Misstropolis

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Global Feminisms: The Davis is Back with a Bang

by Robin Hauck

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It makes sense that “Global Feminisms, New Directions in Contemporary Art” would come to Wellesley College, the women’s college known for its commitment to the arts, women’s studies and international perspective. It is in fact the only off-site installment of the sizeable show.

But the exhibition heralding in the re-opening of Wellesley’s Davis Museum later this month is distinct from that which originated and showed at the Brooklyn Museum in intriguing and significant ways.

Global Feminisms is an exhibition put together at the Brooklyn Museum by two scholars, Maura Reilly, Curator of the new Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, and Linda Nochlin, Professor of Modern Art at the NYU Institute of Fine Arts, to anchor and hype the opening of the Sackler Gallery at the Brooklyn Museum. Compiling work created since 1990 by women artists from over 40 countries, most of whom are under 40, the curators explore “the influence of feminist thought on art at the turn of the new millennium…”

Global Feminisms is the exhibition chosen by the Davis Museum to celebrate its re-opening after over a year of renovations and reorganization. On September 19 the museum will welcome a new chapter in its illustrious history with an opening reception, which is free and open to the public.

Curator Maura Reilly of the Brooklyn Museum will introduce Global Feminisms in person. But even as a traveling exhibition, the show in Wellesley is contextually and thematically unique. Brooklyn’s curators organized the works into sections of Life Cycles, Identities, Emotions, and Politics; while the Davis Museum’s installation examines alternate connections between the works, in sections centered on Cultural Encounters; Power, Violence, and Protest; Self as Subject/Self as Object; Motherhood; and Sexuality and the Body.

As David Mickenberg, Davis Museum’s Director says, “Global Feminisms and its related programming provides students of all disciplines and the greater community with a challenging forum to see, experience and engage in a dialogue with contemporary women artists from different parts of the globe.” The challenging part is key, and it is consistent with the original and revitalized mission of Wellesley’s historic cultural center.

The exhibition boasts a modern mix of mediums – everything from photography and video to sculpture, painting and performance. Tagged “ADHD” by one old school art critic, I personally find the mix fitting and illuminating. How could an exhibition dedicated to such weighty themes and confronting such daunting competition for the attention of audiences (we are living in the age of info overload after all) be anything but chaotic?! Expect self-mutilation, violent sexuality and disquieting body images. Expect to be shocked. Expect to feel, to gasp to think.

Ryoko Suzuki’s “Bind” Series is a case in point. The “Bind” series expresses my inner self; a grown-up who left the world given by my parents and other adults and acquired my own thinking, and a woman who has to deal with the female sexuality. In the series, I bound myself with pigskin, which has been soaked in blood as a symbol of womanhood, as a symbol of the given world. I was thinking of my life, in which I had transformed from a child who just took what adults provided, to a woman who led her own life, while I wrapped up my eyes, nose, mouth, and ears with the pigskin. The series is a record of this action. - Ryoko Suzuki

Deborah Garwood in artcritical.com put it this way, “In general, the whole premise of the show (and of the Center itself) is to deal with human realities that are not easy.” Not easy - yet essential - and for this reviewer anyway, exciting. Go and see for yourself. And be sure to tell us what you think. Global Feminisms is after all, nothing if not the start of a global conversation.

The Davis Museum is open Tuesday–Saturday, 11am-5pm, Wednesday until 8pm, and Sunday 12noon-4pm. Closed Mondays and holidays.  Admission is free.  The Center is located on the Wellesley College campus, 106 Central Street in Wellesley, Massachusetts.  Parking is free and available in the lot behind the museum. Additional parking is available in the Davis Parking Garage.

*Tout Box Image: Melanie Manchot “With Blue Clouds and Laughter” 2003. Photo courtesy of the artist