accompanying the exhibition
THE UN-HEROIC ACT:
Representations of Rape in Contemporary Women's Art in the U.S.
Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery
September 4 – November 2, 2018, Mon-Fri 10-6 PM
The evening starts with a tour of the exhibition with curator Monika Fabijanska, followed by a discussion with artists Roya Amigh, Angela Fraleigh, and Lynn Hershman Leeson about means artists employ to tell personal stories, moderated by Monika Fabijanska. Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Electronic Diary Part III: First Person Plural (1988, color, sound, 28 min), will be screened as part of the event.
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Roya Amigh employs mythical figures from the writings of classical Persian poets Ferdowsi, Rumi, and Hafez and imagery from Persian miniature to explore the stories of contemporary women in her meticulous installations. She earned MFA degrees from the Central Azad University in Tehran, 2010, and Boston University, 2012. She had solo shows at Babson College, MA, 2018; FiveMyles gallery, Brooklyn, NY, and Iron Tail Gallery, Lincoln, NE, 2017. Group shows include Yangpyeong Art Museum, Gyeonggi-do, Korea, 2018; the Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete, Rethymno, Greece, 2018; Brown University, Providence, RI, 2017; The Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, MA, 2017; Edward Hopper House Museum, Nyack, NY, 2016; Katonah Museum of Art, NY, 2015; and Macy Gallery, Columbia University, NYC, 2014. She was artist-in-residence at Art Omi, Ghent, NY, and MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA. She lives and works in Cambridge, MA. www.royaamigh.com
Angela Fraleigh’s lavish figurative paintings draw on antique tales of pursuit and abduction to illustrate the charged complexity of wanting and explore narratives of women and marginalized female figures in art history. Fraleigh earned BFA from Boston University and MFA from Yale University. Her solo exhibitions include those at the Edward Hopper House, Nyack, NY, 2018; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY, 2016; Vanderbilt Mansion, Hyde Park, NY, 2015; University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA, 2011; and PPOW Gallery, NYC, 2008. She participated in group shows at the University of Texas, Arlington, TX, 2016; The Gateway Project Newark, NJ, 2015; Diverseworks, Houston TX, 2013; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, 2011, 2008; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, 2008; and CUNY Hunter College, NYC. She lives and works in New York, NY and Allentown, PA. www.angelafraleigh.com
Lynn Hershman Leeson is an artist and filmmaker acclaimed for the pioneering use of new technologies through which she addresses issues such as trauma, identity, and the relationship between the real and the virtual. Her work in media-based technology pioneered digital art forms. She also made some of the earliest works that used artificial intelligence, biological computing, and DNA manipulation. As a film director she wrote, directed and produced Strange Culture, Conceiving Ada and Teknolust, all starring Tilda Swinton, which screened at the Sundance, Toronto and Berlin festivals; and a 2011 groundbreaking documentary !Women Art Revolution. Leeson’s 2014 retrospective organized at the ZKM Karlsruhe traveled to Yerba Buena Center, San Francisco, 2017; other retrospectives include Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK, 2007; and Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, 2005. Her works are in the collections of MoMA, Whitney Museum, ZKM, LACMA, National Gallery of Art of Canada, Walker Art Center, Berkeley Museum of Art, and SFMoMA. www.lynnhershman.com
Image: Roya Amigh, The Coerced Contact, 2016, thread, paper, pieces of cloth, lace, 62 x 64 x 35 in. ©2016/2018 Roya Amigh. Courtesy of the artist