Community: feminist.bloggers@brooklynmuseum

Echo just opened Tuesday at Cheim and Reid and features recent work by the unparalleled feminist artist, Louise Bourgeois. This exhibition features a collection of her recent sculptural work, cast from discarded clothing, and also a series of wet on wet goaches that depict the processes of motherhood. Echo will be open to the public until November 1st.

(Louise Bourgeois, Installation view of Echo, 2008. Courtesy of Cheim and Reid.)

The Guerilla Girls and Brainstormers invaded Chelsea this past weekend!!! A veritable street action for feminists and anti-feminists alike, participants were invited to fill out postcards mad lib style and distribute them to all galleries showing mostly male art. Anyone who thinks that feminist art exhibitions have become too plentiful and are a sign of discrimination against male artists were invited to join the picket line of the newly formed protest group MAN (Male Art Now). Did you participate in the Guerrilla Girls/Brainstormers action? If so, we want to hear about it! Please share your comments with us below!

(Mad libs and picket signs for the invasion of Chelsea. Image courtesy of Kathe Kallowitz.)

This Tuesday, September 16th, NYU’s Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality will be hosting a talk titled (Un)Patriot Acts: Art, Activism and State Power from the ‘Culture Wars’ to the ‘War on Terror’. Artists Karen Finley, Chitra Ganesh, Miriam Ghani, Steve Kurtz, and Rebecca Schneider and moderator Karen Shimakawa will discuss the politics of art and art-making in a post-9/11 society. This event is open to the public and will begin at 7pm at Jurow Hall, Silver Center, at 31 Washington Place on the first floor.

(Chitra Ganesh. The Awakening, 2004. Courtesy of the artist.)

Nalini Malani’s latest exhibition Listening to the Shades opens this Thursday, September 18th at the Arario Gallery in Manhattan. This exhibition features Malani’s recent work, forty-two new paintings and a sound installation based on the Greek myth of Cassandra, a symbol for the unfinished business of the feminist movement.

(Nalini Malani, Medea III, 2006, Acrylic and enamel reverse painting on acrylic sheet. Courtesy of Arario Gallery.)

New Blood, an exhibition including the art of Nao Bustamante, opened at Vertex List in Greenpoint, Brooklyn this past Saturday. Bustamante is a performance and video artist, and in the past has collaborated with the likes of legendary performance artist Coco Fusco. At the opening, Bustamante kept the packed gallery mesmerized with her piece, “Given Over to Want,” a twenty minute solo that explored issues of waste, consumption, and gender. The work of artists Sasha Dela, Sergio De La Torre, Double Happiness, Sujin Lee, Jeanne Verdoux and Lance Wakeling will also be featured in this exhibition which will be up until Sunday, October 12th.

(Nao Bustamante, Given Over to Want, 2008, performance, 20 min. Courtesy of Vertex List.)

(Joan Snyder, A Girl’s Life, 2008. acrylic, herbs, rosebuds, velvet, on burlap, 36 inches x 48 inches.)

Prominent feminist artist Joan Snyder has an exhibition of her political paintings on view at the Danforth Museum in Farmingham, MA through November 23rd, and will be giving an artist’s talk this Sunday, September 21 at noon. Check out the Museum’s website for more info!

The video of the Guerrilla Girls performing and accepting their award at the Brooklyn Museum’s fifth annual Women in the Arts event on November 9th, 2007 is now posted! Included in the video is a “Q&A” session with the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center’s very own (and an honorary Guerrilla Girl herself) Maura Reilly. Thank you to the Guerrilla Girls for giving such an inspiring and eye opening presentation, and thank you Robert Nardi for making the video available to the public!

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In 2002, the Brooklyn Museum’s Community Committee established a tremendous award to celebrate women artists, patrons, curators, collectors, and critics whose contributions have had a positive impact in the areas of arts and culture. Keeping in step with the aims of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, the Women in the Arts Committee acknowledges individuals who have been influential to the ongoing advancement of women and the visual arts. Previous recipients of the award include Annie Leibovitz, Maya Lin, Dr. Mary Schmidt Campbell, and our own Elizabeth A. Sackler. Although the Center has no involvement with the selection of potential Women in the Arts honorees, we are delighted to share that the Museum will be presenting this year’s award to The Guerrilla Girls, a group of fabulous women who have made an enormous contribution to the formation of feminist discussions in the contemporary art world.

I saw one of their performance lectures at the Feminist Future Symposium at The Museum of Modern Art earlier this year (video above), and I can tell you it was an electrifying experience to share a moment of their feminist history. What I find is really awesome about this program is that guests will have an opportunity to speak with members of the Guerrilla Girls in person at the reception. Check out all the details on our website.