Curator-Led Tour of Women at War

Saturday, October 19, 2024, 1:00 PM
Michigan Avenue Galleries, 1st Floor East

Chicago Cultural Center
78 E Washington St, Chicago, IL 60602
Admission is free

Join us on Saturday, October 19, 2024, for an insightful journey through the "Women at War" exhibition with curator Monika Fabijanska. These exclusive tours offer a deeper understanding of the powerful stories and artistic expressions that highlight the often-overlooked experiences of women in wartime.

Each tour will provide an intimate look at the artworks, offering unique insights into the creative process and the historical contexts that shaped these powerful pieces. Monika Fabijanska will guide you through the exhibition, sharing her curatorial vision and the narratives that connect the works on display.

Whether you're an art enthusiast or simply curious to learn more about the intersection of art and history, these tours promise to enrich your understanding of the pivotal roles women have played in shaping the world through their resilience and strength.

More information

Image: Anna Scherbyna, Semenivka 2016. Psychiatric Hospital, 2017 (Some Landscapes of the Left-bank Ukraine series), watercolor on paper, 2.4 x 3.9 in ©Anna Scherbyna. Courtesy of the artist and The Naked Room

Curator-Led Tour of Women at War

Saturday, October 19, 2024, 1:00 PM
Michigan Avenue Galleries, 1st Floor East

Chicago Cultural Center
78 E Washington St, Chicago, IL 60602
Admission is free

Join us on Saturday, October 19, 2024, for an insightful journey through the "Women at War" exhibition with curator Monika Fabijanska. These exclusive tours offer a deeper understanding of the powerful stories and artistic expressions that highlight the often-overlooked experiences of women in wartime.

Each tour will provide an intimate look at the artworks, offering unique insights into the creative process and the historical contexts that shaped these powerful pieces. Monika Fabijanska will guide you through the exhibition, sharing her curatorial vision and the narratives that connect the works on display.

Whether you're an art enthusiast or simply curious to learn more about the intersection of art and history, these tours promise to enrich your understanding of the pivotal roles women have played in shaping the world through their resilience and strength.

More information

Image: Zhanna Kadyrova, Palianytsia, 2022, mixed media installation ©Zhanna Kadyrova. Courtesy of the artist and Galeria Continua

Exclusive Interview: Monika Fabijanska with Critic Susan Snodgrass

Friday, October 18, 2024, 6:30 PM
Millennium Park Room, 5th Floor South
following

5:30 PM Guided Tour with Curator Monika Fabijanska
Michigan Avenue Galleries, 1st Floor East

accompanying exhibition Women at War

Chicago Cultural Center
78 E Washington St, Chicago, IL 60602
Admission is free

Engage in a thought-provoking conversation between the exhibition curator Monika Fabijanska and renowned Chicago-based art critic Susan Snodgrass. Delve deeper into the themes of the exhibition, discuss the impact of art in documenting history, the realities of life under war in Ukraine, the potential of feminist historiography, the feminisms in Eastern Europe, and gain unique insights into the creative process behind “Women at War.”

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to connect with fellow art enthusiasts, gain a deeper understanding of the pivotal roles women have played in shaping history, and celebrate the power of art to convey profound stories.

More information

Monika Fabijanska, Olia Fedorova, and Alevtina Kakhidze in Conversation

Wednesday, March 20, 2024, 12 PM CST, Live-streamed

accompanying the exhibition

WOMEN AT WAR

Yevgenia Belorusets, Oksana Chepelyk, Olia Fedorova, Alena Grom, Zhanna Kadyrova, Alevtina Kakhidze, Dana Kavelina, Lesia Khomenko, Vlada Ralko, Anna Scherbyna, Kateryna Yermolaeva, and Alla Horska (1929-1970)

February 29 - April 27, 2024

School of Art Gallery, University of Manitoba
255 ARTlab
180 Dafoe Road
Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2
Canada

More about the exhibition

Image: Olia Fedorova (L), Alevtina Kakhidze (R)

WOMEN AT WAR: Art in Ukraine and the question of feminist historioghraphy
Lecture by curator Monika Fabijanska

Thursday, February 29, 12 PM CST, 364 ARTlab

accompanying the exhibition

WOMEN AT WAR

Yevgenia Belorusets, Oksana Chepelyk, Olia Fedorova, Alena Grom, Zhanna Kadyrova, Alevtina Kakhidze, Dana Kavelina, Lesia Khomenko, Vlada Ralko, Anna Scherbyna, Kateryna Yermolaeva, and Alla Horska (1929-1970)

February 29 - April 27, 2024

School of Art Gallery, University of Manitoba
180 Dafoe Road
Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2
Canada

More about the exhibition

Image: Vlada Ralko, Lviv Diary No.020, 2022, ink and watercolor on paper, 11.5 x 8.5 in ©Vlada Ralko. Courtesy of Voloshyn Gallery and Fridman Gallery

LANGUAGE AND TEXT IN FEMINIST ART
Committee on Women in the Arts session
CAA’s 112th Annual Conference

Friday, February 16, 2024, 11-12:30 PM CST

Hilton Chicago – 3rd Floor – Marquette Room (Hybrid)
conference registration required

CHAIR:
Monika Fabijanska

DISCUSSANT:
Kimberly Kay Lamm, Duke University

PRESENTATIONS:
David Sperber, Hebrew Union College-JIR
“Body Text”: Feminist Art in Traditional Spheres
Nissim Gal, Haifa University
From Writing to Vision: Palestinian Female Visual Artists Shaping Feminism through Language and Text
Erin Devine, Northern Virginia Community College
Textual/Textural Translations: Recitation and Resistance in Shirin Neshat's Photographs
Iris Gilad, Duke University
Body & Type: The Relationship Between Body and Text in Contemporary Feminist Middle Eastern Art
Artist Hannan Abu-Hussein will join the session and will be available for Q&A

Image: Amira Ziyan, Jamila, 2017. Photograph, 50 x 70 cm. ©Amira Ziyan

CPAL (Center for the Preservation of Artists’ Legacies) Conference

June 5-7, 2023

Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation
87 Eldridge Street
New York, NY 10002

June 7, 1:30-3 PM – Curating a shared Legacy Platform: Perspectives from the Field 

Moderator: Terrie Sultan, Independent Curator and Cultural Consultant and Principal Museum Strategist for Art Museum Strategies @ Hudson Ferris

Panelists | Dan Cameron, Independent Curator, Founder of Prospect New Orleans, former Senior Curator, The New Museum, Monika Fabijanska, Art Historian, Contemporary Art Curator and Art Appraiser who specializes in women's and feminist art, Corinne Erni, Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Chief Curator of Art and Education and Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs, Parrish Museum, Natalie Diaz, Co-Curator, Art Omi Pavilions @ Chatham

Conversation with artists
Zhanna Kadyrova and Alevtina Kakhidze
moderated by curator Monika Fabijanska
accompanying the exhibition

WOMEN AT WAR

at Fridman Gallery
169 Bowery, New York City

Wednesday, August 10, 1 PM WATCH HERE

Zhanna Kadyrova (b. 1981 in Brovary, Kyiv oblast) works in sculpture, installation, and public art, and is a member of R.E.P. collective. Her practice focuses on the context, site and space, and often references Soviet building materials, aesthetics, and symbols that shaped Ukrainian public space. She graduated from the Taras Shevchenko State Art School. She received PinchukArtCentre Main Prize, 2013, and Special Prize, 2011, as well as the Kazimir Malevich Artist Award, the Sergey Kuryokhin Contemporary Art Award for Public Art, and the Grand Prix of the Kyiv Sculpture Project (all 2012). Kadyrova's works were featured in the 58th Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition curated by Ralph Rugoff, 2019, and twice in the Ukrainian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, in 2015 and 2013. Her works were shown at the M17 Contemporary Art Centre, Kyiv, 2021; the Shanghai International Sculpture Project JISP, 2020; Kunsthalle Mulhouse, France, 2020; the Ludwig Museum, Budapest, 2018; Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2016; Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2013; Bureau for Cultural Translations, Leipzig, 2016 (solo); the Kunstraum Innsbruck, Austria, 2015 (solo); Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, 2013; the National Art Museum of Ukraine, 2010, Zacheta National Art Gallery, Warsaw, 2008; De Appel, Amsterdam, 2008; and several times at the PinchukArtCentre in Kyiv, where her first major retrospective will be held in 2023. She lived and worked in Kyiv - since March 2022, she has been displaced to rural Western Ukraine.

| kadyrova.com | instagram.com/jannkad

Alevtina Kakhidze (b. 1973 in Zhdanivka, Donetsk oblast) is an artist, performer, curator, and gardener who focuses on drawing, and social and ecofeminist practice. Since 2018, she has served as the United Nations (UNDP) Tolerance Envoy in Ukraine. Kakhidze graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts in Kyiv, 2004, and Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, 2006, and was awarded the Kazimir Malevich Artist Award in 2008. She presented her performances and lectures at the UNWomen Conference, 2020; PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv, 2019; Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2016; Manifesta 10, 2014; The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, 2015; 7th Berlin Biennale: KW Institute for Contemporary Art, 2012; and The New Theatre in the New Great World, Warsaw, 2010. Her solo exhibitions include rum24, Aarhus, Denmark, 2020; Bozar, Brussels, 2017; PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv, 2014; FUTURA Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague, 2013; and Iaspis, Stockholm, 2009. Her works were featured in group shows at the M17 Contemporary Art Center, Kyiv, 2021; Elisabeth Jones Art Center, Portland, OR, 2021; Ludwig Museum, Budapest, 2018; M HKA, Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, 2018; Wurttembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, 2017; Kunsthall Trondheim, Norway, 2016; National Museum of Modern Art, Kyiv, 2014; CCA Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw, 2013; Moroccan Pavilion project at the 54th Venice Biennial, 2012; MOCAK, Krakow; Galeria Arsenał, Białystok, Poland; and Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv, all 2011. Since 2009, Kakhidze has lived and worked in Muzychi village near Kyiv.

| www.alevtinakakhidze.com | instagram.com/truealevtina

Conversation with artists
Lesia Khomenko and Anna Scherbyna
and special guest Ksenia Nouril (The Print Center, Philadelphia)
moderated by curator Monika Fabijanska
accompanying the exhibition

WOMEN AT WAR

at Fridman Gallery
169 Bowery, New York City

Wednesday, July 27, 1 PM WATCH HERE
Lesia Khomenko (b. 1980 in Kyiv) is a multidisciplinary artist who reconsiders the role of painting – she deconstructs narrative images and transforms paintings into objects, installations, performances, or videos. Her interest lies in revealing tools of visual manipulation in the context of history-making and myth-making. She graduated from the National Academy of Fine Art and Architecture in Kyiv, 2004. A member of R.E.P. group since 2004, she is also a co-founder of curatorial union HUDRADA, a self-educational community based on interdisciplinary cooperation, 2008. Khomenko is an initiator and program director of the “Contemporary Art” course at the Kyiv Academy of Media Arts. Her works were shown in many exhibitions, including at the Lviv Municipal Art Center, 2021 (solo); PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv, 2018 (solo); MNAC, Bucharest, 2016; The Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, 2015; CCA Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw, 2014; The Future Generation Art Prize@Venice2013; Kyiv Biennial 2012 (main project); National Art Museum of Ukraine, 2012; Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kyiv, 2011 (solo); Kalmar Konstmuseum, Sweden, 2011; White Box, New York, 2010; MUMOK, Vienna, 2009; Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, 2008; De Appel, Amsterdam, 2008; Ukrainian pavilion at Venice Biennale, 2007 (a collaboration with Mark Titchner); and Kunsthalle Vienna, 2006. She was a finalist of the Pinchuk Art Prize in 2009, 2011, and 2013, and a 2016 finalist of the Kazimir Malevich Award, Kyiv. She lives and works in Kyiv - since March 2022, she has temporarily been in the West.

| lesiakhomenko.com | instagram.com/lesia_khomenko

Anna Scherbyna (b. 1988 in Zaporizhzhia) is artist, curator, and illustrator. Her artistic practice examines the critical potential of mediums such as installation and video, drawing and painting, exploring the visual traditions of Ukraine’s painting school, political aspects of a landscape, historical memory, and gender performativity. She graduated from the National Academy of Visual Art and Architecture (2015) and Contemporary Art Course (2015). She participated in numerous exhibitions and projects, including The Portal, VBKÖ, Vienna, 2021; Armed and Dangerous, 2019; A Space of One’s Own, Pinchuk Art Centre, Kyiv, 2017; Edenia, the city if the future, Kharkiv, 2017; Socialist Realism. Seeming to Be Another, Kyiv, 2017; TEXTUS. Embroidery, textile, feminism, Kyiv, 2017; In a shelter, Paris, 2015.

Scherbyna’s curatorial practice is driven by the feminist approach to building artistic communities and collaborations. As a member of curatorial groups, she organized a reading club for artists and theoreticians Chytanka (2020), international feminist exhibition The Cave of the Golden Rose, Kyiv, 2019, and Sabber, Deer and Spining Wheel in Stanica Luhanska, 2018. She was a co-founder of the Concrete Dates Collective (2015–17), and a member of the art-group “Iod” (2013–15). Since 2009, she has lived and worked in Kyiv; and since March 2022 in Germany.

| scherbynaanna.com | instagram.com/annascherbynaaaa

Conversation with artists
Dana Kavelina and Olia Fedorova
moderated by curator Monika Fabijanska
accompanying the exhibition

WOMEN AT WAR

at Fridman Gallery
169 Bowery, New York City

Wednesday, July 13, 1 PM WATCH HERE

Olia Fedorova (b. 1994 in Kharkiv) is a conceptual artist who works with performance, photography, video, and text. She graduated from the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Fine Arts in 2016. She was the winner of the Nathan Altman Contemporary Visual Art Contest, Vinnytsia, 2017; a finalist of Ukrainian Biennale of Young Art, Kharkiv, 2019; and MUHi (Young Ukrainian Artists), Kyiv, 2017. Solo exhibitions include: Municipal gallery, Kharkiv, 2021, 2017; Contemporary Art Center Tea Factory, Odessa, 2017; and several galleries in Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Dnipro. Group exhibitions include Eye/View II organized by Videocity, Electronic Billboard at the Congress Center Basel, 2022; Association for Contemporary Art, Graz, 2020; Brüdershaft project, supported by the German Embassy in Ukraine (Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro), 2020; International Winter Land Art Festival Mythogenesis (Nemyriv, Ukraine, 2017-2020; and Museum of Ideas, Lviv, 2017. Fedorova participated in many artist residency programs, including in Mariupol, Ukraine; in the UK, Austria, Germany, and Poland; as well as online during the covid-19 pandemic, including Co-iki Arts Living Space (Tokyo), and American Art Incubator residency (Isolation Fund, Kyiv/Zero1, San-Francisco). Fedorova lives and works in Kharkiv – since May 2022, she has been a refugee in Graz, Austria.

| oliafedorova.com | instagram.com/olia_off

Dana Kavelina (b. 1995 in Melitopol) works primarily with animation and video, but also installation, painting and graphics. She graduated from the Department of Graphics at the National Technical University of Ukraine. Her works often address military violence and war, seen from gender perspective—especially with regard to the position of a victim as a political subject—as well as the distance between historical and individual trauma, and memory and misrepresentation. Her works were exhibited at the Museum Folkwang Essen, 2022; MAXXI – Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome, 2022; Zionskirche, Berlin, 2022; Kristianstad Kunsthalle, Sweden, 2021; Kmytiv Museum of Soviet Art, Ukraine, 2019; and Closer, Kyiv, 2019. Kavelina’s films were screened at the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Turin, 2022; HKW, Berlin, 2022; ICA LA, Los Angeles, CA, 2022; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 2022; and e-flux, New York, NY, 2021. Her animated film Mark Tulip, who spoke with flowers received the Special Jury Mention at the 2019 Odessa International Film Festival, and the Grand Prix of the 2018 KROK animation festival, Kyiv. Kavelina was based in Kyiv and Lviv, Ukraine; since March 2022, she has been a refugee in Germany.

| instagram.com/frau.hiroshima

CLOSING CONVERSATION: "IF YOU GRIND THE THRESHOLD OF THREE OTHER HOUSES"
Friday, May 13, 2022 | 1:30 - 2:30 PM

Join us via Zoom for a special conversation between artist Bang Geul Han and curator Monika Fabijanska next Friday, May 13 at 1:30 pm as part of a closing event for Han’s solo exhibition “If You Grind the Threshold of Three Other Houses.”

In light of the recent Supreme Court leak overturning Roe v. Wade, the conversation will focus on Han’s recent works exploring the intersections of reproductive rights, abortion law, and questions of race and class, in relation to wider questions of relationships between text, desire, power, and representation.

To register for this online conversation, click the link HERE.

Betsy Damon: Water Talks
PREORDER HERE

Book launch: Betsy Damon in conversation with
John-Scott Legg, the Director of SteinerBooks

Wednesday, April 6, 7 PM

La MaMa Galleria
47 Great Jones Street
New York, NY 10003
tel. 212.505.2476

“I have lived on Planet Earth for eighty-three years. I have seen so much change, and that includes advances in living standards for millions of people on the one hand, and the increasing destruction of the environment on the other. Somehow, we must find a middle path. This is why Betsy wrote this book. All people need to be empowered to know their waters and to take charge of lifesaving decisions.”
—Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE

“As living systems, we are interconnected, reliant on our environment for the air we breathe and the water that sustains us. Damon identifies the barriers to clean water, but simultaneously offers the tools needed to create change and clarifies the key role artists play in the process.”
—Christine Filippone, Ph.D., Terra Smithsonian Senior Fellow, Smithsonian American Art Museum

In Water Talks, artist Betsy Damon offers much-needed wisdom on water we all can benefit from, whether you are an artist, a scientist, or an engineer. Damon has worked over the course of her 40 year-long career with communities around the world across geopolitical and cultural boundaries on water. The book is a great combination of empirical knowledge and exciting scientific information on water; it offers numerous examples, both accessible and practical, of planning, designing, and implementing community-based projects on water. I find this book an absolute must-have in educating, transforming, inspiring, and mentoring the next generation.
—Dr. Changwoo Ahn, Professor, Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University

“Of the many things that humans take for granted—the sun, the wind, the soil—water, as Betsy Damon beautifully states in so many ways, is the thread that binds all life systems from sociological to ecological.”
—Pliny Fisk, founder and director of Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems

“Betsy Damon shows us that the road to awareness and action always begins with listening and connectivity.”
—Julie Reiss, Editor, Art, Theory and Practice in the Anthropocene (2019)

MORE ON BETSY DAMON

Session The Radical Outdoors: Betsy Damon’s feminist performances and eco-justice collaborations in the U.S. and China
Session ID #9460
Chairs: Monika Fabijanska, Independent Art Historian and Curator
Dr. Christine A. Filippone, Millersville University
2022 College Art Association Annual Conference
Friday, March 4, 2022, 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM (online only)

Presenters:
Monika Fabijanska, Independent Curator
Out In the Open: Betsy Damon’s Street Performances and Transnational Social Practice
Petra Poelzl, Independent Researcher, Vienna, Austria
The reception and impact of Betsy Damon’s Keepers of the Waters in China (1995) and Tibet (1996)
Dr. Christina Filippone, Millersville University, US
From Social Justice to Eco-Justice: Feminist Collaboration in the Work of Betsy Damon
Rong Xie, Independent Artist, London UK
A Journey with Water: Betsy Damon in China

Abstract:

Lucy Lippard jokingly called artists who deal with pollution and waste “Garbage Girls.” These ecofeminists challenged the definition of art and proposed a truly radical genre – the art of repairing environmental damage. Betsy Damon has worked globally to preserve living water using social justice tools: activism and community-building, both central to her feminist practice since the 1970s. A leader among lesbian activists in New York City, she co-edited the third issue of Heresies, Lesbian Art and Artists (1977). Her early performance work addressed the erasure of women’s narratives from history and their unspeakable subjects: mutilation and rape. Performing outdoors in the streets, her collaborative approach, and engagement with transnational feminism, all informed her social practice focused on water. In the mid-1990s, she organized Keepers of the Waters, collaborative public performances with local artists in China and Tibet. An early example of transcultural socially engaged art, Keepers of the Water left an indelible mark on avant-garde art in South-West China and led to her award-winning eco-art project Living Water Garden in Chengdu, a six-acre city park demonstrating water purification through natural processes.

Betsy Damon is among the most relevant pioneer feminist artists today and there is a growing interest in her practice globally. Papers in this session will discuss Damon’s feminist collaboration (Dr. Christine Filippone) and radical outdoor performance (Monika Fabijanska) as the basis for later projects of social practice and eco-justice. Petra Poelzl’s paper and Rong Xie’s film will consider Damon’s influence on generations of Chinese artists and activists.

OF CREATION /
OF POTENTIAL
Flaherty Seminar Program 3
Moderated by Monika Fabijanska
In conversation with artist Cecilia Vicuña

Sunday, December 5, 2021 7:30pm

UnionDocs
322 Union Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11211
ticket info coming soon!

PROGRAM 3

350 MYA (2016) by Terra Long, 5’, 16mm
Becoming Extinct (Wild Grass) (2017) by Elke Marhöfer, 23’, 16mm to digital
Kon Kon (2010) by Cecilia Vicuña, 54’, Digital

TRT: 82 mins

When the land is exhausted and the sea is poisoned and species are dying off, how can the earth communicate its needs and pass on its knowledge of growth and survival for the future? The filmmakers in this program look towards the earth with sensualist and materialist eyes, seeking to discover ancient ways of communing with the natural elements and creating new ways of being and perceiving through film. As Cecilia Vicuña writes, “To recover memory is to recover unity: / To be one with the sky and the sea / To feel the Earth as your own skin / is the only way to pleasure Her.” Immersed in this pleasure, the earth communes with the human, and through our participation, transforms us.

2021 Flaherty NYC Programmers: Kelsey White and L u m i a

More information

Betsy Damon
Performance Listen, Respect, Revere (1986)
Wednesday, October 27, 7 PM (door opens at 6) RSVP

The gallery will open at 6 PM to allow guests to view the show before the event. Masks and the proof of vaccination with ID (for those over the age of 12) are required to enter the gallery. 

La MaMa Galleria
47 Great Jones Street
New York, NY 10003
tel. 212.505.2476

Listen, Respect, Revere, which articulated a perspective about humans in an oppressive society, was performed only once – at New York’s Brecht Forum in 1986. In this narrative piece, with text written by Betsy Damon and choreography for two costumed dancers, all performed to a drumbeat, the artist questions traditional gender roles, while offering a semantic analysis of some basic elements and concepts of her performance practice: stones, as well as listening, reverence, and respect. It will be re-performed by Betsy Damon herself and a group of artists, in a version enhanced by the artist for the present, on October 27, 7 PM at the La MaMa Galleria. RSVP is essential.

Readers: Betsy Damon, Maya Ciarrocchi
Dancers: Antoine Stanley, Christina Sun
Drummer: Nicole Peyrafitte

This performance accompanies the exhibition Betsy Damon. Passages: Rites and Rituals at the La MaMa Galleria through November 21, 2021 (Thu-Sun, 1-7 PM).

Betsy Damon in conversation with Monika Fabijanska
Wednesday, October 20, 7 PM (door opens at 6)
The gallery will be open from 6 PM to allow guests to view the show before the event.

Masks and the proof of vaccination with ID (for those over the age of 12) are required to enter the gallery.

The conversation will also be streamed on Instagram Live @lamamagalleria

La MaMa Galleria
47 Great Jones Street
New York, NY 10003
tel. 212.505.2476

A rare opportunity to hear Betsy Damon discuss her early performance practice, this conversation accompanies the exhibition Betsy Damon. Passages: Rites and Rituals at the La MaMa Galleria through November 21, 2021 (Thu-Sun, 1-7 PM).

Artists at Work: Nora Joung
with Monika Fabijanska
on Instagram Live

ISCP Talk
Location: ISCP's Instagram account here (iscp_nyc)
August 31, 2021, 4-5 PM

For this Artists at Work, current resident Nora Joung and independent curator Monika Fabijanska will discuss language as a technology and strategy within visual art. A Q&A with the audience will follow.

Nora Joung works with moving images, installation, performance and text. Her current film project focuses on European scholars travelling to the Americas. Joung co-runs the artist-run platform Destiny’s in Oslo, Norway, together with Melanie Kitti, Emilie de Rohan Birkeland, and Ray Hegelbach. She is a member of the artist’s group Rose Hammer, and the editorial board of the small press H//O//F.

More information

Image: Nora Joung, Always serious, never solemn, 2019, performance at Bergen Kunsthall, Norway. Photo by Thor Brødreskift

Twisted: Lynn Hershman Leeson

Featuring Lynn Hershman Leeson,
Monika Fabijanska, and Amelia Jones
With a poetry reading by Bernardo Wade

The Brooklyn Rail
The New Social Environment
live conversation series, #374

Monday, August 30, 2021
1 PM EST/10 AM PST

REGISTER HERE

Online Artist Talk with Monika Fabijanska
April 15, 2021, 6:30-7:30 PM EST via Zoom

accompanying the solo exhibition
of Maya Ciarrocchi, Site: Yizkor

Equity Gallery
245 Broome Street
New York, NY 10002
April 8–24, 2021
Courtyard Meet and Greet*: Saturday, April 10, 2021, 2-4 PM

Equity Gallery presents Maya Ciarrocchi’s Site: Yizkor, the long-awaited culmination of New York Artists Equity’s Residency Fellow Program. Through an expansive series of multidisciplinary artworks, including drawings, monotypes, cyanotypes, and photographs, Ciarrocchi carefully excavates and pieces together disappearing histories from the remains of architecture and fragmented memories, in the process recreating a complete visual story.

Ciarrocchi sees the capacity of storytelling as a tool to make past struggles corporeal and as one of the most potent methods humanity has to endure and heal. The ability to examine past tribulations, as well as to recollect and manifest what initially seems permanently faded or lost, is what enables people to persevere and survive.

Image: Maya Ciarrocchi, This Place Has a Body, 2020, Cyanotype on Paper, 30 x 22 inches, Ed. 1/3

Seminar Theorizing Rape and Aesthetics in 2021
ACLA (The American Comparative Literature Association) 2021 Conference
April 9, 10, and 11, 2021 at 9:30 AM EST
registration with the conference required

My presentation, “Strategies of Depicting and Narrating Rape by American Womenx Visual Artists,” will examine how the artists’ intention – healing, evoking empathy, shocking the audience, effecting change – informs the remarkably varied visual languages that womenx employ to address rape – from realism to abstraction, from performative re-enactment to healing rituals, from subversion of classical iconography to avoiding depicting the female body and using text instead and complicating the relation between reality and fiction in para-documentary treatment.

I will broaden the perspective of my 2018 exhibition “The Un-Heroic Act,” adding the analysis of works by such artists as Betsy Damon, Rowan Renee, and Aviva Rahmani.

The seminar is organized by Michael Dango and Erin Spampinato. Other presenters are: Artist Aliza Shvarts, Angelique Szymanek, Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Katherine Stone, University of Warwick, Molly Keran, University of Michigan, Robin Field, King's College, Zoë Brigley Thompson, The Ohio State University, Carine Mardorossian, University at Buffalo, SUNY, and Joseph Fischel, Yale University

Image: Betsy Damon

ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM - TFAP ECOFEMINISMS, PART 1
The Feminist Art Project Day of Panel(s) @CAA
Live Session and Q&A: Fri. February 12, 5-6:30 PM EST Free, TFAP registration required

109th CAA Annual Conference (complete program)
February 10–13, 2021

Presenters:
Alicia Grullón, artist, CUNY and School of Visual Arts
Notes from an Artist: From Climate Change to Pandemic in the Bronx
Monika Fabijanska, independent art historian and curator
The Evolution of ecofeminim(s)
Diane Burko, artist
My 50 Year Journey from Feminist Activist to Environmental Activist: From Observer to Investigator to Communicator

Taking my exhibition ecofeminism(s) (Thomas Erben Gallery, 2020) as a starting point, my presentation The evolution of ecofeminism(s) will discuss how the legacy of the pioneers of ecofeminist art has been continued, developed or opposed. Ecofeminist art of the 1970s was largely defined by spiritual feminism, leading by the mid-1980s to activist positions which resulted in their inventing some of most radical art forms. The historical perspective acquired over the last fifty years reveals how revolutionary the work of pioneer feminist artists was, and how relevant it remains in the era of #MeToo Movement, climate change, and the decolonialization activisms in the U.S. 

This session aligns with both the Committee on Women in the Arts 50/50 Initiative and the CAA's 2021 theme of climate crisis.

Image: Kai Lumumba Barrow and Gallery of the Streets, ECOHYBRIDITY: Love Song for NOLA. a visual [black] opera in 5 movements, 2015 ©Kai Lumumba Barrow. Courtesy of the artist.

SPIRITUAL ECOFEMINISM AND PATRIARCHAL GODS:
THE ART OF BILGE FRIEDLAENDER, HELÈNE AYLON AND JOAN JONAS

Conference registration required

109th CAA Annual Conference (complete program)
February 10–13, 2021; recorded sessions available through March 15

Chair: Monika Fabijanska
Presenters:
Mira Friedlaender, Director, Bilge Friedlaender’s Estate
Bilge Friedlaender’s Cedar Forest
Rachel Federman, Ph.D., Associate Curator, The Morgan Library & Museum
On the Path: Helène Aylon’s Earth Ambulance (1982) and two sacs en route (1985)
Jovana Stokic, Ph.D., School of Visual Arts
Emergent Ecologies in the Works of Joan Jonas

The recognition by pioneer ecofeminist artists that Western patriarchal philosophy and religions have served to subordinate and exploit both women and nature is particularly resonant in the era of #MeToo Movement and climate change. This session will discuss three alternative approaches to ecofeminist critique of patriarchal religious or mythological systems.

In her 1980s works about Gilgamesh, Bilge Friedlaender (1934-2000) exposed the motif of the Sumerian king cutting the sacred cedar forest in quest for fame. Her questioning of the myth of the male hero corresponds to Helène Aylon’s (1931-2020) ecofeminist activist projects, rooted in the critique of the Torah as a patriarchal system of belief, and of gender roles in Judaism.  Joan Jonas (b.1936), working from myths, has creatively transformed roles assigned to women in society since the 1970s, predating the theory of gender performativity. In Moving Off the Land II (2019), she transformed the role of a Witch into its enlightened version of a Guide/Teacher that women can play in postmodernity—when both gender roles and speciesism have been questioned. 

This session aligns with both the Committee on Women in the Arts 50/50 Initiative and the CAA's 2021 theme of climate crisis.

Image: Joan Jonas, Moving Off the Land II, 2019, video still, courtesy of the artist

AVIVA RAHMANI: FROM ECOFEMINISM TO CLIMATE JUSTICE

109th CAA Annual Conference (complete program)
February 10–13, 2021; recorded sessions available through March 15

Prerecorded session available Feb. 9 - Mar. 15; live Q&A: Wed. February 10, 2-2:30 PM EST
Conference registration required

Chair: Robert R. Shane, Ph.D., College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY
Presenters:
Rebecca Lowery, MOCA, Los Angeles
Tender Investigations: The Early Work of Aviva Rahmani
Monika Fabijanska, independent art historian and curator, New York
Models of Healing after Rape and Ecocide: The Art of Aviva Rahmani
Chave Maeve Krivchenia, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Rock Formations: Aviva Rahmani's “Blue Rocks” (2002)
Gale Elston, Law Offices of Gale P. Elston, PC, New York
Aviva Rahmani’s use of the Visual Artists’ Rights Act and Eminent Domain Law as a Medium in Her Artwork “Blued Trees Symphony”
Aviva Rahmani, discussant

Ecoartist, feminist, and composer Aviva Rahmani has been engaged with transdisciplinary art practices and social/ecojustice for over 50 years. Leading her performance group American Ritual Theater (1968-1971), Rahmani was one of the first artists to treat the topic of rape and went on to play a formative role in Ablutions (1972) with Suzanne Lacy, Sandra Orgel, and Judy Chicago. Since 1989 she has pioneered ecoart projects, such as Ghost Nets (1989-2000) and her continentally-scaled Blued Trees Symphony and Opera (2015-present), which not only address climate change, but make major changes to ecosystems through small-scale but strategic interventions she calls “trigger points”—the focus of her interdisciplinary PhD research. This conference session is similarly an intervention that seeks to make a major change by introducing Rahmani’s body of work to art historians, evaluate her legacy thus far, and engage with her current projects that address the most pressing issues of our time.

This session aligns with both the Committee on Women in the Arts 50/50 Initiative and the CAA's 2021 theme of climate crisis.

Image: Aviva Rahmani, Bed of Nets, 1992. Courtesy of the artist

ecofeminism(s) 

PUBLIC PROGRAM ONLINE: ZOOM CONVERSATIONS WITH THE ARTISTS
moderated by ecofeminism(s) curator, Monika Fabijanska

September 16, 6:30 PM EST
Raquel Cecilia Mendieta, niece and goddaughter of Ana Mendieta
Mira Friedlaender, daughter of Bilge Friedlaender

Raquel Cecilia Mendieta is a filmmaker, writer, and video artist most known for her recent films on her aunt, artist Ana Mendieta. Her films have screened at film festivals and art museums world-wide. She is the Associate Administrator for the Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection and was responsible for overseeing the digital restoration of the artist’s works on film and video. She is currently working on a feature length documentary about the life and art of Ana Mendieta.

Mira Friedlaender is an artist living in New York City, and has exhibited  locally and internationally. Her work has been featured in the New York Times and Bomb, she is a recent fellow in the Art & Law Program and has held public facing residencies at the American Center in Bangladesh and Recess in New York City. She is the Director of the Bilge Friedlaender Estate and co-curated Bilge Friedlaender: Words, Numbers, Lines at Arter in Istanbul (2016). 

MORE ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Image: Ana Mendieta (Cuban American, 1948-1985), Bacayu (Esculturas Rupestres) [Light of Day (Rupestrian Sculptures)], 1981/2019. Black and white photograph, 40 x 55 in © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co.

Spotlight on Ecofeminism(s)

September 10, 6:30 PM EST
Exhibition curator Monika Fabijanska
Gallerist Thomas Erben
Christie’s Education’s Julie Reiss

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

This complimentary webinar explores the critically acclaimed group exhibition ecofeminism(s) at the Thomas Erben Gallery this Summer/Fall 2020 in New York. Praised for its relevance and curatorial vision by The New York Times and Art in America, the survey ranges from art by early eco-feminists such as Agnes Denes and Ana Mendieta to present-day artists Mary Mattingly and Hanae Utamura. Ecofeminist art emerged in the 1970s and 80s, and continues to be embraced both as a historical and a contemporary phenomenon. Exhibition curator Monika Fabijanska and gallerist Thomas Erben will join Christie’s Education’s Julie Reiss for a discussion about the show’s timeliness and the increasing centrality in the art world of art grounded in ecological and other human rights concerns. The discussion will be followed by a Q & A session.

MORE ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Image: Installation view of ecofeminism(s) curated by Monika Fabijanska, left to right: Andrea Bowers, Helène Aylon, Eliza Evans, Sonya Kelliher-Combs, Hanae Utamura, Betsy Damon, Aviva Rahmani. Courtesy of Thomas Erben Gallery, New York, June/July 2020 (photo: Andreas Vesterlund).