In last Sunday’s panel discussion, “The American Hero and the American Dream: Reflections on Our Contemporary Political Narratives,” moderator and well-known author Courtney E. Martin was joined by panelists Charlton McIlwain, Assistant Professor of Culture and Communication at New York University; Gloria Feldt, author and blogger at Heartfeldt Politics; and Ramin Hedayati, associate producer of The Daily Show for an in-depth examination of the narratives and images that dominate the media, campaigns, and candidates during this election season. If you missed this important discussion, check out the program in the following video!

(Laurie Ann Farrell of Savannah College of Art and Design asks artists Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh questions about their collaborative work. Photograph by Jessica Shaffer.)

After this presentation, Amer energetically discussed how her eight year collaboration with Farkhondeh first began. In 2000, after a period of crippling depression, Farkhondeh leaned on his good friend Amer for support, and moved into her studio. Without her permission or consent, he started to literally “improve” on Amer’s works in progress while she was out, adding layers of paint to the canvases and drawings! To say the least, Amer was surprised when she discovered Farkhondeh’s additions to her pieces, but was so intrigued by her friend’s provocation on her works that she continued to let him participate, and together they coined the acronym RFGA(Riza Farkhondeh, Ghada Amer) to use as their signature.

In the years following, the artists continued their collaborations in tandem, each working on his or her own contributions in their separate locales. Farkhondeh would paint something on a piece, or use tape rather than paint as his medium, and send it off to Amer who would perhaps add an embroidered section or stencil to the work. The years of their collaboration included a stint at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute, where they completed a series of drawings which were later shown at the Kukje Gallery in Seoul in 2007 and at the Tina Kim Gallery here in New York in 2008. The duo currently resides as artists-in-residence at Pace Prints in Manhattan which marks the first time they have ever worked together face to face.

(RFGA, Mosaic Memory of Tongues, 2007. Acrylic, embroidery, and gel medium on canvas. Currently on view at the Brooklyn Museum in Ghada Amer: Love Has No End.Photo courtesy of the artist, and Gagosian Gallery.)

When asked how working together has changed their own individual work, Amer commented that she has definitely noticed elements of RFGA making their way into her own, individual style. In a rather poignant moment that marked the end of the discussion, Farkhondeh remarked that working with Amer has opened his mind and allowed him to become a viewer of his own work, seeing it in a different light than before the pair’s collaboration.

Two works by RFGA are featured in Ghada Amer: Love Has No End. Don’t forget to take advantage of this amazing retrospective of Ghada Amer’s work, curated by Maura Reilly, Curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, before it closes on October 19th!

(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!!

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)

(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.)

The exhibition, Ghada Amer: Love Has No End, continues to occupy our thoughts here at the Museum. In particular, the “Happily Ever After” section of the exhibition has struck a chord recently with its exploration of fairy tales and their impact on the psyche of young girls. Starting in 1992, Ghada Amer began to use some of the most treasured Disney cartoons and story book characters, like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, Tinkerbell, Little Red Riding Hood, and even Barbie in her work. She really began to take an interest in how female stereotypes and roles of submission and passivity are perpetuated in fairy tales, myths, and toys, and how they function in the formation of children’s identities. Amer herself explains, “When we were young girls, fairy tales made us believe that we were all princesses who were going to meet a prince one day and live happily ever after.” If you missed Maura Reilly, Curator of the exhibition and the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art’s talk with the artist this past March, you’ll have another great opportunity to learn more about this topic, and other artworks in the exhibit Ghada Amer: Love Has No End when the artist speaks this weekend as part of the Brooklyn Museum’s Target First Saturday events.

(Barbie Loves Ken, Ken Loves Barbie, 1995/2002, Embroidery on cotton. Collection of the artist, courtesy of Gagosian Gallery. Photo courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.)

“Following years of legislative and social struggle, women received the right to vote under US Federal law in 1920. But the country’s first legislative success with regard to women’s suffrage came in 1869 in the then newly created Wyoming Territory.

Though not a member of the Territorial legislature, Esther Hobart Morris has been given major credit for supporting that bill and other laws that allowed married women to control their own property, and provided equal pay for women teachers.

Mrs. Morris was appointed a justice of the peace in 1870 and was the country’s first woman to serve in a judicial office. Afterward, she continued to be active in political affairs and during Wyoming’s statehood celebration in 1890 she was honored for her suffrage activities. In 1895, at age 80, she was elected a delegate to the national suffrage convention in Cleveland.

A life size statue of Mrs. Morris stands directly in front of the Wyoming state capitol in Cheyenne and a copy of the statue was donated to the national statuary hall in the US Capitol when she was designated Wyoming’s representative in that exhibit.”

– Marty Levenson.

(Statue of Esther Hobart Morris by Avard Fairbanks in front of Capitol Building, Cheyenne, WY. Photo: Einar Einarsson Kvaran.)

(Left: Artist Ghada Amer discusses her work. Right: Amer and Curator, Maura Reilly share slides of magazines that were inspirational to the artist early on in her career.)

Later in the day, Dr. Elizabeth A. Sackler introduced the “Funding a Revolution” panel discussion where moderator Carol Jenkins, President of Women’s Media Center, and Helen LaKelly Hunt, Barbara Dobkin, and Jennifer Buffett, three phenomenal benefactors, gave presentations and talked about how they are working to change the face of philanthropy today. All the women seriously rocked the house! Thank you to all the participants, and to everyone who came out for the anniversary. It was a truly feminist celebration!

(Left: Dr. Elizabeth A. Sackler introduces a panel of feminist philanthropists to the crowd at the “Funding a Revolution” discussion on March 15th, 2007. Right: Panelists included Helen LaKelly Hunt, Jennifer Buffett, Barbara Dobkin, and moderator Carol Jenkins.)

Young scholars of art history, and fans of performance art alike will be interested to learn that the pioneering performance artist, critic, and feminist scholar Lorraine O’Grady has recently launched a teachable website that showcases both her visual art and extensive writings. O’Grady herself is blogging too! Born in Boston, and educated at Wellesley College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, O’Grady pursued successful careers as a research economist, translator and rock critic for the Village Voice before she began making performance art in 1980, when she performed her most famous persona, Mlle Bourgeoise Noire. O’Grady’s writings about race, gender, and miscegenation, have been published and anthologized widely, and are all accessible or able to be downloaded in pdf format on the site, including her influential essay, “Olympia’s Maid: Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity,” (1992, 1994). Check it all out here.

(Lorraine O’Grady, after performance of Nefertiti/Devonia Evangeline at the Feminist Art Institute, NYC. 1981. Courtesy of Lorraine O’Grady.)

(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.)