CAA News Today

Each month, CAA’s Committee on Women in the Arts selects the best in feminist art and scholarship. The following exhibitions and events should not be missed. 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.

June 2011

“Women and the Arts: Dialogues in Female Creativity in the U.S. and Beyond”
June 15–17, 2011
University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies
Centro de Saúde de Sete Rios, Lisbon, Portugal 1600-214

This three-day international gathering, organized by the American Studies Group of the University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies, will promote a reflection on women’s artistic production, contrasting the US context with other cultures. Featured sessions address such topics as “Dreaming, Doing, Being, & Seeing: The Woman Artist as Seen, Invisible, Witnessed and Observer”; “Women and the Crafts”; “Performance Arts”; “Art and Gender Politics”; “Portraits of the Artist as Woman”; “Women in Contemporary Art in the U.S. and Beyond”; and “Boundaries and Crossings in Theory and Art.”

!Women Art Revolution
Various locations across the United States

This eight-three-minute documentary film, directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson (and a CWA Pick in January 2011), relates the feminist art movement to the 1960s antiwar and civil rights causes and explains how historical events sparked feminist actions against major cultural institutions. Detailing major developments in women’s art of the 1970s, the film looks at early feminist art-education programs, political organizations and protests, and alternative art spaces such as A.I.R. Gallery and Franklin Furnace in New York and the Women’s Building in Los Angeles. Leeson also turns her attention to publications such as Chrysalis and Heresies and to landmark exhibitions, performances, and installations of public art that changed the direction of contemporary art.

In June, the following theaters and cultural institutions will screen the film:

• June 1–8: IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10014
• June 2: Manhasset Cinemas, Gold Coast International Film Festival, 430 Plandome Road, Manhasset, NY 11030
• June 2–9: West End Cinema, 1 M Street NW, Washington, DC
• June 3: New Hyde Park Cinemas, Gold Coast International Film Festival, 3324 Hillside Avenue, New Hyde Park, NY 11040
• June 10: Institute of Contemporary Art, 100 Northern Avenue, Boston, MA 02210
• June 10: The Screen, Santa Fe University of Art and Design, 100 Saint Michaels Drive, Santa Fe, NM 87505
• June 14: Billy Wilder Theater, Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90024
• June 15–19: Museum of Fine Arts, 100 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02116
• June 17–23: Laemmle’s Music Hall 3, 9036 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 90211
• June 17–23: Northwest Film Forum, 1515 Twelfth Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122
• June 23–26: Noble Theater, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive, Oklahoma City, OK 73102
• June 24–27: Northwest Film Center, 1119 Southwest Park Avenue, Portland, OR 97205
• June 24–30: Denver FilmCenter, Denver Film Society, 2601 Blake Street, Denver, CO 80205
• June 24–30: Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor Street, Hartford, CT 67401
• June 24–30: Salina Art Center, 150 South Santa Fe, Salina, KS 67401

Talks by the director and guest speakers—such as Howardena Pindell and Carey Lovelace in New York, Carrie Brownstein in Portland—and other special events will accompany selected screenings.

The Guerrilla Girls Talk Back
June 17–October 2, 2011
National Museum of Women in the Arts
1250 New York Avenue NW, Washington DC 20005

The Guerrilla Girls—anonymous females who take the names of dead women artists and appear in public wearing gorilla masks—use humor to expose sexism and racism in the art world, film, politics, and culture at large. This exhibition presents posters and ephemera from the group, including works from two portfolios, Guerrilla Girls Talk Back: The First Five Years, 1985–1990 and Guerrilla Girls Talk Back: Portfolio 2.

Tracey Emin: Love Is What You Want
May 18–August 29, 2011
Hayward Gallery
Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX, England

The first major survey in London of Tracey Emin’s work occupies both floors and two outdoor sculpture terraces at the Southbank Centre. Works from every period of her career and in diverse media—painting, textiles, work on paper, photography, neon, film, and sculpture—will accompany a new series of outdoor sculptures made especially for the Hayward Gallery installation.