Visual Art ‘There Were All Those Mattresses, and Much More Many Mattresses’
posted by on September 30 at 10:00 AM
I just got in the mail the catalog for “WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution,” the huge survey exhibition that’s opening Saturday at Vancouver Art Gallery. This is the biggest historical show looking at feminist art from 1965 to ‘80 ever, and it opened last year at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, then traveled to D.C. and New York before coming to Vancouver. I’m going to head up for the press preview this week.
If you’re curious, here’s a video collage introduction to the show, slightly cheesy but incorporating some good interviews and images from the MOCA install:
Some of the non-academic stuff happening in conjunction with the show sounds great: A talk in the exhibition on November 18 “on AIDS and the power of grandmothers”; a mother-daughter dance workshop on October 25 or November 29; and, on October 26, a sex educator explaining to kids ages 5 and up why there are so many naked ladies on the wall. (There also, of course, is an entire conference October 4-5 featuring feminist heavy-hitters Griselda Pollock, Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Suzy Lake, Faith Wilding, ORLAN, Harmony Hammond, Mary Kelly, Lorraine O’Grady, Mary Beth Edelson, and others.)
The video says "complied by Annie". Hm.
I'm certainly no art critic, but I saw this exhibit at P.S.1 in Queens earlier this year and thought it was boring and dated. Of course, the survey only runs up to 1980, so I suppose it's a given that it will be dated, but a lot of the material, especially the videos, didn't seem to hold up well in 2008. I couldn't really relate to all the vag talk and didn't find it shocking or provocative. Maybe that means we're making some progress (Sarah Palin's nomination not withstanding)?
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