Tell me more.
This artist, Chakaia Booker, is known for sculptures made from repurposed tires. Her use of tires is a reference to industrialization, consumerism, and environmental impacts. She likens the tires' surface to human skin in the way that they age, wear, and bear scars.
What is the relationship between Thomas and the models?
Thomas typically works with friends and family members as models for her paintings and photographs. Madame Mama Bush is Thomas's own mother, Sandra Bush. Bush herself worked as a fashion model in the 1970s.
Thomas has said: “I believe that the sitter has the power (or more power than I have) over what’s being presented. I’m not overly choreographing the women I work with; I’m really trying to capture a quality within them. They are presenting to me, through their lens, how they want to be represented."
What are Spero’s specific references and how has she rewritten their story?
Spero means to "construct a simultaneity of women through time." She said: "The history of women I envision is neither linear nor sequential. I try...to show that it all has reverberations for us today. And then it makes sense." In “Fertility Totem,” she reproduces image from Prehistoric, Ancient Greek, and Australian Aboriginal traditions including a woman masturbating with dildos as an act of bodily autonomy based on a kylix in the collection of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. “Hieratic” includes images of Egyptian goddesses including Nut, one of Spero's favorites. She often used this stamp of Nut with additional breasts, a nod to the she-wolf that raised Romulus and Remus, to emphasize her maternal and powerful role.
What is the significance of blue mush in the Nestle box?
Pop artists like Strider frequently used commercialized packaging or other ubiquitous imagery in their work to question the nature of fine art. The blue mush (or any color mush, for that matter), here, is something specific to Strider's work. This two-dimensional work is based on three-dimensional works she created by allowing urethane foam to rupture and freely expand from packages. It sort of suggests she can't be contained by societal norms.
Aaaah! My daughter thought it was smoke!
I can see why! In reality, the foam would have poured out in a similar way!
These posters are incredible; it’s amazing that the most recent one is from 1997 and they all remain so relevant. How did the curators make their decision and narrow it down from 50 posters?
Aren't they?! The Guerrilla Girls were founded in in NY in 1985 in direct response to an exhibition at MoMa and to protest gender and racial discrimination in the art word. Many of their points remain relevant to institutions today, it’s true.
As for how they narrowed it down, I believe the answer has to do with the ones which resonate even today, as you noticed. The current social and political climate was a major factor in the selection of all of the artworks for “Half the Picture.” This exhibition was actually named for one of the posters, the one which reads “You're seeing less than half the picture without the vision of women artists and artists of color.
Looking at it now!
It's so simple but communicates its point graphically and effectively.
What does this mean? Is the collective still creating new work, but online?
In 2001, the Guerrilla girls evolved into three separate wings to accommodate their broadening interests: Guerrilla Girls, Guerrilla Girls Broadband and Guerrilla Girls On Tour.
Guerrilla Girls BroadBand is one of those sister organizations who take advantage of web based technologies to convey their message.
Oh awesome! Thanks for the info!
Could you please tell me more about this work?
Simpson is known for juxtaposing text with her photographs to address cultural and historical conceptions of gender and race.
In this work, she presents us with images of an African American woman, a brick hut, and braids, each of which is underscored by counting.The meaning is deliberately open ended, forcing the viewer to puzzle out it’s possible meanings.
Yeah the piece really makes you want to decipher it. Like the time ranges too. It’s tough to take myself away from it. I just want to figure it out. It definitely leaves an impression and makes you think!
Exactly. The work is likely making a reference to women’s labor and slavery. The time slots could imply workshifts. The texts on either side of the house allude to the beginning of slavery when the smokehouse was once used as a slave hut. Finally, the bottom register makes a direct reference to black hair.
What's the breakdown between male and female artists in this exhibition?
I don’t know why, but I figured that the show would be all female artists, but I see Andy Warhol and I know Philip Pearlstein is here as well.
It looks like 13 of the 74 artists/collectives represented in the exhibition are male.
That being said, the show takes a feminist look at the collection from an intersectional perspective also touching on issues of race, gender, sexuality, and class. The male artists’ works in this show touch on those subject in one way or another.
Ah, I see. That makes total sense. I appreciate the intersectional perspective. Something else that needs to keep happening with feminism today. The show is so timely!
I'm glad you think so! It's what the curators were going for and I think they succeeded amazingly!
What’s the meaning of this?
The artist, Betty Tompkins, painted a series of these "Fuck Paintings" in the 1970s based on images from her husband's pornography collection. As a woman recreating these images she meant to reclaim sexualized imagery from the patriarchy. She's also making a joke with the title, saying "fuck painting" by using airbrush painting rather than gestural paintbrush work, and pornographic sources rather than vaunted subjects!
Her sentiments, however, were not popular at the time. She saw these paintings as a way for a woman to reclaim ownership of her own body, but many feminists saw it as a betrayal and as playing into the existing power structures.
How old is this?
Teti lived around 1339-1307 BCE, so about 3300 years ago.
