Recently in Arts Category

Via.

From the always incredible Alix Olson.

Check out this spoken word performance from Sonya Renee; towards the end my jaw was dropped and I was near tears. (And I'm not that big of a softie, believe me.) Just amazing.

Via KaeLyn at Feministe.

UPDATE: Get the transcript here.

When I first strolled by Ghada Amer's huge canvases with acrylic paint and embroidery at the Elizabeth Sackler Center for Feminist Art last weekend, I just took a casual look--the string seemed to hang like so many spider webs chaotically snuggled into a long-abandon cabin wall. But when I moved closer, really focused my eyes--like one of those Magic Eye things I never seem to be able to do--I discovered that I was looking at intricate, erotic images of naked women, repeated over and over in your grandmother's own craft.

That's not all this Egyptian multi-media artist does. She takes photographs, paints, sculpts, even does installations in college cafeterias.

If you're not in the New York area, I suggest you check out links to her work here. If you are, you have no excuse not to make it to the Sackler Center on your next free Saturday and be ridiculously inspired/amazed/impressed. If Judy Chicago's Dinner Party is property of the 70s feminist art movement, I want third wave dibs on Ghada Amer. (She was born in 1963, so it might be pushing the generational envelope?!).

By famous British art critic Brian Sewell:

"The art market is not sexist. . . The likes of Bridget Riley and Louise Bourgeois are of the second and third rank. There has never been a first-rank woman artist.

Only men are capable of aesthetic greatness. Women make up 50 per cent or more of classes at art school. Yet they fade away in their late 20s or 30s. Maybe it's something to do with bearing children." (Emphasis mine)

Um yeah. I guess we can't surprised, since he's compared women's apparent incapacity to drive well with their artistry in the past.

I'd like to see him try to paint a fucking picture next to some great women artists of our time, like Frida Kahlo or Mary Cassatt. Anyone have favorite greats they'd like to share?

Thanks to Lynne for the link!

Photo of Diane DiMassa by Love Alban

Photo of Cristy C. Road by Amos Mac

Diane DiMassa and Cristy C. Road are contributors of the new anthology, Live Through This. Edited by Sabrina Chapadjiev, Live Through This is a collection of original stories, essays, artwork and photography that explore the use of art to survive many of life's lows, traumas and struggles. Both illustrated and contributed real-life personal pieces to the anthology.

Diane DiMassa is best known as the creator of the comic heroine Hothead Paisan, Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist. She recently illustrated a graphic novel written by Daphne Gottlieb called Jokes and the Unconscious, and regularly contributes to anthologies.

Cristy C. Road's works and publications include the punk rock zine, Greenzine; illustrated storybook, Indestructable; a series of illustrated novels based on filmmaker Esther Bell's upcoming film, Flaming Heterosexual Female; and is currently working on Bad Habits, an illustrated love story.

Here are Diane and Cristy...

My first big-girl bicycle (one without training wheels) was a Strawberry Shortcake bike - it was red and white and had sayings like "Have a berry nice day" printed across it. I loved Strawberry Shortcake.

So imagine my distress when I read that Strawberry and friends had gotten a cartoon character "facelift."

She is not the only aging fictional star to get a facelift. An unusually large number of classic characters for children are being freshened up and reintroduced — on store shelves, on the Internet and on television screens — as their corporate owners try to cater to parents’ nostalgia and children’s YouTube-era sensibilities. Adding momentum is a retail sector hoping to find refuge from a rough economy in the tried and true.

Warner Brothers hopes to “reinvigorate and reimagine” Bugs Bunny and Scooby-Doo through a new virtual world on the Internet, where people will be able to dress up the characters pretty much any way they want. American Greetings is dusting off another of its lines, the Care Bears, which will return with a fresh look this fall (less belly fat, longer eyelashes).

Of course, by checking out the pictures accompanied with the article, it becomes clear that this "makeover" seems an awful lot about making the characters thinner. I guess even fictional characters aren't allowed any baby fat. Sigh.

Thanks to Hex for the link.

I love NYC in the summer. There's always a ton of amazing feminist events going on, and it seems to have begun. This weekend kicks off with Rock for Young Women, an event to support the New York Metro Chapter of the Young Women's Task Force.

Then Monday, the amazing Girls for Gender Equity will be partnering with HollaBack NYC for a post-show talk back about subway harassment after a special showing of the play Standing Clear, described as "an ensemble piece that digs deep into the personalities we commute with each day."

Support and enjoy three awesome organizations in one week. If you're in the NYC area, be sure to check em out.

Well wonder no more. My only question is - how does she possibly see riding around in that thing?

From the fabulous Jessica Hagy at indexed. You can buy her book here.

The International Museum of Women continues to do amazing work online. This month the exhibit is Women, Power, and Politics and there is no shortage of inspiring art to check out. I'm especially interested in the Body as Art section, where artists from around the globe consider ways that our forms can be our medium of expression.

Image by Drew Burrows

NYU student Drew Burrows showed off his new girlfriend at the Tisch School of the Arts show, in which she was the art, via the Daily Intel:

It's simple to behold — a single mattress, tucked into a dark, curtained back room of the showcase space. On it: a lithe brunette. She's perfectly quiet, but once you sit or lie down, she responds to your every move. Lie on your back, she snuggles up right next to you in a log position. Curl up in the fetal position, she spoons. The only hitch: She's 2-D. 'Yeah, you can't feel the girl. That's the thing,' Burrows explained as he demonstrated his invention, an "infrared sensitive" light projection (meaning it reacts, and the projected woman moves, based on an infrared sensor) called INBED. 'Still, it's so nice if you're tired and worn out to have someone to curl up with.' (Emphasis mine)

Shudder. And that's just the tip of the iceberg:

Burrows suggests his new alternative to a full-body pillow or (ugh) blow-up doll could provide late-night comfort for traders, lawyers, or any other single guy in Manhattan who simply works too hard to keep a girlfriend.

Just...wow. Some are defending this as a simple art project addressing intimacy and loneliness, but Burrows seems to have created this - and is blatantly pitching it - not as art, but seriously as an adequate substitution for a woman. Not okay.

Via Boing Boing. (h/t to reader Austin)

Can we please stop calling every attempt at analyzing pop culture "outrage"? Kthx, moving on.

Annalee Newitz's piece from the San Francisco Bay Guardian last week embarks on the task of justifying the violence and misogyny in Grand Theft Auto 4.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving is lobbying to get the video game rated "adults only" (effectively killing it in the US market, where major console manufacturers won't support AO games) because there's one scene in the game where you have the option to drive drunk. Apparently none of the good ladies of MADD have ever played GTA, since if they had they might have discovered that when you try to drive drunk, the video game informs you that you should take a cab. If you do drive, the cops immediately chase you down. Which is exactly the sort of move you'd expect from this sly, fun game, which hit stores last week.

I actually stand at a different point than MADD and I don't necessarily support the censorship of the game, I don't really think censorship works. The more ratings and labels you put on something, the edgier and sexier it becomes. Censorship doesn't change the fact that violence and misogynist sex scenes make up the bulk of edgy popular culture or that violence is a serious problem for youth today and so is the sexualization of women, along with violence against women.

On some level, I do agree with proponents of GTA 4. Several of my friends have said, "but it is just fun." I don't deny that advances in video game technology are in fact mind-blowing and down right incredible and the they are fun. Hello, I am a blogger, I get the nerd new-cool-fun-fangled-technology thing.

What I can't get down with is justifying blatant misogyny by calling it art.

If GTA4 were a movie, it would have been directed by Martin Scorsese or David O. Russell, and we'd all be ooohing and aaahhing over its dark, ironic vision of immigrant life in a world at war with itself. But because GTA4 is a video game, where players are in the driver's seat, so to speak, it freaks people out. Earlier installments of GTA-inspired feminist and cultural-conservative outrage (you have the option to kill prostitutes!), and concern over moral turpitude from Hillary Clinton (you can beat cops to death! Or anybody!).

I think it is really problematic to lump all criticisms of GTA4 together. I believe at some point, I was written about along with a conservative writer (shudder to think) and that is not giving the full range of view points space to air their concerns. I am pretty sure if a movie had prostitute killing in it, I would write about it, but that is besides the point. GTA4 is not a movie, it is bigger than a movie. In fact, movies switched around their release dates for the release of GTA4. In the first week out it has grossed 500 million dollars. Furthermore, it is played, repeatedly and it is a role playing game, where you are the person engaging in violent acts. It is a fantasy, your fantasy. Perhaps there is a moment of identification like this with movies, but it is different then actually acting something out yourself.

Because this weekend, my friend Sara Bacon is coming over to install these awesome pieces: An investigation of boy doll accessories and An investigation of girl doll accessories. SO excited.

Sara is probably my oldest friend (we chilled in diapers together), and I'm just amazed by her work and just generally proud to know her. That is all.

From a recent performance at The Whitney Biennial. Photo by Eduardo Aparicio.

Coco Fusco is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist and writer. She is the author of English is Broken Here: Notes on Cultural Fusion in the Americas, and editor of Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas, and Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self (with Brian Wallis). Her work on military interrogation was selected for the 2008 Whitney Biennial.

"In the guise of a CIA manual, Coco Fusco's provocative A Field Guide for Female Interrogators offers an unflinching look at women's role in the military and at America's use of torture in the War on Terror"-- (from the book's back cover copy).

Here's Coco...

Aliza Shvarts writes,

As an intervention into our normative understanding of .the real. and its accompanying politics of convention, this performance piece has numerous conceptual goals. The first is to assert that often, normative understandings of biological function are a mythology imposed on form. It is this mythology that creates the sexist, racist, ableist, nationalist and homophobic perspective, distinguishing what body parts are .meant. to do from their physical capability. The myth that a certain set of functions are .natural. (while all the other potential functions are .unnatural.) undermines that sense of capability, confining lifestyle choices to the bounds of normatively defined narratives.

Just as it is a myth that women are .meant. to be feminine and men masculine, that penises and vaginas are .meant. for penetrative heterosexual sex (or that mouths, anuses, breasts, feet or leather, silicone, vinyl, rubber, or metal implements are not .meant. for sex at all), it is a myth that ovaries and a uterus are .meant. to birth a child.

When considering my own bodily form, I recognize its potential as extending beyond its ability to participate in a normative function. While my organs are capable of engaging with the narrative of reproduction . the time-based linkage of discrete events from conception to birth . the realm of capability extends beyond the bounds of that specific narrative chain. These organs can do other things, can have other purposes, and it is the prerogative of every individual to acknowledge and explore this wide realm of capability.

Thanks to Sarah for the link.

Previous post on the subject is here.

Tons of readers wrote and asked us to address this article in the Yale Daily News about an art student who, supposedly, artificially inseminated herself and then had multiple abortions -- and taped the whole thing and called it art.

When I read the article, I was totally shocked it was in a student newspaper, not on an anti-choice website. I mean, it sounded like a crazy hoax (like the abortion providers who eat fetuses) designed to perpetuate all the worst stereotypes about women who choose abortion and people who protect their right to do so.

Well, turns out it the art project isn't real:

"Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art," a Yale spokeswoman, Helaine Klasky, said. "She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body."

Ah, but rather than spark a discussion about the "ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body," this really just propped up a lot of ridiculous anti-choice talking points, like women have abortions just for the heck of it, because they're bored on a Saturday night or something. I imagine we'll be seeing this story cited as fact in anti-choice Power Point presentations for decades to come...

UPDATE: Ok, so it now appears the artist is disputing the university's claim that it was a "creative fiction."

But Shvarts reiterated Thursday that she repeatedly use a needleless syringe to insert semen into herself. At the end of her menstrual cycle, she took abortifacient herbs to induce bleeding, she said. She said she does not know whether or not she was ever pregnant.

“No one can say with 100-percent certainty that anything in the piece did or did not happen,� Shvarts said, “because the nature of the piece is that it did not consist of certainties.�

This afternoon, Shvarts showed the News footage from tapes she plans to play at the exhibit. The tapes depict Shvarts — sometimes naked, sometimes clothed — alone in a shower stall bleeding into a cup.

Well now I don't know what to think.

ANOTHER UPDATE: To clarify for those who may be confused, she didn't take any abortion-inducing drugs that are available from a doctor only (mifepristone/RU-486 or misoprostol), and because she never took a pregnancy test, it's my strong suspicion that she merely gulped down a lot of EmergenC and videotaped herself menstruating. (Over the course of her nine-month project, she would have had nine opportunities to film herself bleeding.) Of course, the concept is still interesting to discuss. Just wanted to point that out... (Skeptical commenters have said similar things.)

I like LindaBeth's comment:

I'd really love to see her artist statement or even talk to her...there is likely mush more thought than is being told here. And I think people maybe a little too quick to jump all over her for the possible political fallout. And while I understand the very real threats we face, can you honestly say we (as feminists, as a culture) couldn't also use some deeper discussions about the body?

Yes! I also want to flag this provocative question from Jess in comments:

Would it be different if she was having sex to get herself pregnant?

Oh, hells yeah.

Thanks to Gabrielle for the link.

PS 1, an affiliate of MoMA and the venue for ridiculously fun and famous summer parties (it's in mine and Jessica's hood in Queens), is holding "the first comprehensive, historical exhibition to examine the international foundations and legacy of feminist art. "

WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution is running through May 12th, and it looks pretty damn cool. So if you're around the New York area, definitely check it out. I know I will.

Miki Fujiwara, aka Urban Envy, is a self-employed visual artist/community activist based in New York City.

Born in Hiroshima, Japan, Miki is known to be one of the original members of the New York Tributary Art Movement. The majority of her work, mostly paintings, has been categorized as "Cultural Surrealism," often said to be in the "tradition of Cynthia Tom and Frida Kahlo."

Urban Envy's works can be seen in local galleries of New York City.

Here's Miki...

Or so proves this cartoon from xkcd, which is so funny. And so (sadly) true.

Thanks to the (many!) readers who sent this along.

What do you get when you combine the "lazily sensual harem woman reclining on a couch" stereotype with the "cowed housewife bullied by her religion and the men in her life" stereotype? Veil fetish art. Zeynab at Muslimah Media Watch breaks it all down.

And in a follow-up post, Zeynab writes about the art of Makan Emadi, and how it deals with issues of concealment and exposure of Muslim women's bodies. Is it a powerful critique of both Eastern and Western sexism? Or is it just perpetuating the worst Eastern and Western sexist stereotypes? She has some interesting thoughts.

Katori Hall is a playwright, performer and journalist from Memphis, Tennessee. Her award-winning play, "Hoodoo Love" received its world-premiere at the Cherry Lane Theatre November 1, 2007. Her other plays include: "Remembrance," "Hurt Village," "Saturday Night/Sunday Morning," "The Mountaintop," and "Freedom Train."

She is a recipient of numerous writing awards including the 2007 Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, 2006 New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship in Playwriting and Screenwriting, 2006 Royal Court Theatre Residency, 2005 Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award. Recently, she was nominated for the Wendy Wasserstein Prize and the Susan Smith Blackburn Award.

As a journalist, her work has been published in The Boston Globe, Essence, Newsweek and The Commercial Appeal.

These are just some of the highlights of Katori's career. Here's Katori...

From our gal Mikhaela, who was inspired by a proposed law in Colorado that would give constitutional rights to human eggs.

Sister Outsider is the latest project of novelists, screenwriters, and entrepreneurs Elisha Miranda and Sofia Quintero who have been collaborating since 2000. They co-founded the nonprofit Chica Luna Productions and its project, The F-Word, that is working to train the next generation of women of color filmmakers.

Julia Carias is an actor, educator, filmmaker, and Sister Outsider's Director of Operations and Productions.
Among her list of works and activism, Julia co-wrote, produced and directed her first play in 2002, "Roots," a production by La Casa Latina, an organization dedicated to promoting Latino culture throughout the college community.

Here's Julia...

Check out the latest from our fave cartoonist, Mikhaela Reid: Your Yucky Body: Why You Need a Mommy Job!

Editor's Note: When I got an email from Jaclyn yesterday with the subject line: "the antidote to the chubby-bashing asshole," I knew I was in for some good shit. So instead of me posting about her work at Big Moves, I asked Jaclyn to write about it herself...

Contributed by Jaclyn Friedman

I created the Big Moves calendar not just as a much-needed fundraiser for our tiny, broke-ass, volunteer-run organization, but also as an antidote to the narrow (pun-intended) images of beauty I'm bombarded with every day. In a world where Glamour sees fit to photoshop America Ferrara down to a size-nothing (and has the nerve to run the headline "1st Annual Figure Flattery Issue" right next to it), where images of "fat" women are used as sure-thing motivation to get you to buy whatever it is that will make you Not Like That, I wanted to reclaim the glamor of the Calendar Girl and make it something new and powerful. I wanted to glamorize the kind of real beauty that has nothing to do with what you weigh.

That's not just a cliche -- the women in this calendar are beautiful because they're confident, because they're brave enough to insist on being artists and performers against all social messages, because that's what makes them feel alive. It's an honor to perform with them, and it was a true privilege to shoot them for the calendar. These are my compatriots onstage and off -- my fatties, as we've taken to calling each other with pride, no matter what our size.

We are women mending what's broken in our lives, and my hope is that this calendar will mend some of what's broken in all of our lives. I can't wait to spend every day next year with this kind of beauty, and I hope that you will, too.

Note about the calendars: The slides how has lo-res versions of the pictures for quick-loading purposes. The actual pics are gorgeous high res and color saturated.

After graduating high school, Michelle Walker left NYC for the UK to spend years singing in renowned clubs like The Limelight and Ronnie Scott's. After moving to the D.C. area to study voice, she spent graduate school at American University, and continued her jazz studies privately with Madeline Eastman, Jay Clayton, Nancy Marano, Pam Bricker, Dena DeRose, Rhiannon and jazz vocalist Mark Murphy. Michelle also studied at the Amsterdam Music Conservatory in Holland and the Stanford Jazz Summer Workshop in Palo Alto, CA.

Some highlights of her work include opening on tour for jazz vocalists Mark Murphy, Rene Marie, Chris Botti, George Benson, Spyro Gyra, Terrell Stafford and opening for Wynton Marsalis. Michelle currently teaches privately and conducts workshops on musical performance and career management when she's not on stage. Here's Michelle...

Anti-choice comic strip gone wild. Didn't anyone tell this guy that someone is already on the creepy cartoon fetus thing?

I don't know much about this comic, Crankshaft, in general--but I do know this above one is pretty fucking heinous.

Not only does it attempt to make a joke out of rape, it also plays on the gross myth that only young, "attractive" women get sexually assaulted. Which, of course, is a version of "rape is a compliment."

Anyone know how to get in touch with the cartoonists?

Thanks to SecretMargo for the link.

Listen to Rhodessa Jones of The Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women on NPR. I read Rena Fraden's chronicle of the collective, "Imagining Medea" in grad school, which was awesome; it's good to see such an amazing project get this exposure.

Ren Jender is a writer/performer who for eight and a half years was the host and founder of The Amazon Slam, a Boston-based all woman poetry slam that won "The Best Poll" of The Boston Phoenix from 1998-2003 and was named "Best of Boston" in Boston Magazine in 1999. Her work has appeared in Bitch Magazine, Bay Windows and Spare Change. She has been profiled in The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, The Boston Metro, The Boston Phoenix, Curve and Teen Voices. She was the co-curator/co-producer of the Lisa King Memorial show in Boston in May of 2006.

She's currently working on a new creative and community project. Here's Ren...

Elizabeth Dahmen front; Photo by Liz Liguori

Elizabeth Dahmen is a comedian, actor and singer who's performed in countless productions in NYC over the last 10 years. She's been featured in The L Magazine, and in GO Magazine’s “100 Women We Love.� She also hosted karaoke at Meow Mix for three years before it closed down and starred in the hit lesbian short "Bar Talk " directed by Cheryl Furjanic. She starred in "Ex-Antwone" a controversial play directed by Juan Souki that had an English language world premiere at PS 122 last fall, and just recently shot a scene in Madeleine Olnek's upcoming film.

She's also Terry Tone of The Lesbian Overtones. Here's Elizabeth...

Check out this collection of Wonder Woman interpretations. Interesting stuff. And as Zuzu points out, the art really runs the gamut (and not all of it fantastic). Which is your fave?

Thanks to John for the link.

Gawd, I love the Guerrilla Girls.

Remember how the new Batwoman was going to be a lesbian? Well, she's not.

When it comes to portraying characters as gay in comics, Devin Grayson admits the amount of editorial latitude she's given depends upon the legacy of the character in question. “The Powers That Be are pretty good these days about letting you choose to make a character of your own design homosexual or bisexual, but the closer you get to an established character, the harder it becomes,� Grayson said.

...In fact, Grayson was eight months into the development of the proposed “Batwoman� title when she found out from a newspaper article that the project was dead, and to this day, the writer has not received so much as a phone call from upper editorial on the matter. “That reversal really surprised and disappointed me,� Grayson admitted.

I'll second that disappointment. Boo.

This is just frigging awesome. Seems that Spiderman teamed up with Planned Parenthood back in the day to create a comic about the importance of sex education--complete with an anti-choice villain who wants teens to get knocked up!

Kind of sad though that this comic is probably more progressive (and factual) than what kids are actually being taught in school.

Thanks to Norbizness for the link.

Taking the foot fetish to the next level of nasty.

Shoes have never been so sexy sexist.

via V Magazine.

Thanks to Jessica for the link.

Good stuff. This has apparently been an ongoing story in Trudeau's most recent strips.

Big ups to Sarah D.

Maribel Ortega is a fashion designer whose about to open up her first shop featuring her clothing line, LANENA, in Madrid, Spain. Right now you can get her T-shirts online.

LANENA comes from a nickname her family and friends call her—"La Nena"—meaning "Little Girl" in Spanish. Here's Maribel...

Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer, authors of How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time, have penned a piece for The New York Times about Jane's demise. Check it out. And not just because Feministing gets a mention (yay!).

I am here repping Youth Media Council and Feministing at the Allied Media Conference and can I just say, wow. I have been to so many conferences this year, and they are always inspiring, but not always in a positive way. Usually, I get mad and have to write scathing reviews about the lack of vision from or understanding of disenfranchised voices.

This is not the case at the Allied Media Conference. After getting in late to Detroit last night and getting over some jet lag, I made it over to the opening ceremony. The strong presence of radical thought filled the air around me and was only heightened by the powerful words of the presenters. Three Detroit activists--Grace Lee Boggs, Charles Simmons and Elena Herrada--discussed the role of media in activism, but also focused on what is happening on the ground in Detroit. I was so inspired I wanted to just move on in to the D.

Following this included some profound spoken word poetry by Versiz, Angela Jones and D. Blair. If you don't know, get familiar.

For a minute the MC passed the mic around for youth voices to speak about the media that they want to see. Most of the folks that spoke out were from Detroit Summer (please get familiar) and spoke about a media that needs to highlight their voices, educate future leaders, train youth to feel comfortable in front of the camera and to feel confident about their voice and their communities. Some folks talked about how the media needs to highlight local activists and local artists and a media that tells the truth.

What do you think? We are all clearly not happy with the way the media treats our respective communities and organize in a variety of ways to fight misrepresentation, that is probably why you are here reading at all. What kind of media do YOU want to see?

update: Check in through out the weekend for more updates. I am here with Kristina of Wiretap Magazine and Jessamyn director of Future 5000. Both amazing so please check out and get in touch if you want more info.

My workshop is on Sunday, if you are around and want to stop by and say HAY!

Via the incredible Mikhaela Reid. Click on the image for a bigger version...

Good stuff. (If you go to the YouTube page, try to ignore all the misogynist douchebaggery.)

And not just because it's by Feministing contributor Courtney Martin. Buy it cause it's damn good.

Publishers Weekly on Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body: