CAA News Today
November 2013 Picks from CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — November 21, 2013
Each month CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts produces a curated list, called CWA Picks, of recommended exhibitions and events related to feminist art and scholarship in North America and around the world.
The CWA Picks for November 2013 include solo exhibitions of work by Sarah Lucas, Ana Mendieta, and Dayanita Singh in London; Anita Steckel, Dorothea Rockburne, Mary Beth Edelson, and Wangechi Mutu in New York; and Amy Sillman and Sophie Calle in Boston. In addition, the committee selected Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz’s show Patriarchal Poetry in Germany and Dear Art, the first appearance in the United Kingdom for the curatorial collective What, How & for Whom.
Check the archive of CWA Picks at the bottom of the page, as several museum and gallery shows listed in previous months may still be on view or touring.
Image Caption
Wangechi Mutu, Riding Death in My Sleep, 2002, ink and collage on paper, 60 x 44 in. Collection of Peter Norton, New York (artwork © Wangechi Mutu).
October 2013 Picks from CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — September 27, 2013
Each month, CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts produces a curated list, called CWA Picks, of recommended exhibitions and events related to feminist art and scholarship in North America and around the world.
The CWA Picks for October 2013 consist of several excellent exhibitions of women artists in the United States: Chiharu Shiota at the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, Eleanor Antin at Columbia University in New York, and Nalini Malani at Galerie Lelong in New York. Also included are two important group shows: She Who Tells a Story, an exhibition of female photographers from the Arab world at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and The Beginning Is Always Today, the first major museum survey of Scandinavian feminist art in twenty years.
Check the archive of CWA Picks at the bottom of the page, as several museum and gallery shows listed in previous months may still be on view or touring.
Image Caption
Chiharu Shiota, IN SILENCE at Centre PasquArt, Biel/Bienne, 2008, black wool, burnt grand piano, and burnt chairs (artwork © Chiharu Shiota; photograph by Sunhi Mang and provided by VG Bild Kunst).
August 2013 Picks from CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — August 12, 2013
Each month, CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts produces a curated list, called CWA Picks, of recommended exhibitions and events related to feminist art and scholarship in North America and around the world.
The CWA Picks for August 2013 consist of several excellent exhibitions of women artists in Europe and the United States: Linder Sterling in Hanover, Germany; Elaine Sturtevant and Dame Laura Knight in London, England; and Josephine Meckseper in Southampton, New York. Also included are two important group shows: Mother Armenia in Yerevan, Armenia, and Autorotratti in Bologna, Italy.
Check the archive of CWA Picks at the bottom of the page, as several museum and gallery shows listed in previous months may still be on view or touring.
Image Caption
Dame Laura Knight, Self Portrait, 1913. National Portrait Gallery (artwork © Estate of Dame Laura Knight DBE RA).
July 2013 Picks from CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — July 09, 2013
Each month, CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts produces a curated list, called CWA Picks, of recommended exhibitions and events related to feminist art and scholarship in North America and around the world.
The CWA Picks for July 2013 consist of numerous excellent exhibitions of women artists in Europe: Lorna Simpson in Paris; Yoko Ono in Denmark; Agnès Varda in Sweden; Valérie Favre in Germany; and Pauline Boty, Moyra Davey, and Cornelia Parker in the United Kingdom. Here in the United States, Martha Wilson is showing work at the Institute of Visual Arts in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Jane and Louise Wilson have a show at 303 Gallery in New York. The CWA Picks also list a call for papers for a session at the next annual conference of the Association of Art Historians.
Check the archive of CWA Picks at the bottom of the page, as several museum and gallery shows listed in previous months may still be on view or touring.
Image: Moyra Davey, Kevin Ayers (Psychic), 2013, chromogenic print with adhesive tape, stamps, and ink (artwork © Moyra Davey)
June 2013 Picks from CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — June 06, 2013
Each month, CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts produces a curated list, called CWA Picks, of recommended exhibitions and events related to feminist art and scholarship in North America and around the world.
The CWA Picks for June 2013 comprise seven solo exhibitions, most of them bringing together work spanning an artist’s career. In Manhattan, PPOW Gallery is presenting examples from several series by the pioneering feminist artist Carolee Schneemann, and Broadway 1602 has gathered several historical installations by Nicola L, an underrecognized French artist based in New York. Work made by Nicole Eisenman since 2009 is on view at the Berkeley Art Museum in California, and Eve Sussman is the subject of a survey at the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach, Florida. In Europe, Ellen Gallagher is having a midcareer retrospective at Tate Modern in London, VALIE EXPORT is showing work related to touch (i.e., physical contact) in Berlin, and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm is focusing on Niki de Saint Phalle’s interest in the girl, the monster, and the goddess.
Check the archive of CWA Picks at the bottom of the page, as several museum and gallery shows listed in previous months may still be on view or touring.
Image: Niki de Saint Phalle, Could we have loved?, 1968 (artwork © Niki de Saint Phalle/BUS 2013)
May 2013 Picks from CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — May 07, 2013
Each month, CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts produces a curated list, called CWA Picks, of recommended exhibitions and events related to feminist art and scholarship in North America and around the world.
The CWA Picks for May 2013 include solo exhibitions of work by Hung Liu at the Oakland Museum of California, Kara Walker at the Art Institute of Chicago, Gillian Wearing at the Museum Brandhorst in Munich, Latoya Ruby Frazier at the Brooklyn Museum, and Wangechi Mutu at the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, North Carolina. Of special note is a two-person show at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, called Parallel Practices, that features the first major presentation in the United States of work by the French body artist Gina Pane (1939–1990) alongside her contemporary, the American Joan Jonas.
Check the archive of CWA Picks at the bottom of the page, as several museum and gallery shows listed in previous months may still be on view or touring.
Image: Gina Pane, Azione Sentimentale, 1973, seven color photographs on wood panel, 48¼ x 40⅛ in. (artwork © Gina Pane; photograph by Francoise Masson and provided by ADAGP, Anne Marchand, and Kamel Mennour, Paris)
April 2013 Picks from CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — April 19, 2013
Each month, CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts produces a curated list, called CWA Picks, of recommended exhibitions and events related to feminist art and scholarship in North America and around the world.
The CWA Picks for April 2013 are composed of seven significant exhibitions now on view in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden, is hosting the traveling retrospective Hilma af Klint: A Pioneer of Abstraction, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid is presenting a survey of work by Cristina Iglesias, who lives and works in the Spanish capital. Visitors to the British Isles can see daring painting and sculpture in Dorothy Iannone: Innocent and Aware at the Camden Arts Centre in London and extraordinary photographs by Edith Tudor-Hart at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh. Across the pond, institutions in New York are displaying hybrid drawings by the Italian Pop artist Giosetta Fiorni, video installations and photographs by the Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman, and strikingly innovative prints by the American Impressionist Mary Cassatt.
Check the archive of CWA Picks at the bottom of the page, as several museum and gallery shows listed in previous months may still be on view or touring.
Image: installation view of Cristina Iglesias: Metonymy at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid
March 2013 Picks from CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — March 07, 2013
Each month, CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts produces a curated list, called CWA Picks, of recommended exhibitions and events related to feminist art and scholarship in North America and around the world.
The CWA Picks for March 2013 are composed of three important exhibitions on the East Coast of the United States. Organized by Dena Muller, Jay Defeo: A Retrospective will be on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York through June 2, after its celebrated first presentation at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in California in 2012–13. Also in New York, the Bronx Museum of the Arts is presenting paintings created since 2001 by Joan Semmel. Finally, Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and University of the Arts in Philadelphia are hosting Lenore Tawney: Wholly Unlooked For, a multivenue exhibition of work by this pioneering fiber artist.
Check the archive of CWA Picks at the bottom of the page, as several museum and gallery shows listed in previous months may still be on view or touring.
Image: Jay DeFeo working on what was then titled Deathrose, 1960 (photograph by Burt Glinn and © Burt Glinn/Magnum Photos)
2013 Regional MFA Exhibition at NYCAMS
posted by Christopher Howard — February 07, 2013
The New York Center for Art and Media Studies (NYCAMS) will host the annual CAA Regional MFA exhibition, on view February 12–27, 2013. Coinciding with the 101st Annual Conference, this exhibition, called Make It Work, will bring together a selection of artists from some of the New York area’s brightest art programs. The opening reception will take place on Friday evening, February 15, 6:00–9:00 PM.
The guest curator, Barbara Pollack, is an artist and critic whose writings have been published in Vanity Fair, the New York Times, ARTnews, and Time Out New York. Her essay for the exhibition appears below.
The artists come from seven area schools: Brooklyn College, City University of New York; New Jersey City University; the New York Academy of Art; Parsons the New School for Design; Pratt Institute; Stonybrook University, State University of New York; and the School of Art and Design at Purchase College, State University of New York.
Gallery hours are Monday–Friday, 10:00 AM–5:00 PM or by appointment. NYCAMS is located at 44 West 28th Street, Seventh Floor, New York, NY 10001. Contact the gallery at 212-213-8052.
Make It Work
Art making is a long and difficult journey, with practitioners balancing the need for mastering a range of techniques against the desire to achieve unique expression. Nowhere is this tension felt more acutely than in art school, where the individual is often pitted against the group and, indeed, against authorities figures, on their way to making work that truly is self-expressive. I watch my own students struggle between the need for approval—am I doing this right?—and the courage to embark on their own path, between perfecting skill and defying convention.
The artists in this exhibition are still enrolled in graduate school—Brooklyn College, New Jersey City University, the New York Academy of Art, Parsons, Pratt, Stony Brook, and Purchase—all esteemed programs that have produced many of New York’s leading artists. But even though they are students, these individuals have already become full-fledged artists, experimenting and creating as all artists do on their way to realizing fully formed concepts and productions. Using a variety of media—sculpture, painting, photography, video, and digital printmaking—they manage not only to “make work,” but also to make work that challenges ideas about what work is.
In this exhibition you find diverse practices even within a single academic program. John Ros from Brooklyn College creates a landscape of drywall and fluorescent lights, laid out on the floor, while his classmate Kate McGraw combines abstraction and folk art in her brightly patterned drawings. Sergio Villamizar from New Jersey City University takes inspiration from comic-book depictions of superheroes as his colleague Darren Fisher constructs a hostile, aggressive contraption in a work called Surface Tension. The contributions of two students from the New York Academy of Art, Elizabeth Glaessner and Robert Fundis, make a strong case for the vitality of realist painting. But check out Spidey by Ezra Thompson from Stony Brook, a hauntingly suggestive canvas of a boy trick-or-treating.
There are captivating videos on view: Christine Howard Sandoval (Parsons) films a walk along the city’s waterfront, and Judith Shimer (Pratt) is hysterically funny in her Ugly Video. In One Act Video in Several Scenes, Samantha Harmon (Purchase) dissects the moving-images aspect of video by depicting a sequence of still photographs of tiny maquettes of buildings. Sculpture also is particularly strong: Jonathan Stanish (Pratt) displays an assemblage, titled Leisure, comprising a mannequin and silkscreen print; Elianna Mesaikos (Purchase) presents Filthy Gorgeous, made on the spot in the gallery with melted sugar; and Ryann Slauson (Purchase) offers Portrait, a witty replica of a construction site, made from cardboard, plastic, wood, and clay. Slauson is one artist who directly examines the meaning of “work,” but you can discern a similar inquiry in the jagged line of photographs, unframed and tacked to the wall, in Artifacts, an installation by Nicholas Warndorf (Stony Brook), and in the way traditional sculpture is challenged through photographs by the duo Kaitlynn Redell and Sara Jimenez (Parsons).
Make It Work is, of course, the encouraging admonition of Tim Gunn on the television series Project Runway. And I share with him the sense of wanting everyone to do well, everyone to do his or her best. But this exhibition is not a competition, not a Work of Art, the name of another television show that turns contemporary art into a contest. The sixteen participants here are not contestants who approach art making as a competition. In fact, by bringing the artists together in one exhibition, I find an interesting dialogue among them, a shared inquiry into the necessary tools, processes, and attitudes that go into making an artwork—especially one that challenges traditional notions of what an artwork should be. That takes real work, and for that, each participant in this show should be congratulated.
December 2012–January 2013 Picks from CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts
posted by Christopher Howard — January 03, 2013
Each month, CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts produces a curated list, called CWA Picks, of recommended exhibitions and events related to feminist art and scholarship in North America and around the world.
The CWA Picks for December 2012–January 2013 include several important exhibitions in the United States, England, and Sweden. In New York, Lehman Maupin Gallery is hosting a two-part presentation of new work by Mickalene Thomas, whose traveling survey at the Brooklyn Museum was a November pick. Other events in the city include a temporary performance and installation work by Ann Hamilton at the Park Avenue Armory and sculpture, painting, and drawing by Caroline Burton at Accola Griefen Gallery.
Midcareer retrospectives are trending: the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh is offering a look at painting by Deborah Kass in relation to the Pope of Pop, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York is showcasing Rosemarie Trockel’s mixed-media work. Across the Atlantic, Kate Davis has produced work in dialogue with Jo Spence at Drawing Room in London, and Tensta Konsthall in Stockholm is highlighting the full painting and film career of Marie-Louise Ekman.
Check the archive of CWA Picks at the bottom of the page, as several museum and gallery shows listed in previous months may still be on view or touring.
Image: Deborah Kass, Before and Happily Ever After, 1991, oil and acrylic on canvas, 72 x 60 in. (artwork © Deborah Kass)