Community: feminist.bloggers@brooklynmuseum

Brainstormers, an NYC-based feminist collective, currently has a site-specific sound installation up at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center in Manhattan. The piece, titled “May I Please Have a Sip of Your Power?”, asks a repeating loop of questions in a computer-generated voice, including, “Do you think you could scoot over so that I can access some healthcare?” and “Would you please donate some of your control? It’s tax deductible.” This piece is part of Then and Now, a group show made up of almost 50 site-specific works commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, and will be available for your listening pleasure until September 4th.

(Promotional image, Courtesy of Brainstormers.)

Two exhibitions of note are closing this Friday, August 14th, at the ARC Gallery in Chicago. Mary Maughelli uses collage and mixed media in her work to reference historical representations of women as depicted in art of the past. In second exhibition, Margaret LeJeune & Sabba Saleem Syal, LeJeune shows her Modern Day Diana series, an examination of the world of female hunters, while Sabba Saleem Syal’s mixed media and fiber installation, A Contested Territory, draws from her personal/familial history, as well as the tumultuous political history of Pakistan.

(Margaret LeJeune, Cindy, from The Modern Day Diana Series, 2008, 22×18 inches, Silver Gelatin photograph, archival inkjet print. Courtesy of ARC Gallery.)

Adriana López Sanfeliu: Life on the Block is open through this Saturday, August 15th at the Randall Scott Gallery in Brooklyn. In this, her first solo-exhibition in the U.S., the artist uses photography to document the life of Puerto Rican women who live on 103rd Street in Spanish Harlem.

(Adriana Lopez Sanfeliu, Amy Getting Ready, From Life on the Block, 2009, Silver Gelatin Print,11×14 edition of 14. Courtesy of Randall Scott Gallery.)

The International Incheon Women Artists’ Biennale, So Close Yet So Far Away is currently up at the Incheon Art Platform at the Incheon Korean-Chinese Cultural Center in Korea. This month long biennale showcases work from 101 international artists including Samira Abbassy and Judy Chicago, among others. Divided into three subsections titled “Personal Space”, “Fluid Interior”, and “Contested Space”, the exhibition explores the idea of space as perceived by contemporary women artists. The show closes August 31st, so if you are in the area, be sure to head on over!

(Exhibition announcement image. Courtesy of the International Incheon Women Artists’ Biennale.)

Sight Unseen: Video from Afghanistan and Iran is made up of two video pieces—The Third One by Afghan artist Rahraw Omarzad and The White Station by Iranian artist Seifollah Samadian. Both artists use images of women dressed in chador-Ormazad to explore physical and metaphysical spaces of contestation, while Samadian’s women embody perseverance as they wait for a bus during a blizzard in Tehran in 1999. This show will be up at the Asia Society Museum in Manhattan until September 13th, don’t miss it!

(Rahraw Omarzad (born 1964, Kabul, Afghanistan). The Third One, 2005. Single channel video, color, and sound. 11 minutes, 31 seconds. Courtesy of the Asia Society Museum)

This summer is proving a busy time for artist Kate Gilmore, whose video With Open Arms, 2005 is currently up at Ramis Barquet in Chelsea. The work is part of a larger exhibition curated by Nick Kilner titled East Coast Video, which includes the work of Caraballo-Farman, Jamie Diamond, Alex McQuilkin and Rashaad Newsome as well. This show is open until August 14th.

(Kate Gilmore, With Open Arms, 2005. Courtesy of the artist.)

Jessica Dickinson’s Here just opened at James Fuentes LLC. Based in Gowanus, Brooklyn, Dickinson explores the exchange between perception and psychology in her paintings, which are filled with portals, thresholds and border spaces. This show will be up until September 20th.

(Jessica Dickinson studio, Gowanus, Brooklyn 2009. Courtesy of James Fuentes LLC.)

GODDESS, a group show including artists Hunter Clarke, Ilene Godofsky, Michelle Orsi Gordon, Matt Harvill, Erin Lee Jones, Georgina Keenan, Raghava KK, Nia Mora, Jennifer Murray and Sara Woolley, is now open at Under Minerva Gallery in Brooklyn. Doubling as benefit for The Hazel K. Goddess Fund for Stroke Research in Women in honor of the late Brenda Navas, this exhibition attempts to reflect on the wisdom and guidance of the divine feminine. GODDESS closes this Friday, August 14th.

(Exhibition announcement image. Courtesy of Under Minerva Gallery.)

I would like to bid a fond farewell to all of you who’ve read the “Picks” over the past year or so. Today is my last day interning here at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, as I will be moving on to grad school and other things. I know, I know, it’s devastating, but don’t worry-the “Picks” will continue on for all you loyal readers out there looking for some good feminist art!

Nina Pelaez, Curatorial Intern for the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center, helped write and research this week’s Picks. Thanks Nina!

In an attempt to launch the careers of visual artists in the 1970’s punk scene, Bettie Ringma and Marc H. Miller decided to mount a show with the legendary founder of Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) and cornerstone of the Washington, D.C. arts community at the time, Alice Denney. The 1978 exhibition, titled Punk Art, became what Miller describes as one of “Alice’s more radical moments”, prompting a wave of similar exhibitions in the years that followed. The out-of-print catalogue that accompanied Punk Art is now being released in full with additional interviews, images, and video at 98Bowery.com.

(Alice Denney, former director of WPA. Image from the Punk Art catalogue, available online at 98Bowery.com)

Projects 90: Song Dong is currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art here in New York. The elaborate installation fills the museum’s atrium— displaying the structure and entire contents of Song Dong’s mother’s (Zhao Xiangyuan) house. The piece pairs the personal and the political: at once an act of catharsis and a visual manifestation of wu jin qi yong or “Waste not”. The result is an expansive, almost daunting, mosaic of ‘things’— emblematic of a life and this effort to preserve it.

(Song Dong. Waste Not. 2005. Courtesy of Tokyo Gallery + BTAP.)

Currently on view at Robert Morris University in Moon Township, PA, is Women Imaging Women: A Study of Female Portraiture. In conjunction with Woman Made Gallery, this exhibition features a diverse selection of portraits and self-portraits of women all done by contemporary women artists. The exhibition explores the way that representation is effected by the gender of both artist and subject. The array of works incorporate styles ranging from expressionist to naturalistic with mediums ranging from sculpture to painting to photography. The exhibition will be on view through September 13th.

(Susan Tennenbaum, Ellie 19, Skokie, Illinois, archival pigment print,16 x 12 inches. Courtesy of Woman Made Gallery.)

Boxing Gloves and Bustiers opens this week at SOHO20 in Chelsea. Curated by artist Kate Gilmore(who’s artwork is currently featured in Reflections on the Electric Mirror: New Feminist Video), this group exhibition brings together the work of fourteen artists who explore the many faces of heroic female figuration using video as their medium. The show will be up until August 14th, so check it out!

(From Boxing Gloves and Bustiers exhibition. Courtesy SOHO20 Gallery.)

Opening tomorrow at the New Museum is Dorothy Iannone: Lioness, the first solo-exhibition featuring Iannone’s work in the US. The show will feature paintings, drawings, sculptures, and a video box by Iannone, all done between 1965 and 1978, during the height of the second-wave feminist generation. Iannone’s work dispels taboo’s surrounding female sexuality and instead presents it as a transcendent experience; her mixed media work portrays a first-person narrative of spirituality, sexuality and the freedom to express it. The exhibition will be on view through October 18th.

(Dorothy Iannone, I Begin to Feel Free, 1970. Acrylic and collage on canvas, 74 3/4 x 59. Courtesy of New Museum.)

“The Thousand and One Nights” (contemporary artists from Palestine) is currently up at Postmasters Gallery in Manhattan. The show features the work of six contemporary Palestinian artists, including Jumana Manna, who’s video and photographic piece Familiar, 2007, comments on the relationship between generations, showing the artist (an adult in her early twenties) being breastfed by her mother. The show closes August 8th.

(Jumana Manna, Familiar , 2007 – installation video with sound and C-print,13.4 x 19.3 inches. Courtesy of Postmasters Gallery.)

Kate Gilmore’s certainly busy these days!! Currently on view at On Stellar Rays in New York is Lover, an exhibition curated by Gilmore that celebrates and explores the many sides and many kinds of love. The group show features work by Karen Heagle, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Nan Goldin, Deborah Kass, Marilyn Minter, and others. The show CLOSES this Sunday, July 26th.

(Nan Goldin, Jimmy Paulette and Tabboo! undressing, NYC, 1991, c-print, 40 by 30 inches. Courtesy of On Stellar Rays.)

Sikkema, Jenkins & Co is currently exhibiting a weekly rotation of video art titled, Suddenly This Summer, which includes the work of twelve artists. Now in its final weeks, be sure not to miss Kara Walker’s Kara Walker Messing Around with the Ebony Hillbillies, 2007, on view from August 3rd - 7th.

(Pilar Albarracín, Bailaré sobre tu tumba / I Will Dance on Your Grave, 2004 (still). Courtesy of Sikkema, Jenkins & Co.)

This week, on July 24th and 25th, Peltz Gallery in Madison, WI will be holding The Nineteenth Annual Remarkable Women Show. The exhibition will feature collage, paintings, drawings and prints by over 40 contemporary women artists including Kara Walker, Judy Pfaff, and Judy Chicago.

(Judy Chicago, Into the Darkness, 2008. Courtesy of Peltz Gallery.)

In light of the recent protests surrounding the Iranian election, the opening this Friday of Iran Inside Out: Influences of Homeland and Diaspora on the Artistic Language of 56 Contemporary Iranian Artists at the Chelsea Art Museum couldn’t have been more synchronistic in its timing. The show features the artwork of feminist artists Shirin Neshat, Sara Rahbar, Samira Abbassy among others, and will be open until September 5th.

(Shirin Aliabada and Fahrad Moshiri, Intifada Laundry Liquid and Hejab Barbie, Operation Supermarket Series, 2006, Ink Jet Print, both 75 x 100 cm. Courtesy of Chelsea Art Museum.)

The Female Gaze: Women Look at Women, opening this Thursday, June 25th at Cheim & Read seeks to give a varied significance to the female figure in art by presenting a group of women artists depicting the female form. With works from several generations ranging from Julia Margaret Cameron to Ghada Amer this show is a must see for you. Yes, you.

(Berenice Abbott , Mme. Theodore van Rysselberghe, 1926-30 , Vintage gelatin silver print, 10 x 8 in. Courtesy of Cheim & Read.)

Cindy Workman: The Women is currently up at Lennon, Weinberg, Inc. This retrospective of Workman’s art from the nineties up to today demonstrates her commitment to the investigation of sexuality, body image and social identity in her artwork. This show closes August 14th.

(Cindy Workman, Pebbles, 2003, 51 x 40-3/4″, unique digital print, plexiglass and frame. Courtesy of Lennon, Weinberg, Inc.)

The artwork of Tracey Goodman, Kyung Jeon, Shiri Mordechay, Habby Osk, Rocio Rodriguez Salceda, and Joanna M. Wezyk will be featured in an upcoming exhibition at Tina Kim Gallery that opens June 25th. The show, titled I Stepped Into the Room, is named for the final line of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, and has unifying attributes which center around identity and relation to physical space. This show closes September 12th.

(Rocio Rodriguez Salceda, Agujero Negro 2, 2008, Pigmented print, 16 x 12 inches. Courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery.)

Declaration of Independence: 50 Years of Art by Faith Ringgold is in its last week at the Mason Gross School of the Arts Galleries at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. This retrospective of Ringgold’s work closes Friday, so check it out before it’s too late!

(Faith Ringgold, Working Women (detail), 1996, Acrylic on canvas, 41 x 31 inches. Courtesy of the Institute for Women and Art at Rutgers.)

Fever Dreams at the Crystal Motel is currently up at Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects. This solo-exhibition of the video and photographic work of Laurel Nakadate can be quite unsettling, particularly her Lucky Tiger series, which documents a performance involving anonymous middle-aged men enlisted via Craigslist, 1950s style camera club photos, and fingerprinting ink. The show closes July 24th.

(Laurel Nakadate, Lucky Tiger #3, 2009, Type-C print and fingerprinting ink, 4” x 6”. Courtesy of Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects.)

Structured Simplicity just opened at Dumbo Arts Center in Brooklyn. Bringing together the work of Mai Braun, Hilary Harnischfeger, Elana Herzog, Fabienne Lasserre, and Amy Yoes, this exhibition seeks to convey how structures take shape using various different approaches and materials, from shredded bed-linens and deconstructed garments to the New York Times.

(Amy Yoes, Modification and Collapse, 2009. Video loop. Courtesy of Dumbo Arts Center.)

Tracey Emin: Those who suffer Love is currently up at White Cube in London. Emin, who had a piece in both Burning Down the House: Building a Feminist Art Collection and Global Feminisms here at the Center, has timed Those who suffer Love to coincide with her new book, titled One Thousand Drawings. The show closes July 4th.

(Those who suffer Love exhibition announcement image. Courtesy of White Cube.)

Through her use of unusual materials such as face powder, spray tan, and lipstick, Karla Black creates an oppositional approach to Minimalist Art in her solo-exhibition, currently up at Migros Musuem in Zürich. The show closes August 16th, so if you are in the area, check it out!

(Karla Black, Principals of Admitting (2009), plaster powder, powder paint, sugar paper, spray tan, chalk, concealer stick. Courtesy of Migros Museum.)

Rachel Harrison: Consider the Lobster opens this Saturday, June 27th, at CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art. This 10 year survey of Harrison’s work will be displayed in conjunction with a re-installation of works from the Marieluise Hessel Collection, chosen by Harrison and a group of invited artists including Nayland Blake, who was recently included in Burning down the House: Building a Feminist Art Collection. The show will be open until December 20th.

(Consider the Lobster exhibition announcement image. Courtesy of CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art.)

Black Madonna, a group show currently up at HP Garcia Gallery, focuses on how one perceives the body in a corporate, celebrity-obsessed culture, seeking to balance the masculine and feminine. This exhibition closes August 1st.

(Marissa Soroudi, Jules, 2009, Photograph in lightbox, 40” x 20”. Courtesy of HP Garcia Gallery.)

At times feminist, anti-corporate, surreal, or simply humorous, the work of artist Amélie Chunleau will be included in a group show opening at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center (CSV) Thursday, June 25th. Presented by Sweethearts and Spies, The Gnomon includes the work of nine emerging contemporary artists and a performance by Cleo Fischl.

(Amélie Chunleau, Untitled, 2009. Courtesy of the Artist.)

The Centre Pompidou in Paris just opened elles@centrepompidou: Women artists in the Collections of the Centre Pompidou. Including over 500 works by 200 women artists, this exhibition is divided into sections with  titles like Pioneers, Free Fire, Body Slogan, The Activist Body, A Room of One’s Own, Woodworks, and Immaterials in order to represent a chronology of artwork by women from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day.

(Pipilotti Rist, À la belle étoile, 2007, (détail), installation audiovisuelle. Courtesy of the Centre Pompidou.)

Feminist performance and body art pioneer Manon currently has an exhibition up at the Swiss Institute of Contemporary Art in Manhattan. Titled simply, Manon, this retrospective of her work will be on view to the public until June 30th and will include the very first exhibition of her pieces The End of Lola Montez and The Salmon-Colored Boudoir outside of Switzerland.

(Manon, She Was Once Miss Rimini, projection still, 2003. Courtesy of the Swiss Institute of Contemporary Art, New York.)

Curated by Joan Weber, Masked is currently up at School 33 Art Center in Baltimore. Participating artists, including Brooklyn Museum collection artist Bailey Doogan, have used their own bodies or biographies to convey secrecy in this exhibition. The show closes June 27th.

(Masked exhibition announcement image. Courtesy of School 33 Art Center.)

Making Worlds, the 53rd International Art Exhibition opened on June 7th in Venice. The show, directed by Daniel Birnbaum, will feature the work of some 90 artists including that of Susan Hefuna, Joan Jonas, Miranda July, Natalie Djurburg and Yoko Ono. A record of 77 countries will be participating in this year’s Venice Biennial, which will be open to the public until November 22, 2009.

(Susan Hefuna. 4 women-4 views made in Egypt, 2001. Courtesy of the artist.)

Closing Thursday, June 11th, at The Women Made Gallery in Chicago is Lily Mayfield- Intimate Distance. Mayfield’s series of photographs challenges what it means to be “home” by exploring the contradicting desires for intimacy and separateness from those with whom we live.

(Lily Mayfield, Coffee in Bed, archival inkjet print, 20x 30 inches. Courtesy of Women Made Gallery.)

Sketch in Stitch, a solo-exhibition of the work of Shizuko Kimura will be opening at Noho Gallery on June 9th in Manhattan. Fusing textile art with figure drawing, Kimura explores the subtlety of line and form through her use of thread as a medium. Her drawings, executed without preliminary sketches or the aid of photographs, capture the immediacy of the gestures and figures, and can redefine traditional bodily aesthetics. This show closes on June 27th.

(Exhibition announcement image for Sketch in Stitch. Image courtesy of Noho Gallery.)

Open Source Embroidery just opened at Bildmuseet in Sweden. Traversing the link between craft and code, this exhibition features collectively and individually made artworks that examine cultural participation in technologies both old and new. This show will be up until September 6th, so if you are in the area, head on over!

(Becky Stern, LilyPad Arduino Embroidery: A Tribute to Leah Buechley, 2008. Courtesy of BildMuseet.)

Sadie Benning currently has a video up at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Benning has a history of questioning gender and sexuality in her artwork. In this new video, titled Play Pause, she cuts together hundreds of her own gouache drawings of urban landscapes, figures, and abstractions, and uses split-screen and color filters to convey the heightened sense of perception surrounding loss. This exhibition closes September 20th.

(Sadie Benning, drawing for Play Pause, 2001-06. Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art.)

Currently up at the Museum for Contemporary African Diaspora Arts in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn, is a group show featuring five women artists titled, Perspectives: Women, Art and Islam. Fariba Alam, Zoulikha Bouabdellah, Mahwish Chisty, Safaa Erruas, and Nsenga Knight all share a connection to Islam through their various cultural backgrounds which they channel into their artwork. This exhibition ends September 13th.

(Exhibition announcement for Perspectives: Women, Art, and Islam. Courtesy of MoCADA.)

Feminist artist Cristina Biaggi currently has a show up at Ceres Gallery. Cristina Biaggi, A Collage Retrospective: Political Collages from 1977 – Present, will be up through this Saturday, June 13th. Check out Biaggi’s artist page, coming soon to the Feminist Art Base!

(Cristina Biaggi, At Last 1, Color collage on wood triptych, 22″ x 17″, 2009. Courtesy of Ceres Gallery.)

The Other Half of the Sky, an exhibition of the photographic and video work of feminist artist Lili Almog, is currently up at the Andrea Meislin Gallery in Manhattan. Almog’s work in this show focuses on the extraordinary situation of Muslim women and matriarchal societies in China. Check it out before it closes this Saturday, June 13th.

(Lili Almog, Lugu Woman #3, 2007,Chromogenic color print. Courtesy of Andrea Meislin Gallery.)

Kol Ishah, In Her Voice / Elle prend la parole is currently up at the Emet Gallery in Hampstead, Quebec. This exhibition features the work of Lucy Levine, Melissa Shiff, and Devora Neumark. The three artists attempt to reclaim and rewrite aspects surrounding Jewish marriage rituals in this show, which closes September 7th.

(Promotional imagery from Kol Ishah, In Her Voice / Elle prend la parole. Courtesy Emet Gallery.)

Don’t forget, Patricia Cronin: “Harriet Hosmer, Lost and Found” just opened in the Herstory gallery here at the museum-make some time in the coming weeks to see this one!

Also, a big thank you to our newest intern here at the Center, Nina Pelaez, for contributing to this week’s picks!

Currently up at Sloan Fine Art, Ladies & Clowns features the oil paintings of Marion Peck. In this solo-exhibition, Peck portrays a series of creepily stylized rendering of fairytale scenes, strange clown portraits, and a couple of seemingly feminist ladies too hilarious to pass up. This show closes June 13th.

(Marion Peck, Fuck You, 2008, 32″ x 26″ and Breck Girl, 2008, 16″ x 13″, both oil on canvas. Courtesy of Sloan Fine Art.)

Körpermuster, a solo-exhibition of the work of Sybille Hotz, opens May 27th at Green Contemporary in Manhattan. Hotz uses imagery of wrestling girls in this show to blur the line between power and submission, adorning the girls with repeated imagery of biological, clinical, and medicinal graphics sewn directly onto her pieces.

(Sybille Hotz, Neuronenohr, 2009, Wool on cotton cloth, 51″ x 62″. Courtesy of Greene Contemporary.)

In its last week at Fred Torres Collaborations, Little Pretty is an exhibition of the artwork of Gretchen Ryan. In her oil portraits, Ryan attempts to imbue her young subjects-all regular participants in child beauty contests-with a sense of their own autonomy despite the culturally constructed ideals imposed on them. Little Pretty closes Saturday, May 23rd.

(Gretchen Ryan, Lucky Six, from Little Pretty. Courtesy of Fred Torres Collaborations.)

Commune, curated by Dominique Nahas opens May 21st at Black and White Gallery’s Chelsea location. Feminist artist Chitra Ganesh will be among the twenty-four nationally and internationally recognized artists included in this exhibition who will examine the varied effects of social bonds.

(Chitra Ganesh, Her Shimmering Pulse, 2008, Digital collage, 66 1/4 x 50 inches. Courtesy of Black and White Gallery.)

Dionysus in Love, a retrospective of the work of artist Marco Silombria is currently up at Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation. Silombria combines classical motifs with modern subject matter in this show, which closes June 27th.

(Marco Silombria, D’après Botticelli, 1984, Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation.)

Alice Neel: Nudes of the 1930s is currently up at Zwirner & Wirth in Manhattan. Neel’s honesty in her portraits gave individuality back to the idealized female nudes of art history. This show runs concurrently with Alice Neel: Selected Works at David Zwirner, both closing June 20th.

(Alice Neel, Rhoda Myers with Blue Hat, 1930, Oil on canvas, 27 1/2 x 23 1/4 inches. Courtesy of Zwirner & Wirth.)

Strong Suit: Armor as Second Skin shows feminist artist Linda Stein exploring her concept of the body as armor. The show will be up until June 19th at National Association of Women Artists in Manhattan.

(Exhibition announcement image for Strong Suit: Armor as Second Skin. Courtesy of national Association of Women Artists.)

Looped & Layered: A Selection of Contemporary Art from Tehran just opened at Thomas Erben Gallery. Twelve artists are included in this group show, up until June 27th.

(Amirali Ghasemi, from the Coffee House series. Courtesy of Thomas Erben Gallery.)