art

Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex: Activism, Arts, and Educational Alternatives

gwen — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

As a feminist concerned with social justice, in the past year or so I’ve become convinced that dismantling the prison-industrial complex should be a top priority amongst feminists.

This anthology, Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex, edited by Stephen John Hartnett, argues as much, stressing that this very goal “should be at the head of a new human rights agenda for the twenty-first century.” In making this argument, the anthology is comprised of two sections of essays: “Diagnosing the Crisis” and “Practical Solutions, Visionary Alternatives.” The anthology further incorporates artwork and poetry by those who know the dehumanization and injustice of the system firsthand – those incarcerated – in an attempt to “remind readers that the prison-industrial complex does not house monsters but humans.”

The first section addresses how the United States of America has become a “punishing democracy.” That is, a democracy that spends more on prisons than on public education and spends more on punishment than on rehabilitation. In “Diagnosing the Crisis,” the authors note how we became a country with countless prisons and a swelling prison population. Several authors cite the “war on drugs” as a historical policy shift, one which paved the way for zero-tolerance policies which heavily affect – and actually target – communities comprised of poor and working class people of color.

Other essays in this section address how the defunding of public education and social programs works to benefit the prison-industrial complex. I especially appreciated Rose Braz’s and Myesha Williams’ essay “Diagnosing the Schools-to-Prisons Pipeline: Maximum Security, Minimum Learning,” which clarifies how the term high school “dropout” is misleading. They suggest replacing it with “pushout” – a term that more accurately conveys how the current public education system (due to issues of defunding and racism) betrays students of color from at-risk communities and practically ensures their entry into the criminal justice system.

The second half of Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex offers hope and ideas for change through activism and the arts. Essays underscore the need for educational opportunities in prisons, as university professors take it upon themselves to offer college-level courses, GED preparation courses, and college entry exam courses to inmates. Several essays also demonstrate the empowering effects of offering creative workshops and classes to inmates.

These essays detail the hard work, tribulations, and results of providing playwriting workshops in prisons as well as enlisting inmates to stage Shakespearean plays. Such activism provides opportunities for inmates to reclaim their humanity and their voices, as well as provides communities a glimpse into the prison-industrial complex and the people caught up in the system.

The inmates’ artwork and poetry are powerful additions to this anthology. As with any academic text related to social justice, there is the possibility of elevating so-called experts’ thoughts and voices on an issue while simultaneously silencing or absenting the voices of the very people affected the most. Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex seeks to create a balance between the two, in which voices of those both inside and outside the system work in tandem to convey a greater realization of what is happening in our schools, in our communities, and in our prisons.

Ultimately, the conversation surrounding dismantling the prison-industrial complex needs to be happening outside the walls of academia. This is an issue that relates to racism, classism, immigration reform, youth, budget spending, the militarization of our police forces, racist and inaccurate media coverage, the privatization of prisons, physical as well as sexual violence within our prisons, and the disenfranchisement of entire communities across the country – just to name a few. Feminists should be taking an active role in this fight. Abolishing the prison-industrial complex should be routinely discussed and debated on feminist blogs and in feminist publications alongside our efforts to end sexual violence and our fight for reproductive rights.

Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex provides a framework for this discussion as well as steps to dismantle the system. We should all heed the authors’ warnings and advice and work together to reimagine a new democracy.

Written by: Kristen Lambert, April 27th 2011

Certified Copy

mandy — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Directed by Abbas Kiarostami

MK2 Productions

The latest film from Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, Certified Copy begins with the same joke twice. While waiting for author James Miller (William Shimell) to give a lecture, his translator (Angelo Barbagallo) apologizes for James’ lateness and says, “He can’t blame the traffic; he is walking from upstairs.” The restless crowd responds with no audible laughter. Moments later James walks into the room and, unknowing that it has just been said, re-uses the same joke. This time several members of the crowd emit soft laughter. Within the first few minutes of the film, Kiarostami has already laid out his brilliant thesis: that when it comes to art, history, or even comedy the copy can have meaning in a way that makes it as valuable the original.

This sets up the audience nicely for the existential journey that is to follow in Certified Copy, a rich examination of art, love, and the authenticity of life. Kiarostami’s first film away from his home country hits every note just right and creates an environment that encompasses the viewer. With beautiful cinematography, pitch-perfect pacing, and fantastic performances from both leads Certified Copy is a certified hit.

Comparable to the films of Richard Linklater or David Mamet, Certified Copy is not about where the characters go, but the discussions they have along the way. At a small café, a barista mistakes James and Elle for a married couple and is never corrected. Then, without provocation, the two characters begin to play-act as if they were a married couple, immediately challenging the direction the narrative had been leading. Have these two characters known each other before? Are they so committed to proving the value of a copy over the original that they are going to continue this “copy” of marriage? Or are they a real married couple looking for some excitement?

Juliette Binoche is brilliant as the bubbly and enthusiastic leading lady, who seems to be leading the direction of the conversation for most of the film. The story moves along like a long-form improvised scene with each character continually providing a “yes, and…” to continue the flow of the story. Just like in any improvised stage scene, even the best performers are apt to occasionally break character, and Kiarostami seems to emphasize this by having the characters look directly at the camera, breaking the fourth wall. Just like Bertolt Brecht, Kiarostami never wants the viewer to forget that they are watching a piece of art, not a piece of life, so he often has the actors look straight into the camera to distract any audience members from moments of escapism they might be experiencing.

At the conclusion of Certified Copy, the audience will be left with far more questions than answers and the discussions that will be inspired are undoubtedly one of the greatest values of the film. Unlike author James Miller’s thesis that artistic copies can have equal value to their original, it is unlikely that Kiarostami’s film will be successfully imitated anytime soon.

Read the full review at Film Misery

Written by: Alex Carlson, April 18th 2011

The Skin Quilt Project

mandy — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Lauren Cross

Mae’s House Productions

Without the preservation of historical text, artifact, and art, history can slowly fade from memory. Stories of survival can easily become short-lived memories as they are passed from one generation to the next before they are forgotten. For Black African American women, their history has been and continues to be woven together in quilting. The Skin Quilt Project is a documentary featuring various quilters, artists, academics, and historians discussing the necessity, purpose, benefits, and impact of Black African American women quilters and what their artistry does for their families and communities.

The film begins with the issue of skin color among African Americans and the discriminatory “trick down racism” that began with slavery and eventually bled into African American communities to set up its own caste system. Artists and quilters talk about the process and representation of creating images of Black women in their art and the significance or insignificance of the skin color of their subjects. As the documentary deepens, the topics become more complex and emotional.

There are two themes explored in the film: the process of quilting and the quilts themselves. The Skin Quilt Project goes beyond skin deep as it gains testimony about the relationship between the artist and community, artist and their work, artist and history, story and survivor. It’s more than just preserving cultural legacy; the quilts themselves are works of art, tangible testaments to the diverse life experience of Black women in the United States.

The process of making the quilts is binding experience, not just between the quilter and the quilt, but also between the artist and the community in which it is made. Many quilters find acceptance, camaraderie, confidence, and affirmation of their skill level by quilting together. It also provides challenge to take a project to the next level. This in-depth sharing of knowledge and craft is essential to many of the artists. The experience is not only for the artist’s physical artwork, but as many women attest, quilting feeds the soul and is part of the “visual, Negro spiritual” identity.

While the stories and commentary of The Skin Quilt Project are clearly important and interesting, the format of the documentary did not share the rich diversity of the quilts or the artists. No narrative voiceover to direct the film or text dividers to signal a new focus. The documentary relies heavily on the spoken word to engage the audience, but with a few audio kinks in the beginning, it’s difficult to phonetically understand what is being said. The ongoing and unbroken stride doesn’t offer much creative opportunity to appreciate the different insights of each interviewee.

For those interested in the role of African American women, quilters, and the critical role artists play in our social history, The Skin Quilt Project is a fine demonstration of the radical work that can be accomplished by needle and thread.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, April 14th 2011

The Scholar and Feminist Online, Issue 8.3 (Polyphonic Feminisms: Acting in Concert)

brittany — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Edited by Mandy Van Deven, Julie Kubala

Barnard Center for Research on Women

In hindsight, I probably should have waited to read all of the articles in this issue of Barnard Center for Research on Women’s The Scholar and Feminist Online journal, “Polyphonic Feminisms: Acting in Concert,” before emailing out sections that resonated with me and the work I’m interested in doing. Instead, I enthusiastically exploded the email inboxes of family, co-workers, friends, and even professors with links, starting with the thorough but concise introduction by guest editors Julie Kubala and (Elevate Difference founding editor) Mandy Van Deven, followed by lists of extensive blog and print resources, key thought-provoking and productive articles, strategic quotes, inspiring photography, and other creative projects.

On a visual level, I was first attracted to the gorgeous photographs, intriguing title (what does the musical term polyphony have to do with feminism?), and black/red/white aesthetic that is simultaneously academic, professional, creative, and approachable. There are also a variety of writing styles (poetry, conversational prose, mixed media, and theory) and a diversity of contributors (artists, healers, authors, activists, survivors, educators, students, and performers).

Regarding the theoretical content, what resonated with my own passions and work was the exploration of how the once radical idea of intersectionality has become institutionalized and conceptualized as “a remedy for exclusivity and hegemony.” Jennifer Nash (“On Difficultly: Intersectionality as Feminist Labor”) argues (echoing the thoughts of other contributors) that, “While naming difference certainly allows feminists to bear witness to power's operations, it does little to analyze the mechanisms by which these systems of exclusion are replicated and re-created.” Instead, she calls for intersectionality to be understood as “a metaphor, as one illustration of how structures of domination might cooperate to maintain their power.” A lot of what the journal addresses is about is “how to encourage dissent within communities” in order to continue challenging the forms of resistance; who is speaking, visible and accessing the circulation of radical ideas; and focusing on the possibilities and “what next?”

As the editors explain, “Polyphony, with its focus on non-hierarchical multiplicity, [is] a way to address” these issues, and I would recommend this online journal to anyone interested in joining, or at least reading about, the continual conversations about theory, activism, and the plurality of feminisms.

Written by: Abigail Chance, April 5th 2011

Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures, 1960s to Now

mandy — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Josh MacPhee, Dara Greenwald

AK Press

Signs of Change is both a coffee table book and a full-color history lesson. For those who prefer an alternative to a boring textbook, this book is the ticket. In September of 2008, Exit Art began a traveling art exhibit to showcase the works of artists whose materials reflect cultural and social uprisings around the world, including posters, photographs, and graffiti. The pages are full-color and let the art take center stage, but historical context is provided in a way that is educational without being stifling.

The book itself is divided into different movements, ranging from struggles for political independence to freedom from persecution and bias to women’s rights. Like the social movements themselves, the art is truly international, representing places as diverse as Eastern Europe, South Africa, Latin America, and the United States.

Without taking sides or making moral judgments, Signs of Change effectively explores each of these critical uprisings through the art that symbolizes them. The artists are as diverse as the issues and the book comes across as a comprehensive look at the people who were involved in these social movements as well as the conflicts themselves.

If you were unable to attend any of the art shows where these materials were showcased, all you need to do in order to be awed by the talent and passion of the artists is to pick up this book. And if you want to re-live your own activist days without leaving the comfort of your couch, Signs of Change is the art book for you.

Written by: Kari O’Driscoll, March 7th 2011

Isabella Blow: A Life in Fashion

brittany — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Lauren Goldstein Crowe

Thomas Dunne Books

Before Lady Gaga adorned her poker face with a diamond-encrusted lobster, there was the original eccentric fashionista Isabella Blow, the flamboyant muse to couture designers who, despite being the toast of London’s glitterati, would die at age forty-eight by her own hand. As a fashion director, she survived as one of Anna Wintour’s assistants to later become champion of the avant garde. From hot pink cobwebs to towering peacock feathers, there was nothing that Blow wouldn’t dare crown herself with. While she discovered both fame milliner Philip Treacy and designer Alexander McQueen, none of her accomplishments could prevent her suicide by swallowing poison in May 2007.

Even in death, Blow continues to make headlines and is now the leading lady of two books based on her extravagant life. One was written by her husband Detmar Hamilton Blow and the other by journalist Lauren Goldstein Crowe. Although she never knew Blow personally, Crowe was compelled to investigate the addict of lavish hats. Isabella Blow: A Life in Fashion is more than just a biography. Rather, it’s a love letter that faithfully depicts who the icon really was. From a tumultuous family history to the final moments of an even more tragic life, Crowe expertly crafts a tale that’s more awe-inspiring and heartbreaking than anything ever written about Blow.

While Blow’s husband claims that Crowe’s biography is riding on the “Issie bandwagon,” she took on an even greater challenge than rehashing old diary entries. Crowe proves to be a masterful reporter in her investigation of Blow’s 600-year-old legacy and gives readers clues why the successful editor chose death over further redefining a world in which she ruled supreme. The dark cloud that shadowed Blow wasn’t unknown to her family. According to Crowe, her grandfather Jock Delves Broughton “injected himself fourteen times with Medinal, a barbiturate.” Then there’s her brother John Delves Broughton who, at age two, choked to death. It comes as no surprise that, after interviewing countless friends and relatives, Crowe would find out that Blow once told a nurse:

So many people kill themselves, it’s not unusual. It’s just unusual to have someone who wants to die so much to have been left here... I had eight suicides in my family. It comes like that to us. It’s like bacon and eggs. It’s like cheese and toast. I just have to make sure it happens the next time.

Crowe successfully questions what others haven’t dared asked: why is it that the elite were surprised that the patron of the obscure wouldn’t want to live? And more importantly, why didn’t her closest friends, including the husband that continues to mourn her, further attempt to give her the treatment she so desperately needed? Crowe exposes what many of us refuse to accept: that when someone is suffering from a serious depression, they will show anyone who’ll listen that they need help, whether they ultimately want it or not.

It’s difficult to overlook the glitz and glam shielding Blow’s mysterious life, yet Crowe never stops at digging for the truth behind the editor’s fears. From having an Italian lover named Casanova, to spending the last of her money on a luxurious picnic basket to share with her non-existent beau, the author implies that, despite how she felt about her looks, Blow could have been anxiously searching for the one person who could make her feel as beautiful as she so greatly desired. Instead of romances, she sought salvation with crowns of monarch wings, veils of delicate petals, and glorious sun bonnets, ensuring that not even statuesque sirens of the runways could attempt to steal the spotlight from the “ugly’ star. Sadly, her light would quickly dim before audiences throughout the world could fully appreciate a style she created.

Would Crowe have written Isabella Blow: A Life in Fashion if it’s main character wasn’t famous and fatally flawed? Probably not, but does it matter? The point of Crowe’s book is to introduce readers to a real-life woman, one who didn’t shy away from exposing the wounds she attempted to shield. And while Blow didn’t live long enough to obtain the aid that could have encouraged her to live, we can now be assured that her legacy in fashion will continue to shock and inspire artists forever.

Written by: Stephanie Nolasco, February 11th 2011

Black Swan

mandy — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Darren Aronofsky

Fox Searchlight

The hype had me prepared for Black Swan to be a disturbing and gory movie. But the truth of it is this: even if you’re squeamish, like me, there’s nothing in the film you can’t look at… out of context.

Context is the name of the game for director Darren Aronofsky, in this and his previous films. Aronofsky gives viewers rich, often confusing imagery—the back of someone’s head, for instance; a favorite shot he's borrowed from Hitchcock, Van Sant, and others—and then leaves it up to our minds to interpret his meaning. Example: a physical wound means one thing if it’s accidentally caused, another if it’s created by an external person, and still something else if self-inflicted. But if you only see the wound without its frame of reference, it means nothing beyond blood and guts.

Some viewers find this equivocating pretentious and sadistic, while others enjoy the challenge. With Black Swan, Aronofsky has achieved the ultimate cinematic ambiguity: his film will have us talking about it for years, trying to make heads or tails of what’s really going on with Nina the ballerina (Natalie Portman).

The trailer gives us the narrative framework (no spoilers ahead): Nina is a dedicated dancer who assumes the lead role in Swan Lake, only to end up in torment as she tries to shed her virginal white swan persona in favor of the darker, sensual black swan. Are her demons real or imagined? Can she play both parts, good and evil? Will she dance herself to death, or find fame and glory? Black Swan is a thriller racing to answer these questions. But saying it’s a movie about Swan Lake, or even about ballet in general, is like saying that Swan Lake is about birds.

When the curtain came down, so to speak, I wasn’t disturbed or scared. Instead, I felt mildly exhilarated and happy to go home to a foot massage from my husband. Later that night, however, I tossed and turned to terrifying dreams. I saw Nina’s mother’s icy stare. I dreamed of broken, twisted limbs and skin tearing from my body. The next morning, I received an email from a girlfriend with whom I’d seen the film: she claimed to be having “out of body sensations." What happened to us? How could we have endured viewing the film itself with no terror, only to wind up feeling dizzy and insecure later on? But that’s probably the point, right?

Black Swan transcends its obvious message of self-sacrifice for the sake of art and makes a wider statement about sexuality: it points out that women are intraculturally conditioned to sacrifice their own pleasure in favor of male gratification. We encourage and adopt a meme of female frigidity, forcing young girls to think of their virginity as something fragile, even breakable. We set up an expectation in young women that virginity and subsequent self-sacrifice can result in the “perfect” first time. (That’s according to me. You want a different conclusion? Ask a different critic.)

A review by Danusha Goska on the Internet Movie Database suggests Black Swan “tells us that women are fragile and neurotic and if they do anything remarkable it makes them crazy.” I went looking for this kind of reaction, and I liked finding that viewers are recognizing misogyny in the film. But to say that the filmmakers are sexists is inaccurate; in actuality, they’re pointing to existing rigid demands for women to model ourselves after feminine archetypes. True, Portman and costar Mila Kunis did reportedly lose an enormous amount of weight for their roles as skinny, somewhat masochistic dancers (about 20 lbs. each off already tiny bodies). But the question is: why are ballet dancers skinny, not why are actresses who play ballet dancers skinny?

One of the reasons I braved the supposed gore was because I wanted to gawk at pin thin bodies on screen. Instead of assuming an air of superiority to this trend, however, I found myself envying their ability to achieve a desired aesthetic. (Talk about social and cultural memes: women are supposed to be frigid and skinny, it would seem. And even this feminist, with all of her bravado, can’t get rid of a desire to be outwardly beautiful and adored.)

Okay, now comes the part when I tell you whether or not I recommend the film. I do. Black Swan is beautiful to look at and, at times, campy fun, but only fun for those who don’t mind a few days of psychological indigestion for which there may be no effective antacid.

Written by: Rachel Moehl, January 8th 2011

Swanlights

brittany — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 12:00:00 +0000

By Antony and the Johnsons

Abrams Image

Before we jump into this it’s important to make something clear: Swanlights is both the title of Antony and the Johnsons’ latest album and a collection of Antony Hegarty’s artwork. Sure, all transgender musical geniuses shouldn’t be lumped together, but I like to think of Hegarty as a more psychically wounded, heartbroken, and unbedazzled Hedwig.

I am a long time fan of Antony and the Johnsons and by extension, I wanted to believe that I’d love anything Hegarty placed his delicate hands on. Sadly, I recently found this to be untrue. After studying each page of Hegarty’s collection of art, I was convinced that all it takes to get a book deal is a recognizable name and built-in following. After flipping through a few pages on his own, my best friend, a reluctant artist, said what I didn’t have the heart to say: “This isn’t art.”

According to the singer, it took him three years to compile the collages, paintings, sketches, and scribbles that would eventually become Swanlights and if we’re being honest here, I can’t understand why it would take so goddamn long to compile something so random and childish in appearance. Cryptic squiggles appear on old help wanted ads; newspaper pages are color blocked with what appear to be markers; faded encyclopedia images are taped or stitched together; illegible handwriting appears next to old images of animals that have been torn or cut.

Nothing in Swanlights really spoke to me; it was all too delicate, too precious, and too nonsensical. Its only appeal was that flipping through its pages was like revisiting an old, childhood diary in which snippets or wisps of things seem slightly coherent, if only for a fleeting moment. Or, for those of us spent their younger years dropping acid and getting crafty, Hegarty’s artwork might serve as an uncomfortable reminder of what psychedelic drugs can do to an otherwise healthy mind.

Swanlights the album is markedly better, which just proves that because a musician dabbles in art, doesn’t necessarily mean an entire book should be devoted to their mournful collages. Like Antony and the Johnsons’ previous albums, Hegarty’s beautiful, almost operatic voice will hit you in the gut with longing. Swanlights is all piano and gorgeous string arrangements, with each song unfurling like a poem and repeatedly touching on the themes of water, ghosts, death, and renewal.

It’s Hegarty’s focus on water that I’m most moved by and the reason I will continue listening to Swanlights late at night when something in my brain shifts from happy to sad, on to off. When I was thirteen, my older brother snuck me out of the house and he and his girlfriend drove me around Redondo Beach in her 1967 Chevy Malibu. We listened to Morrissey all night and at that point in my young life, it was the most magical, exciting thing that had ever happened to me. I remember looking out the window at the ocean and thinking how a person could be sucked in by the waves, into the cold and dark, never to be seen again. Admittedly, it was a dark thought for such a lovely night, but the second I realized how true that was I never felt the same about the ocean again. I’m still terrified of it, but also strangely drawn to it, like many people/things in my life. The point of all of this, of course, is that Swanlights reminds me the late night drive and the ocean and strangely enough, of the overwhelming difficulty of being a teenage girl when—as Hegarty sings on the opening track—“Everything is new.”

I’m convinced that “I’m In Love” is the happiest you’ll ever hear Hegarty. Red corral is caressing him, he’s kissing his partner like a hummingbird, and all his dreams came true the day he laid his head on you, but in true Hegarty fashion the song ends with the day his partner cracks open, dies, and “ten black boys flew free from inside.” You’ve got to take the bad with the good, kids, and Hegarty knows this like no other.

Written by: Tina Vasquez, December 16th 2010

Calyx (Summer 2010, Issue Vol. 26 No. 1)

annette — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Edited by Editorial Collective

Serving as a forum for women’s creative work, Calyx, a literary journal of art and literature, has been publishing new, emerging and established female writers and artists for the last thirty-four years. The seventy-fifth issue celebrates Calyx’s success and progress, while showcasing the journal’s continued commitment to providing readers with an eclectic mix of poetry, short stories, photography, and other work.

All of the art and literature in Calyx is written or created by women and speaks to themes and issues relevant to the female sex. Be it a photograph, a ceramic sculpture, a nonfiction story or a poem, readers can identify with the issues of loss and hope that permeate the pieces in this journal.

Perhaps the most striking and provocative work in the seventy-fifth issue of Calyx is the art. RoCa Rodriguez Calero’s Virgen Maria collage offers a twenty-first century depiction of Jesus’ mother. The artist’s statement reads: “Instead of the traditional passive woman in blue who looks demurely down… the icon of the Virgen Maria has been contemporized and made more identifiable as a strong, intelligent, striking, and, yes, ‘hot-looking’ woman.” Deep reds and pastel purples and blues combine to reveal a fierce-eyed Virgin Mary. We see a Mary who is confident and proud—which is much different than the typical image.

Kate McCauley’s photographs Pelo and Inward concentrate on the present. Inward features an older woman deep in thought, while Pelo shows the face of a younger girl—the only one in the group of children to turn and look at the camera. Both images evoke a sense of mystery and beckon the viewer to ask questions and look at the photograph again and again.

While all of the stories in the Summer 2010 issue are intriguing and grabbed my attention, Amanda Leskovac’s nonfiction piece Where to Put a Period stood out. Leskovac tells her story of heartbreak and abortion while dealing with life as a quadriplegic. She broaches sex, society and men with wit and the full mastery of her craft.

The majority of the poems in Calyx also are engaging and fresh. Susan Lilley’s "Home Free," Michelle Brittan’s "I Go Back to May 1983," and Julie Moore’s "Intersection" were my favorites as all three poems deal with loss eloquently. Lilley writes “for a minute I feel home free/both parents safely dead, and/my children before daybreak/breathing in the same house.” Here, she captures the bittersweet moment of the death of the speaker’s parents and the return of her children. Moore’s “the day your organs, packed/in ice, were carried in coolers/across Ohio” give rhythm to an accident and depict the speaker’s inability to forget it.

"I Go Back to May 1983," which is after a Sharon Olds poem, recounts the meeting of the speaker’s parents who were once only pen pals. The ill-fated relationship leaves the speaker questioning her existence. She describes how her mother loses her identity in the process of living in America and having a child with a man she can’t relate to: “An accidental commitment to a whole continent, an embodiment/of one life closing and another unfolding, her food/becoming my food, my bones replacing her bones.” It’s a beautiful piece that speaks of multiculturalism, severed families and the creation of life at the cost of dramatically altering another’s.

Without naming names, some of the poems leave something to be desired in terms of mastery of craft. These works seem to have been chosen solely for the messages they attempt to convey. While they do cover pertinent topics, the diction and poetic structure in some of them doesn’t compare to the level of craft in the other works.

Aside from this one flaw, Calyx’s seventy-fifth issue is a refreshing read, complete in its variety of art and literature that relate to and inspire women.

Written by: Michelle Tooker, October 25th 2010

Leaving Art: Writings on Performance, Politics, and Publics, 1974-2007

mandy — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Suzanne Lacy

Duke University Press

A student of Judy Chicago and Allan Kaprow, Suzanne Lacy’s collection of essays about her performance art pieces showcases not only Lacy’s development as a powerhouse feminist artist of her time but also the changing landscape of political art throughout the past four decades. Following a thoughtful introduction by her friend Moira Roth, Leaving Art traces Lacy’s self-criticism, the intended meaning behind her pieces, and reflections about the effectiveness of her work, at times in journal form (e.g., “While I was working on this piece I figured out why it has been so hard for me to consider myself grown up”) and at times as she reflects about the meaning of art more broadly. As an introduction to Lacy’s work, or as an in-depth look at Lacy’s artistic process, the book will appeal both to those newly familiar with Lacy or with those who have long followed her career.

Cleverly titled, Lacy intends Leaving Art as a meditation on the various objects and stories she and her colleagues have left behind; still more, the title implies that their collective departure from the art world—through retirement or even death—looms imminently. Aside from considering what it means to leave art, the volume addresses a startling array of subjects: rape, violence, gender, race, speaking across identities, sexuality, power, injustice, challenging institutions, solitude, connection, friendship, speech acts, performance, and community. Lacy’s impact on feminist art reveals itself throughout the book not by loud proclamations of her importance, but via a layered portrait of how her work chipped away at the injustices she saw happening around her and to her.

During the early days of feminist consciousness raising, Lacy tackled such difficult topics as the role of prostitution in a feminist politics, the dismemberment of women’s bodies (metaphorically and literally), and the process of witnessing a rape narrative. She followed these pieces with sweeping tableau vivant performances where she drew together over 400 performers to converse and dialogue in public view along the shores of La Jolla, CA. Her later pieces, drawing together such disparate subjects as Buddhist philosophy and police brutality, engaged people in performance demonstrations where they confronted each other in order to challenge powerful social ills like racism and sexism. In each decade, Lacy reinvented herself as artist and social critic.

Pushing art as a mechanism for social change, she admitted in the 1990s to questioning “whether it was possible for artists to exert a substantial impact on communities…; whether civic institutions could be significantly recruited for social and aesthetic claims; and how to transform hundreds, even thousands of personal attitudes that might, in turn, be measured through policy outcomes.” Certainly, Lacy’s work responded to these questions by adamantly demanding that art (and artists) continually re-imagine themselves in relation to their political usefulness. In particular, Lacy’s work prioritizes the urgency of listening to marginalized voices just as it delves into content that lies beneath the surface of our lives. Lacy provokes us to consider what has become forcibly out of sight (e.g., stories of cancer, narratives of rape, privilege of Whiteness), and what we drive underground because of fear, shame, and the difficulty of seeing ourselves.

Written by: Breanne Fahs, October 24th 2010

Max's Kansas City: Art, Glamour, Rock and Roll

brittany — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Edited by Steven Kasher

Abrams Publisher

The iconic New York club Max’s Kansas City was the art world equivalent of the equally iconic CBGB; it was where all of the beautiful freaks and geeks; aspiring, wannabe, and legitimate artists congregated to see and be seen. Editor Steven Kash has done a magnificent job of compiling photographs that features all of the glitz and grime, genius and depravity that was the New York art scene of the 1970s.

Max’s Kansas City is a photography book, but there are a few well-written essays sprinkled in by Lou Reed, Lenny Kaye, Lorraine O’Grady, Danny Fields, and Steven Watson. Watson points out that though some of the female artists in the scene like Brigid Berlin and Sue Hoffman (aka Viva) weren’t taken seriously by their male contemporaries, they weren’t “just girlfriends” either. They had their own identities and were forming their own careers and according to Watson, were “on the cusp of feminism.”

I’d argue that they were seen as “just girlfriends” and that this is a common occurrence in artistic movements. Take the beat generation for example. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs—they’ve become icons and the women writers were their caretakers and meal makers, struggling to get published. Just think of brilliant writers like Diane di Prima and Hettie Jones, who are—to this day—treated as minor footnotes or oddities in a scene comprised of men. Sadly, not much has changed.

Gender disparities of the scene aside, the photos are all inclusive. I have a thing for 70’s fashion and music, so flipping through the pages of Max’s Kansas City was nearly overload. How many images of young and beautiful icons like Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Debbie Harry, and Tom Waits can a girl take before she drops? Oddly enough, what’s almost more interesting than the superstars are the images of the unknowns, the beautiful losers who appear to have just wandered in from off the street at the most opportune moment—when the cameras are flashing near Andy Warhol or Nico.

Some of the photographs are almost too up close and personal, like the one of a fresh-faced Janis Joplin sitting at a superstar populated table. What are they talking about and what kind of salad is that in front of them? And look, there’s an incredibly young and handsome John Waters holding a cigarette, the image so crystal clear you can almost smell the smoke.

What I especially love about Max’s Kansas City is that so many people associate the 70’s with polyester and bullshit disco music, but these images are proof that those on the outskirts of the city and on the fringes of society were creating groundbreaking art and music in dingy clubs tucked away in shady neighborhoods. To me, that’s so much more interesting than doin’ a little dance and makin’ a little love at a bullshit disco club.

Written by: Tina Vasquez, October 16th 2010

The Air is on Fire, David Lynch (9/24/2010)

mandy — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Gl. Strand

Copenhagen, Denmark

A couple of years ago, David Lynch spoke at my graduate school. At one of the top communication colleges in the country, he refused to take media questions and would only talk about transcendental meditation. Flanked by men in suits who sat in high-backed chairs behind him on the stage, Lynch urged us each to dive into the reflecting pool of our soul. One woman stood at a mic in the auditorium aisle and said, “I meditate, and I understand your films.”

It seems like every encounter with the artist is like this: mildly amusing, somewhat bewildering, and much more surreal than one ever anticipates, even if you know the ground rules going in. Speaking to a crowd of assembled journalists and photographers at Copenhagen’s Gl. Strand in late September, Lynch spoke of the distinctive nature of the elements for which his showcase is named. “Air is very beautiful. When it moves, it makes a sound called wind. Fire: what a magical thing fire is... It’s always changing. It makes heat. It’s so incredible; it makes you dream, and it’s so different than water. Water is such an incredible thing. Fish go in it, you can drink it, and it’s wet.”

Before he became a film director best known for Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and Mulholland Drive, Lynch studied expressionist painting at the Pennsylvania Academia of Fine Arts in Philadelphia and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Not unlike his films, his work in other mediums is loosely tied to unsettling themes such as sexualized violence and insect infestation.

For his second exhibition showing, following a debut showcase of the same name in Paris, the newly renovated Danish contemporary art museum turned three floors into a Lynchian gallery of paintings, lithographs, short films, and sketches on scraps of paper, from the 1960s to present. Entire binders of his work had been disassembled and displayed on glass wall cases. With heavy bass sound installation throughout, the entire experience was not unlike an episode of Twin Peaks, with spookily dramatic, vibrating music causing an uneasy sense of dread that might nevertheless turn out to be for nothing. Indeed, among the sketches displayed as a drawing of the infamous Twin Peaks fish on the cover of the show’s first screenplay.

Lynch’s non-filmic artistic work displayed in The Air is on Fire exhibition proved to be as memorable as his directorial features. Many of his painting featured guns and vaginas and often had literal titles: “This Man Was Shot Seconds Ago,” “Rock with Seven Eyes,” “Insect Bites Woman.” One entire room was filled with untitled prints. Complex architectural drawings were just as likely to have phone numbers scrawled in the margins as they were to be on stationary from The Claremont Resort, Hotel and Tennis Club. Several sculptures like “Component #3 for Night Fishing,” were made in Copenhagen, specifically for the Gl. Strand exhibition.

Exiting through the back, an enormous story-high neon sign of the artist’s name—of which I’d seen a drawing inside—hit me in the face with its purple glow. As I unlocked my bike and headed home, I thought about the magical nature of the wind that made it difficult to peddle.

The Air is on Fire runs through January 16, 2011.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, October 12th 2010

Form, Balance, Joy

mandy — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 02:00:00 +0000

Museum of Contemporary Art

Chicago, Illinois

It is an irony of contemporary aesthetics that accessibility is not considered a virtue. A degree of alienation between the general audience and the creator is a given, and a work of universal appeal is suspect. Any creation that is an uninhibited celebration of color, shape, and motion would go begging in a world of minimalist forms or conceptual constructs. Humor as a quality is particularly suspect. Alexander Calder not only produced work based on these elements, he made the first mobiles as a young artist in Paris. However, Calder and other modernist sculptors are undergoing a rehabilitation, more frequently referenced and considered by younger artists as a source of inspiration. In this context, the current exhibit at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Form, Balance, Joy, is a delight, assembling a comprehensive collection of Calder’s work combined with an accompanying gallery of contemporary sculptors.

Standing in the middle of the Calder exhibit is an experience akin to suspension in a tank filled with Mondrian’s fish. The wholly organic stabiles are a bank of small reefs. Apparently Calder did credit a visit to Mondrian’s studio as “shocking” him into modernism. Some smaller works contain presentiments of the current importance of repurpose and recycling: a smiling face is contrived from bits of broken glass and wires; the sculpture Bird is an assemblage of unpainted scavenged cans.

Calder did once work as a toymaker and later joked that his fans were all under age six. An element of playfulness appears to be the most common element among the seven contemporary artists in the southern gallery. Kristi Lippire, the only female artist in the group, utilizes everyday objects to create with an overt humorous aspect: her droll balloon-like piece in the sculpture garden is the more successful of her included works.

Jason Middlebrook’s piece, "From the Forest to the Mill to the Home to the Store to the Home to the Street and Back Again," is a departure from the exhibit’s lightness in tone and form. The very stationary mobile is suspended yards over the heads of viewers, a massive conflagration of scrap wood collected from Chicago alleys—flooring, cabinets, drawers, and doors—counterbalanced by the trunk of a tree. As heavy as some of the Calder pieces are light, it provides a fitting contrast in the midst of homage.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, September 6th 2010

Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child

admin — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Directed by Tamra Davis

Pretty Pictures

When I think of the films of Tamra Davis, a smile comes to my face. I think of the giggly afternoons spent with my college roommates watching such treasures as Billy Madison and Half Baked while ingesting whatever substance struck our fancy. I was impressed that these offbeat, halfwit, male-centric movies actually came from the mind of a woman, and I found something delightfully subversive about that. These were characters we all knew; they were the terribly lovable yet completely idiotic manboy friends who were aimlessly wondering the world anxiously awaiting the next "nudie magazine day." My friends and I loved these lighthearted films for all their fluff and they've certainly become a part of our pop culture history.

Not long ago I found out that Davis was set to release a documentary. Although it seemed a bit out of character, being a fan, I had faith. Then I found out what the documentary was about: Jean-Michel Basquiat. O.M.G. If you're familiar with Basquiat's work, chances are you're obsessed with it. Basquiat is one of the most iconic and influential artists of the modern art movement. His work is incredibly cerebral and spans the scope of subject matter from poverty to racism to fame, and far beyond. Billy Madison was a movie about a guy who couldn't spell the word couch. I wasn't seeing the correlation.

Needless to say, I was blown away. The film starts off with a musical collage featuring some of Jean-Michel's work, inter-cut with footage of him painting. Rare images and reproductions of his artwork run a steady line throughout the film, providing the foundation for the story that unfolds, and at the center of the film is a very raw, very jagged interview with Jean-Michel taken about a year before his death in 1986.

Heavy hitters such as Julian Schnabel, Larry Gagosian, Bruno Bischofberger, Fab 5 Freddy (yes!), and Rene Ricard all make an appearance. Each one of them gives an incredibly honest and personal account of their relationship with Jean-Michel. However, the most heartfelt, and perhaps honest, interview is that of Suzanne Mallouk, Jean-Michel's long-time lover and most ardent supporter.

While the men interviewed paint an accurate picture of what Basquiat's work represented, and what his presence meant, Suzanne is able to provide the best portrait of who he was, not only as an artist, but as a man. Her anecdotes are the most poignant, and most defining moments in the film. There have been endless books, articles, and news stories written about Basquiat's artistic influence or infamous life, but hearing hearing stories from someone who truly loved him is beautiful.

As I left the theater, I thought about my initial reaction to Tamra Davis' release of this seminal Jean-Michel Basquiat documentary, and realized it made perfect sense. This is a portrait of an man who was lovable, mild mannered, sometimes idiotic, and ultimately brilliant. It's about a man wondering the world, looking for inspiration and the next step toward infamy, and this is the kind of story Tamra Davis tells best.

Cross-posted at LA Femmedia

Written by: Kadi Rodriguez, August 31st 2010

The Selves

admin — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Sonja Elizabeth Ahlers

Drawn and Quarterly

Sonja Ahlers’ The Selves is a visual essay which combines collage, poetry, watercolor, calligraphy, prose and fabric. The result is a multi-layered and textured work that reveals something new every time you leaf through it. Although pastiche and mixed media immediately come to mind to describe Ahlers’ work, it may also be considered a new genre or a new way of looking at our lives as women in relation to mass media. As passive consumers of pop culture, we assimilate the images and narratives that mass media serve us. Unable to discern the promoters from the products and the dreams they’re selling, we model our various “selves” from babyhood to old age around the ideals these promoters project. At least, that’s my interpretation of the book, but yours may be very different. Now imagine someone appropriating these same images and presenting them in a new way as social commentary. For instance, Ahlers presents an intellectual side of Marilyn Monroe using a rare photograph of her reading, next to a text by Gloria Steinem describing how hard it was for men to reconcile Marilyn’s love for books with her physical appearance. We also see repeated images of Princess Diana throughout her life, from a young woman who marries a prince, to a princess who never lives happily ever after. We also see a very young Angelina Jolie in the company of her father, reminding us that beauty and fame do not exempt anyone from pain. The public is indeed very different from the private. Some serious themes such as suicide, child abuse, self-mutilation, female rivalry and abortion are raised in The Selves, but this book is not without humor. The images Ahlers uses are readily recognizable to any woman born in the 1970s or early '80s, and nostalgia is guaranteed. I enjoyed the author’s unapologetic acceptance of these images into her life and presenting them in a new light to show another side or expose another issue. This visual essay may be hard for some to embrace, but I applaud any artist-cum-author who takes on this challenge and does it well enough to land a publisher. Moving away from the old confines means not letting others define what an acceptable genre is.

Written by: Heather Leighton, August 26th 2010