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.

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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

Feminist Legacy Planning Workshop with Monika Fabijanska & Betsy Damon

Tuesday, July 11, 6-8 PM

Pen and Brush
29 East 22nd Street, New York, NY 10010
(212) 475-3669 info@penandbrush.org

RSVP

The workshop accompanies The Feminist Institute’s Memory Lab and Exhibition who’s afraid of feminist archives? curated by Monika Fabijanska, in collaboration with Helena Shaskevich, at Pen and Brush, June 15 - July 15.

More about the exhibition

More about The Feminist Institute’s Memory Lab

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.

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).

Sexual Violence and Visual Culture
An Online Roundtable

National Women’s Studies Association Annual Conference
Fri, Sep 17, 11:00 am – 12:15pm EDT

This roundtable brings together participants whose work has engaged with the subject off sexual violence. The aim is to provide varied perspectives on what it means to write about, create, exhibit, or look at images off rape from a transnational intersectional feminist perspective. Some off the central questions driving the discussion include: What would a feminist image off rape look like? What are some off the ethical considerations involved in making or viewing art about rape? Within distinct socio--cultural contexts, how are particular subjects made legible, or not, ass victims or perpetrators off rape? How can art disrupt these narratives?

Presenters

Joanna Gardner-Huggett, DePaul University
Angelique Szymanek, Hobart & William Smith College
Karen Cordero Reiman, Universidad Iberoamericana (retired)
Aaron C. Thomas, Florida State University
Monika Fabijanska, Art Historian and Independent Curator

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

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).

ecofeminism(s) 

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

July 22, 6:30 PM EST
Betsy Damon
Eliza Evans 
Carla Maldonado
Eleanor Heartney, art writer, contributing editor, Art in America

Betsy Damon (American, b. 1940) is water artist whose public work and living systems have received widespread acclaim. She created important feminist ritual performances in public space in New York: 7,000 Year Old Woman (1976-79), Blind Beggar Woman (1979-81), A Rape Memory (1981-83), The Shrine for Everywoman (1985-1990), and A Mediation With Stones for the Survival of the Planet (1983-89), and exhibited at P.S.1 in the 1980s. The installation The Memory of Clean Water shown at the Everhart Museum, traveled to many museums, 1986-91. At the age of 50, Damon changed the focus of her art to center on water, its conservation and protection, and its impact on the society. Among her large scale projects mobilizing art, science and communities around local water problems, are those on the Cheyenne River, ND (2019), in Larimer, PA (2012-2016), Olympic Forest Park, Beijing, China (2002-06), for the Beijing Bureau of Hydraulic Research & Engineering, China (2001-2003), and Living Water Garden, Chengdu, China (1996).

Eliza Evans experiments with sculpture, print, video, and textiles to identify disconnections and absurdities in social, economic, and ecological systems. The initial parameters of each work are carefully researched and then evolve as a result of interaction with people, time, and weather. Evans was born in a rustbelt steel town and raised in rural Appalachia. She currently splits her time between New York City and the Hudson Valley. Her work was exhibited at the Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, NY (2019), Edward Hopper House Museum, Nyack, NY (2019), Chashama Sculpture Field, Pine Plains, NY (2018), BRIC, Brooklyn (2017), and Purchase College, Purchase, NY (2017). Residencies include the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, UC Santa Barbara (2020), Bronx Museum AIM, and Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, MN (both 2019). Evans holds an MFA from SUNY Purchase College in visual art and a Ph.D. in economic sociology from the University of Texas at Austin.

Carla Maldonado (Brasilian, b. 1986) is a multimedia artist, working in photography, film and installation. Her work responds to socio-political issues; patriarchy and the environmental crisis, and explores the struggle of progressive movements in Bolsonaro’s Brazil, and her immigrant experience in Trump’s era U.S. Maldonado's intuitively observational process is based on photographic and video documentation of environments she navigates and people she encounters – focusing on rebels, misfits and revolutionaries. She showed at the Satellite Art Show in Miami and Brooklyn; Film Fest at the Farm, Rhinebeck, NY; School of Visual Arts, NYC, SoMad Studio, NYC (all 2019); Barcelona Planet Film Festival, Spain (2018); and The Knockdown Center, Brooklyn (2017). She has BFA in Fashion Design from Senai Cetiqt, Rio de Janeiro, 2007; and MFA in Photography, Video & Related Media, SVA in New York, 2019. Maldonado lives and works in New York City and is currently AIM Fellow at The Bronx Museum.

Eleanor Heartney is an art critic and author and has written extensively on contemporary art issues for many publications, including Art in America, Artpress, Artnews, Art and Auction, The New Art Examiner, the Washington Post and the New York Times. Her books include Critical Condition: American Culture at the Crossroads, Postmodernism, Defending Complexity: Art Politics and the New World Order, Postmodern Heretics: The Catholic Imagination in Contemporary Art, Art and Today and Doomsday Dreams: the Apocalyptic Imagination in Contemporary Art. She is a co-author of After the Revolution: Women who Transformed Contemporary Art, and The Reckoning: Women Artists of the New Millennium. She is past President of AICA USA, the American section of the International Art Critics Association. Her awards include the College Art Association’s Frank Jewett Mather Award and the French government’s Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

MORE ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Image: Betsy Damon (American, b. 1940), The Memory of Clean Water, 1985, mixed media: paper pulp, grass, minerals ©Betsy Damon. Courtesy of the artist

ecofeminism(s) 

PUBLIC PROGRAM ONLINE: ZOOM CONVERSATIONS WITH THE ARTISTS

moderated by ecofeminism(s) curator, Monika Fabijanska

July 15, 6:30 PM EST

Aviva Rahmani
Sonya Kelliher-Combs 
Jessica Segall
Candice Hopkins, curator, writer, and a citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation

Pioneering ecological artist Aviva Rahmani (American, b. 1945) exhibits, publishes and presents internationally. Her project, The Blued Trees Symphony (2015-present), legally challenges expanding fossil fuel infrastructures with copyrighted and sonified installations across miles of North America. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Independent Museum of Contemporary Art, Cyprus; the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Colorado; the Hudson River Museum, NY; the Cincinnati Center for Contemporary Art, Ohio; and the Joseph Beuys 100 days of Conference Pavilion, for the Venice Biennale, Italy. Her work has won numerous grants, fellowships and been written about internationally. She is an Affiliate with the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder; gained her PhD from the University of Plymouth, UK and received her BFA and MFA at the California Institute of the Arts. She is currently completing a residency with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council on Governors Island.

Sonya Kelliher-Combs (Native American, b. 1969) is an artist of mixed decent: Iñupiaq from the North Slope of Alaska, Athabascan from the Interior, German and Irish. She uses imagery and symbols that speak about culture and the life of her ancestors, and marginalization and the struggles of Indigenous peoples. She participated in numerous group exhibitions, including at Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., 2020; Minneapolis Institute of Art, 2019; Korundi Museum, Rovaniemi, Finland, 2018-19; John Jay College, NYC, 2018; Northern Norway Art Museum, Tromsø, 2016; Nordamerika Native Museum, Zurich, 2015; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 2013; National Museum of the American Indian, NYC, 2010; Museum of Art & Design, NYC, 2005; Cheongju International Craft Biennial, South Korea, 2005. Solo exhibitions include Minus Space, Brooklyn, NY 2019; the Northern Norway Art Museum, Svalbard, Norway, 2018; Institute of American Indian Art, Santa Fe, 2006; Anchorage Museum of History and Art, Anchorage, 2005; and Alaska State Museum, Juneau, 2001.

Jessica Segall is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been screened and exhibited internationally including The Fries Museum, the Havana Bienal, The National Gallery of Indonesia, The Queens Museum of Art, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, The Inside Out Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Vojvodina, The Mongolian National Modern Art Gallery, The National Museum of Jewish American History and The National Symposium for Electronic Art. Segall received grants from The Pollock Krasner Foundation, The Rema Hort Mann Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, The Harpo Foundation and Art Matters and attended residencies at Princeton University, The Van Eyck Academie, The MacDowell Colony and Skowhegan. Her work has been featured in Cabinet Magazine, The New York Times, Sculpture Magazine, Mousse Magazine and Art in America. She received her BA from Bard College and MFA from Columbia University.

Candice Hopkins is a curator and writer and a citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation. She lives between Albuquerque, New Mexico and Toronto, Canada. She is Senior Curator of the 2019 and 2021 editions of the Toronto Biennial of Art. Hopkins was co-curator of major exhibitions including the Canadian Pavilion for the 58th Venice Biennial featuring the media art collective Isuma; the 2018 SITE Santa Fe biennial, Casa Tomada; documenta 14 in Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany; Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art; and Close Encounters: The Next 500 Year. Her writing is published widely and her recent essays and presentations include "The Appropriation Debates (or The Gallows of History)" for MIT Press; “Outlawed Social Life," for South as a State of Mind; and "The Gilded Gaze: Wealth and Economies on the Colonial Frontier," for the documenta 14 Reader. 

MORE ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Image: Aviva Rahmani (American, b. 1945), Physical Education, 1973, performance documentation: slide projection ©Aviva Rahmani. Courtesy of the artis

ecofeminism(s) 

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

July 8, 6:30 PM EST
Lynn Hershman Leeson
Mary Mattingly 
Hanae Utamura
Julie Reiss, Ph.D., Christie’s Education

Lynn Hershman Leeson (American, b. 1941) is artist and filmmaker acclaimed for the pioneering use of new technologies through which she addresses issues such as trauma, identity loss, 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, 2017. Her works are in the collections of MoMA, Whitney Museum, ZKM, LACMA, SFMoMA, Walker Art Center, Berkeley Museum of Art, and National Gallery of Art of Canada. She received Siggraph Lifetime Achievement Award, Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica, Guggenheim Fellowship, USA Artist Fellowship, NEA, and College Art Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Mary Mattingly (American, b. 1978) is a photographer and sculptor. She founded Swale, an edible landscape on a barge in New York City to circumvent public land laws. Currently, Mattingly is artist in residence at the Brooklyn Public Library and preparing to launch "Public Water" – a public sculpture about NYC's drinking watershed with More Art. In 2018 she worked with BRIC Arts to build "What Happens After" which involved dismantling a military vehicle and deconstructing its mineral supply chain. Her work has been exhibited in museums such as the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de la Habana, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, Storm King, the International Center of Photography, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Palais de Tokyo. Her work has been featured in Aperture, Art in America, Artforum, Sculpture Magazine, The New York Times, Le Monde Magazine, New Yorker, and on BBC News, NPR, on Art21.

Hanae Utamura (Japanese, b. 1980) is multimedia artist, working in video, performance, installation, and sculpture. She received her MA from Chelsea College of Art and Design, and her BA from Goldsmiths, University of London and exhibits extensively in Asia, Europe and the U.S. Numerous international residencies and fellowships include Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart), Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin), PACT Zollverein (Essen), Art Omi (Hudson, NY), Santa Fe Art Institute Residency, Aomori Contemporary Art Center (Aomori), National Museum of Contemporary Art, Changdong Art Studio (Seoul), Seoul Art Space_GEUMCHEON (Seoul), Florence Trust (London). She has been awarded NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program, Shiseido Art Egg Award, Japanese Ministry of Culture Grant, Pola Art Foundation, UNESCO-Aschberg Bursary Award, and Axis/Florence Trust Award. In 2019 she was a visiting scholar at New York University as a part of Japan – U.S. Exchange Friendship Program in the Art. Utamura is based in New York and Buffalo, NY.

Julie Reiss is a pioneering scholar in the field of Installation art. She is the author of From Margin to Center: The Spaces of Installation Art (MIT Press, 1999), in addition to numerous articles and reviews. Julie has spoken on panels related to art and the climate crisis including “Shifting Domains: Artists Respond to the Threatened Ecological Commons (Marfa Ballroom Dialogues, 2013), and “Landscape and Anthropocene” (College Art Association, 2016). She chaired a panel on art in the Anthropocene at the 2017 Conference for the Council for European Studies. She is the editor of Art, Theory and Practice in the Anthropocene (Vernon Press, 2018). In 2019 she organized the symposium “The Role of Art in the Environmental Crisis” at Christie’s Education, and was the guest critic on the same theme at The Brooklyn Rail. She directs Modern and Contemporary Art and the Market, an accredited MA program at Christie’s Education. 

MORE ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Image: Mary Mattingly (American, b. 1978), Life of Objects, 2013, Archival Pigment Print, 30 x 30 in. Edition 5/5 ©Mary Mattingly. Courtesy of Robert Mann Gallery