Community: feminist.bloggers@brooklynmuseum

re.act.feminism: performance art of the 1960s and 70s today just opened at Akademie der Künste in Berlin. Looking back to the 1960’s and 70’s, but also exploring how feminist art has made a resurgence today, this show features a video archive, an exhibition, and live performances by an international group of artists. If you are in the area, make sure to check this one out before it closes February 8th.

(Boryana Rossa and Ultrafuturo, SZ-ZS Performance, 2005. Courtesy of Akademie der Künste.)

Located in the bedroom of artist Blanka Amezkua, Bronx Blue Room Project has shown one artist per month in this non-traditional art space. This month, Jessica Lagunas shows her installation, “Días Especiales” (Special Days), which consists of a full size sheet fitted to Blanka’s bed with a collection of biopsy images of different days in a woman’s menstrual cycle. Menstruation, so often seen as something dirty that is to be hidden, will be represented positively in Amezkua’s bedroom until December 29th.

(Jessica Lagunas, “Días especiales” (Special Days), New York, 2007-8, Print on Fabric: Etching, Image Size: 6.25” x 6”, Full fitted sheet: 54” x 76” x 13”. Courtesy of the artist.)

This Saturday, December 20th, will mark the last day of Geoffrey Chadsey’s solo-exhibition at Jack Shainman Gallery in Manhattan. Chadsey offers up a collection of watercolor and pencil portraits of gay men based on self-portrait photographs he discovered on the internet in this intriguing show. Get on over there before its too late!

(Geoffrey Chadsey, Mirror Barbasol, Watercolor pencil on mylar, 68 x 42 inches. Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery.)

Comfort Women Wanted is still up around town in this final weekend before the holidays. This project was launched earlier this month by artist Chang-Jin Lee in an attempt to raise awareness of sexual violence towards women in times of war, and also to honor the memory of the thousands of women who were exploited in Asia during World War II. Keep a lookout for the advertising style posters created by Lee that can still be seen all over the city.

(Chang-Jin Lee, Poster from Comfort Women Wanted, 2008. Courtesy of the artist.)

The legendary Cindy Sherman has a solo-exhibition in its final days at Metro Pictures in Manhattan. This show features Sherman’s most recent work, an exploration of how the self perception and ideas of beauty distort as we age. This exhibition closes December 23rd.

(Cindy Sherman, Untitled, 2008, color photograph, 70 x 63.5 inches (frame). Courtesy of Metro Pictures.)

In her second exhibition at Zach Feuer Gallery, Nathalie Djurberg presents a sculptural installation and a new stop-animation film. The film features a claymation ballerina dancing through a handmade Neo-Baroque tea set in this exploration of racism, sex, and the macabre. Eventually overpowered by the objects themselves, the ballerina drowns tragically in dripping candle wax. This show will be up until January 24th.

(Nathalie Djurberg, Still from I found myself alone, 2008. Clay animation, digital video. Music by Hans Berg. Courtesy of Zach Feuer Gallery.)

OPENING…

Our own The Fertile Goddess, co-curated by Maura Reilly, founding curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, and Madeleine Cody, Research Associate in Egyptian, Classical, and Ancient Middle Eastern Art, Brooklyn Museum, opened TODAY in the Herstory Gallery! Visit the blog next week for more on this show!

The Empire Trilogy recently opened at Luxe Gallery, featuring the work of artist Heather Bennett. Bennett’s unnerving triumvirate of a fifties-esque housewife, a female lumberjack, and a wicked witch of sorts are presented to the viewer as video portraits accompanied by a droning soundtrack. Definitely not for the faint of heart, this exhibition will be open until December 23rd .

(Heather Bennett, Locks & Hocks, 2008, production still. Courtesy of Luxe Gallery.)

Opening last month at Flomenhaft Gallery, Sonia Benjamin’s solo exhibition, Lilith in the New World is a combination of Indian comics, Persian miniatures, illuminated manuscripts, and lore. Benjamin pulls from multiple faiths to create the contemporary Lilith, a woman asking still for freedom, justice, and equality. This exhibition will be on view until December 6th.

(Siona Benjamin, Directions on How to Wear an Indian Jewish Sari, 2005, etching, aquatint and digital print on paper. Courtesy of Flomenhaft Gallery.)

Following the veil throughout history and it’s various contexts, Union Art Gallery at the University of Milwaukee presents The Veil: Visible and Invisible Spaces. Curated by Jennifer Heath, this group exhibition features the work of twenty-nine different artists and several interesting events. Check it out if you are in the area before it closes December 12th.

(Anita Kunz, Girls Will Be Girls, 2007. Courtesy of Union Art Gallery.)

Ernesto Pujol: Inheriting Salt opened just last week at Ramis Barquet. Influenced by feminist art and theory, Pujol explores themes of loss and brokenness in this current exhibition. Pujol has invited three women artists, Stephanie Diamond, Rosemarie Padovano, and Joy Whalen, to share their photography and video work in conjunction with this exhibition. Inheriting Salt closes December 23rd.

(Ernesto Pujol, from Inheriting Salt exhibition. Courtesy of Ramis Barquet.)

Burning Down the House artist and good friend of the Brooklyn Museum,Joyce Kozloff’s most recent solo exhibition opened last month at Trout Gallery in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Kozloff has been involved in the feminist art movement since the seventies, and this new exhibition, Co+Ordinates, focuses on cartography and borders which serve as a metaphor for other divisions in culture, the mental, and the physical. This show will be on view until January 10th.

(Joyce Kozloff, Targets (detail), 2000, acrylic on canvas over wood. Courtesy of the Trout Gallery.)

The Greenroom: Reconsidering the Documentary and Contemporary Art is CCS Bard Galleries and Hessel Museum of Art in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. This show features a wide variety of feminist artists including such greats as Valie Export, Nan Goldin, Ana Mendieta, Mona Hatoum, Jenny Holzer, Kiki Smith, Cindy Sherman, Martha Rosler, Mary Kelley…the list really goes on and on. Head on over before this gem closes on February 1st.

(Installation view of The Greenroom: Reconsidering the Documentary and Contemporary Art. Courtesy of CSS Bard.)

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.)