Community: feminist.bloggers@brooklynmuseum

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.)

Cindy Sherman, the incomparable feminist photographer will be honored tomorrow as part of the Brooklyn Museum’s annual Women in the Arts Luncheon! Sherman’s work was invaluable to the feminist art movement in the late seventies, forcing viewers to consider the significance of “the gaze” in Western culture. Through the use of costumes and role-play in her self-portraiture, Sherman helped to redefine the notion of gender as something performed rather than innate. Women in the Arts 2008 will celebrate her contributions to feminist art during the awards presentation tomorrow, followed by a reception and luncheon.

This event coincides with the current exhibition here at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Burning Down the House: Building a Feminist Art Collection, which includes Sherman’s Untitled (detail), 1975/2004, an early photograph that precludes Sherman’s famous Untitled Film Stills series by two years and references the gender bending, surrealist photographer Claude Cahun. For information on Women in the Arts 2008, click here.

(Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954). Untitled (detail), 1975/2004. C-print. Printer Charles Griffin, Inc. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Linda S. Ferber, 2005.10. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures.)

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!

Offering up a rarely seen side of Hannah Wilke, the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, NY, just opened Hannah Wilke: Gestures. The show covers Wilke’s early sculptural work in ceramics and attempts to show the influence of these early experiments on her later work. This exhibition will be on view until January 25th.

(Hannah Wilke, Fork and Spoon, 1974. Kneaded erasers, metal utensils, 7 3/8 inches, fork, 7 1/4 inches, spoon. Courtesy of Neuberger Museum of Art.)

This Monday, October 27th, feminist artist Chitra Ganesh will be participating in “The Skeptics,” a panel discussion at the New York Theatre Workshop in Manhattan, presented by Full Spectrum. Ganesh, along with the other participating panelists, including writer Faith Adiele, transmedia artist Ebon Fisher, writer/musician Kyle Jarrow, and filmmaker Helen Whitney, and moderator Jennifer Michael Hecht, will be investigating the roles of doubt and faith in the search for meaning.

(Chitra Ganesh, Furious Faze, from Restless Magicians and Forgotten Fugitives installation, 2008, photograph, 14 x 20 inches. Courtesy of the artist.)

Floating World: New Paintings by Duston Spear is in its last week at Sara Tecchia Roma Gallery in Manhattan. Inspired by such greats as Joan Snyder and Lee Krasner in this latest series, Spear embraces both repetition and the decorative in her painted collages which portray the divisiveness of battle. This show closes October 31st.

(Duston Spear, Yasmina, 2008, Oil, collage, spray paint on canvas, 67” X 76”. Courtesy of the artist.)

Women’s Work? Two Exhibitions Looking at Women’s Bodies of/as Work is currently on view at the Berman Museum at Ursinus College. This intriguing exhibition combines the work of 19th century quilt makers with the work of contemporary textile artists Tamar Stone and Christine LoFaso. This exhibition will be up until December 7th.

(Tamar Stone, The Vital System, “Good Sense,” “Little Beauty”, with detail (right), c. 2000. Artist’s book made from doll corset, embroidery. Courtesy of the artist.)

Yoko Ono’s Fly will be closing this Sunday October 26th, at the Centre for Contemporary Art at Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw. This exhibition includes Fly, 1970, a 25 min film, as well as two new works, Telephone piece for Warsaw, 2008 and Memory Painting, 2008.

(Yoko Ono, still from Fly, 1970, 25 min film. Courtesy of Centre for Contemporary Art at Ujazdowski Castle.)

The Andrea Rosen Gallery opens Willem de Kooning, Lucio Fontana, Eva Hesse this Saturday, October 25th. This show includes some of Eva Hesse’s early paintings from the 1950’s and ‘60s. Don’t miss the chance to see the work of this historic artist!

(Eva Hesse, No title, c. 1962, Oil on canvas, 49.5 x 49.5 inches. Courtesy of Andrea Rosen Gallery.)

Also, be sure to check out “Lesbian Art and Artists in New York City”, the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art’s panel discussion this Saturday, October 25th, featuring artists from the Astraea Lesbian Foundation. For more information, click here!

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.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art just opened a new photography exhibition on Tuesday, featuring artist Shigeyuki Kihara. Similarly to artist Yasumasa Morimura, Kihara puts herslf into various roles in her self-porature, often blurring the lines of gender. Kihara was born in Samoa, where it she is considered Fa’a fafine, the official third gender. Fa’a fafine means “in the manner of a woman” in Samoan and is specific to children born male who later take up the gender roles of women. The exhibition, Shigeyuki Kihara: Living Photographs, will be on view at the Met until February 1st.

(Shigeyuki Kihara, Fa’a fafine: In the Manner of a Woman, 2004-05, C-type photograph, edition of, 5, 80 x 60 cm, photograph: coylehall, post production: coylehall & Bronga Rhind Eglese. Courtesy of Sherman Galleries.)
Assemblage opens this Saturday, October 11th, at Galerie Laurent Godin in Paris. The show will feature the work of Scoli Acosta, Lamarche et Ovize, Corinne Marchetti, Vincent Olinet, and Hsia-Fei Chang. Hsia-Fei Chang contributed a performance titled Strawberry Wine to Global Feminisms here at the Brooklyn Museum in 2007. This feminist performance artist also does photography and installation, so if you happen to be around in the next month, Assemblage will be up until November 15th!

(Hsia-Fei Chang, Strawberry Wine, Performance at the Brooklyn Museum, March 25, 2007, for Global Feminisms. Image courtesy of the artist.)

Surface Library in Easthampton, New York, just opened Figuratively Speaking, a group exhibition featuring the work of Abby Abrams, Ann Brandeis, Eunice Golden, Barbara Groot, Richard MacDonald, Jerry Schwabe, and Thomas J. Shelford. This dedicated feminist artist and activist was a founder of Soho20, a women artist-run gallery here in New York in 1973. Her body-landscape painting was quite controversial at that time, shunned by many museums and galleries. This exhibition will be on view until November 2nd.

(Eunice Golden. CRUCIFIXION #1, 1969. Courtesy of the artist.)

MANEATER just opened at Deitch Projects on Grand Street in Manhattan. This solo exhibition by Aurel Schmidt takes some of the more abject elements in nature, as well as society’s waste, and uses them to transform Grecian busts, portraits, and Modernist works. This exhibition will be up until November 1st. Also, at Deitch Projects in Long Island City tonight, there will be a talk with Swoon, Ann Messner and Kiki Smith, moderated by Carlo McCormick. The talk will be from 7-9pm, and will cover Swoon’s current exhibition, Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea and Todd Chandler’s upcoming film FLOOD, shot from Swoon’s sculptural boats.

(Aurel Schmidt, Medusa, 2007, Pencil on paper, 18 x 28 inches. Courtesy of Deitch Projects.)

Paula Wilson’s first solo exhibition in New York opens today at Bellwether Gallery. The Stained Glass Ceiling features Wilson’s work over the past three years, during which time she used printmaking, painting, and collage to question the role of the decorative in the lives of women and art. The Stained Glass Ceiling will be up until November 15th.

(Paula Wilson, Lady, 2008, 120 x 72 inches, Mixed media on paper mounted to canvas with wood slats. Courtesy of Bellwether Galley.)

Don’t forget feminist artist and author Sabra Moore is giving a talk in the Forum this Saturday from 2-4pm! She will be discussing her new book, ON THE MOVE: A Memoir of the Women’s Art Movement, in conjunction with the exhibition, Migrate, that she just organized for Gallery 128 in Manhattan. Click here for more info!

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In last Sunday’s panel discussion, “The American Hero and the American Dream: Reflections on Our Contemporary Political Narratives,” moderator and well-known author Courtney E. Martin was joined by panelists Charlton McIlwain, Assistant Professor of Culture and Communication at New York University; Gloria Feldt, author and blogger at Heartfeldt Politics; and Ramin Hedayati, associate producer of The Daily Show for an in-depth examination of the narratives and images that dominate the media, campaigns, and candidates during this election season. If you missed this important discussion, check out the program in the following video!

Never Has She Ever: Renée Cox just opened last week at the Mabel Smith Douglass Library Galleries at Rutgers. This unflappable feminist artist sparked controversy in 2001, when her photograph, Yo Mama’s Last Supper was shown here at the Brooklyn Museum. Today, Cox continues to use self-portraiture in her artwork to reclaim the African-American body, and invert stereotypes of women. This show runs until December 8th.

(Renée Cox, Lolivya (BW), from the series, Queen Nanny of the Maroons, 2004. 
Digital ink-jet print on watercolor paper, 53 x 43″. Courtesy of the artist.)

A retrospective of the work of Audrey Flack is in it’s last weeks at LewAllen Contemporary. Audrey Flack: Abstract Expressionist to Photo-Realist includes works by the artist from 1949 to 1977. This lone female pioneer of the photo-realist movement has spent recent years creating monumental statues of female goddesses with the hope of offsetting the overabundance of male monumental statuary. Audrey Flack: Abstract Expressionist to Photo-Realist closes October 12th.

(Audrey Flack , Matzo Meal, 1962. Oil On Canvas, 14.5 in x 18.5 in. Courtesy of LewAllen Contemporary.)

NOISE: New Works by Marilyn Henrion opened yesterday at Noho Gallery. This artist’s dedication to textile art is exemplified in her quilted artworks of the past. Henrion continues her commitment with this exhibition, taking up rug hooking as her new media. This show runs until October 25th.

(Marilyn Henrion, Cornerstone, 2008. Courtesy of the Artist.)

Overflow opens at Laconia Gallery in Boston on October 3rd. This exibition features artists Sara Hairston-Medice, Mary O’Malley, and Resa Blateman. These three women embrace nature and the decorative in their artwork, at times using reproductive imagery and embracing stereotypically feminine mediums in their work. If you’re in the area, mosey on over before this one closes on November 22.

(Mary O’Malley, Untitled, 2008, ink on paper, (detail). Courtesy of Laconia Gallery.)

Catherine Opie: American Photographer just opened at the Guggenheim. This exhibition features artwork by this feminist artist from the 1990’s through today. Opie’s photography deals with queer politics and the American landscape, and her work was show as part of Global Feminisms here at the Center. Catherine Opie: American Photographer will be on view until January 7th.

(Catherine Opie, Justin Bond, 1993. Chromogenic print, edition of 8, 20 x 16 inches. Courtesy of the Guggenheim.)

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!