A Response to Minister Lulu Xingwana’s Comments about the Innovative Women Exhibition. By Gabeba Baderoon.
In the 1990’ies everybody did gender, but now gender as an art themes has had its 15 minutes of fame, and we are back to square one: art made by queer women artists is ignored by the art world. It is a big backslash that the art world isn’t open and curious any more.
Arts activists, the Guerrilla Girls are a group of anonymous women or “feminist masked avengers” fighting for gender and racial equality. They tell the American art world how male-centric it is and question why art by male artists is better than art made by women, black and hispanic people. In the video above you can see them in action giving a talk at the Brooklyn Museum.
Here is the story about how a bunch of anonymous females, who take the names of dead women artists as pseudonyms and decided become feminist activists and appear in public wearing gorilla masks.
‘Innovative Women exhibition’ is group show of black contemporary female artists from different parts of South Africa. Minister Xingwana says it features immoral artworks.
Femina Potens Art Gallery in San Francisco presents an animalistic group exhibition that showcases mystical positions of power, the primal sensuality of the beast, and the conception of a newborn carnal mythology.
Laura Lilja is a queer multimedia artist based in Finland. She earned her Master of Arts from University of Art and Design in Helsinki, Finland in 2004. On March 10, 2010 at 19:30 hrs Århus Kunstbygning, Århus, Denmark, will be screening Laura’s art videos ‘Res publica’.
Kate Borstein graduated Brown University, USA in 1969. She is a Jewish-American author, playwright, performance artist, and gender theorist, who teaches at universities around the world. Kate is a transexual dyke. Here (in the video above) she talks about what Brown taught her and encourages us to continue the spirit of the 1960’ies
‘Roof’ (8 min.) is an art video by Queer French Filmmaker Emilie Jouvet, and she tells that the film is a “Threesome on school roof : Kat, me, and you, bandes de petits pervers!”
American photographer Cass Bird’s has given an artist talk, which was documented on video (15 min). Here she discusses her photography, which began as an outlet, a replacement for verbal communication.
Avantgarde lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer’s new book, a monography about her life and films has just come out. The title is ‘HAMMER!: Making Movies Out of Sex and Life’.
Now I have got my copy of American photographer Zoe Leonard’s new monograph: ‘Zoe Leonard Photographs’. The book was published in 2008, when she had her first mid-career retrospective show at Fotomuseum Winterthur in Austria.
Emilie Jouvet – Queer photographer and filmmaker, she works also as a freelance photographer for magazines. Here is a video with an interview with Emilie.
For the last couple of weeks I have been sharing some videos about queer photographers from the USA, which I have found on YouTube, with you. However, no presentation of the diversity of American lesbian/queer photography would be ‘perfect’ without a video about the works of the great woman, who founded lesbian photography in America: Tee Corinne.
In the autumn 2009 queer photographer Molly Landreth (USA) was interviewed by Michelle Bonfils about her art project ‘Embodiment: A Portrait of Queer Life In America’ which is a collaboration with Australian video artist Amelia Tovey.
Exhibition Embodiment: A Portrait of Queer Life in America and artist talk by Amelia Tovey and Molly Landreth: February 23, 2010 at Amerika Haus, Munich, Germany
Photographer Collier Schorr photographs wrestlers, mainly the Blair (highschool) wrestling team, and discusses why she’s interested in the sport and its athletes.
American photographer Judy Francesconi takes photos of lipstic lesbians. Judy has been shooting gorgous lesbian models with perfect bodies and beautiful faces for about 10 years. Here is a video about how she works with her models.
Artist Catherine Opie discusses identity and how it is perceived and shaped through portraits of close friends in the Los Angeles lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and transvestite community.
Manchester Pride in Great Britain is inviting local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) organisations, promoters and individuals to apply for grants