say about her artistry, “My rebellious spirit saw injustice and it prompted me to address it and attack it in a healthy way. I think it’s important to recognize, acknowledge and admire women who have fought for women’s rights and who have broken through gender barriers. And clothing is a great way to spread the message of feminism.” The selection ranges from Frida Kahlo to Emma Goldman and almost every woman worthy of note in between. Keep it up Lindsay!

(Susan B. Anthony Hand Stenciled Shirt, by KMStitchery. Courtesy of the Artist.)