I recently saw the film !Women Art Revolution by Lynn Hershman Leeson during TIFF. !WAR is a compilation of over 40 years of film taken by Hershman Leeson, an artist herself (image above), and features candid interviews with fellow peers including Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro, Marcia Tucker, Guerrilla Girls, Miranda July, Mike Kelley, Hannah Wilke (image below) and Yvonne Rainer among others.
The film's focus, which I'm sure is painfully obvious, is the exclusion of females from the art historical canon. The film's bigger picture however tracks the progress, or rather lack thereof, of the feminist movement.

!WAR is fascinating, not only because it contains never-before-seen personal footage or that it's filled with women discussing women (besides Mike Kelley and what could've been Eric Fishl who had been filmed, I found out in the Q&A, but asked that it not be included...), but also because it balanced the oppression of women with some inspiring humour, found in the Guerrilla Girls and the inimitable Marcia Tucker.

Speaking of, some of my favourite moments of the film were when Tucker. Tucker, who held positions with the Whitney and help found the New Museum, maintained an unusual sense of humour in trying times, including having had a lower salary than her male counterparts throughout her career and later being suddenly let go at the Whitney.


The women of !WAR also discussed the untimely passing of Ana Mendieta. Mendieta's work, like much of the work by the artists included in the film, dealt with body politics and gender constructs. Her outdoor installations seemed to have appeared from the artist pressing her entire body into the earth as if to create these superficial graves (image above). Filling them with water, fire, bones and blood, curators have situated her work into Kristeva's (another incredible female figure in art history) matrix of abject theory. Her marriage to sculptor Carl Andre, the events surrounding her death, and the splitting in opinion of the community is like a microcosm of the doc's at large.

The artwork from the women of !WAR wasn't necessarily easy to digest, but it's that there were so few opportunities for public consumption of the work. !WAR thereby provides a fascinating summary of some of the overlooked female artists (not Frida, O'Keefe, Morisot or Cassatt) that punctuated feminist history since the sixties.

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

I haven't seen Blue Valentine yet, but I've been watching the released clip over and over and I just think this heartbreaking, favourite song of mine is absolutely fitting. I hope that, in addition to the Penny & the Quarters song played here, it's included somewhere.

(*This is an old facebook note I did where I grumpily wrote that if I had a blog, I'd blog it.)

I just listened to every version/cover of Bob Dylan's 'It's all over now Baby Blue,' that has been posted on Youtube. I listen to the 'Them' version at least 3 times daily; this is my favourite song and apparently I'm not the only one... it's been covered about a zillion times. Here's my report card for the rest of them (it's such rainy weather- I figured someone would listen to them- and i don't have a blog for this shit.*)

Bob Dylan- A. It's beautiful because it's sooo Dylan. The subtle, shaky and warbling sound of his voice over the simple, repeated chords are perfectly in rhythm with each other. The lyrics are moody and straining, and while he's suggesting someone is leaving and a relationship is dissolving, it's pretty typically Dylan in that I don't really know what he's talking about (where's Michelle Pfeiffer when you need her?) It's not my favourite, sacrilegious i know, but...

THEM- A+. The plunked guitar strings layered by the echoing piano notes are so wonderfully creepy and Van the Man is incredibly heartbreaking. The result is this chilling rendition, where Morrison is nearly competing with the instruments, sounding at once calm and perturbed. It's kind of as if, THEM built on Dylan and complicated the composition ever so slightly. Every fucking time i listen to this, I get this 60s set image where a lithe woman is packing her bags in some small apartment (maybe like Roman 'rape-rape' Polanski's apartment), while Van achingly sings, undecided if she should stay or go.

Joni Mitchell- C+. I hate to give such a low grade to Joni... especially considering how much I've always loved 'Coyote' and how much I love that feminist chip on her shoulder. Anyhow, this (and I can't figure out the date but it obviously ain't the swinging 60s) sounds like lame suburban-mom music. It reminds me of that scene in Love Actually where Emma Thompson thinks she's getting that necklace from her husband, but instead it's the Joni Mitchell cd, and she goes and cries in her room.

The Byrds- B+. I kind of like this one. I think mainly because something about the chorus sounded like CSNY- and that's just so Winnipeg for me. (Post-note: my dear friend Sarah Small Fry is a big Byrds fan; so sorry Sarah for the mid-grade).

Eric Burdon and the Animals- A-. My dad convinced me to take guitar lessons for two years when I was younger. All the music I listen to now is largely influenced by him. I remember I would go see this long-haired guitar hero wannabe at Frant Park Mall and hang out with him for a few hours strumming both an acoustic and electric guitar. For my final music festival, my teacher had decided to move from 'The Ants Go Marching' to 'House of the Rising Sun.' I was little and had no idea what the song was, but my dad was pretty over the moon when I told him; he sat front row at my festival cheering me on, reliving his hippie glory days when he dropped acid and protested nuclear weapons in his tie-dye. In the end, I won silver, which gives huge points to this version. On top of that, my dad and good friend/first roomate Annick's dad are best friends, and I know this is Grant's favourite band. Thankfully, for all the significance the band has to me, they do not disappoint. This version presents Burdon's powerful voice over these sort of progressive rock, temporal beats producing a slowed down and weighty sound.

Hole- C. This is from Malibu...'nuff said. (In all fairness, this actually isn't all that bad, and this definitely exemplifies Hole's poppy 90s sound, but she's in the company of Dylan and i can't reasonably give her a good grade.)

Bruce Springsteen- C+/ B-. The boss' throaty booming vocals are really amplified at the start. He eventually calms down and sings softly against the soothing and subtle piano. Bruce baby sounds super stoned and about to get down. I can see him slowly unbuttoning his shirt as the guitarist goes into the bridge (and it's a long one, the song is 10 min long.)

Marianne Faithfull- B+. Ooooh Marianne is seductive on this one... again throaty. I imagine she's swaying back and forth with partially opened eyes, as her blond locks fall into her face and behind her shoulders, likely with a drink in hand. All that said- she's surprisingly articulate in her vocals.

Grateful Dead- N/A. There's only a live version that I could find to listen to and it's really only okay. I don't feel like grading it; and also, there's a Bob Dylan/Grateful Dead live version that's clearly from the late 80s and the combination of leather gloves and cut-off shorts is throwing me off (I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing...).

13th floor elevators- A-. The 13th floor elevators remind me of High Fidelity (love) and John Cusack (swooooon). Apparently, this is Bob Dylan's favourite version of the song. It's definitely the more psychedelic and garage-y of the bunch. I'm enjoying it while writing this, but it's lacking that heartbreaking sound that leaves me feeling both elated and melancholic (apparently this is possible.)

Bonus track: Beck's Jackass- A+. Beck is my favourite scientologist, and his mom, Bibbe Hansen is a visual artist related to Warhol, the Fluxus movement and Jack Kerouac, so needless to say, he's unquestionably interesting. Jack-ass gets some steady play in our apt (courtesy of the old days with HUGGS), but b/c i was on Youtube, I listened/watched it on there, and dayum, Beck is just a young 'un and he looks good. This is a brilliant alternative to the original. There's a wonderful emphasis on the vocals as Beck kind of drawls out the lyrics (like when he says 'lazzzeeeee bones.') Upon first listen, the sampled repetition kind of threw me off, but i now think it's perfect.

Feel free to discredit me, opine freely, fly your freak flag and freeze your assets.

PS: I hope it's not too soon for 'rape-rape'?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO5LlwDaa_0 - Dylan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUmmSIMGm-E - Burdon and the Animals

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbDksnF-Gnk - Springsteen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phwsVE8ucyA - Hole

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkIhuiDBYRA - Byrds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKzRjxBHV-k - Marianne Faithfull

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp1KdA-97vs&feature=PlayList&p=174E0DD66C4249F5&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=12
-Beck (on Letterman the lothario)

Readymade-aided

I went by Xpace Gallery on Friday for the opening of Parts of a Hole- an exhibition featuring (new?) work from Sara Cwynar, Tibi Tibi Neuspiel, Jesse B. Harris, Ben Schumacher, Liam Crockard, Georgia Dickie, Hugh Scott-Douglas and Aleksander Hardashnakov.

The artists shown took the concept of the readymade as a starting point for their work. Standouts were Sara Cwynar and Tibi Tibi Neuspiel's collaborative work (enlarged consumer products, like dog food, with cheeky word bubbles scrawled over them in black marker) and Hugh Scott-Douglas' large canvases with subtle printed patterns, likely created from laying the canvas over such banal items as bubble wrap and Bounce paper towel.*

*I wish I could describe these works better. There were no labels accompanying the work and the website's a dead-end (but that's the beauty of readymades, it's really f***ing tough to describe the materials).

Miami Boyz

Nuit Blanche 2010 is almost here. One, maybe-lesser-known, work I'm excited to see this year is Olaf Breuning's "Miami Boys." The three little light guys, outfitted in cheap sunglasses and colourful crocs, will be perched in the Drake General Store's window the duration of the night. Best thing about this piece- no line ups to get in to some stuffy space filled with people struggling to catch a glimpse of an artwork/installation/performance.

More here: http://www.thedrakehotel.ca/events/10112/miami-boys-olaf-breuning

Ectoplasm Barf

During my wonderful undergraduate years, I was privy to my University's other-worldly collection of Spiritualist photographs. Taken by various 'doctors' and 'scientists' in the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century (but mainly around 1840-1890) during seances, the photographs imaged mediums with weird material excreting from their orifices. This white, stringy stuff was more affectionately known as ectoplasm (ghosts). With the popularity of Spiritualism then increasing, more and more 'rational' minds grew interested in debunking the mediums and their ghosts. In order to do so, prior to each seance, male scientists subjected the women to invasive gynecological exams. Somehow the mediums kept their lil' ghosts a secret and the scientists couldn't disprove that the mediums were really mediums. So in an attempt to lend scientific credence to the seances, these women would let cameras be brought in, BUT with one tiny exception....the ghosts, it was believed, would retreat back into the body when exposed to a flash from a camera (awww they were camera-shy).

Maybe this is the foundation of photoshop, or maybe it's early camera magic, but my interest lied in the similarities between seances and an intimate or sexual experience (the dark room, the hand holding, the moaning, the caressing, bow chica bow woww) and the production of ectoplasm to childbirth...which, I guess sort of suggests that women were still bound to the constructed, and idiotic, notions of femininity (irrationality, intuitiveness, submissiveness) despite seeking autonomy in the movement.

The Fake As More refers to the title of one of my favourite assigned readings in any art history class. Written by Cheryl Bernstein, the article is a review of an exhibition by artist Hank Herron, who according to Bernstein, mounted a show that replicated a series of past work by second-generation New York artist Frank Stella.

Arguing that Herron's work is really Stella- plus, Bernstein pushed that the fake really is more. The text itself required a Websters to get through (or rather www.dictionary.com ugh), and upon reading it, I felt I took too much on in the class. Well wasn't I feeling peachy when later I learned that the brilliant author wasn't actually Cheryl Bernstein and that Hank Herron was the name of some old famous baseball player. The real author was Carol Duncan and in developing a convoluted theory wrapped up in complicated language she had created an elaborate hoax that drew attention to issues surrounding art criticism and flipped the community up on its head. There was no Hank Herron (thank God) and apparently Duncan chose the name Cheryl Bernstein to align herself with the Jewish-New York-intellectual scene that dominated the 70s (think Woody Allen whining in Annie Hall)- clever touch!

Well, this blog hardly hopes to reach any Bernsteinian heights, but rather ruffle a few more feathers in the sometimes-stodgy, and inaccessible, art circles of Toronto.