CAA News Today

CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts selects the best in feminist art and scholarship to share with CAA members on a monthly basis. See February’s picks below.

Soul of a Nation

February 3–April 23, 2018
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
600 Museum Way
Bentonville AR, 72712

In this exhibition featuring the work of 60 artists, Soul of  Nation, brings together painting, sculpture, photography, and more in an exhibition of “era-defining artworks that changed the face of art in American.”

The exhibition originated at the Tate Modern in London and will debut in the United States at Crystal Bridges. Artists Alice Neal, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, Ming Smith, Alma Thomas are joined by Romare Bearden, Barkley Hendricks, Noa Purifoy, Martin Puryear, and William T. Williams, among many others.

With over 150 works spanning 1963-1983 the exhibition explores a time when “Black Art” was being defined and debated across the country in vibrant paintings, photographs, prints and sculptures.”

Crystal Bridges is one of only two United States venues to host this important exhibition, described as both powerful, and at times, challenging. Following its debut in Bentonville, the exhibition travels to the Brooklyn Museum in New York.

On starting another conversation about comparative feminism

December 2, 2017–April 2018
WhyWhyArt Art Center
Nanjing City, Pukou District
Zijin Special Creative Zone
88 Pubin RD, 2F

In the exhibition On starting another conversation about comparative feminism at WhyWhyArt, 17 artists from China and internationally “explore the nature of comparative feminism, the existence of differing perceptions and trajectories of feminist identification that coexist as a result of a world that is globally connected, yet widely disparate regarding other influential factors, such as social mobility and economic development.”

Artists include: Abby Robinson (USA), Alexandre Ouairy (France), Daniele Mattioli (Italy), Guanyi Ming (China), Hazal Firat (Turkey), Inga Bruvere (Latvia), Island6 Arts Collective (International), MATE (China), Monika Lin (USA), Panos Dimitropoulos (Greece), Steven An (China), Susanne Junker (France), Cao Tongliang (China), Virginie Lerouge Knight (France), WeAre (International), Zane Mellupe-Goutard (LV/FRA), and Zhu Ye (China).

Hazel Meyer: Muscle Panic objects

January 26, 2018—March 10, 2018
Art League Houston
1953 Montrose Blvd.
Houston, TX 77006

Toronto-based performance and installation artist Hazel Meyer has been exploring the intersection of sports and gender since 2001 (with her bombastic Unnecessary Roughness—an audio-intestinal sports opera), and this exhibition represents the latest iteration of the artist’s locker room shenanigans. For opening night, Meyer, and a group of “local women, trans, and/or non-binary artists, athletes and activists” will end a five kilometer run to the gallery, depositing their sweaty garments in and amongst an immersive installation.

From the press release: “Leading the viewer through the space, the works offer an extended consideration regarding the performative nature of the athletic as it intersects with queerness. The exhibition instigates an arena of sweat and queer desire, evoking the imagery of momentous sports history, the bodily gestures and actions of a drill or warm-up and the aesthetics of the gymnasium. Simultaneously an installation and a performance, the exhibition transforms the banal and austere white cube into a hot physically charged site for emotional and physical exchange.”

Howardena Pindell: What Remains to Be Seen

February 24, 2018—May 20, 2018
Museum of Contemporary Art
220 E Chicago Ave
Chicago, IL 60611

For over fifty years Howardena Pindell has been pressurizing process and politics in her wide-ranging work. Best known, perhaps, for her video Free, White, and 21 (1980) in which the artist performs the daily racial aggressions she experienced as a person of color working in the artworld, all while wrapping her head in gauze, Pindell’s output also encompasses painting, collage, print-making, and photography. Throughout her career Pindell has explored the possibilities of abstraction, often collaging tiny pieces of paper (hole punches) onto fields of subtly undulating color, and sometimes adding perfume or talcum powder, engaging a viewer’s olfactory sense alongside the visual. The exhibition includes work from the past two years—large biomorphically-shaped canvases in bright, bold colors, evoking snails, whirlpools, and galaxies.

Victoria Gitman: Taktisch

January 11, 2018—February 17, 2018-01-23
Garth Greenan Gallery
545 W. 20^th Street
New York, NY 10011

From the exhibition’s press release:

“The exhibition focuses on Gitman’s recent paintings—meticulously rendered abstractions based on the supple fur surfaces of vintage handbags. Gitman works in oils, hair by hair, creating surfaces that are delicately painted from close, direct observation. Many of the paintings feature abstract patterns evocative of early and mid-twentieth-century stylistic traditions. Evoking modernist compositional techniques, Gitman’s new works are resolutely frontal, their imagery extending edge-to-edge. Each composition is tightly cropped, further intensifying both the haptic quality and the inherent sensuousness of the artist’s chosen subjects.

“The title of the exhibition is a neologism introduced by Vienna School art historian Aloïs Riegl to describe a kind of close-up perception or “visual touching.” Taktisch can at once signify “tactile,” “tangible,” “palpable,” or “textural,” as well as “tactical.” It implies an intimate exchange with art objects, an intermingling of the experiences of seeing, feeling, and knowing through sensory perception.”

Kentucky Foundation for Women Artist Enrichment Grant

2017 Winners

With grants totaling $105,000 the Kentucky Foundation for Women has awarded 32 artists and arts organizations in the state enrichment grants, allowing them to “further their own artistic development while creating art for positive social change throughout the state.” Artistic mediums include photography, book projects, painting, sculpture, films, performances, and poetry among others.

Individual grants range from $1,000 to $7,500, and include assisting an artist with class fees to further her metal-working skills and “help normalize welding as an art form practiced by women,” to funding an independent film to increase the “acceptance of lesbians and all women who love women romantically.

“The foundation is pleased to support the work of these talented artists. Their projects show a commitment to expanding the scope of feminist art in Kentucky, through their innovative approaches and thought-provoking subject matter,” said Judi Jennings, director of the Foundation for Women. Read more here.

The artists include: Sylvia Ahrens (Lexington), Leslie Anglin (Louisville), Carrie Billett (Harlan), Tasha Cotter (Lexington), Shannon Davis-Roberts (Murray), Rachel Grimes (Milton), Vanessa Grossl (Lexington), Aaisha Hamid (Louisville), Julie Hensley (Richmond), DaMaris B. Hill (Lexington), Jenny Hobson (Berea), Rebecca Gayle Howell(Hindman), Trish Lindsey Jaggers (Smiths Grove), Karen Jones (Lexington), Karen Lanier of KALA Creative (Lexington), Amira Karaoud (Louisville), Lori Larusso (Lexington), Jaqui Linder (Versailles), Looking for Lilith Theatre Company (Louisville), George Ella Lyon (Lexington), Kristen Renee Miller (Louisville), Marie Mitchell (Richmond), Mary K. Morgan (Chappell), Jill Robertson (Hazard), Savannah Sipple (Lexington), Rainbow Star (Berea), Jamey Temple (Williamsburg), The Local Honeys (Linda Jean Stokley & Montana Hobbs) (Versailles), Tanya Torp (Lexington), Tucky Williams (Lexington), Lindsey Windland and Meg Wilson (Berea), and Whitney Withington (Big Hill).