Community: feminist.bloggers@brooklynmuseum

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.)

The True Body Project. Photograph courtesy True Body Project. Copyright Esther Freeman, True Body class of 2005.

This Mother’s Day program has grown out of a yearlong collaboration between the Brooklyn Museum and the True Body Project. Originally based in Cincinnati, the organization began conducting workshops with various New York-based community organizations in 2008 including Women of Storahtelling, We Got Issues, and the Arab American Association of New York to gather stories about women’s relationships with their bodies. The organization’s goal is to utilize art and performance as a means to facilitate promoting positive body image in young girls and women. During April’s Target First Saturday, representatives from the True Body Project shared their art-making process with Museum visitors by placing journals containing workshop participants’ reflections on each chair. The visitors were encouraged to leaf through the journals and read aloud entries that they personally connected with. The audience’s response was amazing with participants ranging in age from 10 to 65 reading to the group. Innovative and inspirational, the activity created a sense of connection across age, background, and experience. The Museum is thrilled to promote art projects which have grown directly out of collective voices and community collaboration. And, in a time of limited resources, this is a wonderful model for organizing quality and meaningful public programs on a shoestring.

The True Body Project captures workshop participants’ reflections on specific prompts in these shared journals. Photograph courtesy of the True Body Project.

This Sunday, May 10, the True Body Project will premiere their site-specific performance Body Language: Brooklyn Museum throughout the galleries. The performers will be responding to different installations in the Museum - including Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, the Museum’s well-known female figurine (known by most as the ‘Bird Lady’) in the Ancient Egyptian Art Galleries, and the Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Pavilion - with their own interpretive dance, new video, original song, and homemade replica sistra . Each piece combines Brooklyn women’s reflections on their bodies and lived experience with responses to the Museum’s artwork.

Take a sneak peak of the brilliant intergenerational theatrical work that will be in the Glass Pavilion. Here, the performers work out their spacing in advance of the program. Photograph by Cameron Anderson.

Many thanks to Lyndsey Beutin in Education for the following, and for her efforts to promote and co-organize the program. The True Body Project performs Body Language: Brookyn Museum throughout the Museum this Sunday, May 10th. For further details about the program please click here.

Automythograpy I, a solo exhibition of Mequitta Ahuja’s work, is currently up at BravinLee Programs. Ahuja combines history, myth and personal narrative, giving her African-American/East Indian hair a life of its own in this exhibition of non-traditional self-portraiture. This show closes May 2nd.

(Mequitta Ahuja, Spark, 2009. Waxy chalk on paper, triptych, 50 x 114 inches. Courtesy of BravinLee Programs.)

Aqui Estamos (Here We Are) opens May 1st at Projects Gallery in Philadelphia. Works by Cirenaica Moreira, Marta Maria Perez Bravo, Sandra Ramos and feminist artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, among others, are featured in this exhibition of contemporary Cuban artwork.

(Cirenaica Moreira, “La Libertad es una palabra enorme” (Freedom is a huge word), Gelatin Silver Print. Courtesy of Projects Gallery.)

Ward Shelley’s solo-exhibition Who invented the Avant Garde (and other half-truths) is currently up at Pierogi in Brooklyn. This show continues Shelley’s exploration of timelines and includes the piece Matriliniage, 2008, a celebration of American women painters. Who invented the Avant Garde (and other half-truths) closes May 17th.

(Ward Shelley, Matrilineage, ver. 1, 2008, Oil and toner on mylar, 30 1/16 x 58 inches. Courtesy of Pierogi.)

Global Feminisms artist Elke Krystufek currently has a show up at Galerie Meyer Kainer in Vienna. Elke Krystufek: the female gaze at the male or unmale man closes tomorrow, April 25th, so if you’re in the area, head on over!

(Exhibition announcement for the female gaze at the male or unmale man. Courtesy Galerie Meyer Kainer.)

Mi Vida – From Heaven to Hell is open now at Műcsarnok Kunsthalle in Budapest. The impressive roster of artists includes Pipilotti Rist, Tracey Moffatt, Shirin Neshat and Marina Abramovic, among others, in this exhibition of almost 100 works by thirty-six contemporary artists. This show will be up until May 17th.

(Tracey Moffatt, Scarred For Life, 1999, 10 offset prints. Courtesy Műcsarnok Kunsthalle.)

In Take Care of Yourself, an exhibition currently on view at the Paula Cooper Gallery, Sophie Calle asks 107 women (including one parrot) to respond to a break-up letter she once received. The responses show the range of individual emotion and subtlety of reaction possible in such a situation. Take Care of Yourself closes June 6th.

(Sophie Calle,Take Care of Yourself, Amira Casar, Actress, 2007. Courtesy of the Paula Cooper Gallery.)

The work of Nathania Rubin, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons and Karen Yasinsky is brought together in Surveillance from the Doll House, currently up at Mireille Mosler Ltd. Through both drawing and puppet animation, these four artists will consider identity and the inanimate in this show, on view until May 23rd.

(Laurie Simmons, The Music of Regret, 2005-6. DVD 44:14 min. Edition of 10. Courtesy of Mireille Mosler Ltd.)

Chantal Joffe opens at Cheim & Read on May 7th. Joffe paints directly from sources in which her subjects are objectified–magazine ads, fashion spreads, snapshots–imbuing them with an emotional and psychological intensity that undermines their original portrayal.

(Chantal Joffe, KELSEY, 2009, Oil on board, 84 x 55 inches. Courtesy of Cheim & Read.)

Opening May 1st at Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, The Emotional Body includes the work of thirty-seven female artists. Using a variety of different media, these artists explore the intersections between the emotional and physical body in this group exhibition.

(Mary Rachel Fanning, Me and Grandma with Mama’s Quilt, archival inkjet print, 17 x 11 inches. Courtesy of Woman Made Gallery.)

A solo exhibition by artist Amélie Chunleau is currently up at Kaffe 1668 in Tribeca. Chunleau uses collage to combine sci-fi with elements of feminism and more than a little humor in her work. I had the pleasure of attending the opening last Sunday, and this one is definitely worth checking out! Make sure you head over before it closes at the end of the month.

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

\ ‘flō \ : art, text, new media opens April 15th at The Center for Book Arts in Manhattan. Feminist artist Jessica Lagunas, among others, will be investigating the flow of text and image in various different media in this group show.

(Exhibition announcement image. Courtesy of Jessica Lagunas.)

Kurban, an exhibition of the photography and video of Almagul Menlibayeva closes this Saturday, April 11th, at Priska C. Juschka Fine Art. In a feminist take on mythology, Menlibayeva reassigns the male roles of traditional myths to women in this exhibition. Don’t miss it!

(Almagul Menlibayeva, Before the Solar Eclipse, III, Lambda print mounted on alu-dibond, 2009. Courtesy of Priska C. Juschka Fine Art.)

Gravity Buffs, a group show including the work of feminist artist Amy Cutler, closes this Saturday, April 11th, at the Thomas Robertello Gallery in Chicago. The exhibition features artists who reveal their narratives and content through the unusual use of gravity in their work.

(Amy Cutler, Arrangement, 2002. Courtesy of the Thomas Robertello Gallery.)

In conjunction with the exhibition I Am Art, curated by Anthony Berlet, M.D., Dr. Virginia Braun will be giving a talk at Apexart on Wednesday, April 15th at 6:30 pm. In Cosmetic surgery, commercialization and culture: The case of the ‘designer vagina’, Braun will discuss the social implications of the growing trend of female genital cosmetic surgery. I Am Art will be on view until May 9th.

Guest of Cindy Sherman is showing now at Cinema Village in Manhattan. This documentary film gives an intimate look into the life of artist Cindy Sherman through the eyes of her lover, Paul H-O. For more information on the film, click here.

(Movie poster image. Courtesy of Cinema Village.)

Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape is currently on view at the Aperture Gallery. In this exhibition, the photography of Jonathan Torgovnik introduces women and children who live the various consequences of another’s heinous acts. This show closes Thursday, May 7th.

(From Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape. Courtesy of Aperture Gallery.)

Artist, feminist, and writer Mira Schor will be giving a talk at 8pm tonight at Momenta Art in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This talk will be in conjunction with her exhibition Suddenly, on view at the gallery through April 20th.

(From Suddenly,. Courtesy of Momenta Art.)

Also, on April 20th at 8pm, feminist artist Vernita N’Cognita will be performing her Ghost Traveler at Judson Church . One of four performances that night, Ghost Traveler will explore the ironies of aging. Don’t miss it!

Tomoko Sawada (Japanese, b. 1977). Untitled, from the OMIAI series, 2001. Chromogenic photographs. On Loan from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections in honor of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, L2007.8.6.11, .16. Photographs courtesy of the artist and Zabriskie Gallery, New York.

With a little under a week left in March, the Museum ends a successful month of public programs and events in celebration of National Women’s History Month and marks the second anniversary of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art with Feminism Now: New Feminist Art Scholarship. This day-long conference highlights the work of a diverse group of emerging art historians and scholars of related disciplines whose work focuses on feminist approaches to research and analysis of contemporary visual arts and culture. Noted critic, curator, playwright, and arts activist Carey Lovelace delivers a keynote talk in the morning titled “Alternating Universes,” a discussion of how feminist theory has shaped contemporary society and what formulations we might expect it to take in the future. Following Carey’s talk will be two consecutive panels moderated by Karen Shimakawa, Associate Professor of Performance Studies at New York University and Johanna Burton, art historian and Associate Director and Senior Faculty Member at the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program in New York City. You can check out the Symposium’s page on the main website for more information about tomorrow’s program! RSVP to academic.programs@brooklynmuseum.org.