Feminist Intervention

I went to a public lecture at Schermerhorn Hall last night on Morningside Campus which is the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. There were two presentations. The first one was by Eleni Varikas called "The Secret Life of Concepts:Gender Experience, Disidentification, Self-definition." and the other was by Renee' C. Hoogland called "Affective Un/Doing: Bodies, Art, and De/Constructions of Gender."

I found the second paper really interesting as Renee' talked about how certain intense aesthetic experiences can transform lives. Her examples came from literature. Although she couldn't say how this happened. After the lecture there was a discussion on which book/art works had that effect on individuals. The convenor of the session said Judy Chicago's book Through the Flower and I said Simone DeBouvoir's Autobiography of a Duitiful Daughter.

I have since been thinking about what painting did that for me - although not in such a life changing way but certainly in a way that triggered a recognition in me which no other art works have done before - was a painting by Rebecca Fortnum called Traverse. She is a British painter who came to prominance during the 1990's and I saw her work at the Norwich Gallery in a show called Somatic States.

MoMA & El Museo del Barrio

I went to the Museum of Modern Art yesterday as only the large galleries are open on a Sunday. It seemed that everyone else had the same idea. It was packed. I walked part of the way and called into see the Felix Gonzalez-Torres show at El Museo del Barrio. The exhibition showed some early pieces and as I don't really know his work, even though he was an important artist, it was difficult to get any sense of the context. I think it relied on the fact that the viewer would be aquainted with his later more influential pieces and so I was left feeling as uninformed as when I went in,which is down to the curation and rather disappointing.
The show I went to see at MoMA was without boundary -17 ways of looking. I already knew many of the artists on show here but it was quite an interesting idea for a group show. The catalogue stated that the core group of artists "came from the Islamic world but live for the most part in Europe and the U.S." The show aimed to problematise the idea of a clear cut notion of "Islamic" in relation to artists and their work. There was an evident bias in the show to craft based issues, calligraphic and decorative works. I particularly liked the excessive, highly decorative painting of Shahzia Silkander and the beautifully crafted painting by Shirazeh Houshiary. The other artists in the exhibition included Mona Hatoum,Ghada Amer some small prayer mats by Shirana Shabhazi and a piece by Bill Viola.

Bonnie Collura & Amy Morken

The work of Bonnie Collura & Amy Morken - A Symptom of Beauty (obsessions on an ideal) at the Claire Oliver Gallery 513 West 26th Street drew on figurative imagery exploring aspects of femininity, mythology and art history. Collura's work offered a baroque sickly/sweet confection which was both exhilarating and nauseating. Her exuberant use of materials (wax, metal, canvas, wood, paint etc)played with figurative abstraction to deconstruct aspects of desire and the male/female body.

Amy Morken's figurative paintings depict Bosch like senarios only played out with a cast of contemporary female monster/hybrids which were playful, witty and disturbing. I enjoyed both of these artists works.

Mika Rottenberg "Dough"

I found this exhibition by seeing where the fine art faculty at Columbia were showing and discovered a fantastic district in Chelsea where there is a whole street full of galleries. I only managed a few but there was some fantastic work by women artists. Mika Rottenberg was one of the best shows I have seen for a while. It was a video installation with drawings. Time Out did a good review of the work:"The video set in a claustrophobically small, distinctly low-tech dough-packaging factory, where decorative touches-bunches of flowers,piles of towels,spray bottles-also suggest a beauty salon." The dough is massaged,stretched and pulled by the women factory workers in the process of production until it is finally vaccumed sealed and packaged. The whole process evoking aspects of capitalist bodily commodifiaction and exploitation. Brilliant work.

Jacquard Weave Installation

This jacquard weave was part of the exhibition Techniques of Memory at Huddersfield Art Gallery in 2005. It was made in collaboration with a weaver Nicola Perren and is made out of a high quality worsted yarn produced in Huddersfield.

Outpost Gallery - Norwich

This is a link to Outpost Gallery Norwich. It is an artist run space and shows a very interesting and varied programme of contemporary artists. I have show here.

Norwich School of Art and Design

This Link is for my website where you can access research, CV details and information relating to the MA Art, Design and Education course at Norwich School of Art and Design.

Techniques of Memory

This is a detail of a jacquard weave which formed part of a solo show of my work which included painting, jacquard weaves and film. The exhibition was called Techniques of Memory and was shown at Huddersfield Art Gallery in 2005 and Outpost Gallery, Norwich in 2005.

Techniques of Memory

This blog is part of a research fellowship which is at Columbia University during March-May 2006. I am an artist/lecturer based in Norwich England who teaches at Norwich School of Art and Design. The aim of the blog is to initiate and develop an online dialogue with students and artists at Columbia University New York and Norwich School of Art and Design. The purpose of this dialogue is to produce a record and ultimately analysis of a process of collaborative reflection in action and to visualise what Morwenna Griffiths (2005) has termed a "learning community of practice".

The blog will map my reflections and conversations with artists/students/teachers/researchers on issues around creativity and learning as they evolve over the course of the research period.

Norwich

This is a view of Norwich from the market place with a view of the castle in the distance. I suppose this is the starting point of my journey both in a physical and a creative sense.