Community: feminist.bloggers@brooklynmuseum

In light of the recent protests surrounding the Iranian election, the opening this Friday of Iran Inside Out: Influences of Homeland and Diaspora on the Artistic Language of 56 Contemporary Iranian Artists at the Chelsea Art Museum couldn’t have been more synchronistic in its timing. The show features the artwork of feminist artists Shirin Neshat, Sara Rahbar, Samira Abbassy among others, and will be open until September 5th.

(Shirin Aliabada and Fahrad Moshiri, Intifada Laundry Liquid and Hejab Barbie, Operation Supermarket Series, 2006, Ink Jet Print, both 75 x 100 cm. Courtesy of Chelsea Art Museum.)

The Female Gaze: Women Look at Women, opening this Thursday, June 25th at Cheim & Read seeks to give a varied significance to the female figure in art by presenting a group of women artists depicting the female form. With works from several generations ranging from Julia Margaret Cameron to Ghada Amer this show is a must see for you. Yes, you.

(Berenice Abbott , Mme. Theodore van Rysselberghe, 1926-30 , Vintage gelatin silver print, 10 x 8 in. Courtesy of Cheim & Read.)

Cindy Workman: The Women is currently up at Lennon, Weinberg, Inc. This retrospective of Workman’s art from the nineties up to today demonstrates her commitment to the investigation of sexuality, body image and social identity in her artwork. This show closes August 14th.

(Cindy Workman, Pebbles, 2003, 51 x 40-3/4″, unique digital print, plexiglass and frame. Courtesy of Lennon, Weinberg, Inc.)

The artwork of Tracey Goodman, Kyung Jeon, Shiri Mordechay, Habby Osk, Rocio Rodriguez Salceda, and Joanna M. Wezyk will be featured in an upcoming exhibition at Tina Kim Gallery that opens June 25th. The show, titled I Stepped Into the Room, is named for the final line of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, and has unifying attributes which center around identity and relation to physical space. This show closes September 12th.

(Rocio Rodriguez Salceda, Agujero Negro 2, 2008, Pigmented print, 16 x 12 inches. Courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery.)

Declaration of Independence: 50 Years of Art by Faith Ringgold is in its last week at the Mason Gross School of the Arts Galleries at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. This retrospective of Ringgold’s work closes Friday, so check it out before it’s too late!

(Faith Ringgold, Working Women (detail), 1996, Acrylic on canvas, 41 x 31 inches. Courtesy of the Institute for Women and Art at Rutgers.)

Fever Dreams at the Crystal Motel is currently up at Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects. This solo-exhibition of the video and photographic work of Laurel Nakadate can be quite unsettling, particularly her Lucky Tiger series, which documents a performance involving anonymous middle-aged men enlisted via Craigslist, 1950s style camera club photos, and fingerprinting ink. The show closes July 24th.

(Laurel Nakadate, Lucky Tiger #3, 2009, Type-C print and fingerprinting ink, 4” x 6”. Courtesy of Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects.)

Structured Simplicity just opened at Dumbo Arts Center in Brooklyn. Bringing together the work of Mai Braun, Hilary Harnischfeger, Elana Herzog, Fabienne Lasserre, and Amy Yoes, this exhibition seeks to convey how structures take shape using various different approaches and materials, from shredded bed-linens and deconstructed garments to the New York Times.

(Amy Yoes, Modification and Collapse, 2009. Video loop. Courtesy of Dumbo Arts Center.)

Tracey Emin: Those who suffer Love is currently up at White Cube in London. Emin, who had a piece in both Burning Down the House: Building a Feminist Art Collection and Global Feminisms here at the Center, has timed Those who suffer Love to coincide with her new book, titled One Thousand Drawings. The show closes July 4th.

(Those who suffer Love exhibition announcement image. Courtesy of White Cube.)

Through her use of unusual materials such as face powder, spray tan, and lipstick, Karla Black creates an oppositional approach to Minimalist Art in her solo-exhibition, currently up at Migros Musuem in Zürich. The show closes August 16th, so if you are in the area, check it out!

(Karla Black, Principals of Admitting (2009), plaster powder, powder paint, sugar paper, spray tan, chalk, concealer stick. Courtesy of Migros Museum.)

Rachel Harrison: Consider the Lobster opens this Saturday, June 27th, at CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art. This 10 year survey of Harrison’s work will be displayed in conjunction with a re-installation of works from the Marieluise Hessel Collection, chosen by Harrison and a group of invited artists including Nayland Blake, who was recently included in Burning down the House: Building a Feminist Art Collection. The show will be open until December 20th.

(Consider the Lobster exhibition announcement image. Courtesy of CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art.)

Black Madonna, a group show currently up at HP Garcia Gallery, focuses on how one perceives the body in a corporate, celebrity-obsessed culture, seeking to balance the masculine and feminine. This exhibition closes August 1st.

(Marissa Soroudi, Jules, 2009, Photograph in lightbox, 40” x 20”. Courtesy of HP Garcia Gallery.)

At times feminist, anti-corporate, surreal, or simply humorous, the work of artist Amélie Chunleau will be included in a group show opening at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center (CSV) Thursday, June 25th. Presented by Sweethearts and Spies, The Gnomon includes the work of nine emerging contemporary artists and a performance by Cleo Fischl.

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

The Centre Pompidou in Paris just opened elles@centrepompidou: Women artists in the Collections of the Centre Pompidou. Including over 500 works by 200 women artists, this exhibition is divided into sections with  titles like Pioneers, Free Fire, Body Slogan, The Activist Body, A Room of One’s Own, Woodworks, and Immaterials in order to represent a chronology of artwork by women from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day.

(Pipilotti Rist, À la belle étoile, 2007, (détail), installation audiovisuelle. Courtesy of the Centre Pompidou.)

Feminist performance and body art pioneer Manon currently has an exhibition up at the Swiss Institute of Contemporary Art in Manhattan. Titled simply, Manon, this retrospective of her work will be on view to the public until June 30th and will include the very first exhibition of her pieces The End of Lola Montez and The Salmon-Colored Boudoir outside of Switzerland.

(Manon, She Was Once Miss Rimini, projection still, 2003. Courtesy of the Swiss Institute of Contemporary Art, New York.)

Curated by Joan Weber, Masked is currently up at School 33 Art Center in Baltimore. Participating artists, including Brooklyn Museum collection artist Bailey Doogan, have used their own bodies or biographies to convey secrecy in this exhibition. The show closes June 27th.

(Masked exhibition announcement image. Courtesy of School 33 Art Center.)

Making Worlds, the 53rd International Art Exhibition opened on June 7th in Venice. The show, directed by Daniel Birnbaum, will feature the work of some 90 artists including that of Susan Hefuna, Joan Jonas, Miranda July, Natalie Djurburg and Yoko Ono. A record of 77 countries will be participating in this year’s Venice Biennial, which will be open to the public until November 22, 2009.

(Susan Hefuna. 4 women-4 views made in Egypt, 2001. Courtesy of the artist.)

Closing Thursday, June 11th, at The Women Made Gallery in Chicago is Lily Mayfield- Intimate Distance. Mayfield’s series of photographs challenges what it means to be “home” by exploring the contradicting desires for intimacy and separateness from those with whom we live.

(Lily Mayfield, Coffee in Bed, archival inkjet print, 20x 30 inches. Courtesy of Women Made Gallery.)

Sketch in Stitch, a solo-exhibition of the work of Shizuko Kimura will be opening at Noho Gallery on June 9th in Manhattan. Fusing textile art with figure drawing, Kimura explores the subtlety of line and form through her use of thread as a medium. Her drawings, executed without preliminary sketches or the aid of photographs, capture the immediacy of the gestures and figures, and can redefine traditional bodily aesthetics. This show closes on June 27th.

(Exhibition announcement image for Sketch in Stitch. Image courtesy of Noho Gallery.)

Open Source Embroidery just opened at Bildmuseet in Sweden. Traversing the link between craft and code, this exhibition features collectively and individually made artworks that examine cultural participation in technologies both old and new. This show will be up until September 6th, so if you are in the area, head on over!

(Becky Stern, LilyPad Arduino Embroidery: A Tribute to Leah Buechley, 2008. Courtesy of BildMuseet.)

Sadie Benning currently has a video up at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Benning has a history of questioning gender and sexuality in her artwork. In this new video, titled Play Pause, she cuts together hundreds of her own gouache drawings of urban landscapes, figures, and abstractions, and uses split-screen and color filters to convey the heightened sense of perception surrounding loss. This exhibition closes September 20th.

(Sadie Benning, drawing for Play Pause, 2001-06. Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art.)

Currently up at the Museum for Contemporary African Diaspora Arts in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn, is a group show featuring five women artists titled, Perspectives: Women, Art and Islam. Fariba Alam, Zoulikha Bouabdellah, Mahwish Chisty, Safaa Erruas, and Nsenga Knight all share a connection to Islam through their various cultural backgrounds which they channel into their artwork. This exhibition ends September 13th.

(Exhibition announcement for Perspectives: Women, Art, and Islam. Courtesy of MoCADA.)

Feminist artist Cristina Biaggi currently has a show up at Ceres Gallery. Cristina Biaggi, A Collage Retrospective: Political Collages from 1977 – Present, will be up through this Saturday, June 13th. Check out Biaggi’s artist page, coming soon to the Feminist Art Base!

(Cristina Biaggi, At Last 1, Color collage on wood triptych, 22″ x 17″, 2009. Courtesy of Ceres Gallery.)

The Other Half of the Sky, an exhibition of the photographic and video work of feminist artist Lili Almog, is currently up at the Andrea Meislin Gallery in Manhattan. Almog’s work in this show focuses on the extraordinary situation of Muslim women and matriarchal societies in China. Check it out before it closes this Saturday, June 13th.

(Lili Almog, Lugu Woman #3, 2007,Chromogenic color print. Courtesy of Andrea Meislin Gallery.)

Kol Ishah, In Her Voice / Elle prend la parole is currently up at the Emet Gallery in Hampstead, Quebec. This exhibition features the work of Lucy Levine, Melissa Shiff, and Devora Neumark. The three artists attempt to reclaim and rewrite aspects surrounding Jewish marriage rituals in this show, which closes September 7th.

(Promotional imagery from Kol Ishah, In Her Voice / Elle prend la parole. Courtesy Emet Gallery.)

Don’t forget, Patricia Cronin: “Harriet Hosmer, Lost and Found” just opened in the Herstory gallery here at the museum-make some time in the coming weeks to see this one!

Also, a big thank you to our newest intern here at the Center, Nina Pelaez, for contributing to this week’s picks!

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.)

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!