ART + CULTURE DIARIES #7
From 3/2/08 - 8/4/08, Making It Together: Women’s Collaborative Art and Community will be on view at The Bronx Museum of the Arts. The exhibition highlights the response of women artists to the Feminist Movement of the 1970’s and their subsequent use of collective artistic production to engage communities and address social issues. “Artist teams and groups have become an increasingly fashionable mode in recent years,” says guest curator critic Carey Lovelace. “Feminist Art laid the groundwork for this, challenging ideas about authorship, particularly the myth of the solo male artist.” Pictured below is the work of Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz, whose landmark, multi-part event, Three Weeks in May (1977), was at the forefront of the movement against sexual violence. For 2008 work with a graffiti twist, contemporary graffiti artists Toofly, Lady Pink, DONA, and MUCK created an installation, at the entrance to the Museum, that includes paintings of four women activists. Toofly’s portrait is of Elvira Arellano, a Mexican mother and immigrant who was deported, while her son Saul was left in the United States because of his American citizenship. Elvira has since become a voice for immigrant rights. The installation also includes 70+ names of various historical women activists. Toofly told Cultureserve, “It’s a big collaboration. It looks like a graffitied up wall with realistic images and facts about women’s issues and fights throughout the years.” (See the FLAVOR section to view MUCK’s portrait of Gloria Steinem.)
(Three Weeks in May (1977), Performance by Suzanne Lacy, with Leslie Labowitz. Photo courtesy of Lacy/Labowitz)
Bi-coastal artist Adia Millett has found a new space in which to create that lies somewhere between her signature miniature houses and museum comissioned installations, a garage. The project, Change, is an ongoing installation that changes every week inside a 10′ x 14′ garage space in Southern California. Designed to house memories, dreams, stage sets and beyond, the installations are meant to push thought outside the box we call “reality”. The works take on a second life on-line where a photographic representation of them accompanied by wordplay by Adia can be viewed by the public. Click here to view Change.
(Garage, 2008 by Adia Millett)
Canary Island born and London based artist Karina Beltran has exhibited work in London, Madrid, Dakar and the Canary Islands. Pictured below is her work APARICIONES. Launderette., one example of a style that embodies the experience of human reflection and the inevitability solitude. Her work will be on view at CIRCA Puerto Rico in April 2008 with Galeria Raquel Ponce. View more here.
(APARICIONES. Launderette., 2006, by Karina Beltran)
Judy C. is at it again. Ms. Chicago along with her non-profit, Through The Flower, is launching her first juried New Mexico Feminist art show. The exhibition entitled, New Mexico Feminist Art: Feminists under 40, will be on view on-line and at the galleries of Through the Flower and the Belen Hotel in Belen, New Mexico, 3/3/08-5/30/08. Whether you appreciate Chicago’s aesthetic sensibilities or not, there is no arguing the fact that she compiled a priceless archive of western women’s history in her controversial landmark work of art, The Dinner Party, now housed at The Brooklyn Museum. Kudos to her for efforts to restore the Divine Feminine to its rightful place in human consciousness!
(Untitled by Anonymous, 2008, by Diana McClure)
