Community: feminist.bloggers@brooklynmuseum

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.)

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!

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.

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!

July was a hot month for programming in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art! First off, Ladan Akbarnia, Hagop Kevorkian Associate Curator of Islamic Art here at the Brooklyn Museum, with the assistance of sign language interpreter Jina Porter, gave a gallery talk on our current exhibition, Ghada Amer: Love Has No End as part of the Target First Saturday events.

(Ladan Akbarnia and Jina Porter explaining Ghada Amer’s photo series of her various public works installations for the crowd. Photo courtesy of Jessie Shaffer.)

Akbarnia was very insightful in her take on Amer’s work, at one point questioning the attitude of Muslim women towards their veils and other traditional head and body coverings.

(Dr. Natasha Gordon-Chipembere describing her extensive work with circumcised women. Photo courtesy of Jessie Shaffer.)

Concurrent with the gallery talk was a screening of the film Moolaadé, directed by Ousmane Sembène, which addresses female circumcision. Afterwards, Dr. Natasha Gordon-Chipembere graciously led a heated discussion of the film and female circumcision in general. Moving from semantics to female circumcision in Brooklyn and the West’s misconceptions of the practice, and emotions understandably ran high as audience members volleyed back and forth on this controversial issue.

On Saturday, July 12th, Curator Maura Reilly gave a public tour of the exhibition Ghada Amer: Love Has No End, which is on view in the Center’s main galleries through October 19th.

(Maura Reilly presenting her take on Ghada Amer’s work. Photo courtesy of Jessica Hester.)

Reilly discussed the artist’s appropriation of the aesthetics of male Abstract Expressionists such as Barnett Newman and Jackson Pollock, and also suggested that Amer’s use of stitching – a traditionally-female endeavor – in some of her work is part of a reclamation of female sexuality and artistic autonomy. Like Akbarnia’s talk earlier in the month, Reilly touched on Amer’s investment in portraying both the social and political disenfranchisement and personal empowerment of Muslim women.

(Photo courtesy of Jessica Hester.)

Also on July 12th, the Center hosted filmmaker Katrina Browne for a showing of her documentary Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North. Presented in partnership with PBS’s P.O.V., a showcase for independent nonfiction film, the documentary chronicles Browne’s discovery that her New England ancestors were the largest slave-trading family in American history.

Don’t forget to stop by this Saturday at noon for the reading of excerpts from Live Through This—The Art of Self-Destruction, edited and read by Brooklyn-based feminist performer Sabrina Chapadjiev. Chapadjiev will lead a discussion following the reading with artist Fly and poet Nicole Blackman completing the panel. Thanks to everyone who came last month for your continuous support of the Center’s public programs!!

(Ghada Amer (American, born Egypt, 1963) and Ladan S. Naderi (French, born Iran, 1960). I ♥ Paris, 1991. Three chromogenic prints from a series of six. Courtesy of the artists.)

A notable section of Ghada Amer: Love Has No End contains three photographs from a larger series that Ghada Amer collaborated on with two fellow artists in 1991, titled I ♥ Paris, 1991. Then an art student living in Paris, Amer and close friend and artist Ladan S. Naderi walked around the city, dressed in veils and other conservative garments, staging group portraits in front of famous Parisienne tourist attractions such as the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and the iconic merry-go-round located at the Sacre Coeur. These photographs were taken shortly after a string of terrorist bombings by Islamic militants in Paris took place from 1990 to 1991. The series also extended into performances of Amer and Iranian-born Naderi attending art openings around Paris dressed in the Iranian chador and Egyptian naqqab, which called attention to the regional variations of Islamic attire and the meaning associated with choosing to wear the garments. Needless to say, the pair did not get much of a warm reception at many of these stuffy openings!

This is the first time any part of this series has been shown publicly, and recently got some attention, inviting comparisons to the likes of Emily Jacir and Shirin Neshat.

Related to this section of the exhibition, is Reign of Terror, 2005, an installation in the gallery that is not easily overlooked. Working with students at Wellesley College in 2005, this installation features the bold pink and green wallpaper and a plastic and paper place-settings that the artist covered with the phrase “Terrorism’ is not indexed in Arabic dictionaries.” The paper goods were displayed in the Davis Museum and Cultural Center, and also used by staff and students in the College’s cafeteria!

Stop by the galleries tomorrow, July 12th, to hear Maura Reilly, Curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, talk about these works and others from the exhibition Ghada Amer: Love Has No End. For more details on this, and other programs in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art this weekend, click here.

(Ghada Amer (American, born Egypt, 1963). The Reign of Terror, 2005. Wallpaper from installation at Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts)

June was a rather fruitful month for programs in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art! On Target First Saturday we listened to Ghada Amer talk about her work from the exhibition Ghada Amer: Love Has No End, which is currently up in the main galleries of the Center for Feminist Art through October 19th.

(Standing in front of the wallpaper from the installation The Reign of Terror, 2005, Ghada Amer speaks about the work during June’s Target First Saturday events. Photo taken by Eleanor Whitney.)

That same evening the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective board members Mareena Dareida and Sadia Rehman, along with artists Sara Rahbar, Samira Abbassy, and poet Sarah Husain gave us a sampling of their work during a panel discussion moderated by artist Miriam Ghani.

(The SAWCC panelists pose with Katie Apsey, former Brooklyn Museum Education Intern. Photo courtesy of Katie Apsey.)

As if that weren’t enough, on the twenty-first, Dr. Kay Sloan shared her film Suffragettes in Silent Cinema in conjunction with the Votes for Women, the exhibition in the Herstory gallery that is up through November 30th. Included in the footage from the documentary were some hilarious portrayals of women activists as aggressive homewreckers or child-like in comparison to their more mature and virtuous husbands. Writer and television producer Coline Jenkins gave a resounding presentation on her great-great-grandmother, the pioneering suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and her own dedication to uphold the legacy of her famous relative’s activism, while working to ensure that women everywhere realize “the full potential” of the Amendment that early suffragists fought so hard for in their lifetimes.

(Coline Jenkins shares a family portrait that includes her great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Photo taken by Maura Reilly.)

Highlighted in the discussion following the film and Jenkins’ presentation was the implication that many of the same prejudices and discriminations present at the turn of the century are still alive in representations of women in the media today.

Stay tuned for more coverage of programs in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art throughout the summer!

(From left to right; Melissa Messina, curator of Votes for Women, Dr. Kay Sloan, and Coline Jenkins during the panel discussion. The quote on projection screen is article XIX of the U.S. Constitution, which states: “The right of citizens of the U.S. to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex.” Photo taken by Sarah Giovanniello.)

(Film Still from Moolaadé (2004), directed by Ousmane Sembène.)

This month’s Target First Saturday events at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art here at the Brooklyn Museum includes a screening of the film Moolaadé. Directed by Ousmane Sembène, this award winning film tells the tale of six young girls who are about to be circumcised and the subsequent attempts to protect the girls from this trauma. “Moolaadé” is the name for the magical protection one of the village women uses on the girls to prevent their imminent circumcisions.

The showing of the film begins at 6pm and is followed by a discussion with Dr. Natasha Gordon-Chipembere, who has worked extensively with, and as an advocate for, circumcised women. If you can’t make it at six for the film, stroll on over to the galleries to see Ladan Akbarnia, Hagop Kevorkian Associate Curator of Islamic Art here at the Brooklyn Museum, give a talk on Ghada Amer: Love Has No End at 7pm. Free tickets for both of these events are available at the Visitor’s Center at 5pm!

(Film Still from Moolaadé (2004), directed by Ousmane Sembène.)

(Ghada Amer (American, Born Egypt, 1963). And the Beast, 2004. Acrylic, embroidery, and gel medium on canvas. Collection of the artist, courtesy of Gagosian Gallery. Photo courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.)

The exhibition, Ghada Amer: Love Has No End, continues to occupy our thoughts here at the Museum. In particular, the “Happily Ever After” section of the exhibition has struck a chord recently with its exploration of fairy tales and their impact on the psyche of young girls. Starting in 1992, Ghada Amer began to use some of the most treasured Disney cartoons and story book characters, like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, Tinkerbell, Little Red Riding Hood, and even Barbie in her work. She really began to take an interest in how female stereotypes and roles of submission and passivity are perpetuated in fairy tales, myths, and toys, and how they function in the formation of children’s identities. Amer herself explains, “When we were young girls, fairy tales made us believe that we were all princesses who were going to meet a prince one day and live happily ever after.” If you missed Maura Reilly, Curator of the exhibition and the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art’s talk with the artist this past March, you’ll have another great opportunity to learn more about this topic, and other artworks in the exhibit Ghada Amer: Love Has No End when the artist speaks this weekend as part of the Brooklyn Museum’s Target First Saturday events.

(Barbie Loves Ken, Ken Loves Barbie, 1995/2002, Embroidery on cotton. Collection of the artist, courtesy of Gagosian Gallery. Photo courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.)

Venus, no. 192 (August 1988). “Numero special femmes voiles pour l’été 1988” (Special issue for veiled women, summer 1988). Collection of the artist

While living in Cairo in 1988, Ghada Amer had an artistic breakthrough when she stumbled across a fashion magazine titled, Venus. The artist tells me that this magazine was a “sort of Vogue for the veiled woman,” which featured images of Western models wearing veils and modestly fashionable outfits that were photo-montaged onto their figures. The back of the publication also featured sewing patterns for readers to create their own versions of the fashions seen in the photos. Amer’s immediate response was a series of spiral notebooks with miniaturized versions of these patterns, and soon after larger works emerged, including the title piece for this exhibition, “Love Has No End,” (1990), and “Untitled,” (1990), which features a tracing paper cutout of a miniskirt pattern mounted to a rectangle of plywood.

(Ghada Amer (American, b. Egypt, 1963) Venus n. 192: Numero special femmes voiles pour l’été 1988, modèle n. 3, taille 46 (Venus No. 2: Special Issue for Veiled Women, Summer 1988, Model No. 3, Size 46), 1988; Ghada Amer (American, b. Egypt, 1963) Venus n. 192: Numero special femmes voiles pour l’été 1988, modèle n. 3, taille 46 (Venus No. 2: Special Issue for Veiled Women, Summer 1988, Model No. 32, Size 46), 1988. Both spiral notebooks with collage elements: Bristol paper on Canson paper. Collection of the artist, courtesy of Gagosian Gallery)

This piece leads into an area of Amer’s work where she begins to explore connections between presumed “feminine” techniques or craft, and “masculine” or formalized constructions. The patterning of baby clothes, and dresses influences works such as “L’Ange (The Angel),” (1991), and “Untitled,” (1991), while the subject of “woman’s work” and the figure of the “bored housewife” infiltrates “La femme qui repasse (The Woman Who Irons),” (1996), as Amer begins to reframe the narratives of feminine domesticity. In the last piece from this section, “Test Piece for Conseils de beauté de mois d’août: Votre corps, vos cheveux, vos ongles et votre peau (Beauty Tips for the Month of August: Your Body, Your Hair, Your Nails, and Your Skin),” (1993), the models of feminine behavior and improbable ideals of beauty that are championed by magazines such as Elle and Vogue are rendered powerless in the folds of four handkerchiefs delicately embroidered with the French text about grooming and proper etiquette.

La femme qui repasse (The Woman Who Irons), 1996. Acrylic and embroidery on canvas. Collection of the artist, courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.

Check out these works and more in Ghada Amer: Love Has No End at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center gallery through October 19th.