Community: feminist.bloggers@brooklynmuseum

From a conversation with actor George Takei (Star Trek’s Captain Sulu) and his husband, to a discussion about love with a pair of sword swallowers, Kick My Hearts Ass: Short Films About Love, investigates the trials of love and heartbreak. Curated by Davy Rothbart, this exhibition opens February 11th at Apex Art.

(Kick My Heart’s Ass: Short Films About Love exhibition announcement. Courtesy of Apex Art.)

“Miss Taxi”, a three-channel video and photography installation by artist Cecilia Jurado, is currently featured as part of QUEENS INTERNATIONAL 4, the Queens Museum Biennale. This latest project from Jurado shows images and footage from a beauty pageant held each year in Queens for relatives of taxi workers. This exhibition will be on view until April 26th.

(Cecilia Jurado, Film still from “Miss Taxi”. Courtesy of Y Gallery.)

Our City Dreams, a new documentary by Chiara Clemente, documents the lives of five feminist artists- Swoon, Ghada Amer, Kiki Smith, Marina Abramovic, and Nancy Spero- and is now playing at the Film Forum in Manhattan. Check it out, the last day to see it is February 17th!

(Promotional image for Our City Dreams. Courtesy of the Film Forum.)

IMMATERIAL is in its last week at Black and White Gallery in Chelsea. This show includes artists Kaoru Hirano, Tamara Kostianovsky, Kristian Kozul, Derick Melander, Jason Clay Lewis, Adam Niklewicz, Shimon Okshteyn, and Jean Shin, as well as artist Orly Cogan, whose site specific thread wall drawing, Quantum Entanglement, explores the trappings of womanhood. This show closes February 14th.

(Installation view of Quantum Entanglement, photo by Alessandra Okshteyn. Courtesy of Black and White Gallery.)

The Mood Back Home: An exhibition inspired by Womanhouse opens at Momenta Art in Williamsburg this Friday February 13. Womanhouse was a women-only art installation and performance at a 17 room mansion in 1970s Hollywood, California. Organized by feminist artists Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, Womanhouse used the various rooms of the building to explore household activities and spaces that had been viewed as exclusive to women. The work of Alyson Aliano, Pam Butler, Leslie Brack, Nicole Eisenman, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Karen Leo, Karyn Olivier, Tara Mateik, Bea Romeo, Suzy Spence, Kirsten Stoltmann, Jeanne Tremel, and Pinar Yolacan, as well as Johanna Demetrakas’s film Womanhouse, 1972, will be featured in this show.

(Leslie Brack, Presenting Three New Lively Ones, oil on canvas, 6″ x 8″, 2008. Courtesy of the Artist.)

Nayland Blake: Behavior, curated by our very own Maura Reilly, is in its last week at Location One in Manhattan. Head over to this great show before it closes February 14th!

(Nayland Blake, Magic, 1991. Courtesy of Location One.)

In honor of International Woman’s Day (March 8th), The Clark Museum in Williamstown, Massachusetts, will be opening Special Installation: Women’s Work on February 21st. The exhibition will feature works on paper from the collection by such trailblazers as Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Julia Margaret Cameron, and Berenice Abbott.

(Julia Margaret Cameron, The Red and White Roses, 1865. Albumen print. Courtesy of Scottish National Photography Centre.)

Life Has Not Even Begun, a new exhibition featuring the work of artist María Magdelena Campos-Pons, opened recently at Columbia College’s Glass Curtain Gallery in Chicago. In this new body of work, Campos-Pons uses a wide variety of media to investigate how history and memory inform identity. This show will be up until March 6th, so if you are in the area, check it out!

(Postcard Image: María Magdelena Campos-Pons, Prayer for Obama I (detail), 2008, Polaroid prints. Photo by Clements/Howcroft. Courtesy of Columbia College Glass Curtain Gallery.)

Tonight, February 10th, CUNY’s Graduate Center is holding a LGBTQ studies panel on queer South Asian art. Tell Me a Story…, presented by SAWCC (South Asian Women’s Creative Collective) and CLAGS (The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies), will feature filmmaker/photographer Sonali Gulati, visual artist Chitra Ganesh, performance artist D’Lo, as well as DJ/promoter, Desilicious.

(Sonali Gulati, Film still from Out and About, to be released in 2010. Courtesy of the artist.)

Carolee Schneemann: Painting, What it Became opens Saturday, February 21st at P.P.O.W. in Chelsea. Curated by our very own Maura Reilly, this exhibition explores how Schneeman’s work in a variety of mediums (including performance) remain true to her pictorial, painterly approach to art. This show will be up until March 28th - don’t miss the opening reception this Saturday from 6-8pm!

(Carolee Schneeman, Meat Joy, 1964, gelatin silver print, 23 3/4 x 20 1/4 inches. Courtesy P.P.O.W.) 

Zoë Charlton: Family opens November 14th at Connor Contemporary Art in Washington, D.C. Chalton’s large format drawings of her nude Floridian cousins address issues of the body and questions where inspiration is drawn from in the construction of self. This exhibition will be up until January 3rd.

(Zoë Charlton, Weeds, 2007, graphite and goache on paper, 52 x 91 inches. Courtesy of Connor Contemporary Art.)

Catya Plate’s artist book, Clothespin Tarot has been included in a selection of artists books from the collection on the second floor of the Museum. The Queen of Buttons, Queen of Thimbles, and Queen of Hatpins are included amongst Plate’s feminist interpretation of the minor and major arcana. The installation of the books coincided with the recent Contemporary Artist’s Book Conference and will be on display until the end of December, 2008.

(Catya Plate, Queen of Darners from Clothespin Tarot, 2007, artist’s book, 11″ x 7¼”, watercolor and color pencil on paper. Courtesy of the artist.)

Apocalyptic Pop, curated by Kathy Goncharov, opens November 16th at Dorsky Gallery in Long Island City. The show will include works by Jody Culkin, D. Dominick Lombardi, Laura Prnes, TODT, Michael Zansky, and feminist artist Chitra Ganesh. Two of Ganesh’s digital collages will be on view, showing the comic-book inspired segment of this innovative artist’s work. This exhibition will be up until January 25th.

(Chitra Ganesh, Fingerprints, 2007, 40 x 72 inches, digital print, edition of 5. Courtesy of the artist.)

The Dairy in London is opening a new group exhibition on November 10th. demons, yarns & tales: Tapestries by Contemporary Artists should prove to be an exciting show with an all-star line up that includes Kara Walker, Grayson Perry, Beartrz Milhazes, Fred Tomaselli, Ghada Amer & Reza Farkondeh, Gavin Turk, Jaime Gili, avaf, Paul Noble, Julie Verhoeven, Gary Hume, Franchesca Lowe, Shahzia Sikander, and Peter Blake. Amer and Farkondeh recently spoke here at the Center about their collaborative works, and we can’t wait to see what they’ve come up with for this one! This exhibition is curated by BANNERS of PERSUASION and will be only be up until November 22nd. If you are in the area, this show is a must see!

(Kara Walker, A Warm Summer Evening in 1863, tapestry (detail), 2008. 1.68 x 2.5m. Exhibition announcement image.)

My First Love, a solo exhibition of the work of Alessandra Exposito opens November 13th at Mixed Greens. Through the use of domesticated animals and decorative elements, Exposito’s intriguing work is given a feminist take on the stereotypically masculine practice of mounting hunted animal heads on the wall of one’s home. This time, Exposito focuses exclusively on the horse, an animal beloved by both the masculine and feminine among us. Check out My First Love before it closes on December 22nd!

(Alessandra Exposito, Queenie, 2006, 22 x 37 x 28 inches, mixed media on horse skull. Courtesy of Mixed Greens.)

There is a new monograph worthy of note that just came out on the video work of Ursula Biemann from 1998-2008. Ursula Biemann Mission Reports: Artistic Practice in the Field, Video Works 1998-2008, includes feminist readings by Angela Dimitrakaki and Wendy S. Hesford. A complete description of this monograph’s contents can be found here.

(Cover of Ursula Biemann Mission Reports: Artistic Practice in the Field, Video Works 1998-2008. Courtesy of the artist.)

Introduction didactic to Ghada Amer: Love Has No End with packing boxes. Photo by Sarah Giovanniello

Last week we watched as the deinstallation of Ghada Amer: Love Has No End brought with it many delicious memories from the past run of the show. Included among these were the energy and joy of the installation itself, the wonderful artists’ talks, panel discussions, school groups, and tours that were organized with our colleagues in Education, and the conversations we shared with audiences that traveled from all over the world to the Museum for the exhibition.

Senior Art Handler Michael Allen preps a work by artist Ghada Amer for shipping to the artist’s studio. Photo by Sarah Giovanniello

The artist herself wanted to share a few reflections on the exhibition, and rather than try to paraphrase her in this post, I wanted to include her comments, unedited below!

“I loved the show. It is my first retrospective in a museum! I loved the way [Curator] Maura [Reilly] worked: digging in my cupboards, in my sister’s home where she made a research trip in Paris, France. In the beginning I was surprised, almost annoyed on how close and precise she wanted to be!! But then when I saw the final selection and the lay out I knew it was going to be great and it was great…I liked the way she divided my work in 5 sections, I loved the wall text, the hanging. She managed to make a show that is simple, clear and powerful.”

This is a quick “naughty” drawing of a naked woman that Ghada made for me during the installation that still hangs in my office! The text reads: “I am a feminist. Are you?” and is signed: “Ghada Amer. Feb 14 08. The worst day of the year.”

In keeping with this trend of installing shows around holidays, our newest exhibition Burning Down the House: Building a Feminist Art Collection, co-curated by me and Nicole Caruth (independent curator and former Interpretive Materials Manager of the Brooklyn Museum), opens in the main galleries of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art today, on Halloween, October 31st! Stay tuned for more on this installation and opening of Burning Down the House on the blog next week!

Thomas Woodruff’s Solar System (The Turning Heads) just opened at P.P.O.W. in Manhattan. I decided to give the artist a call to learn more about his take on this very playful and evocative show. Woodruff was very cordial and sincere, saying, “I’ve always been a sort of outsider to the “highbrow” art world. Even in lowbrow circles, which can sometimes be a bit macho, as a gay male artist, my work wasn’t really accepted. My aesthetic is based on things that have an equation to the feminist, combining knarly tattoo inspired imagery with decorative high art nouveau [a sentiment which is echoed in the combination of both masculine and feminine features on the Heads as well]. In this topsy-turvy age, the idea of looking at issues of gender, race, and country seems so important, and doing so in a nurturing, community oriented way is what I try to do with my work.” The show will be up until November 15th. Don’t miss this one, folks!

(Thomas Woodruff, Venus, The object of affection/ The demon of lust , 2007-2008, acrylic on black silk velvet with motor, 40 x 40 inches. Courtesy of P.P.O.W.)

This Saturday, October 18th, Postmasters Gallery will be opening Summertale, a new video and series of photographs by artist, Katarzyna Kozyra. This exhibition is the last segment of Kozyra’s In Art Dreams Come True project which has combined music, video, photography, and performance in its examination of gender stereotypes and taboos. Check out this exhibition before it closes on November 15th.

(Katarzyna Kozyra, Image from Summertale. Courtesy of Postmasters Gallery.)

Penetralia just opened at Sadie Coles HQ in London. This exhibition features the sculpture of artist Sarah Lucas. Open for viewing until November 15th, Penetralia combines plaster casts of flint and penises, using this marriage to reference stone tools and the origins of power.

(Sarah Lucas, Image from Penetralia. Courtesy of Sadie Coles HQ.)

The Daneyal Mahmood Gallery in Manhattan just opened Meat after Meat Joy, including works by Sheffy Bleier, Lauren Bockow, Adam Brandejs, Tania Bruguera, Nezaket Ekici, Anthony Fisher, Betty Hirst, Zhang Huan, Tamara Kostianovsky, Simone Racheli, David Raymond, Dieter Roth, Carolee Schneemann, Stephen J. Shanabrook, Jana Sterbak, Jenny Walton, and Pinar Yolacan. This exhibition, named after Carolee Schneemann’s 1964 performance, Meat Joy, considers how meat as a medium is perceived by today’s viewer, in today’s world. This exhibition will be open until November 15th.

(Jana Sterbak, Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic, 1987-2006. Flank steak, mannequin, salt, thread, color photograph on paper. Dress size: 38. Courtesy of the artist.)

Berlinde De Bruyckere just opened at Yvon Lambert in Manhattan. In this exhibition, Bruyckere’s incredible sculpture is simultaneously beautiful and abject, conveying the essence of bodily form and gender. This is Bruyckere’s first solo exhibition in the United States and it will be on view until November 15th.

(Berlinde De Bruyckere, Pieta, 2008, wax epoxy metal wood. 238 inches high x 64 inches in diameter. Courtesy of Yvon Lambert Gallery.)

As part of our public programs this week, Sonia Ossorio, President of the National Organization of Women, will be giving a talk this Sunday, October 19th. Check out the event info here!

CLOSING this week…
Its your last chance to catch Ghada Amer: Love Has No End in the main galleries of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art before it closes this Sunday! Stay tuned for some post-exhibition reflections from the artist on the blog next week.

As part of September public programming here at the Center for Feminist Art, Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh stopped by the Forum on Saturday, September 20th to discuss their evolving body of collaborative works with moderator Laurie Ann Farrell, the Executive Director of Exhibitions at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Both artists began the talk with a showing of An Indigestible Dessert, 2008, a recent video recording of a performance by Amer and Farkhondeh, featuring the creation of a cake with the imprints of Tony Blair and George W. Bush, and its eventual destruction via a sledgehammer wielding Amer that left the audience captivated and hungry…for more of their art that is! During the screening of the video, an amused Amer fiddled with the strand of thread attached to her museum badge, reminding the audience of her numerous embroidered creations only footsteps away in the galleries.

(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!