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.)

(Sara Rahbar, Hosein and I, Oppression Series #2 photo shoot, 2007. Courtesy of the artist.)

Working to further the dialogue between women and contemporary art, the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective is an organization that seeks to unite and provide resources for female artists of South Asian descent, bringing a crucial perspective to the forefront of the global feminist art world. This weekend, board members Mareena Dareida and Sadia Rehman, along with artists Sara Rahbar, Samira Abbassy, and poet Sarah Husain will participate in a panel discussion moderated by artist Miriam Ghani here at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art during the Brooklyn Museum’s Target First Saturday events. The panel will provide a taste of these artists work as well as spoken word in this precursor to the collective’s 10th anniversary exhibition, Sultana’s Dream, at Exit Art this August. The exhibition is named after a short story by Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain, who presents an idealized role reversal in Muslim culture where it is the men, not the women, who are made to stay home and out of sight. Featuring collaborative artworks by Mareena Dareida, Sadia Rehman, Miram Ghani, Samira Abbassy, Shahzia Sikander and Chitra Ganesh, among others, the exhibition will also include a selection of South Asian musical and literary events scheduled throughout the course of the show.

(Shamira Abbassy, Calligraphic self-portrait, 2006. Courtesy of England Gallery)

In conjunction with the Votes for Women exhibition in the Herstory Gallery, we are always looking for more stories about the many unsung pioneers of women’s suffrage. Long-time curatorial and library volunteer and friend of the Brooklyn Museum, Marty Levenson, has this fascinating account to share about Esther Hobart Morris, a local activist from Wyoming who’s brave efforts to promote suffrage legislation led to her appointment as one of the first female justices of the peace in the Wyoming Territory, as it was known in the mid-late 1800s. Read more of Marty’s account of Esther Hobart Morris below.

“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.)

Free speech: some of us utilize it more than others, babbling faster than the speed of light. While others, meek as mice, prefer to keep our words to the bare minimum. But, Pia Lindman, a New York-based performance and installation artist, has boldly reorganized the way that we think about free speech in her Soapbox Event, granting each participant only one minute to speak.

Overhead view.  Pia Lindman: Soapbox Event, Reinventing Forms of Free Speech.  Federal Hall National Memorial, 26 Wall Street, New York City.  April 5, 2008.  Photo: Pia Lindman.  Courtesy: Pia Lindman.

Lindman received her MFA from Finland’s Academy of Fine arts, and received a second masters degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Over the years, Lindman has experimented with social and public space, challenging social, political and economic issues facing human beings globally. She has explored her interest in human masses, space and architecture through projects such as Three Cities, Rivers, Monuments (2002/2006) and Fascia (2006).

In her Soapbox Event, Lindman uses historical public spaces as venues for her art. She grants each participant a soapbox to stand on and sets her handy dandy timer for one minute. Participants can share just about anything in the time allotted; poetry, stories, monologues, movement sequences or articles. But there’s a catch: participants may form coalitions, stacking their soapboxes to create a higher podium. One minute is added to each coalition’s speaking time for each extra soapbox stacked. Now, this is a woman who understands the meaning of teamwork!

Side view.  Pia Lindman: Soapbox Event, Reinventing Forms of Free Speech.  Federal Hall National Memorial, 26 Wall Street, New York City.  April 5, 2008.  Photo: Pia Lindman.  Courtesy: Pia Lindman.

Lindman’s Soapbox Event is about more than getting your chat on. Lindman’s work forces participants to be conscious of one another, to share space, to communicate and listen. Her work is much more than a blab-fest: it challenges those involved to become more aware of their bodies in space, how bodies and voices relate to other bodies, how bodies and voices have the potential to affect the world.

The Soapbox Event is an ongoing project, taking place in public locations throughout New York City. The last event, held at the Federal Hall National Memorial in the Financial District reeled in 41 participants, a great success. Past Soapbox Events have taken place at Cooper Union, Yale School of Art and several other acclaimed venues.  To learn more about Pia Lindman’s upcoming events and her fascinating, thought provoking body of work visit the Soapbox Event Blog or check out Pia Lindman’s bio. Learn how to get involved and exercise your right to free speech.

Venus, no. 192 (August 1988). “Numero special femmes voiles pour l’été 1988” (Special issue for veiled women, summer 1988). Collection of the artist

While living in Cairo in 1988, Ghada Amer had an artistic breakthrough when she stumbled across a fashion magazine titled, Venus. The artist tells me that this magazine was a “sort of Vogue for the veiled woman,” which featured images of Western models wearing veils and modestly fashionable outfits that were photo-montaged onto their figures. The back of the publication also featured sewing patterns for readers to create their own versions of the fashions seen in the photos. Amer’s immediate response was a series of spiral notebooks with miniaturized versions of these patterns, and soon after larger works emerged, including the title piece for this exhibition, “Love Has No End,” (1990), and “Untitled,” (1990), which features a tracing paper cutout of a miniskirt pattern mounted to a rectangle of plywood.

(Ghada Amer (American, b. Egypt, 1963) Venus n. 192: Numero special femmes voiles pour l’été 1988, modèle n. 3, taille 46 (Venus No. 2: Special Issue for Veiled Women, Summer 1988, Model No. 3, Size 46), 1988; Ghada Amer (American, b. Egypt, 1963) Venus n. 192: Numero special femmes voiles pour l’été 1988, modèle n. 3, taille 46 (Venus No. 2: Special Issue for Veiled Women, Summer 1988, Model No. 32, Size 46), 1988. Both spiral notebooks with collage elements: Bristol paper on Canson paper. Collection of the artist, courtesy of Gagosian Gallery)

This piece leads into an area of Amer’s work where she begins to explore connections between presumed “feminine” techniques or craft, and “masculine” or formalized constructions. The patterning of baby clothes, and dresses influences works such as “L’Ange (The Angel),” (1991), and “Untitled,” (1991), while the subject of “woman’s work” and the figure of the “bored housewife” infiltrates “La femme qui repasse (The Woman Who Irons),” (1996), as Amer begins to reframe the narratives of feminine domesticity. In the last piece from this section, “Test Piece for Conseils de beauté de mois d’août: Votre corps, vos cheveux, vos ongles et votre peau (Beauty Tips for the Month of August: Your Body, Your Hair, Your Nails, and Your Skin),” (1993), the models of feminine behavior and improbable ideals of beauty that are championed by magazines such as Elle and Vogue are rendered powerless in the folds of four handkerchiefs delicately embroidered with the French text about grooming and proper etiquette.

La femme qui repasse (The Woman Who Irons), 1996. Acrylic and embroidery on canvas. Collection of the artist, courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.

Check out these works and more in Ghada Amer: Love Has No End at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center gallery through October 19th.

On Wednesday everyone basically hit the ground running as we began the load in and installation for our latest exhibition Ghada Amer: Love Has No End. For months prior to the installation, the Museum’s associate exhibition designer, Lance Singletary, and Curator Maura Reilly worked alongside one another developing a layout and floor plan that really gives museumgoers a comprehensive experience of Ghada Amer’s oeuvre. It will be really interesting to see how the exhibition ultimately engages patrons in the space!

Visiting the gallery this week, I had to keep reminding myself that I was at the Museum and not some bohemian artist’s loft in Williamsburg–EVERYONE was lending a hand! Maura was rolling out butcher paper on the floor and escorting many rolls of wallpaper around the space, Lance and some of the art handlers were building a vitrine near one of the entrances, while Ghada busied herself with the configuration for groupings of the smaller works, and kept the staff upbeat with her warmth and good humor. Late in the afternoon yesterday, we received a surprise visit from Dr. Elizabeth Sackler, who stopped by the galleries for a sneak preview of the exhibition! Francesca Ford has documented some of these highlights and others over the past few days–check out her delightful slideshow posted above.

We hope that you will stop by the Museum tomorrow, February 16th, when Ghada Amer: Love Has No End officially opens to the public!

Slideshow created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR. Having trouble seeing the slideshow? Photos are also on Flickr.

A few weeks ago, Maura and I paid a memorable visit to the Conservation lab in the Museum where several of the works from the upcoming exhibition, Ghada Amer: Love Has No End have made a temporary home. Associate Conservator Rachel Danzing and the entire Conservation staff have been working to meticulously restore these pieces to their original condition before the gallery installation later this week. One of the things that Maura and Rachel were looking at on the day of our visit was the wallpaper from The Reign of Terror (2005), an installation that Ghada Amer did at Wellesley College’s Davis Museum and Cultural Center in 2005. The beauty and vibrancy of the color and pattern on this wallpaper is challenged by the definitions of “terror” or “terrorism”, which are printed in different languages over and over again on the paper, so naturally it’s important that none of this crucial text is cut off or missing prior to the final installation.

Curator Maura Reilly and Associate Paper Conservator Rachel Danzing examine the text on the wallpaper from the artist’s Reign of Terror installation. (Photo: Sarah Giovanniello)

Rachel was nice enough to provide me with a quote on what exactly she and Maura were looking for with the wallpaper: “If I remember correctly, each roll of wallpaper is one complete section where the top half is printed continuously with the bottom half, except the bottom half is printed upside down. In the photograph, Maura and I are checking the join where the top and bottom meet to confirm that the sentences do indeed join up where they should. The wallpaper will be cut and the two pieces joined on the wall to make one section.”

Maura and Rachel unroll the wallpaper to the end, and discover that the writing begins exactly where they hoped it would! Thankfully no unnecessary cutting is needed to ensure that the text matches up when it is pasted on the wall in the gallery. (Photo: Sarah Giovanniello)

After the question about the wallpaper was resolved, Maura and I stopped by the area of Conservation where two early works have been getting a lot of attention. Rachel performed some major conservation miracles on the piece, Untitled (1991). Now that the finishing touches have been made in Conservation, the exhibition is ready to be installed. Check back later this week for a preview of the exhibition during load in and installation!

Two early Ghada Amer works, Untitled (1991), and L’Ange (The Angel) (1991) are mounted on large easels in the conservation lab. (Photo: Sarah Giovanniello)

(Unknown Artist, New York Pickets at the White House, January 26, 1917, Records of the National Women’s Party, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C.)

As I mentioned in a previous post, the popular Pharaohs, Queens, and Goddesses has just come down in the Herstory Gallery to make room for an exciting and timely exhibition on the suffrage movement in early 20th Century America, aptly titled Votes for Women! I chose to highlight this important milestone in American History as the second exhibition in the Herstory Gallery because I knew with a woman making a serious bid for the White House that it would be a critical year for women’s rights and women’s issues in this country. Indeed, as Senator Clinton reminded viewers earlier this week in her televised speech following the Super Tuesday primaries, her own mother was born into a time in this country when women did not have the right to vote. With this in mind, the show pays homage to our American foremothers, like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Victoria C. Woodhull (the first woman EVER to run for President of the United States—in 1872!), without whom the women’s vote today could not have been possible! Votes for Women, guest curated by Melissa Messina, opens in the Herstory Gallery on February 16th and runs through November 30th.

Check back for more from ‘behind-the-scenes’ of Votes for Women in the coming months!

Art handlers and staff go over packing details and take down wall labels. To the right, two large crates filled with works ready to be shipped back to lenders flank the empty platform where Lee Bul’s Ein Hungerkunstler (2004) once stood.

This week marks the days when both Global Feminisms Remix and Pharaohs, Queens, and Goddesses are deinstalled from the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. The Museum’s registrar, Katie Welty, and our expert team of art handlers have already finished moving objects from the Herstory Gallery, and started taking down numerous multi-media objects from the Global Feminisms Remix show, and readying the artworks to be shipped back to the international artists and lenders.

An art handler uses craft tape to secure the wrapping on one of Tomoko Sawado’s photographs from the popular School Days series (2004).

While it’s always a little sad to see an exhibition deinstalled, and the galleries empty, I am very excited that our next exhibition, Ghada Amer: Love Has No End, will be open to the public in just a few short weeks—on February 16th!

Ghada Amer in her studio in December 2007. Photo: Maura Reilly

I’ve been working on the Ghada Amer show for a few years now. It started as a book project with Gregory R. Miller & Co. that quickly turned into an exhibition. As I researched and wrote the main essay for the monograph I realized that the sheer breadth of Ghada’s work had never really been explored in an exhibition, abroad or in the U.S. Most exhibitions of Ghada’s work focus exclusively on her exquisitely embroidered paintings with erotic motifs for which she has become internationally renowned. But, for our exhibition, I decided that we should offer a survey of her work from 1988 to 2008, in order to showcase Ghada’s talents in other media, like drawing, sculpture, garden design, and installation. The exhibition also includes many works that have never before been exhibited in the U.S.–which is really exciting!

I took the photo of Ghada above a few months ago during one of my visits to her studio in Harlem. During the planning for our upcoming exhibition, I spent countless afternoons and weekends with Ghada looking for pieces to include in the show, and digging up some of her earliest works out of her personal archives. Some of the works featured in the exhibition have literally sat in her studio for decades, and will make their “debut” so to speak when the show opens next week!

Stay tuned for a slide show of highlights from the exhibition!

Two weeks ago, while the City was getting ready for the New York City Marathon, an event that gathers many people from Europe, I visited the exhibition Senso Unico at PS1 in Queens, New York.

The show presents eight Italian artists who have marked their presence in the contemporary art world, featuring works by female artists Vanessa Beecroft, Rä di Martino and Paola Pivi, as well as Paolo Canevari, Angelo Filomeno, Adrian Paci, Pietro Roccasalva, and Francesco Vezzoli. These artists do not represent a movement happening in Italian art, but it is the uniqueness and independence of their research that brings them together. Indeed, as the Museum hand-out suggests, Senso Unico means “one way,” but, translated literally, also means “unique feeling.” It was interesting seeing together for the first time, right here in New York, these artists, who express their personal researches, artistic pursuits, and individual paths while confronting art with different media and languages.

(Vanessa Beecroft, VB61 Still Death! Darfur Still Deaf?, performance, 2007. Image: Vanessa Beecroft. Courtesy of Galleria Massimo Minini & Galleria Lia Rumma).

Some of the works in the show address political and social issues, like Vanessa Beecroft’s VB61 Still Death! Darfur Still Deaf?, a performance piece (featured as a video in the exhibition) that took place at the Pescheria di Rialto, the public fish market on Canal Grande, during the 52^nd Venice Biennale. This performance is a powerful reaction to the genocide happening in Darfur. In other works there is a shift towards a more private sphere, like Rä di Martino’s glimpse into a moment of domestic folly in the video Cancan!, or the elaborate textile-based works embroidered with crystals, beads and other precious finery created by Angelo Filomeno.

(Rä di Martino, Cancan!, 2004, single channel video installation. Courtesy of Galleria Monitor.)

Senso Unico is at PS1 through January 7th, 2008.